Finger Lakes Community College

Established in 1965 and opened in 1967, Finger Lakes Community College (FLCC) enrolled 6,935 full- and part-time students in fall 2010. The average age of full-time students is approximately 23; part-time approximately 24. Students from more than 360 high schools in New York state and across the United States enrolled at the college in fall 2010, along with students from a few other countries. Historically, FLCC has been a commuter campus. In fall 2007, a privately managed on-campus residence hall opened, housing 348 students. More than 55 percent of FLCC students graduate with A.S. or A.A. transfer degrees, prepared for further study at four-year institutions. Others graduate with A.A.S. degrees or certificates, prepared to obtain employment in their field of study. The FLCC campus of more than 250 acres is located adjacent to the scenic and recreationally rich Canandaigua (N.Y.) community, 45 minutes from Rochester, in the heart of the Finger Lakes region.

Background

Finger Lakes Campus-Community Coalition (CCC) has established a strong working relationship with the community to promote a caring and civil atmosphere that benefits all. As part of this effort, the FLCC CCC was formed in September 2002.

According to Karen Stein, FLCC director of student health services, the coalition was called together by the dean of students because the community had had three fatalities. “After two students and a former student drowned in Canandaigua Lake, it became very important for us to recognize the problems related to student alcohol and drug use. The dean invited most of the members to the table to start a discussion on what we could do as a campus and community to address these issues.”

Coalition members include student leaders, professional staff, and faculty from FLCC; law enforcement representatives; community leaders; landlords; medical and health professionals; and a representative from the New York State Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control.

Several coalition subcommittees are working on strategies that have proven effective in reducing risk factors for substance use, violence, and school dropout, as well as promoting school bonding and involvement in peer activities. These strategies include:

• Correcting misperceptions and challenging myths regarding student substance use
• Promoting student involvement in service learning
• Promoting substance-free activities with local merchant discounts for students
• Promoting the Office of Student Life Volunteer Center
• Increasing perceptions of firm and clear rule enforcement, and consistently enforcing disciplinary actions associated with alcohol and substance use violations of the Student Code of Conduct Policy
• Seeking to involve local tavern owners in the coalition to support responsible beverage server training

In fall 2005, FLCC CCC implemented the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Challenging College Alcohol Abuse (CCAA) model program social norms marketing (SNM) campaign component, in addition to sustaining the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Tier 2 and 3 environmental strategies already in place on campus since 2002 (i.e., increased publicity and enforcement of laws regarding underage alcohol use and consistently enforcing disciplinary actions associated with policy violations). First implemented at the University of Arizona in 1994 and designated as a SAMHSA Universal model program, the CCAA uses a social ecological approach targeting 18- to 25-year-old students to challenge attitudes, behaviors, and misperceptions about alcohol as well as creating an atmosphere of deterrence for underage alcohol use. In more recent randomized trials, SNM campaigns resulted in a lower relative risk of alcohol consumption on campuses where there was relatively lower alcohol outlet density. Since FLCC is located in an area of low outlet density, combining the SNM with the above environmental strategies sets the stage for lower relative student risk of alcohol consumption.

According to Stein, funding from New York’s SAMHSA State Incentive Grant helped launch the SNM campaign with rigorous research and evaluation from an outside evaluator. “We have documented a decrease in misperceptions of drinking norms as well as alcohol use for the male students. At FLCC, the second-year male students showed the most decrease in misperceptions and use. We are now finding a slight increase in female use and physical injury that we are addressing with a media campaign directed at women that reinforces protective measures that they can take.”

To implement the campaign in the community, coalition member Brian Young, director of Ontario County Work Force Development, said, “We reached out to businesses in our community, mainly to employers that would hire young people. We provided them with the same social norms information and tried to promote the same messages. We also surveyed those individuals and found that their perceptions were very similar to what we found on campus. We also worked with our one-stop career centers to identify youths who were unemployed and to find out their perceptions regarding drinking and their own drinking to get data needed to correct misperceptions.”

An important element of the environmental strategies of the CCC is responsible alcoholic beverage server training to reduce underage sales and sales to intoxicated individuals. According to Sgt. David Frasca, Ontario County Sheriff’s Department, responsible beverage server training is conducted at FLCC. “We send out notices to every licensed establishment in the county, whether it’s a grocery store, convenience store, bar, or liquor store. We provide certification training for their employees on the proper way to sell alcohol, serve alcohol, and issues related to the state liquor laws. We also provide the alcohol retailers with equipment, brochures, and handouts on how to spot fake IDs. We loan out ID checker machines to local businesses if they want to try some of the new equipment that’s used to deter fake IDs.”

