FIT’s course offerings and degree programs reflect the Institute’s focus on preparing students to thrive in the contemporary world of fashion. Students can major in more than 30 fields, in such diverse areas as Fashion Design, Visual Art Management, and Computer Animation and Interactive Media. The Institute offers both undergraduate and graduate programs, awarding Associate Degrees, Bachelor Degrees, and Masters Degrees.

Recognizing the connection between students’ health and academic performance, FIT has adopted a strong drug and alcohol abuse prevention policy.  As part of the policy, the Institute has chosen to make its campus in downtown Manhattan a “dry campus.”

Challenge
Of the 11,000 full- and part-time students enrolled at FIT, approximately 2,300 live on campus. FIT works to educate every student about the risks of alcohol and drug abuse, and requires those living on campus to agree to the dry campus policy and complete an alcohol education course. “That includes first-year students, summer students, and any returning upperclassmen who want to live on campus,” says Gabrielle Arthurton-Crumb, Assistant Director of Judicial Affairs at FIT.

In addition to the challenge of reaching every student with consistent health education, FIT strives to deliver information in a way that makes sense to students. “In the 21st century, communication is technology-based, and young adults are used to instant responses,” explains Arthurton-Crumb.

While it may be quick and easy for students to find health information on the Internet, not all of the information is trustworthy. To protect students, FIT works to provide students with easy access to accurate health information -- including information about emerging health risks, such as the risks of misuse or abuse of prescription stimulants and painkillers.

Solution
After investigating several online prevention programs, FIT chose to implement MyStudentBody. The program integrates student courses on drugs and alcohol, a 24/7 online student wellness resource, a parent-based intervention, and a set of specially developed tools and resources for campus health administrators. Every school that subscribes to MyStudentBody has access to each component of the program at no extra charge.

According to Arthurton-Crumb, FIT chose MyStudentBody because it is “user friendly,” and through brief motivational self-assessments in six topic areas, the program helps FIT deliver comprehensive health education that is tailored to individual students.

“MyStudentBody allows us to provide students with essential health information that is both accurate and presented in an interesting way. They can get answers to questions they might not otherwise ask, for various reasons -- they're embarrassed, they think they should already know the answer, etc. The program also allows them to ‘personalize’ the website to reflect their interests and needs,” she explains.

In addition, says Arthurton-Crumb, MyStudentBody offers student courses on both alcohol and drugs, and FIT makes use of both courses.

“With the launch of MyStudentBody-Drugs, we have the opportunity not only to offer freshmen the Alcohol course, but also to offer our upperclassmen a different but equally valuable course,” she explains. “The Drugs course helps us to address not only the use of illegal drugs such as marijuana, but also the increased use of prescription drugs on college campuses.”

FIT administrators are able to monitor students’ progress in the Drugs and Alcohol courses online, and access aggregate, anonymous data on students’ self-reported behaviors. These data allow administrators to identify the unique health challenges on their campus, and to track changes in behavior over time.

“The system is easy to use, and the reports allow for accurate tracking,” observes Arthurton-Crumb.

Finally, says Arthurton-Crumb, FIT administrators have found that MyStudentBody’s staff is responsive and strives to meet FIT’s evolving needs. 

“There is a strong customer service, for both our students and staff,” she says. “The MyStudentBody staff is open and receptive to our suggestions and requests for features that we'd like to see so that the program reaches its full potential. And the website is always improving.”

 

Challenge
LSU is known among students as a “party school” due to its close proximity to New Orleans. In fact, students are given a sanctioned day off to experience Mardi Gras celebrations. In May 2003, with a large population on campus and the public eye watching events at LSU, there was a clear need for alcohol education to teach college students about the dangers and risks associated with drinking.

Solution
LSU began using MyStudentBody in July 2004 as a way to make alcohol education more interactive and teach students about the dangers of alcohol in a new way. LSU’s Wellness Education Coordinator, Hope McPhatter, MA, CHES, explained that prior to using MyStudentBody, LSU health educators organized events such as wellness classes, Alcohol Awareness Week, and activities for their Greek population. LSU began using MyStudentBody with the support of the vice chancellor, registrar’s office, and dean of students, because the program reached a larger population than the existing wellness activities.

Today, MyStudentBody continues to be a requirement for all incoming students, including first year and transfer students. The judicial system also uses the program as a sanctioning tool for students. For example: if a student commits a drug infraction, he or she is required to take the MyStudentBody-Drugs course.

LSU Resident Advisors and student ambassadors speak about MyStudentBody in a positive way, which motivates students to educate themselves through the program. McPhatter feels strongly that there is an increased level of wellness education knowledge on campus due to MyStudentBody. The increase in education has helped students identify alcohol poisoning and other serious alcohol-related emergencies on campus.

“Students are more aware of the dangers of alcohol; they have more knowledge about alcohol because of the education through MyStudentBody,” says McPhatter about the changes that have occurred in the students after the implementation of MyStudentBody.

