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For example, students in an economics course could learn about the relationship of alcohol prices to consumption and societal problems or the cost of alcohol use to society. Sociology students could investigate perceived and actual norms and reveal the discrepancies that exist for students to dispel misperceptions that "all students get drunk frequently here" that seem to permeate many U.S. campuses. Students in a psychology class could consider the research on factors that predispose
young adults to drink, or the different patterns of drinking behavior by gender, religious, and ethnic groups.

Other opportunities for linking academics with prevention are in marketing and communications classes. These courses can help students understand what kinds of messages contribute to problems and provide ways to use various communications channels to promote prevention. Students at some colleges apply the theoretical knowledge gained in these courses to real-life prevention campaigns on their campuses.

The Network for Dissemination of Curriculum Infusion at Northeastern Illinois University has identified three types of incentives that can be used to motivate faculty members to incorporate prevention into their course work:

1. Time. Colleges and universities can grant faculty members release time from one of their courses to devote time to developing a prevention curriculum module for use in specific courses. Release time is frequently underwritten by grants to the IHE.

2. Money. Colleges and universities can provide faculty members with professional development grants as a way to support the design of a prevention module for their courses.

3. Recognition. Colleges and universities can recognize the contributions of faculty members to prevention in a number of ways: press releases, letters from academic deans that go into faculty members' files, and luncheons honoring their work.

Other incentives for faculty members include opportunities to present on their work in support of prevention at scholarly meetings or to publish articles in academic journals. And faculty members can benefit from working
with prevention programs as part of their course work, from development of real-life projects to intern supervision.

Colleges and universities can also benefit from integrating academic and prevention efforts. For example, a campus interested in documenting alcohol and other drug problem indicators as a way of measuring the impact of prevention efforts could call upon its sociology department for help in designing surveys and data collection instruments. Students could engage in data collection and analysis on an ongoing basis in fulfillment of course requirements. Students benefit by engaging in activities that have real-life implications, and the campus benefits by having an ongoing surveillance system to inform prevention efforts.

A Stand-Down to Promote Drinking Awareness
Faculty members at the University of Nebraska-- Lincoln (UNL) Teachers College took a stand against alcohol problems, or as they put it-- a stand-down. The term stand-down is a military phrase used to describe suspension of regular activities to concentrate on one particular problem. Faculty members agreed to devote about fifteen minutes of class time to discuss alcohol misuse during a week in fall 1996.

The idea for the stand-down came from UNL's Task Force on Conduct Standards and Behavioral Expectations. The Teachers College took part in the stand-down voluntarily. Faculty were provided with a resource manual containing facts, figures, and information on alcohol problems. The discussion format was left to each faculty member's discretion.

Gaining Experience in Communication
Students are enrolled in literally hundreds of advertising and public relations undergraduate and graduate degree programs across the nation. To earn a bachelor's or master's degree in these programs, students must be able to design and then execute either an advertising or public relations campaign. In the public relations sequence, students take courses such as Public Relations Campaigns. In advertising, they take courses such as Advertising Campaigns and Advertising Creativity.

According to Jason Berger, an assistant professor in the department of communications at Central Missouri State University, these degree programs offer prevention services personnel the opportunity to involve bright and energetic students in real-life, hands-on campaigns. "For those working at colleges and universities, campaigns can be arranged right on your campus. Others working in programs near universities should find that the faculty is both accessible and cooperative. All you have to do is ask for help," he says.

Students in Berger's seminar Public Relations and Advertising wanted a hands-on project in order to apply what they had learned, so they responded to a request from the director of student health services for a campaign on responsible drinking. Seminar students became a focus group on the relationship between drinking and campus life and brainstormed ideas for their campaign. They came up with "Top Ten Reasons not to Drink Before Finals" that ran as an ad in the campus newspaper, as well as on T-shirts that were distributed to students before finals week.

At the University of California, Santa Barbara, students in Communication 117, a course in persuasion theory, choose a specific theory and target audience for which to design a media project to persuade others not to engage in specific alcohol- or other drug-related behavior. Topics change each quarter and have included drinking and driving, bicycling under the influence, unsafe sexual behavior, and binge drinking. Once they complete the class, students have the option of becoming interns in the campus Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention Program, working with staff to refine, mass produce, and distribute some of the best class projects and assisting with other media-related needs. Students earn course credit for their internship.(13)

Two Course Descriptions

Tune In for Prevention

Using radio commercials to target consumers is a common strategy of the business community, and it seems to work. Can the public health community, including advocates for alcohol and other drug prevention, use radio just as effectively?

Developing Radio Communications, a course offered at the Harvard School of Public Health, gives students the opportunity to try. Students in the course are led through every step of the production process, from background and focus group research to script development, pilot testing, and final studio production. Through developing their own radio commercial, students deal with the challenge of how to communicate the essence of their health message in only thirty seconds.

Each year, several students are successful in persuading radio stations to play their advertisements as public service spots. For example, one student produced a spot that encouraged freshmen at Boston College (BC) to contact a campus-based prevention program to learn more about how to make healthy choices concerning alcohol use. The student-run radio station at BC agreed to air it during unsold commercial time.

This kind of class can be offered at any college or university with a campus radio or television station. And even at campuses without such a station, with a little effort an instructor can find willing collaborators at local stations.

For more information about Developing Radio Communications, contact William DeJong, course instructor and director of the Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention.

