Robert Maust, coordinator, Alcohol Programs, Vice Chancellor's Office for Student Affairs

On October 25, 2005, Dr. Phil DiStefano, who was serving as interim chancellor at the time, created the White Paper Committee on Alcohol. This group of four faculty, three staff and three students was charged with reviewing what the university has been doing or is doing to address problems caused by students' alcohol use; identifying what the university should be doing to address these problems over the next five years, making this assessment in light of contemporary scientific research and what are currently deemed the best practices in higher education; and reporting on it findings and recommendations about these matters in the 2006-07 academic year.

The committee was formed in response to several factors, including the university's recognition that we needed to develop a new plan to address on-going student alcohol problems after the recent conclusion of our participation in a six-year national research project with the Harvard School of Public Health and the American Medical Association.1 Certain types of alcohol use by some of our students were still having major negative impacts on these particular users and those that had to contend with the behaviors of these users while they were under the influence of the drug.

There has been an advocacy for such an effort by the Chair of the Boulder Faculty Assembly, Professor Jerry Hauser, Ron Stump, vice chancellor for Student Affairs, and others such as Dr. Richard Jessor, Distinguished Professor from the Institute of Behavioral Sciences.

The committee expects to report to Chancellor Peterson and his senior advisors and some of the officers of the BFA by the end of next month.

1. This was a national research project funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and called A Matter of Degree (AMOD). UCB was one of the first of four universities to participate in this project and received funding to support its work from 1997 to 2002. For more information on this project see http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/cas/.