Alcohol & Other Drugs

Held each October, the goal of Alcohol Awareness Week is to offer educational programs about alcohol and its effects, as well as information on healthy choices for students. Programs, workshops, and exhibits are interactive and engaging. We collaborate with a number of campus departments and student groups to reach our diverse campus community and to make this week a success.

Each year, the student group with the greatest attendance during Alcohol Awareness Week wins the "Represent Your Turf Award" (RYTA) and their very own Social Norms poster celebrating that group.

If you are interested in working with us on Alcohol Awareness Week, or if you would like more information about the week’s events, please contact Brian Freidenberg, Ph.D., Addictive Behaviors Specialist at 518-442-5800 or bfreidenberg@albany.edu.

The University Counseling Center is conducting an ongoing health awareness campaign to inform the University community that UAlbany students make healthy choices. This campaign is referred to as the “Did You Know?” Social Norms Campaign. The campaign is designed to correct misperceptions about UAlbany students by providing members of the University community with accurate information about our students in the form of messages that are taken from annual, anonymous student health surveys.

Click here to learn more about our Social Norms Campaign.

The award-winning Middle Earth Players peer theatre group is comprised of twenty undergraduate peer educators who use theatrical vignettes to communicate prevention messages about alcohol use. These peer education programs combine spontaneous dramatic methods (e.g. acting out unscripted scenarios) with factual information (e.g. social norms data) and modeling of protective behaviors. Program goals include changing attitudes and behavioral intentions, increasing protective behaviors and decreasing alcohol related high-risk behaviors.

To learn more about Middle Earth educational programs in the area of alcohol and other drug prevention, click here.

If you are a student and would like to learn about the STEPS Program, click here.

About the STEPS Program

Developed, implemented and rigorously evaluated at the University at Albany for the past four years, the STEPS Program is a comprehensive Screening and Brief Intervention (SBI) strategy based on the NIAAA Tier I Brief Alcohol Screening and Intervention for College Students (BASICS) model and is designed to: 1) reduce alcohol use frequency and quantity, and 2) reduce associated negative consequences by adapting interventions to meet the very distinct and complex needs of three target populations of high-risk drinkers: first-year students, student-athletes, and students seeking primary health and mental health care on campus. Guided by BASICS program developers Drs. Mary Larimer and Jason Kilmer from the University of Washington's Addictive Behaviors Research Center, target-population specific, relevant, and responsive interventions tailored to each target group have been systematically and strategically tested and integrated into our broader STEPS model, reaching more than 16,000 students to date. In addition to statistically significant reductions in alcohol use and associated negative consequences across each target population intervention component on a total of more than twenty indices, the STEPS Program has developed, implemented, and tested two groundbreaking strategies: a Web-delivered brief alcohol intervention and a team-delivered student-athlete specific brief alcohol intervention. Based on evidence of its effectiveness, the STEPS Program has played a national role in moving SBI forward to be recognized in late 2007 as an insurance-reimbursable service for both our 17 million U.S. college students as well as the general public. In 2009, the STEPS Program has received five national best practice awards, including awards from the American College Health Association (ACHA), the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA), the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), and the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention and the National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors (NASADAD). The STEPS Program was also selected as an FY 2009 Model Program for Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention among Colleges by the U.S. Department of Education. Planned project enhancements will focus on developing, integrating and evaluating fraternity and sorority-specific and responsive individual, organization, and Web-delivered SBI strategies within our STEPS Program model, in collaboration with BASICS program developers Drs. Larimer and Kilmer and our Office of Fraternity/Sorority Affairs.

Training, Technical Assistance, and Consultation

Training, technical assistance and consultation are available to all individuals interested in implementing the STEPS Comprehensive Alcohol Screening and Brief Intervention Program on their campuses.

For additional information about scheduling STEPS program training or for technical assistance and consultation, please contact:

M. Dolores Cimini, Ph.D., STEPS Program Director
Assistant Director for Prevention and Program Evaluation
Adjunct Clinical Professor, School of Education
University Counseling Center
University at Albany
400 Patroon Creek Blvd.
Suite 104
Albany, New York 12206
(518) 442-5800

dcimini@albany.edu

Our programming on alcohol and other drugs is a component of a larger and more comprehensive plan by the University to minimize risk related to substance use. To download Campus-Wide Initiatives for the Prevention of Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse, please click here.