Daemen College will receive $30,000 over the next three years as a recipient of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) CHOICES Grant, a funding mechanism for a collaborative effort between the Athletics and Student Affairs Departments to provide increased alcohol awareness programming for students.
Developed through the support of the Anheuser-Busch Foundation, the NCAA CHOICES Grant provides funding to NCAA member institutions and conferences to integrate athletics departments into campus-wide efforts to reduce alcohol abuse.
“We are very excited and honored to receive this grant from the NCAA,” said Dr. Greg Nayor, vice president for student affairs. “These funds have the potential to be transformative to the student experience.”
Brandi Guerinot, interim director of athletics, said, “This is another great example of teamwork across the college, specifically between student affairs and athletics. We are looking forward to the opportunities this funding will provide for further educational programming on our campus.”
The goal is for each Daemen student to be exposed to CHOICES messaging through an on-campus media campaign, which will focus on reducing the misperceptions of alcohol and other drug use, and to promote healthy and protective behaviors among students.
Daemen will provide events and activities to students that promote substance-free choices for socializing, and leaders from Daemen’s student-athlete body will develop and present a substance use and athletic performance module to their peers as a part of the Be the Best You program. Materials dedicated to health promotion and alcohol awareness developed for the campus-wide education campaign will also be provided to students as part of their orientation to the college.
Programming developed through the NCAA CHOICES Grant will be implemented at Daemen beginning next fall, and run through the 2020-21 academic year.
This is the third major grant that Daemen has received from the NCAA since becoming an active member of NCAA Division II beginning in the 2015-16 academic year. Additional grant funding which totaled more than $89,000 has come from the NCAA Ethnic Minority and Women’s Internship Grant and the NCAA Strategic Alliance Matching Grant.