June 27, 2007 :: No. 240

The work of Cal State Fullerton’s Campus Community Alcohol Management Project team to combat underage drinking and alcohol-related issues on campus has not gone unnoticed. Team members recently were presented with the inaugural Champions Award, given by the California State University Alcohol Education Conference.

Awardees are Jackie Gogan, health educator and coordinator of substance-use prevention programs; Mary Hermann, director of health education and promotion at the Student Health and Counseling Center; Kandy Mink Salas, dean of students; and Brie Roumeliotis, health educator. All are members of the CSUF Campus Community Alcohol Management Project (CCAMP).

The county of Orange Health Care Agency’s Alcohol and Drug Education and Prevention Team nominated the CSUF staff members. The award represents outstanding work on a CSU campus that leads the charge for alcohol-use prevention, including collaborative efforts on- and off-campus.

“It’s definitely an honor to be recognized by your fellow CSU colleagues,” Hermann said. “We’re providing a framework of how other campuses can take this collaborative approach to reduce high-risk drinking among college students.”

CCAMP’s work is funded through a three-year $435,000 state grant, administered by the Health Care Agency’s Alcohol and Drug Education and Prevention Team. The project, which started in 2004-05, is a joint effort of Cal State Fullerton, the county and UC Irvine to reduce the incidence of binge drinking and other risky behavior due to alcohol use among college students.

Over the last three years, Mink Salas said that team members have worked tirelessly to address alcohol abuse — a continual problem on many college campuses — and to promote healthy, alcohol-free lifestyles.

“Our goal has been to increase our alcohol education efforts on campus and, in particular, to reduce underage drinking and underage access to alcohol,” Mink Salas said.

The partnership has resulted in the launch of effective, positive programs on campus, aimed at increasing student awareness about the risks of alcohol abuse. Programs include a social marketing campaign, which targets students ages 21 and older to alert them of the dangers of providing alcohol to underage young people. The campaign, launched this school year, has included placing posters in key campus areas and inserting advertisements in the Daily Titan student newspaper.

The message of the campaign is “Imagine If You Provided and Someone Got Hurt …” and includes a series of photographs depicting such tragedies as a wrecked car and an injured person in an ambulance.

“The bottom line is that we don’t want students providing alcohol because it puts them and others at risk,” Mink Salas said.

In the fall, the team will release a report showing some of the effective programs, policies and best practices to address alcohol-related issues on college campuses. The team’s efforts are part of CSUF’s overall activities related to student alcohol use, overseen by the Campus Alcohol and Other Drugs Advisory Committee.