Internally, college leadership can insist on a clear chain of responsibility for alcohol-abuse prevention activities and can back up this mandate with adequate personnel, funds, and authority. Look at opportunities for borrowing, sharing, and collaborating. Make sure that city and county resources are linked to campus strategies. Additionally, board members can support campus collaboration, mandate integration of substance abuse programming across departments, and ensure that assistance programs are available to students and staff who are experiencing difficulty with their own family use of alcohol. Education, prevention, and referral to treatment should not be isolated activities.
Trustees can play an important role in changing the campus climate.
With appropriate trustee vision and presidential leadership, we all can look forward to healthy and productive campus environments. Gail Gleason Milgram is professor and director of education and training at the Center of Alcohol Studies at Rutgers University in New Jersey. David S. Anderson is an associate professor at George Mason University in Virginia.