How Colleges Should Prepare for Alcohol Service

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Jill Pepper joined TEAM Coalition in 2002, but only recently has the nonprofit's executive director witnessed an exponential increase in the number of colleges and universities seeking the type of training offered by TEAM (Techniques in Effective Alcohol Management), as more schools make the decision to offer stadium-wide alcohol sales at sporting events. AB senior editor Paul Steinbach asked Pepper about the unique challenges posed by alcohol service within the campus setting.

What took so long?
That's a great question. I want to preface everything with a great appreciation for the fact that the schools that have made the decision are not diving into the deep end head-first. Many of the schools we work with are considering this decision carefully, and they are making the transition at a slow pace that makes it comfortable for those operating the facilities, as well as the organizations running the schools. So in some cases it's provosts, some cases it's the president — there are all different structures, depending on the university. But I think to answer your first question about what took so long, nobody wanted to do it wrong. Everyone wanted to learn from everyone else. And so you have a couple of schools — and I'm going to mention West Virginia as an example, even though they weren't the first, but they were one of the larger schools and they were pretty loud about it, that they saw that this was not only a smart decision from an economic perspective, but it was a smart decision from a security and safety perspective. And it proved to be true. And then a couple more schools took the dive, and it continued to prove to be true, and then the NCAA itself made the decision to serve at its championship events. It has been tested for the College World Series and lacrosse and some of the other championships, but these past men's and women's Final Fours were the first time alcohol was served for the basketball championship, which I think is a big opportunity for the NCAA to prove the concept that alcohol service can encourage responsibility while also increasing revenue. That was a big tipping point, as well as the SEC's decision to no longer ban the schools from deciding for themselves if it makes sense. But that's an important question: Does it make sense for the school?

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