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Off-campus parties are a major source of underage and excessive drinking among college students and cause alcohol-related problems for students and residents. This checklist is a brief, evidence-based guide for campus-based prevention professionals. It is designed to give the basic information needed to develop, implement, and evaluate an intervention for addressing the problems related to off-campus parties. Implementing effective intervention strategies around off-campus parties will: (1) Reduce the overall number of student parties; (2) Reduce underage and excessive drinking; (3) Limit the availability of alcohol to minors; (4) Decrease alcohol-related problems for students and residents; and (5) Improve town-gown relations. (Contains 2 footnotes.)

Administered by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), in partnership with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the Drug Free Communities Support Program (DFC) is a federal grant program that provides funding to community-based coalitions that organize to prevent youth substance use. Since the passage of the "DFC Act in 1997," the DFC program has funded nearly 2,000 coalitions and currently mobilizes nearly 9,000 community volunteers across the country. This paper describes the findings of the "Drug Free Communities Support Program National Evaluation 2011 Interim Findings Report" (2012), which is based on DFC national evaluation data on alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana use that DFC grantees report every two years. Lessons learned from colleges and universities that adopted DFC programs are presented.

According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), the goal of screening in student health or other college settings is to reduce alcohol-related harm. NIAAA points out that identifying those students at greatest risk for alcohol problems is the first step in prevention. Colleges and universities have used a number of screening tests that have been evaluated. This paper describes these screening tools. It also discusses the studies conducted on the effectiveness of several interventions for alcoholism. Lessons learned from a program implemented by the Fordham University in New York City are also discussed.

Drinking remains a significant part of the college experience for many students across the nation. The 2010 Monitoring the Future survey found that 65 percent of college students reported alcohol use in the past 30 days, 37 percent reported occasions of heavy drinking (five or more drinks in a row in the past two weeks), and nearly half (44 percent) reported having been drunk in the prior 30 days. The effect of high-risk and heavier drinking on academic performance has been well documented in a number of studies. However, research demonstrating its effect on retention is limited. The multiple factors influencing a student's decision to leave college make it difficult to directly correlate students' alcohol use to the ability to succeed in college. This paper discusses studies conducted on the correlation of student attrition, retention and alcohol use. Lessons learned from a program used by the University of Connecticut are discussed.

According to "Community College Student Alcohol Use: Developing Context-Specific Evidence and Prevention Approaches," community colleges have traditionally had a threefold mission that includes preparing students for transfer to four-year colleges, developmental education, and workforce preparation. The researchers point out that the demographic characteristics of community colleges and their unique organizational context and culture are important factors when it comes to alcohol consumption and the reduction of associated harms. In addition, institutional student health and service capacity is significantly smaller at community colleges than at four-year institutions. Participants in a survey about student substance use, and infrastructure (staff and funding), programs, and collaborations dedicated to substance use prevention of 100 administrators, faculty, and health services staff at 100 community colleges reported a number of alcohol- and other drug-related concerns. Participating community colleges reported implementing a number of programs, although many are not implementing some of the programs popular at traditional four-year colleges, and collaborating with a number of on- and off-campus groups on substance abuse issues and services. According to the researchers, the findings of this survey indicate that administrators are quite concerned about student alcohol and other drug use and are developing programs despite limited staff and funding.

As campuses and communities across the country grapple with problems related to unruly house parties, neighborhood disruptions, and alcohol-fueled "celebratory" incidents, they are developing partnerships with law enforcement agencies to implement strategies to reduce such problems and protect the health and safety of students and residents alike. In fact, tier 2 prevention strategies in "A Call to Action: Changing the Culture of Drinking at U.S. Colleges" from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in 2002 identify enforcement of minimum drinking age laws and enforcement of other laws to reduce alcohol-impaired driving. Another tier 2 strategy relies on enforcement measures: "Comprehensive community interventions have also shown that increased enforcement and publicity of laws to reduce alcohol-impaired driving have produced significant reductions in the types of motor vehicle crashes most likely to involve alcohol and alcohol-related traffic deaths." (Lists 4 online resources.)

