Dartmouth College is turning to an unlikely source for help with its national initiative to reduce binge drinking: engineering students, the Associated Press reports. When professor John Collier learned that college President Jim Young Kim planned to visit his class recently, he decided to have students show off their problem-solving skills by attacking a social problem instead of an engineering dilemma. Binge drinking was an obvious choice, given the national initiative Kim launched last spring aimed at reducing excessive drinking on college campuses…
…Read MorePodcast Series: Innovations in Education
Explore the full series of eCampus News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.
New initiative aims to reduce college binge drinking
As nearly every college and university in the country tries to convince students to stop binge drinking, the president of Dartmouth College has a new strategy: Let’s treat this like any other public health problem, reports the Washington Post. To do that, President Jim Yong Kim says colleges need to test new strategies, scientifically measure the results and share their findings. This week Kim, a doctor and humanitarian who has led Dartmouth since 2009, announced the formation of the national Learning Collaborative on High-Risk Drinking. So far, 14 universities have signed up, and Kim hopes at least 20 will be present at the first meeting this summer. The list includes Cornell, Duke, Northwestern, Boston, Princeton and Stanford universities–plus Frostburg State University in Western Maryland, which has been fighting a party school reputation for years…
…Read More