COLLABORATING WITH HIGHER ED | 1

Collaborating with Higher Ed 

Sharing a community with an institution of higher ed (IHE) often adds 

positively to the life of a community. IHEs bring cultural engagements and 

interesting speakers to their campuses, offer opportunities for adult or 

continued education, and provide a wealth of employment opportunities for 

community members. 

Yet there are also challenges to sharing a community with an IHE. High-risk drinking by college

students continues at levels virtually unchanged since the first Harvard School of Public Health 

College Alcohol Study illuminated the problem in 1993. According to a 2021 national survey, 

about 50% of college students ages 18-22 report consuming high levels of alcohol (four or more 

drinks on one occasion) at least once a month1 and nearly one-third of students reported binge 

drinking during that same timeframe.1 These behaviors can result in serious community issues, 

ranging from vandalism to drunk and disorderly conduct to an increase in DUIs and alcoholrelated fatalities.

Creating an environment that reduces the likelihood that college students will engage in these 

dangerous behaviors requires the involvement of both community and campus members, 

working together. This tip sheet is designed to facilitate collaboration among community 

partners and IHEs. It introduces key players involved in on-campus substance use prevention 

efforts, explores some important considerations for working together, and presents examples of 

ways to engage campuses and college students in community prevention programs.

UNDERSTANDING IHES

IHEs come in a variety of shapes and sizes, ranging from traditional 4-year residential colleges to 

2-year community colleges to vocational or trade schools. They also differ in access to resources, 

guiding philosophies, and relationships with their host communities. Some are excellent 

neighbors, with high levels of community engagement and involvement. Others are less involved 

in community activities: less resourced or smaller vocational and trade schools, in particular, 

Bringing the Right

Collaborators On Board
COLLABORATING WITH HIGHER ED | 2

often prefer to maintain an insular campus environment. Understanding the characteristics and 

makeup of the IHE in your community is key to facilitating a successful working relationship.

Despite their differences, all IHEs share certain characteristics. Like a corporation, all IHEs have a

board of trustees that oversees the general direction and “big picture” financial health of the 

IHE. The board is generally made up of senior IHE leaders, such as the President, Provost, and 

senior academic deans. In addition, board members often include influential alumni, and 

business and community leaders. The board typically meets only a few times in a year in 

relatively closed meetings.

As a community partner, you will most likely be working with an official directly below the senior

leadership, such as associate or assistant deans and directors of various offices within the 

institution. Using the analogy of the IHE as a corporation, officials at this level can be thought of 

as customer service providers: the day-to-day managers of the IHE’s operations and student 

experience.

 

Here are a few of the key offices involved in addressing alcohol misuse issues at an IHE: 

Office What They Do

Dean of Students/Dean 

of Student Affairs 

The Dean of Students is typically in charge of all the administrative staff 

overseeing the IHE’s “outside-the-classroom” experience. The Dean 

will typically oversee the staff running residence halls, student 

activities, Greek life, discipline/judicial affairs, drug prevention

programming, community service/service learning, and orientation. 

The Dean’s attitude toward substance misuse by students will 

influence all the prevention and intervention activities at the IHE. 

Deans can vary from highly supportive of intervention and prevention 

to denying the problem exists. 

Alcohol and Other Drug 

(AOD) Office 

By law,2 every university that receives federal funds is required to have 

an alcohol prevention program and a designated alcohol and other 

drug (AOD) prevention staff member. On smaller or less-resourced 

campuses, this person typically has another job in health services, 

counseling, or mental health, and has agreed to serve as the AOD 

person. On most campuses, however, there will be at least one office 

that uses AOD in its title and one person that runs it. 
COLLABORATING WITH HIGHER ED | 3

 

As a community partner, your organization or agency’s skills will likely connect with the work of 

one of the IHE offices listed above. For example, an agency looking to expand alcohol recovery 

groups in the community would do well to reach out to either the AOD office or the mental 

health or counseling office, both of which would have knowledge about existing services at the 

IHE. A community partner looking to increase police patrols of student-heavy neighborhoods 

would want to connect with campus police. Reaching out to the head of any of these offices will 

likely be the best way to begin a collaboration.