Currently, all 50 states limit alcohol purchases to people aged 21 and over. But that hasn't always been the case. In fact, it was July 17, 1984, when President Ronald Reagan signed the national 21 minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) legislation into law. At that time, only 23 states had minimum alcohol purchasing ages of 21 years old. The legislation called for withholding federal highway funds from the remaining 27 states if they did not follow suit. By 1988, all states had set 21 as the MLDA. MLDA 21 laws have many components that target outlets that sell alcohol to minors; adults who provide alcoholic beverages to minors; and minors who purchase or attempt to purchase, possess, or consume alcohol. In addition, there are companion laws that provide for lower blood alcohol concentration (BAC) limits for underage drivers and other legislation, such as laws that require registration of beer keg purchases and make hosts liable for the actions of underage drinking guests. (Contains 3 resources.)

"High-Risk Drinking in College: What We Know and What We Need To Learn: Final Report of the Panel on Contexts and Consequences" (2002), a report from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism's (NIAAA) Task Force on College Drinking, points out that "federal, state, and local laws help define college administrators' responsibilities for taking action when students misuse alcohol." Among other requirements, the federal "Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act" and its 1989 amendments require institutions receiving any federal funds to define a policy that prohibits the unlawful possession, use, and distribution of alcohol and other drugs (AOD); adopt disciplinary sanctions for students and employees who violate the school's policy on alcohol and drugs; and ensure that the disciplinary sanctions are consistently enforced. The NIAAA Task Force on College Drinking's Panel on Contexts and Consequences recommends that colleges and universities "[r]eview policy and its implementation continually and update and/or expand it as needed" and "[r]eview the scope of disciplinary sanctions associated with policy violations for appropriateness and for consistency of enforcement." According to Penn State "Live," since fall 2010 the university has implemented a number of initiatives to address high-risk drinking using a multipronged approach that includes environmental change, enforcement, alternative activities, intervention, counseling, and outreach. Penn State has adopted stricter consequences to illegal drinking behaviors, such as increased attention to enforcement and serious consequences to students who violate the community's laws and the university's student conduct policies. A list of resources is included.

According to the Stalking Resource Center (SRC), "While legal definitions of stalking vary from one jurisdiction to another, a good working definition of stalking is a course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to feel fear. Stalking is serious, often violent, and can escalate over time." "Model Campus Stalking Policy," a collaborative report from SRC (a program of the National Center for Victims of Crime) and the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault, characterizes stalking behaviors as "persistent and frequent unwanted in-person contact, surveillance, and unwanted telephone and other electronic contact." The various technological means to stalk include use of the Internet, e-mail, or social networking sites to gather information, harass, and intimidate; use of cell phones and landline phones; text messaging; global positioning systems (GPS) to track a person's whereabouts; or placing spyware on a victim's computer. SRC recommends that stalking behaviors be listed in any campus stalking policy. For the most part, campus-based stalking prevention programs focus on raising awareness and providing education on stalking behaviors as well as providing victims of stalking with advice on how to report stalking and take measures to protect themselves. A list of resources is included.

In its 2002 report, foremost among the recommendations of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism's Task Force on College Drinking is that "to achieve a change in culture, schools must intervene at three levels: at the individual-student level, at the level of the entire student body, and at the community level. Research conducted to date strongly supports this three-level approach. Within this overarching structure, schools need to tailor programs to address their specific alcohol-related problems." According to "Environmental Policies to Reduce College Drinking: Options and Research Findings," one strategy at the level of the student body to "de-emphasize alcohol and create positive expectations on campus is to create positive environments that students can enjoy without alcohol use. For example, campuses can offer recreational sports later at night and on weekends or, instead of having a campus pub, campuses can establish a coffeehouse." While there is little research on the extent and effectiveness of alcohol-free alternative events on college campuses as a component of a comprehensive prevention approach, anecdotal evidence suggests that this is an increasingly popular approach. According to a 2011 "Wall Street Journal" article, "As more schools offer increasingly creative alternatives to shots and beer pong, they say they see noticeable declines in drinking." Results of a 2010 study of LateNight Penn State Alcohol-Free Programming (LNPS) indicated that "students drank less on days they attended LNPS and on days they stayed in (rather than going to bars/parties, other campus events, or entertainment), both especially among women." Lessons learned from colleges and universities are shared. A list of resources is included.