Frasca said that the managers are very responsive to the training. “That’s because in addition to the server training, several times a year we conduct compliance checks where we go in with an underage agent who attempts to purchase alcohol from the store, the bar, or the restaurant. If they fail the compliance check, we actually arrest the person who sold or served the alcohol and refer the licensed outlet to the state liquor authority. The minimum fines are now $1,500 from the state for selling alcohol to a minor on a first offense. Retailers and business managers want their employees trained to reduce their liability, so that their employees aren’t arrested and they don’t get fined by the state of New York.”

In addition, according to Frasca, the compliance check data have found that the sale rates have gone down over the last several years. “We have more stores and restaurants passing the compliance checks. The local media and the local public seem to be supportive of the compliance checks. There have been several editorials and articles in the local paper in support of the training and the compliance checks. That’s because the community understands the real danger with youth and underage drinking, which can lead to serious injuries or fatalities.”

Selected Program Evaluation Findings

According to the 2010 FLCC Biennial Review of Alcohol and Drug Programs, in student surveys the number of FLCC students who reported consuming five or more drinks in a sitting decreased from 35 percent in spring 2005 to 33.5 percent in spring 2009. A significantly smaller percentage of FLCC student drinkers as compared with the 2008 reference group reported they did something later regretted, and fewer FLCC students reported being injured and having alcohol affecting academics. In contrast, a higher percentage of FLCC student drinkers reported being involved in a fight and more frequently reported physically injuring another person. Male student perceptions of alcohol norms have become more accurate while remaining relatively unchanged nationally. The number of students who abstain from alcohol is increasing (22.6 percent in 2005, 24 percent in 2009). The number experiencing academic consequences related to alcohol use is also decreasing (7 percent in 2005, 4 percent in 2009). Males and especially second- and third-year males had been problematic with regard to the use of alcohol and they are precisely the group where the greatest reductions occurred overall. An increase in physical harm and risk reported among first-year females between 2005 and 2009 resulted in a campaign in 2010 specifically targeting women.

Rates of alcoholic beverage server compliance with the underage drinking laws increased 20 percent from 2005, to 40 percent of servers compliant in 2007. A spring 2010 compliance check revealed 90 percent server compliance. Ninety-two percent of students reported never using false ID to purchase alcohol; however, the majority perceived that most students did. Since September 2006, a 19 percent increase in law enforcement reporting of resident housing alcohol violations may have contributed to the increased rate of alcohol-related student code of conduct violations (12/1000 in 2008). In addition, the director of judicial affairs consistently enforced disciplinary sanctions associated with policy violations.

Conclusions

Jason Maitland, director of campus safety at FLCC, credits much of the success of the CCC to good communication. “When you look at the cooperative efforts between law enforcement and community standards, you see great lateral communication. For example, one of my officers who participates in CCC meetings, who prior to becoming a campus safety officer owned a bar, was able to bring that perspective to the table. It opens up a lot of information sharing about what is happening out in the community. We are then able to follow up and hold people accountable for their behavior out in the community as well as on campus.”

Sgt. Frasca commented on a number of milestones for the CCC. “In addition to the significant decrease in the sale of alcohol to minors during compliance checks, there has also been a decrease in complaints about house parties. Ten years ago, underage drinking parties at student apartments and residences were a huge problem for the Sheriff’s Department. We were getting calls every night, several on weekends, and we were arresting in excess of 40 people at one party, which was a significant number. Since that time we have seen a decrease in the college parties off campus. Do they still occur? Certainly, but they have decreased. The CCC has formed a list of landlords for all the off-campus housing units that we shared with the police officers, who have a listing of landlords on their computers. Now when they go to an address where there is underage drinking at a college party, not only can they charge the individuals with hosting the party, they now have the resources and information to contact the landlord.”

Barbara Bayley, of the Ontario County Probation Department, credits Karen Stein for the leadership that she provides for the CCC. “She came in with a pretty strong idea of what she wanted to have happen and just kept going no matter what. We keep reaching out to different people and the same people keep coming back because we want our students in our community to be safe. We just have a strong focus. We had a lot of training through the social norms campaign, so we developed a lot of structure to the CCC mission. It’s not a free-for-all. People work on specific things with specific tasks, which keeps everybody very focused and has enabled us to get as far as we have.”

For More Information

• Finger Lakes Community College Campus-Community Coalition http://www.flcc.edu/studenthealth/coalition.cfm
• Contact: Karen Stein, Director of Student Health Services, Finger Lakes Community College steinkp@flcc.edu