CONSIDERATIONS FOR WORKING WITH IHES

As a community partner, knowing as much as you can about the IHE is a key first step to a 

successful collaboration. Here are some important factors that will influence how open the IHE 

Office What They Do

Greek Life 

On campuses with a Greek system, there will be at least one 

university-based staff member who works with these organizations. 

On schools with a high percentage of Greek students, this office can 

be large, with a director and various staff designated to work 

exclusively with sororities or fraternities. For Greek groups, addressing 

substance misuse issues is often a priority. 

Mental 

Health/Counseling

At less-resourced schools, these staff members often act as front-line 

substance misuse professionals. Their approach tends to be 

individual in scope, with some offering recovery support groups. 

They may or may not be connected to community service providers. 

Athletics

Coaches and athletic instructors have considerable influence over 

athletes, a group of students that are known to be at higher risk for 

substance misuse. All NCAA athletes are required to sign a schoolspecific agreement that verifies their understanding of NCAA-banned 

drugs, adherence to federal and state alcohol laws and policies, and 

school disciplinary procedures for violation of alcohol policies. 

Campus Police 

A common misconception about campus police is that they are “renta-cops” responsible for breaking up parties and ticketing minors with 

possession of alcohol. In fact, at many IHEs, campus police officers 

undergo the same training and state certification as municipal and 

state police, and they have the same authority even though they are 

privately employed. Campus security guards, by contrast, are hired to 

protect the buildings on campus. Both groups are involved in 

addressing substance misuse on campuses.
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may be to collaborating with you (much of this information can be found by looking through the 

IHE’s website): 

• Percentage of students living on campus. Schools with a high percentage of students 

living on campus tend to be more insular than those with more diffuse student 

populations, and subsequently less responsive to community outreach efforts or 

involvement in what may be construed as “campus issues.” By contrast, IHEs with a high 

percentage of students living in the community will likely welcome support for their intown students. 

• Number of staff dedicated to addressing substance misuse issues. Many larger schools 

have sections of their websites dedicated to alcohol and other drug issues. The size and 

scope of this web area will give you a good indication of the resources the IHE has put 

toward substance misuse issues. How big is the staff? How robust is the site? Does it cater 

to different audiences? Less-resourced offices tend to be more open to outside 

collaboration, welcoming the additional resources and capacity these partnerships can 

bring to their prevention efforts. 

• Percentage of students involved in Greek life. Students who join fraternities and 

sororities tend to drink at higher rates and more frequently than those who do not.3 In 

addition, many IHEs have either loose or no ties to off-campus housing owned by 

fraternities and sororities. This can create a challenging atmosphere around collaboration, 

since the university is not technically the owner of the fraternity or sorority houses and 

has little sway over the activities in a privately-owned building. On the other hand, 

because these houses are technically no different than other privately owned homes, local 

police have free reign to intervene to shut down parties that become loud or disruptive. 

• Percentage of students involved in athletics. Student athletes tend to drink at higher 

rates and more frequently than those who do not participate in sports.4 Complicating 

matters, student athletes tend to drink more in the off-season, rather than in season, 

when they are not under the influence of their coaches.5 Efforts focused on working with 

athletic teams should be targeted toward the off-season, when coaches would likely 

welcome additional support for their student athletes.

• History of publicly reported student drinking incidents (e.g., riots, student parties 

stopped by police, death or injury). One of the more challenging public relations issues 

for any IHE is publicly reported student drinking. For many IHEs, newspaper and police
COLLABORATING WITH HIGHER ED | 5

bulletins documenting alcohol use by their students lead to a closed-off attitude toward 

outside intervention. As a community partner, recognize that the administrators at an IHE 

are likely to feel tense and overwhelmed by media attention, especially after a recent 

event. Use sensitivity when reaching out to staff to offer help or support. 

OPPORTUNITIES FOR COLLABORATION 

A big question that often arises in collaborating with an IHE is what type of reception you can 

expect when proposing collaboration. Another equally important question is what to offer the

IHE. A modern IHE, like any modern business, is sensitive to outside perceptions of its brand. For 

many IHEs, this sensitivity can lead to an environment that values privacy and discretion, 

especially when it comes to hot-button issues like student drinking. For many IHEs, navigating 

after-hours student behavior is difficult, and you will likely find many different opinions on how 

to best address high-risk drinking on a given campus. 