When it comes to using social media technology for alcohol, drug abuse, and violence prevention, Thomas Workman, at Baylor College of Medicine's John M. Eisenberg Center for Clinical Decisions and Communications Science, points out that social media is interactive. This means that a person is entering a conversation rather than a declaration, and he/she will get responses that may contradict his/her message. For Workman, the conversations and debates through social media "seed" public thought. Social media technology can be very useful in supporting community prevention coalitions. Workman said that a coalition's presence online in a community is powerful because it does exactly what social norming is designed to do. Michigan State University's social norms campaign has a Facebook page that is driven by a group of people who are online peers. It has a large friend collection. But not all the interactions are alcohol-based social norms. People are "friending" the page to see posts on their wall that may have nothing to do with alcohol. The Illinois Higher Education Center for Alcohol, Other Drug and Violence Prevention's mission is to "reduce negative health & safety consequences to Illinois college students related to alcohol, other drugs & violence & to increase college & community environmental factors that support healthy and safe norms." Its Facebook page lets people know about upcoming training events, provides discussions on topics, and displays photos from activities. (Contains 2 resources.)

Social host liability laws (also known as teen party ordinances, loud or unruly gathering ordinances, or response costs ordinances) target the location in which underage drinking takes place. Social host liability laws hold noncommercial individuals responsible for underage drinking events on property they own, lease, or otherwise control. They differ from laws prohibiting individuals from providing alcoholic beverages to underage persons; social host laws target providing the venue where underage drinking takes place. According to a College Alcohol Study report on access to alcohol, among the most common settings for underage and heavy drinking for college students are house parties, outdoor parties, or fraternity and sorority parties. This paper describes a review of the research evidence on the effect of social host liability in the Institute of Medicine 2004 report "Reducing Underage Drinking: A Collective Responsibility." Lessons learned from social host ordinances implemented by colleges and universities are presented. (Contains 2 resources.)

In 2002 the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) issued a groundbreaking report, "A Call to Action: Changing the Culture of Drinking at U.S. Colleges." This report was developed by the NIAAA-supported Task Force on College Drinking after three years of intensive discussions. It described new understanding of dangerous drinking behavior by college students and its consequences for both drinkers and nondrinkers. Rather than debate how many students drink how much, the task force focused on addressing the consequences. In its report, the task force outlined a series of recommendations for colleges and universities, researchers, and NIAAA. At the core of the recommendations is the recognition that successful interventions occur at three distinct levels, referred to as the 3-in-1 framework. This approach calls for interventions to operate simultaneously to reach individual students, the student body as a whole, and the greater college community. Given the recommendations in NIAAA's 2002 "Call to Action" and 2007 update, what are colleges and universities doing when it comes to addressing high-risk drinking and associated problems? To answer that question, researchers at the Alcohol Epidemiology Program at the University of Minnesota surveyed 351 four-year colleges in the United States to ascertain familiarity with and progress toward implementation of NIAAA recommendations. According to "Implementation of NIAAA College Drinking Task Force Recommendations: How Are Colleges Doing 6 Years Later?" administrators at most of the colleges surveyed were familiar with NIAAA recommendations, although more than one in five (22 percent) were not. Nearly all colleges used educational programs--a Tier 4 strategy--to address student drinking (98 percent). Half the colleges (50 percent) offered intervention programs with documented efficacy for students at high risk for alcohol problems (Tier 1 strategies). Few colleges reported that they had implemented empirically supported, community-based alcohol control strategies (Tier 2 strategies), including conducting compliance checks to monitor illegal alcohol sales (33 percent), instituting mandatory responsible alcohol beverage service (RBS) training (15 percent), restricting alcohol outlet density (7 percent), or increasing the price of alcohol (2 percent). (Contains 2 resources.)

A 2010 report from Campus Pride called "State of Higher Education for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender People" is the most comprehensive national research study of its kind to date. It documents experiences of more than 5,000 students, faculty members, staff members, and administrators who identify as LGBTQQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, and queer) at colleges and universities across the United States. It says that "two decades of limited research suggests that academe has been unwelcoming of LGBT students, faculty members, and staff members." Key findings of the "State of Higher Education" report indicate that "the overwhelming majority of LGBTQQ students, of every race, color and ethnicity, report harassment, isolation and fear on campus. Transmasculine, transfeminine and gender non-conforming students are the most likely to experience overt and blatant oppression and hostility." The report points out that academic communities expend a great deal of effort fostering campus climates that nurture their institutional mission with the understanding that climate has a profound effect on the academic community's ability to excel in teaching, research, and scholarship. Campus climate also influences access and retention, students' academic success and healthy development, as well as faculty and staff productivity. (Contains 4 resources.)

