Published: May 16, 2008 12:21 pm      

NEW - Penn State to implement alcohol awareness course for new students

STATE COLLEGE — First-year Penn State students will have to take an online alcohol awareness course as part of a new program designed to combat high-risk drinking.

The students would begin taking the preventative course called “AlcoholEdu for College” before arriving on campus. The program created by Boston-based Outside the Classroom is already used at more than 500 colleges around the country.

But Penn State officials say implementation at Penn State will be the largest of its kind, being administered to the expected 17,000 first-year students this fall across the university system.

School officials say there is limited but promising data that the program is working at other schools around the country.