Environmental Change

Areas of Strategic Intervention

A central feature of the Center's work is the promotion of multiple prevention strategies that affect the campus environment as a whole and can, thereby, have a large-scale effect on the entire campus community. This approach represents a shift in thinking about prevention and suggests new leadership roles that postsecondary administrators, faculty, other campus officials, and students can play to reduce problems associated with alcohol and other drug abuse and to promote academic achievement.

In outlining the environmental management approach, the Higher Education Center has identified five areas of strategic intervention that are effective in altering the environment with respect to alcohol and other drug abuse:

1. Offer substance-free social, extracurricular, and public service options.
2. Create a health-promoting normative environment.
3. Restrict the marketing and promotion of alcohol and other drugs both on and off campus.
4. Limit availability of alcohol and other drugs.
5. Develop and enforce campus policies and enforce laws to address high-risk and illegal alcohol and other drug abuse and violence.

Implementing effective environmental strategies will be more likely if there is strong presidential leadership; a campus-wide task force that includes a broad spectrum of faculty, staff, and students; engagement with the community through a campus and community coalition; and the active participation of college officials in public policy debates, especially at the state level. The Center offers an integrated array of services to help colleges implement these prevention strategies.