What was once inaccessible to students at Trinity is now available right in the heart of campus. At the back of the 3rd floor of Elizabeth Huth Coates Library, any student can now access overdose reversing medication naloxone for free. Additionally, dispensers will be added to Automated External Defibrillator boxes this summer, making it available and accessible to students anywhere on campus.
Before 2024, Trinity did not distribute naloxone, commonly referred to as Narcan due to concerns about creating incorrect social expectations. Only TUPD and the health services administered the drug on campus, according to Marcy Youngdahl, director of Integrated Counseling, Health and Wellness Services.
Bryce Dye, senior biochemistry and molecular biology major, proposed the naloxone distribution program to address Narcan’s inaccessibility on campus. Dye partnered with Wellness Services to create the program in a collaborative effort with his other Peer Health Educators: Rhea Kumar and Lauren Hurley, class of ’24, and Sam Vader, senior computer science major.
Narcan is a nasal-spray treatment for opioid overdoses, designed to reverse the effects of the overdose in minutes. Access to such medication, even if unneeded, adds an extra layer of protection in case of an emergency, Dye said. For him, the program is personal.
“I actually had a close friend who had an opioid overdose from fentanyl adulteration,” Dye said. “In that circumstance, Narcan was absolutely incredible and amazing, and something that I wanted more access to.”
Under the advisement of Marlaina Widmann, assistant director of Wellness Services, Dye and the other students began discussing what implementation would look like on campus.
“There’s so many different models for Narcan programs, so we wanted to find something that we knew was evidence-based and also would work really well for the Trinity community specifically,” Widmann said.
The group then conducted research and met with both on- and off-campus experts to determine their next steps. According to Widmann, they eventually decided on a program that focused on workshops that would teach students the differences between various drugs, how and when to use Narcan and general harm reduction techniques when it comes to drug use.
Preparation was the primary goal of these original workshops, rather than access. When Trinity conducted the American College Health Association-National College Health Assessment (ACHA-NCHA) in 2023, according to Widmann, less than 2% of respondents reported ever having intentionally used opioids for nonmedical purposes.
“We weren’t as concerned with the purposefully used [opioids] because it’s not [as] widespread at Trinity,” Widmann said.
However, drugs can be laced, and students can still experience overdoses, Widmann said. The goal, then, was to prepare students by educating them and providing them with tools. These workshops were how the program operated for the first year, Widmann said, but this semester saw the reduction of barriers for students to receive the medication.
“Students can go and just take Narcan without needing to go through any sort of training,” Youngdahl said. “There are flyers on the box that will tell you how to use [it], and there’s a QR code that you can scan, too, to see a video, but it’s purely for take and go.”
Students no longer need to go through the same hurdles as before, and now have the option to access the medication if they need it, Youngdahl said. This evolution was meant to increase the visibility and awareness of drug safety, as well as create a more open dialogue about substance use on campus.
The dispenser in the library was sponsored by a grant from a nonprofit organization — the SAFE Project — which Dye has been working with for a few years. Through funding from the organization’s grant, he used the opportunity to install the dispenser at the university.
“I think just starting to engage with harm reduction behaviors can oftentimes make you think about the inherent harm that is present and other ways to reduce that harm,” Dye said.
*This story was updated on April 30
