Colleges and universities across the country face concerns of alcohol misuse and safety for their students, and more often campuses have been working to educate their students on alcohol risk awareness, associate dean of Student Development Jodi Thesing-Ritter said.

Thanks to a $3,825 grant from M&L Brands, the local distributor for Miller and Leinenkugel beer, UW-Eau Claire was able to participate in an alcohol education training workshop that strives to decrease negative alcohol incidents on campus, Thesing-Ritter said.

“This is what we hope to be the beginning of community partnering with groups in our community as well as across the country to provide funding for this kind of education for our campus,” she said.

Last Tuesday, a group of five staff members and 12 student leaders attended a daylong workshop, which taught the participants how to train students with skills to prevent alcohol misuse in their peers, Thesing-Ritter said.

“It’s designed to be a train-the-trainer program,” she said. “We learn the information and then we learn how to present it in a way that will be interesting for our peers.”

The program, which is called Training for Intervention Procedures, or TIPS for the University, certifies its participants for one year after they complete a test at the end of the program, Thesing-Ritter said. The certification will allow the participants to train other students about the risks of alcohol, she said.

Freshman Rachel Fashing, a member of the Student Wellness Advocacy Team, participated in the workshop and said she learned useful information that she will be able to apply on campus.

“I learned a lot about how to handle different situations,” Fashing said. “We learned about how to intervene in situations that get out of hand when alcohol is involved and ways to keep students safer on campus.”

Counseling Services Director P.J. Kennedy also was a participant at the training workshop and said he thought the workshop was very effective at fulfilling its purpose.

“I had read reviews about it and it seemed like an excellent program that will be very helpful to us,” Kennedy said. “The most attractive thing about the program was that it was really focused on the training of students to help other students. Research says that the biggest influence on students comes from their peers.”

Thesing-Ritter said the overall goal for TIPS is to reduce the negative consequences Eau Claire students face because of alcohol misuse and to put a national perspective on the university’s local problem.