Alcohol Coalition Committee
Background and History
In the fall of 2007, the Healthier Princeton Advisory Board appointed a “Core Group” of students, faculty, and staff to frame the scope of the issue of alcohol on campus. In December of 2007, the advisory board created the Alcohol Coalition Committee (ACC) comprising students, faculty, and staff that was charged with producing a strategic plan to address high-risk drinking among undergraduates and, to present its final report to the Healthier Princeton Advisory Board on May 9, 2008, as reported on the University's homepage. The ACC used an operational definition of high-risk drinking, as: Any time the health, well-being, or safety of the individual drinking or others is compromised or when community standards are compromised. The Alcohol Coalition was co-chaired by Sanjeev Kulkarni, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Master of Butler College, and Agatha Offorjebe '09.
The plan was informed by: the November 2007 Core Group Report, best practices from peer institutions, Princeton specific data, meetings with more than 31 stakeholder groups and information gathered from three themed workshops.
The aim of the ACC was to address high-risk drinking from a strategic, versus tactical, standpoint.The committee refrained from recommending a specific list of initiatives, and instead came up with the following three broad recommendations to provide vision and direction for ongoing efforts.
- Sustainability: The primary recommendation of the ACC is to create a mechanism to sustain efforts to address the culture of high-risk drinking. The mechanism proposed includes a standing body analogous to the current ACC together with ad hoc working groups created to study and propose details on specific initiatives.
- Strategic Areas: The ACC recommends further review of specific ideas and initiatives to implement in the following five strategic areas: education; policies, procedures, and discipline; activities, programs, and events; structures and environment; and communication and partnerships.
- Data: The ACC recommends consideration of data acquisition, management, use, and dissemination.
The Alcohol Coalition Committee hopes that the sustained efforts proposed in the strategic plan will have a significant impact in addressing the complex issue of high-risk drinking at Princeton.