According to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, "abuse of prescription drugs to get high has become increasingly prevalent among teens and young adults. Past year abuse of prescription pain killers now ranks second--only behind marijuana--as the Nation's most prevalent illegal drug problem." Use of prescription drugs without a doctor's prescription or only for the experience or feeling they cause is commonly referred to as "nonmedical" use. According to the Drug Abuse Warning Network, approximately 363,000 emergency department visits in 2007 involved the nonmedical use of pain relievers (including both prescription and over-the-counter [OTC] pain medications). Ritalin, Adderall, Concerta, and Dexadrine, which are all classified as stimulants and have been dubbed "study drugs," are being used on college campuses to increase energy, alertness, mood, and well-being. These "study drugs" come with their own set of risks if they are taken without a prescription, including irregular heartbeat, high body temperatures, cardiovascular failure, and seizures. Some OTC medications, such as cough and cold medicines containing dextromethorphan, have beneficial effects when taken as recommended; but they can also be abused and lead to serious adverse health consequences. According to a 2010 study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, among college students, friends and peers are the most common sources to obtain prescription drugs to use nonmedically. This paper describes efforts to address prescription and OTC drug abuse among college students. A list of resources is included.

According to the White House Initiative on Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), there are 36 federally recognized TCUs in the United States. Located mainly in the Midwest and Southwest, TCUs enroll approximately 30,000 full- and part-time students. They offer two-year associate degrees in more than 200 disciplines, with some providing a bachelor's and master's degree. According to Bonnie Duran, director of the Indigenous Wellness Research Institute (IRWI) Center for Indigenous Health Research at the University of Washington, her preliminary search found "no published or gray literature describing the epidemiology of alcohol-related problems at TCUs, though two studies by the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC) provide retention statistics that describe a population with unmet social and behavioral health needs." Although there are no data for TCU students specifically related to alcohol and drug abuse, there are data regarding alcohol consumption patterns and related behavioral problems for young American Indians or Alaska Natives (AIAN) who comprise 80 percent of TCU students. This paper highlights what campuses are doing with regard to alcohol-drinking and drug-use among students.

In its 2002 report on college drinking, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism describes U.S. college campuses as supporting a culture of drinking. Staying clean and sober in an environment where drinking and, to a lesser extent, other drug use is an accepted behavior presents real challenges to students who are in recovery from alcohol and/or drug addiction. A number of campuses provide a range of services to support students in recovery, including providing alcohol-free residence halls or substance-free floors in selected residences halls and making space available on campus for Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings, as well as providing counseling services. In 1997 yeah College in Minneapolis, Minn., created the StepUP Program to address the special needs of students in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction. The StepUP Program includes alcohol and other drug-free housing, a minimum sobriety requirement, weekly individual meetings with staff, a contract calling for standards of behavior, and weekly peer-led community meetings. At Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., students in recovery can live with students like themselves and receive emotional, social, and environmental support in maintaining their sobriety. The Center for the Study of Addiction and Recovery at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas, has developed a Collegiate Recovery Community that provides "a nurturing, affirming environment in which individuals recovering from addictive disorders can find peer support while attaining a college education. Students participating in this community have access to extensive services to support their decision to remain in recovery and to improve their general life skills." At Brown University, Providence, R.I., students in recovery from chemical dependency can participate in the Early Sobriety Group, which is a weekly, one-hour meeting that provides a safe, confidential space for students to discuss matters related to recovery in general and to life at Brown in particular. (Contains 1 resource.)

"Pregaming" or "pre-loading" is what college students call the practice of drinking alcohol in a private setting prior to attending an organized event or social activity where alcohol might or might not be served. According to one student, "Pregames are usually a fun part of the night because you're just with a few close friends before you go out and meet up with a lot more people and can't chat and laugh with your close friends as much." But the downside to pregaming is that it can lead to higher levels of intoxication as students often continue drinking once they arrive at a party, putting them at risk for a host of alcohol-related problems, including alcohol-impaired driving, unwanted sex, or injury. While there has been little published research to date on the pregaming behavior of students, there is an increasing interest among researchers to both understand the behavior and identify ways to intervene to reduce associated problems. Presidential Leadership Academy students at the Pennsylvania State University researched the topic of high-risk college drinking and presented their findings and proposals in a report on the pregaming phenomenon to a panel of Penn State administrators and professors in May 2010. They recommended that Penn State adopt a blanket policy for its on-campus residence halls and make all of these facilities "dry" so that absolutely no alcohol will be tolerated within the residence hall for any reason, regardless of age of the students. Colleges and universities concerned with the risks that pre-party drinking poses for students have struggled with ways to respond. One way is to ban special events where there is the likelihood that such pregaming will take place, especially if there have been problems in the past. Colleges have attempted other approaches, from turning away the most visibly intoxicated students at the door to making food available at parties.

