Roles of organizers and champions in building campus-community prevention partnerships.
OBJECTIVE
A campus-community partnership can be an effective vehicle for launching environmental strategies to prevent college alcohol-related problems. In this study, the authors' primary aim was identifying key factors that facilitate or impede colleges' efforts to build campus-community partnerships.


METHODS
From fall 2004 to summer 2006, administrators at five 4-year colleges participated in a multisite case study. Level of partnership development was the primary outcome.


RESULTS
Three interrelated factors facilitated higher-developed partnerships: college staff assigned to facilitate the partnerships who worked as community organizers, higher-level college administrators who served as aggressive champions, and community initiation of the partnership. The authors did not observe this trio of factors among the less-developed partnerships. A lack of administrative support made it more difficult for a champion to emerge, a college administrator who staunchly advocated for a campus-community partnership, and for those assigned to facilitate the partnership to carry out their work.


CONCLUSIONS
Colleges should appoint higher-level administrators to serve as champions, while also ensuring that those assigned to facilitate a partnership can apply community organizing skills.
Zakocs
Ronda C
RC
Oregon State University, Department of Public Health, College of Health and Human Sciences, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA. rzakocs@bu.edu
Tiwari
Rashmi
R
Vehige
Tamara
T
DeJong
William
W
D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000517:prevention & control*; D003159:Community-Institutional Relations; D006801:Humans; D013334:Students; D014495:Universities / Q000458:organization & administration*