Collaboration Across Campus

• Online trainings, which offer participating individuals or teams—composed of campus representatives and community leaders—the opportunity to increase their content knowledge and strategic-planning and program-development skills. Individuals and teams participating in online training are encouraged to develop a unique action plan for their campus and surrounding community, aimed at reducing high-risk and illegal alcohol and other drug abuse and attendant consequences.
• Training institutes, which help participants apply evidence-based strategies to promote safe, healthy, and learning-conducive environments while reducing problems associated with alcohol abuse, other drug abuse, and violent behavior (AODV).
• Webinars, which review essential knowledge and skills about wellness and preventing violence and abuse of alcohol and other drugs. Webinar topics and materials focus on using research-based prevention strategies, as well as current and emerging AODV issues based on the work of leading researchers and practitioners in the field. Webinar series as a whole represent a coherent prevention program, with skills and knowledge based on a comprehensive approach to AODV prevention. Each interactive webinar is an effective, discrete learning opportunity, and those who participate in the entire series will gain a toolkit of AODV prevention skills and build their prevention capacity. Many of the webinars review essential knowledge and skills about AODV prevention and provide useful information for participation in more advanced webinar topics.

Traditional campus prevention coordinators typically focus on health education and awareness programs. Expecting them to add coalition work across their campuses to their duties will not work well unless they are trained and enthusiastic about trying this new activity. Moreover, the position of a project director for a campus–community coalition—with its focus on coalition work, political organizing, and media advocacy—calls for specific expertise not always found among health educators.

Matter of Degree Coalition. (2008). Lessons learned. n.p.: Author. Retrieved from http://www.policyarchive.org/handle/10207/bitstreams/21495.pdf