High-caffeine soft drinks have existed in the United States since at least the 1980s beginning with Jolt Cola. Energy drinks, which have caffeine as their primary "energy" component, began being marketed as a separate beverage category in the United States in 1997 with the introduction of the Austrian import Red Bull. Energy drink consumption and sales have increased dramatically since then, with more than $3.2 billion in sales in 2006. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), when alcoholic beverages are mixed with energy drinks, a popular practice among youth, the caffeine in these drinks can mask the depressant effects of alcohol. At the same time, caffeine has no effect on the metabolism of alcohol by the liver and thus does not reduce blood alcohol concentration or reduce the risk of alcohol-attributable harms. A review of the energy drink research literature in a recent study published in Addictive Behaviors (April 2010) found that 73 percent of students in an American college sample had consumed energy drinks mixed with alcohol during the past month. It also found that college students are a major market for energy drinks and the drinks are a ubiquitous feature of recreational events in many campus communities. The major motivations college students cite for using energy drinks are to compensate for insufficient sleep, increase energy, and mix with alcohol while partying. Most of the prevention efforts aimed at reducing harm related to combining energy drinks with alcohol or drinking caffeinated alcoholic beverages (CABs) have focused on measures to educate the public on the negative health consequences associated with these products. Other focuses are on regulating the product or the points of sale. (Contains 1 resource.)

Violence is a serious problem on college campuses. The literature on primary prevention of violence does not call for the adoption of specific programs or policies but rather suggests a paradigm shift in the way practitioners approach violence. Primary prevention means asking the question, "Why is violence happening in the first place?" in order to identify and change the underlying conditions that lead to violence. A number of factors contribute to violent incidents at the peer, institutional, community, and policy levels, in addition to individual factors. According to the WHO, these factors can then be addressed with targeted interventions across these levels simultaneously. Understanding local factors that contribute to violent incidents is critical to inform program development, because the specific factors that lead to violence may differ by type of violence and context. While much of the dialogue about primary violence prevention has occurred in the research on community violence prevention efforts, those who focus on campus violence prevention can benefit from this work. This primary violence prevention concept already has begun to make its way into campus prevention. One example is the American College Health Association's 2008 publication "Shifting the Paradigm: Primary Prevention of Sexual Violence," a toolkit that encourages the adoption of comprehensive primary prevention efforts that employ a combination of strategies to address multiple contributing factors. These factors include knowledge and attitudes that support violence, skills to intervene in violence and its precursors, norms, and policy and enforcement approaches to convey community standards. (Contains 1 resource.)

Every fall, college and university campuses and communities brace for the onslaught of new and returning students. For first-year students, anecdotal evidence suggests that the first six weeks of enrollment are critical to success. Because many students initiate heavy drinking during these early days of college, the potential exists for excessive alcohol consumption to interfere with successful adaptation to campus life. This excessive drinking contributes to many problems, including vandalism, violence, sexual aggression, and even death. The transition to college is often so difficult to negotiate that about one-third of first-year students fail to enroll for their second year. Colleges and universities have initiated a number of activities during the first few weeks on campus aimed at helping students successfully transition into campus life and at reducing a range of problems related to student drinking, such as holding a number of alcohol-free social events and increasing enforcement to control potentially unruly parties and reduce underage drinking. This paper describes these initiatives.

