“I am very pleased that GC&SU was awarded this grant,” said Dr. Barbara Funke, professor of health education in the Department of Kinesiology in the School of Health Sciences and project director of the grant. “We have wanted to implement a program of this nature for many years but did not have the resources to make it happen."

The grant funding period will begin on Oct. 1 and continue through Sept. 30 of next year. The program has five objectives. The first objective is to give at least 40 percent of the student population educational opportunities that inform about the effects of alcohol and highway issues by the end of the school year.

The second objective is to assess current alcohol and highway safety issues, and the third is to increase seat belt use by drivers between ages 18-24 by 2 percent before spring of next year. Two observational seat belt surveys will be conducted on campus to this end.

The fourth objective is to participate in Governor’s Office of Highway Safety campaigns, such as Click It or Ticket and Operation Zero Tolerance. The fifth is to train at least six new peer educators on alcohol abuse prevention and highway safety issues. The peer educators will be available to offer alcohol abuse prevention programming to freshman seminar classes and other programs as they occur.

Select students will be given the opportunity to become nationally certified peer educators through BACCHUS, which stands for Boost Alcohol Consciousness Concerning the Health of University Students, or GAMMA (Greeks Advocating Mature Management of Alcohol) and will also attend conferences to obtain additional training and support. The selection and training process will begin this semester.

"We will conduct four, academic year activities focused on educating students about alcohol and highway safety issues," said Funke.

For example, on Nov. 20, a virtual motion DUI simulator car will be brought to campus. This will allow students to experience different levels of chemical impairment while viewing driving images on a projection screen in order to educate them on the dangers of impaired driving.

"We will partner with GC&SU Public Safety in implementing the programming and helping to achieve our mutual goal to keep students 'safe and sound,'" Funke said.

The “Safe and Sound” grant was created in response to the high percentage of alcohol-related vehicular crashes, injuries, and fatalities among college-age youth in Georgia, said Funke.

In a grant proposal, Funke cited statistics from the 2000 Youth Fatal Crash and Alcohol Facts, which reported that more 19-year-olds died in alcohol-related crashes (with blood alcohol content between .01 and .09) than any other age. In fact, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 and 22 year olds are the top six ages of fatalities in these crashes, the report said.

The proposal also cited the 2000 Annual Assessment of Motor Vehicle Crashes published by the National Center for Statistics and Analysis in collaboration with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which showed that people killed in alcohol-related crashes was up 2 percent from 1999.

Outcomes of some of the grant-related activities, such as the CORE Institute Alcohol and Drug Survey, will be tabulated and summarized, and then provided to various university resources, such as Student Health Services, the Office of Student Affairs, and the Alcohol and Other Drug Task Force, for implementing policies and programs, Funke said.

For more information, contact Dr. Barbara Funke at 478-445-1780.