New Jersey’s Monmouth University
a Model HERO Campaign Campus!

W. LONG BRANCH, NJ - Students, employees and teaching faculty at Monmouth University are teaming up with the HERO Campaign to prevent drunk driving. “We’re working with the Human Resources Department to get employees as well as students involved with the program,” said Suanne Schaad, the University’s Substance Awareness Coordinator, “A HERO Campaign committee is
being formed.”

Students will have the chance to try a simulated impaired driving experience using “fatal vision” goggles during a kick-off event in October. Other planned activities include a campus wide poster campaign recognizing December as Drunk Driving Awareness Month. Year–round, the school’s electronic message board regularly reminds students to “Be a HERO, Drive Sober!”

The university plans to put a team of graduate student volunteers together, who will go into the community and recruit local restaurants and taverns to become HERO Campaign establishments. This effort will work together with a training program for restaurant and tavern operators, teaching them to better handle intoxicated customers, and to ensure that all find alternatives to driving while impaired.

Monmouth has already begun introducing the HERO Campaign to its student body. All incoming freshmen  received a HERO Campaign packet in their dorm room at the start of the school year. The packet included information on safe and sober driving alternatives, as well as a listing of local cab company phone numbers. The school also provides free cab company vouchers which students can use for rides back to campus.

Other unique events held at  Monmouth include having local cab company phone numbers entered directly into student cell phone address books. Students are eligible to win a mini shopping spree at a local mall for taking the time to have the phone numbers entered into their phones. “It just makes it easier to find a safe way home, should the students need one,” said Schaad.

Many of Monmouth’s ideas can be duplicated at other schools, as more schools join the HERO Campaign.

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