This academic year for the first time, incoming first-year and transfer undergraduates at Cornell University completed an on-line alcohol education course before arriving on campus for orientation. AlcoholEdu is a commercial program designed to assist students in making healthy decisions regarding alcohol use in college. The web-based program takes two to three hours to complete and includes information on:

• how expectations influence behavior;
• alcohol's effect on learning and memory;
• recognizing and responding to an alcohol-related emergency; and
• blood alcohol concentration and low-risk drinking strategies.

Based on students' responses to a confidential questionnaire at the beginning of the program, AlcoholEdu provides personalized information to participants based on their gender and drinking behavior. The program tailors information so that it is relevant to students who drink as well as those who abstain.

"Providing all incoming students with an opportunity for education about alcohol at the beginning of their university experience is a significant part of our efforts to prevent alcohol-related problems from arising later," said Susan H. Murphy, Cornell vice president for student and academic services.

Cornell students' reaction to the program has been generally positive, university officials say. In response to a survey at the end of the program, 72 percent of students report finding the course helpful and 70 percent report that they would recommend the program to others. So far over 90 percent of new incoming students have logged on to the program and 80 percent have completed the program. University officials will be following up with students who have not yet completed the program.

This initiative was recommended by the Cornell President's Council on Alcohol and Other Drugs, which is charged with guiding Cornell's alcohol abuse prevention efforts. The program is administered through the Office of the Vice President for Student and Academic Services and Gannett: Cornell University Health Services. On-line alcohol education is a new strategy in the comprehensive approach to reducing high-risk drinking and related harm. AlcoholEdu will be administered at over 300 colleges and universities across the country this year, including Johns Hopkins, Dartmouth, University of Pennsylvania and Princeton.

"While most Cornell students drink moderately, or do not drink at all, abuse of alcohol and other drugs causes or contributes to significant harm for a sizeable subset of students and those around them. These problems include alcohol poisoning, poor academic performance, accidents and sexual assaults," said Timothy Marchell, Cornell director of alcohol policy initiatives. "Our hope is that by taking this on-line course, they will be better prepared to face the challenges posed by the college environment."

Preliminary research on AlcoholEdu is promising. Data suggest that the program increased Cornell students' knowledge of the effects of alcohol and led students to consider drinking in safer ways. Marchell notes that while it is difficult at this point to assess the impact of the program on behavior, it is worth noting that the number of first-year students treated by Cornell Emergency Medical Services for alcohol-related emergencies has been lower during the first month of school in comparison to 2003. Controlled studies evaluating AlcoholEdu will be conducted at selected participating institutions during the coming year.