An Interdisciplinary AOD Course at Hobart and William Smith Colleges

Students at Hobart and William Smith Colleges learn about an interdisciplinary AOD course on the Web. In addition to the following course description, the course syllabus, scripts, and other course-related materials are posted on the Web at http://www.hws.edu/ACA/depts/alcohol/bd295/bd295hom.htm

[hws college web logo] Alcohol is the most widely used and abused drug in contemporary American society. While the attractions, pleasures, and possible benefits of alcohol consumption may be debated, there is little argument about the debilitating effects and enormous costs of heavy drinking and alcoholism on the health of individuals, families, and society in general.

This course examines the causes and consequences of alcohol use from the viewpoint that alcohol is a very potent drug in terms of both its chemical and social construction. This course brings together natural science and social science contributions to the interdisciplinary study of this phenomenon by incorporating a variety of academic perspectives, including biology, chemistry, social psychology, epidemiology, and sociology. It explores the effect of family, genetics, peers, ethnicity, and gender on drinking behavior along with the chemical properties and physiological effects of alcohol on the human body. Social patterns of drinking in various societal contexts are also examined.

Discussion of controversial issues concerning alcohol consumption includes concepts of abuse, theories of addiction and effective treatment approaches, blood alcohol limits for driving, minimum drinking age limits, treatment and punishment of DWI offenders, alcohol testing in work and sports contexts, and restrictions on advertising. Educational programs will be developed to share the course outcomes with the larger community.

BD295 can be applied for course credit in sociology and public policy majors and minors and is part of the American Commitments Program of the Association of American Colleges and Universities. As part of their course work students produce informative scripts of what they have learned that are then presented in class, videotaped, and posted on the campus multimedia information network for the community at large.

Curriculum Infusion: Two Case Studies

Shenandoah University

Shenandoah University has an enrollment of 1,400 residential and commuter students. By fall 1996, twenty-six Shenandoah faculty had integrated prevention content into courses across the curriculum. Prevention content was assigned for courses in nine departments from four divisions of the university, reaching 700 students per academic year. Courses included biology, anatomy and physiology, business and management, psychology, philosophy, occupational therapy, education, and dance.

Prevention content designed for courses at Shenandoah is similar to that at other institutions with curriculum infusion programs. For example, the instructor of anatomy and physiology, a course required of many Shenandoah students, integrates information on the physiological harm of alcohol and other drugs. In other cases the prevention content is highly creative. In the dance course, students write poetry about their experiences and perceptions of the effects of alcohol and other drugs. They choreograph their poetry and perform before fellow students.

The experiences at Shenandoah illustrate why development of effective curriculum infusion programs takes time. A snowball effect was created as faculty learned of curriculum infusion from their colleagues and through the campus marketing efforts of Program Director Judy Landes, who kept faculty informed of faculty successes in integrating prevention content into courses. In fall 1993 only one faculty member was involved. By April 1995, twelve faculty had developed prevention modules.

Shenandoah Vice President for Student Affairs William Berghaus said:
"This is the first time in my more than twenty years in higher education that I"ve seen faculty involved and enthused about this issue." According to Berghaus, Shenandoah did not have a history of collaboration between student affairs and academic affairs.

"This is a real breakthrough," he said.

Colorado State University

Colorado State University is a residential campus with a total of 20,000 undergraduate and graduate students. Curriculum infusion at Colorado State has involved 41 faculty teaching 35 sections in 22 courses. Prevention content has been integrated into courses in 19 departments across 5 divisions of the university: agriculture, business, natural sciences, forestry, and liberal arts. More than 2,900 students attend classes that include prevention content each year.

While half the faculty involved in curriculum infusion at [books] Colorado State developed the prevention content for the courses they teach, a distinctive feature of this program is the active involvement of Program Coordinator Maureen Conway in the design and delivery of alcohol and other drug prevention curriculum. In some courses Conway serves as the guest lecturer, delivering prevention content she has designed to fit a specific course. For example, her presentation in a business and management course provides information on losses in productivity attributable to substance abuse and the role managers can play in treatment and prevention. In other cases, she co-teaches course sessions devoted to prevention. She serves as the "client" in graphics arts classes where students design prevention campaign posters in response to her description of alcohol and other drug problems among students.

The experience of Colorado State illustrates the potential impact of prevention personnel who know the faculty and work well with them. A number of faculty said that they became involved in curriculum infusion because of their relationship with the program coordinator, who had been a guest speaker in their courses or to whom they had referred students experiencing alcohol and other drug problems. They also said that prevention information both strengthened the curriculum and helped students. Faculty who carried out curriculum infusion at Colorado State received a $125 gift certificate as an incentive for participation.

The campuswide committee on drug and alcohol abuse at Humboldt State University sent an e-mail message to all faculty in advance of Alcohol Awareness Week encouraging them to think about ways to incorporate substance abuse prevention into their classes. Inspired by that suggestion, Dr. Phyllis Chinn, chair of the mathematics department asked prospective secondary school teachers in a capstone mathematics course to explore mathematical models related to determining blood alcohol levels. Students examined such questions as (1) how many deciliters of blood are in the body, (2) how many grams of alcohol are in various drinks, (3) how quickly alcohol enters the bloodstream, and (4) how fast the body metabolizes alcohol. These problems raise awareness of AOD issues while helping students learn mathematical skills. See Dr. Chinn’s Problem of the Week at http://math.humboldt.edu/~prompt/407/POWs/pow7.html