Editor: Photos of Professor Alan Marlatt are available by calling (303) 492-1874.
Professor G. Alan Marlatt, professor of psychology and director of the University of Washington's Addictive Behaviors Research Center, addressed CU-Boulder's Standing Committee on Substance Abuse (SCOSA) today at Regent Hall.
SCOSA invited Professor Marlatt to CU-Boulder to share his insights about brief intervention strategies for reducing the harmful consequences of heavy drinking among high-risk college students. The focus of his work has been on the behavior of high school students before they enroll at the University of Washington, and his work has been reported in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.
"Dr. Marlatt has been recognized nationally as one of the leaders in the field of addictive behavior, especially among college students," said Robert Maust, director of CU-Boulder's "A Matter of Degree" program.
"We're very pleased that Dr. Marlatt was able to speak with us because we're looking at ways to respond to the fact that CU-Boulder has a large number of high school students enrolling each fall who report practices of high-risk use of alcohol before they enroll in the university. We clearly need to address this problem before these students continue these practices" at CU, which can cause local disturbances and health risks for students, he said.
As a longtime professor of psychology and psychiatry at a number of universities in the United States, England and Australia, Marlatt speaks from more than 30 years of experience teaching and working with college students. His list of recent publications includes nine currently in press and more than 25 others published since 1992.
The mission of the SCOSA committee is to monitor the use and abuse of drugs and other substances by members of the university and larger community, and when appropriate, seek positive responses to such behaviors.
SCOSA is chaired by Maust and is composed of members from the CU and Boulder police departments, the Hill Task Force, the Parents Association, the Greek system, CU Student Housing and Wardenburg Student Health Center and other CU and community organizations.
CU-Boulder is one of 10 campuses participating in a grant-supported research project to address drinking problems at American colleges and universities.
Funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the program applies a cooperative, public health approach to reducing campus binge drinking by addressing the total social environment that influences drinking behavior.
The Robert Wood Johnson program at CU-Boulder, in conjunction with SCOSA, has adopted a number of approaches or techniques suggested by Harvard University to reduce the problem of high-risk drinking among university students.