| |
|
|
from the issue of March 9, 2006
|
| |
|
|
| |
UNL leads Nebraska college coalition
Top administrators at two- and four-year colleges and universities in Nebraska have agreed to form the Nebraska Collegiate Consortium to Reduce High-Risk Drinking. The consortium is a cooperative of individual campus task forces using comprehensive environmental strategies to reduce high-risk drinking among Nebraska college students.
Eleven institutions, including Chadron, Peru and Wayne state colleges, the University of Nebraska campuses in Kearney and Omaha, and seven of the community colleges across the state, are members of the consortium. They will seek to duplicate the success UNL has had in combating high-risk drinking by creating task forces that employ a variety of environmental strategies on their campuses similar to UNL's NU Directions campus-community coalition.
Since it began in 1998, the NU Directions coalition has seen a significant reduction in student drinking rates and related harms using a comprehensive environmental model. The Nebraska Prevention Center at UNL, which evaluates the success of NU Directions for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, received a $100,000 grant from the United States Department of Education to help campuses across the state replicate the UNL model.
The center will coordinate a series of workshops for teams from each campus to assist them in coalition-building, environmental analysis, and strategic planning. It will also make a Web-based survey available to all member campuses to collect information about college student drinking rates and related behaviors on each campus and across the state. The data, coupled with other information, can help individual campuses create a plan to address their unique environment.
Officials at the center said they hope the task forces created at campuses across the state can join with existing community coalitions formed through the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services Division of Behavioral Health. Consortium campuses will participate in the Nebraska Partners in Prevention statewide network of alcohol and other drug prevention.
"Nebraska joins approximately 47 states nationwide who have created a collaborative network of colleges and universities," said Ian Newman, director of the Nebraska Prevention Center at UNL. "Given that we have one of the most successful models of reducing college drinking and related harms, we have a strong hope that Nebraska can make great strides at campuses across the state."
GO TO: ISSUE OF MARCH 9
NEWS HEADLINES FOR MARCH 9
Students OK union project
Staff, faculty welcome at The Big Event
UNL leads Nebraska college coalition
EPSCoR plans research expo, innovation forum
Graduate Celebration
Regents approve Hawks donation, facility name
732379S35595X
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|