While MyStudentBody is not the only health education program available, LSU believes the program to be the most interactive and interesting to students. Administrators have enjoyed the customer support that MyStudentBody provides. LSU continues to educate their students on alcohol and other wellness topics through MyStudentBody.

MyStudentBody has exceeded LSU’s expectations due to the “support from the MyStudentBody team. Anytime we make a suggestion,” says McPhatter, “the MyStudentBody team listens, and more often than not, the MyStudentBody team uses these suggestions to enhance their program.”

Hope McPhatter, like many wellness educators, is working to teach college students about healthier lifestyles. “MyStudentBody is my choice for a primary prevention program that reaches my entire campus and educates LSU students about their daily choices.”

A member of the State Colleges of New York (SUNY) system, MCS currently serves a student body of approximately 3,269 students at two campuses in central New York: one in Morrisville and another in Norwich. Despite its small size, the college offers more than 70 specialized associate and bachelor degree programs, including a new program that enables students to earn a bachelor's degree in renewable energy technology.

Challenge
One of the biggest challenges that Morrisville State College faces in promoting healthy behavior is finding creative ways to reach students regardless of time or budget constraints.

"We are a small college with a lean staffing model. We have very dedicated, hard-working employees, who must accomplish a lot in a limited time," explains Geoffrey Isabelle, Dean of Students at MSC. "As a result, we strive to use our resources wisely. That includes leveraging 'teachable moments' to communicate with students about important issues."

As part of this effort, college administrators take advantage of freshmen orientation to talk to students and their families about alcohol and other drugs. "Starting college is a unique time in a student's life, and a critical opportunity to address the health challenges of college life," says Isabelle. "We work to reach parents as well as students, so we can deepen our impact."

Administrators also work to gather information that can be used to create targeted prevention initiatives. "We review the statistics from alcohol and drug violations, to find ways to reach students who may be vulnerable to health risks," explains Isabelle.

Another challenge the college faces is providing plenty of alternatives to leaving campus for social activities that involve drinking. "We have a relatively remote location, so we offer a great deal of student programming on campus," says Isabelle. "We're always looking for new ways to entice students to alcohol-free events and encourage healthy behavior choices."

Solution
In 2007, MSC administrators began searching for an online prevention program that would provide the most value for students and staff. After evaluating several programs, they selected MyStudentBody, and began using it in the 2008-2009 school year.

"Of all the programs we looked at, our counseling staff, the 'chief investigators' in the selection process, were most impressed with MyStudentBody," explains Isabelle.
Developed with $6 million in grant support from the National Institutes of Health, MyStudentBody is a comprehensive student health and wellness program. It offers student courses on Alcohol and Drugs, and gives students 24/7 access to learning modules on Alcohol, Drugs, Stress, Tobacco, Nutrition, and Sexual Health.

Each topic area integrates "Rate Myself" questionnaires, brief self-assessments that are based on the Brief Alcohol Screening and Intervention of College Students (BASICS) model. These assessments give students personalized normative feedback on their health-related behaviors, an approach that has been shown to impact behavior.

"Ultimately, we chose MyStudentBody because of its research-based presentation and educational methodology, and because we value the 24/7 access, ease of use, overall format, and test-retest assessment capability,” says Isabelle. "Personally, I like that students are able to 'free roam' the suite any time, and get valuable information about their behavior choices.”

To increase the impact of the program, MSC mandates completion of the Alcohol and Drugs courses, as well as review of the Tobacco module, for first-time violations of the applicable substance-abuse policies. The college has also integrated MyStudentBody in orientation sessions with new students and their families.

"We feel that MyStudentBody helps us address important health challenges as a part of a comprehensive education, prevention, and intervention program,” reports Isabelle. “And when I’ve talked about the educational approach and personalized feedback that students get from the program, I've seen parents nodding approvingly."

MSC will soon begin to offer MyStudentBody-Parent, a new learning module that has been integrated in the program, to families as a resource of practical strategies for keeping students safe, healthy, and happy.

Administrators also plan to increase their use of MyStudentBody-Admin, a module that offers extensive resources and tools to support college health administrators. These include a continually updated library of articles on prevention strategies such as offering alcohol-free student programming, and robust data reporting tools, which enable administrators to identify the specific health trends and challenges on their campus.

Using these data reporting tools, administrators can get up-to-date information about students’ self-reported knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors related to alcohol and other drugs, which they can use to develop targeted interventions for specific student groups.

According to Isabelle, both students and staff have responded enthusiastically to the program.

"Given our staffing and time constraints, we have to implement what does the greatest good for the greatest number of students," says Isabelle. "MyStudentBody helps our students learn about important issues. They like the user-friendly presentation of statistics and facts in the module, before they take the quiz. It’s more engaging for students when information is broken down into smaller chunks, rather than presented in a lengthy article.

”On the administrative side, we feel that the program has so much to offer that we haven't had the time yet to explore all of our options. In the future, we hope to be able to dedicate more time to analyzing and using the information the program is generating."