Safety Net Coalition
Mission and Purpose
In January 2004, Loyola University Chicago created the Safety Net Coalition, a group of faculty, administrators, staff, students and community members whose mission is to build a safer and healthier campus-community environment conducive to students' academic achievement. The purpose of the Safety Net Coalition is to envision, communicate, and execute a campus-community environmental management strategy for the prevention of alcohol and other drug (AOD) misuse among Loyola students.
Philosophy
Students do not make decisions about their use of AOD in a vacuum. They are influenced by the physical, social, economic and legal environment in which they live. Accordingly, an environmental management approach reviews AOD issues such as availability, policy, enforcement, norms and unstructured time, within the context of the entire campus community. It responds with prevention strategies aimed at varying levels (i.e., individual, group, institutional, community and public policy) to create an environment that supports safer and healthier choices about AOD use, thus decreasing the consequences associated with AOD misuse, which negatively affect individuals and community members.
Goal
The goal of the Safety Net Coalition is to reduce alcohol-related harm to individuals and the community by establishing an environment that discourages students’ misuse of alcohol and supports safe, responsible decisions about alcohol.
Membership
The coalition is chaired by the Wellness Center's Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention Coordinator and includes students, faculty, staff and administrators, including the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, the Vice President for Student Affairs, the Dean of Student Life and directors of Athletics, Community Relations, Judicial Affairs, Residence Life, and the Wellness Center. Community members of the Rogers Park and Edgewater neighborhoods are also members of the Coalition.