Ramapo College of New Jersey || Health and Counceling Services

Health and Counseling Services: Awards and Recognition

Excerpt from The Templeton Guide

Colleges that Encourage Character Development:
A Resource for Parents, Students, and Educators

This guide profiles exemplary programs that "inspire students to lead ethical and civic-minded lives."

"As a progressive school with a vigilant eye to the future, Ramapo College of New Jersey endeavors to move from a traditional campus drinking culture to one in which positive social, academic, and personal development is expected and visibly acknowledged and rewarded. The prevention program at this public, Liberal Arts College includes the following elements:

Student involvement in peer education, outreach, and volunteerism promotes a visible model of citizenship, especially through activities that tackle the problem of substance abuse.

Alcohol and other drug education, infused throughout the academic departments and the co-curriculum, addresses the association of substance abuse with date violence, assault, incivility, and academic underachievement. It also raises for public discussion the issues of decision-making ethics, consequences of students' actions to themselves and to others, and ways in which the students' individual decisions can support or undermine the community in which they live.

Health and wellness programming provides a mechanism for teaching team cooperation, respect for one's body and mind, and the need for self-management and control.

All Policies are developed and all programming designed to teach responsible choices and set clear standards for behavior. Training for faculty and staff, alcohol-free activities, and substance-free residence areas enhance Ramapo's prevention program. And the prevention program contributes vitally to the school's strides toward its goal of helping students develop the solid foundations of knowledge, skills, abilities, and values required to be productive members of tomorrow's society."