While alcohol remains the drug of choice among college students, marijuana ranks number two with 32 percent reporting using marijuana in 2008. That's a modest decline from 2001, when 36 percent of college students reported marijuana use. While levels of marijuana use by students are determined through a number of national and local surveys, no national samples have been drawn to compare use in states with and without such laws. James Lange, director of Alcohol and Other Drug Initiatives for San Diego State University, points out that there have been no published descriptions on the impact of medical marijuana laws on the use of marijuana by college students, even though over a dozen states now have some form of medical marijuana. Just because medical marijuana may be legal in some states, college students with a doctor's prescription may not be allowed to smoke it on campus. For example, on Dec. 16, 2009, campus administrators at Fort Lewis College decided to forbid the use or possession of medical marijuana anywhere on campus and to treat it no differently than alcohol and illicit drugs. But at one point, after Colorado voters effectively legalized medical marijuana in November 2000, campus officials said that the rule governing medical marijuana use was the same as for tobacco, which permits smoking on campus, but not in residence halls. More states are considering medical marijuana legislation. Currently, in at least five states lawmakers and activists are pushing forward with new medical marijuana laws. In Virginia, two bills have been introduced in its House of Delegates. In South Dakota medical marijuana advocates have gathered more than twice the number of voter signatures needed to get a medical marijuana measure on the ballot in November that would allow for possession of up to one ounce by qualified patients. The increasing acceptability of medical use of marijuana in the United States poses concerns for marijuana use by teens.

Most of the colleges and universities that have received U.S. Department of Education Models of Exemplary, Effective, and Promising Alcohol or Other Drug Abuse Prevention Programs on College Campuses grants credit strong presidential leadership for the success of their prevention efforts. With many colleges and universities currently facing budget crises, cutting classes, and reducing faculty sizes, getting a president's attention on alcohol, drug abuse, and violence prevention can be a real challenge. But presidential support is now even more important if colleges and universities are to make headway in implementing evidence-based prevention strategies. While no research studies have been conducted on the role of presidential leadership in mounting effective prevention efforts "per se," experiences from colleges and universities across the country led the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism's Task Force on College Drinking to state that "although research can provide useful guidance to colleges and universities in addressing the consequences of high-risk student drinking, presidential leadership is crucial to set plans in motion and support the actions needed to reverse the culture of drinking on campus." "Presidential leadership (both at individual colleges and in national higher education) is necessary to focus attention on college drinking and raise it higher on college and higher education agendas. The associations that make up the Washington Higher Education Secretariat should take a fresh look at this issue and not just let a few such as NASPA and NCAA do all the heavy lifting. College drinking is a problem for all of higher education." (George W. Dowdall, professor of sociology at Saint Joseph's University, Philadelphia, and the author of "College Drinking: Reframing a Social Problem" [Praeger, 2009]).

Almost all U.S. college campuses ban concealed weapons. But in the aftermath of the tragic shooting deaths at Virginia Tech in 2007, the debate on whether guns should be permitted at colleges and universities has intensified. Dozens of states have considered proposals to lift bans on concealed weapons at colleges and universities, but so far none have been successful. While there is no research on the effect of allowing guns at colleges and universities when it comes to shooting violence, according to "Violence Prevention: The Evidence" (World Health Organization, 2009) "jurisdictions with restrictive firearms legislation and lower firearms ownership tend to have lower levels of gun violence. Measures include bans, licensing schemes, minimum ages for buyers, background checks and safe storage requirements." Students for Concealed Carry on Campus and other right-to-carry activists argue that college campuses would be safer if students and other private citizens (faculty, staff, and visitors) were allowed to carry concealed weapons in order to protect themselves. However, a growing body of evidence shows that concealed carry permit holders are a threat to public safety. The American Association of State Colleges and Universities and more than 90 colleges and universities from 24 states have signed a resolution by the Campaign to Keep Guns Off Campus that they are opposed to legislation that would mandate that colleges and universities allow students to carry concealed weapons on campus. According to the association, 23 states currently allow public campuses or state systems to decide their own weapons policies, with nearly all choosing to be "gun-free" ("The Denver Post," Dec. 2, 2009).

Off-campus parties that foster underage and high-risk drinking and become a nuisance to neighbors are often a sore spot when it comes to town-gown relations. Responding to these parties is leading communities to adopt new measures and enforcement strategies to reduce a range of problems faced by students and residents alike. While many policy and enforcement strategies have been identified and implemented at colleges and universities and in surrounding communities aimed at reducing underage and/or unruly house parties, little research has been conducted to identify the effectiveness of specific measures. Two separate studies reported in a special college drinking supplement of the "Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs" (July 2009) developed programs in which colleges worked closely with their surrounding communities, using measures such as increased police patrols in problem neighborhoods and raising student awareness of their responsibilities as community residents.