Fordham Resident Alcohol Prevention Program

(from Inside Fordham)

In recognition of Fordham University’s award-winning alcohol education programming, the National Institutes of Heath (NIH) awarded the University a three-year, $776,869 grant to develop and test a new Resident Alcohol Prevention Program in 2005. The grant, presented by the NIH’s National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), was awarded to Fordham’s Center for Ethics Education. The goal of the new program is to limit drinking on college campuses through increased involvement of faculty, parents, students, and Residential Life staff in encouraging students to take personal and social responsibility for drinking choices

“Fordham has long been at the forefront of developing programs aimed a reducing student alcohol consumption,” said Celia Fisher, PhD, the Marie Ward Doty Professor of Psychology and the director of the Center for Ethics Education, who will serve as the principal investigator for this research. “The NIAAA is supporting Fordham because it wants to support model programs that can be adopted by other colleges across the country.”

This unique initiative will combine the talents of Fordham researchers, faculty, administrators and student leaders to build social responsibility and character among college students. Fordham will take a four-pronged approach to meet this mission by:

Developing a new position, assistant director of residential life for alcohol, who will serve as a liaison to parents in efforts to reduce college drinking
Introducing new Resident Assistant (RA) training sessions based on character development and ethical decision-making to improve enforcement and effective communication with students about drinking policies in residence halls
Sponsoring faculty-student dinners to strengthen students’ understanding of the links between personal and social responsibility in their academic and personal lives
Initiating an annual student-led Stop College Drinking Fair

Fordham researchers, including Dr. Fisher, Marie Ward Doty Professor of Psychology, will analyze data collected over the past three years to measure the success of the new programming. Based on this success, universities across the country will adopt Fordham’s policies and procedures for their own campuses.

Fordham has been recognized in the past for its innovative alcohol abuse prevention programming. The National Association for Campus Activities awarded Fordham the Exemplary Program award in 2001 and the BACCHUS and GAMMA Peer Education Network presented the University with the National Outstanding Peer Education Program award in 2000 for its Passport, Off-Campus NYC guide. The guide, a pocket-sized listing of 100 eateries, entertainment spots, sporting events and shops, is an alcohol abuse prevention tool designed for freshmen by the University’s Peer Prevention Team. The University also hosts Lollanobooza, an annual event featuring alcohol-free fun that attracts more than 3,000 students.

Request the College Drinking Influences Scale (CDIS) developed for this study. The 53-item College Drinking Influences Scale (CDIS) consists of 3 distinct scales: (1) the Psychosocial Drinking Inventory (PDI); (2) the Drinking Values Scale (DVS); and the College Drinking Expectations Scale (CDES). The CDIS was administered to 340 freshmen at college entry and to 223 freshmen at the end of the year. Factor analyses and inter-item reliability were conducted and confirmed predicted relationships with existing instruments. Analyses using subscale scores as predictors of drinking behaviors across the freshmen year support the usefulness of this instrument for understanding factors contributing to college student drinking choices and evaluating programs designed to influence these choices.

Details about the psychometric properties of the CDIS can be found in: Fisher, C.B., Fried, A.L., & Anushko, A.E. (2007). Development and Validation of the College Drinking Influences Survey. Journal of American College Health, 56, 217-228.