Despite its recent ranking as the nation/s No. 2 party school, UF was one of five schools named a 2009 Model of Alcohol or Other Drug Abuse Prevention Program on College Campuses by the U.S. Department of Education.
The College of Health and Human Performance received a $100,000 grant to continue its campus-wide alcohol abuse prevention program.
The program was rewarded for its "Less is More" campaign, featuring ads on buses that featured funny yet pointed messages like "Sketchy drunk guys… Making girls feel uncomfortable since 1853. Warning: Avoid guys who drink too much."
The school/s prevention programs were classified as exemplary, effective or promising based partly on the number of years the programs have been in place. UF/s program received a "promising" rating.
While the school has had an alcohol and drug abuse prevention program for a long time, program leader Virginia Dodd said until they received a $280,000 grant in 2006 from the U.S. Department of Education, they had not had much success curbing student drinking.
This year/s $100,000 grant will go toward ads around campus, further research to evaluate the program/s efforts and continuing the CORE Drug and Alcohol Survey, which collects data on student drug and alcohol consumption, Dodd said.
"We/re very excited to have this opportunity," she said. "It says to other schools, 'Hey, look at what they/re doing./ Hopefully our efforts can help others."
Program researchers also plan to begin studying the effectiveness of the taxi stands in downtown Gainesville that provide students an alternative to driving drunk and examine the alcohol concentration levels in underage drinkers using breathalyzers.
Dodd said the program began research in 2006 to find student perspectives on alcohol consumption, and by 2008, the high-risk drinking rate had fallen by 7.6 percent.
The program also evaluated past prevention techniques and looked at the difference between game-day drinking and everyday drinking to decide on its student-guided ads.
"So far, our research has found that the number of UF students who are participating in binge drinking is low compared to the number of students who attend UF," Dodd said in a release. "I think there is a misconception that UF is a 'party school./"
UF advertising sophomore Leah Harrison agreed that while UF deserves its party school status, its reputation doesn/t mean that students are careless about drinking.
"It/s ironic, I guess," Harrison said. "But just because we/re a good party school doesn/t mean [we drink carelessly]. Maybe we/re just smart about it."
The University of California, Santa Barbara and University at Albany/State University of New York, were named effective programs, while the University of North Carolina Wilmington and University of West Florida were named promising programs.
