U. of Tennessee, Knoxville’s Alcohol Abuse Prevention Program

The key to reducing binge drinking and other harmful alcohol-related activities on campus is to alter the campus culture so it does not support excessive alcohol consumption.

September 12, 2011 CS Staff

Dan Reilly, director of the University of Tennessee (UT), Knoxville’s safety, environment and education (SEE) center, has an integral role in preventing alcohol abuse on campus. The university has increased the consistency of its alcohol policy enforcement in residence halls and conducted a campaign to change students’ views on what constitutes normal alcohol use.

Reilly says that the key to reducing binge drinking and other harmful alcohol-related activities on campus is to alter the campus culture so it does not support excessive alcohol consumption.

To effectively prevent high-risk drinking on your campus:

Collect data on student behavior. “You need to do some good data collection to find out where the issues are on your campus,” Reilly explains. “You can design or emulate really powerful programs, but they might not meet the needs of your campus.”
Create policies or programs to address the problems demonstrated by your data. “We did a high dose, multiple outlet social norming campaign to correct misperceptions of high risk drinking or correct misperceptions of how many people are partaking in it,” Reilly says. The campaign resulted in a notable reduction of high risk drinking on campus.
Uniformly enforce your policies. UT Knoxville officials found that alcohol policies were not being regularly enforced in residence halls, so resident advisers (RAs) received training on how to do so. “Our students’ perceptions of enforcement went from about 50 percent up to about 75 percent since implementing that training,” Reilly notes.
Provide alcohol education for violators. UT Knoxville’s diversion program utilizes motivational interviewing and alcohol skills training, as opposed to traditional “scared straight” tactics. “We look at the behavior through the students’ perspective rather than scaring them,” Reilly explains. “While the [information that binge drinking is] bad, dangerous or wrong may be 100 percent accurate, it’s not useful in that the students don’t respond to it.”

It’s also important for campus administrators and staff to identify students who may be suffering from alcohol or drug addiction and help them find a relevant recovery program.

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