What all IHEs will value, though, is the opportunity to showcase their own commitment to 

addressing community-wide goals of health and wellness. IHEs also want to be acknowledged as 

being good neighbors and giving back to the community. This presents ample opportunity for 

having IHE faculty, staff, and students aid the work of your organization for the betterment of 

the community.

Here are some ideas for collaboration between IHEs and communities, along with examples of 

innovative partnerships addressing alcohol misuse and its effects on a community from colleges 

and universities in Massachusetts:

• Organize a neighborhood clean-up of student-dense neighborhoods: Boston College and 

a local neighborhood group organize a monthly Saturday morning cleanup for college 

residents in off-campus housing. The impetus behind the cleanup is to encourage the 

students to take pride in their off-campus neighborhoods, clean up the detritus from 

student parties, and treat their neighbors with respect.

• Invite the IHE to participate in local alcohol prevention efforts: Representatives from 

both the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University sit on the 

Cambridge License Advisory Board, a group of city officials, restaurant and bar owners, 

and liquor store owners who work together to address underage drinking in the city of 

Cambridge. Participation of the colleges has been instrumental in the city’s ability to 

address problems related to college students’ alcohol misuse. In one example, a local
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student house worked with both the college and the Advisory Board to respond to an 

alcohol-related discipline issue.

• Have the IHE do discipline checks for local landlords to prevent rowdy student slums:

Concerned about renting to unruly students, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst 

worked with local landlords to develop a discipline check landlords could use before 

renting to students. The university welcomed the chance to encourage on-campus 

students to behave responsibly for the good of their future off-campus housing.

• Offer to collaborate on bringing responsible beverage server training to a campus: Most 

cities and towns require bartenders to be trained in the principles of responsible beverage 

service (RBS), which ensures that bartenders do not serve intoxicated patrons and 

understand basic alcohol pharmacology. The Cambridge Prevention Coalition worked with 

MIT to create an RBS training the school could use with its fraternities, many of whom 

host parties. 

IHE staff members who work with college students are also committed to ensuring that students 

learn to be productive and thoughtful members of society. These administrators are often 

passionate about outside-the-classroom education and would welcome the opportunity to meet 

with community organizations to learn how they can work together to foster educational growth 

in their students. 
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REFERENCES

1 SAMHSA, Center for Behavioral Statistics and Quality. (2021). National Survey on Drug Use and Health 

(NSDUH-2021-DS0001) [Data set]. Retrieved from 

https://www.datafiles.samhsa.gov/dataset/national-survey-drug-use-and-health-2021-nsduh-2021-

ds0001

2 U.S. Department of Education, Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, Higher Education Center for 

Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse and Violence Prevention. (2006, July). Complying with the drug-free 

schools and campuses regulations [EDGAR Part 86]: A guide for university and college administrators. 

Retrieved from http://safesupportivelearning.ed.gov/sites/default/files/hec/product/dfscr.pdf 

3 McCabe, S. E., Veliz, P., & Schulenberg, J. E. (2018). How Collegiate Fraternity and Sorority 

Involvement Relates to Substance Use During Young Adulthood and Substance Use Disorders in Early 

Midlife: A National Longitudinal Study. The Journal of adolescent health: official publication of the 

Society for Adolescent Medicine, 62(3S), S35–S43. Retrieved from

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2017.09.029 

4 Veliz, P., McCabe, S. E., Eckner, J. T., & Schulenberg, J. E. (2017). The relationship between athletic 

participation and substance use among college students: A review of the literature. Journal of 

American College Health, 65(3), 191-200. Retrieved from 

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28344426/

5 Martens, M. P., Dams-O’Connor, K., & Duffy-Paiement, C. (2006). Comparing Off-Season with InSeason Alcohol Consumption among Intercollegiate Athletes. Journal of Sport and Exercise 

Psychology, 28(4), 502–510. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1123/jsep.28.4.502 

 

SPTAC@edc.org | samhsa.gov/SPTAC