TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – The University of Alabama leads the nation with seven students named to the 2008 USA Today All-USA College Academic Team.

Adam Harbison, USA Today All-USA College Academic Team, Third Team
Hometown: Crane Hill
Major: Healthcare management, Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration
Career goal: Healthcare law

Adam Harbison isn’t satisfied with telling people to quit smoking. He wants to equip a legion of anti-smoking advocates with a toolkit to help them make their college campuses smoke-free.

Harbison, who completed his degree in December 2007, served as National Advocacy Chair for Colleges Against Cancer (CAC), a national program with 366 chapters and more than 6,000 student volunteers. With the help of a professor, Harbison figured out advocates faced three problems when pushing for smoke-free policies on campuses: lack of administrative and staff support, lack of student involvement and lack of resources.

So to help students overcome those obstacles, Harbison put together a toolkit, including tips, media guides, sample tactics, a model policy and campaign timelines. He pushed for the toolkit’s approval from the American Cancer Society (ASC), and by September 2007, he distributed the toolkits to more than 250 college students and ACS staff members during the National Collegiate Leadership Summit.

“I believe the toolkit meets my primary goal: to simplify and strengthen this advocacy effort so that all CAC members, regardless of their experience or knowledge, can mount powerful smoke-free campaigns,” Harbison wrote in his application for the USA Today All-USA College Academic Team.

As he began working on research for the toolkit, he enlisted the help of Dr. Marilyn V. Whitman, clinical professor and program coordinator for the health care management program in UA’s Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration to help him publish his findings. She and Harbison also are working on a study about how to make Alabama hospital campuses smoke-free.

“Adam is the most hardworking, dependable, insightful, intelligent and well-rounded individual I have ever had the pleasure of knowing,” Whitman wrote in her letter of reference for Harbison.

Harbison is the recipient of a Harry S. Truman Scholar award and a Betty Loomis Endowed Scholarship and is a member of Beta Gamma Sigma business-program honor society. In addition to his work in the CAC, he served as chairman for the UA Relay for Life, an overnight fundraising event for the American Cancer Society, and served on the state leadership council for the relay. He also served as an intern for Alabama State Treasurer Kay Ivey, was a member of the University Honors Program and played trombone in UA’s Million Dollar Band

He is the son of Phillip and Vickie Harbison.

view complete story at University of Alabama News