By the campus community, for our campus community

Princeton’s UMatter was created by students, staff and faculty working in partnership. Through educational programs, social media presence and a website that functions as a hub of information, Princeton’s UMatter promotes:

• Being an effective bystander  – Getting involved BEFORE problems escalate, in order to prevent harm.
• Making healthy choices – Practicing self-care to achieve our full potential at Princeton and beyond.
• Caring for others – Each of us doing our part to look out for others and offer help and support.
• Taking action – Going beyond awareness to take action.

UMatter’s Framework

Princeton’s UMatter was created to provide a framework that links prevention initiatives across the campus. Under the UMatter brand, students, faculty and staff can more easily find resources, learn skills and utilize them to intervene effectively as a bystander and make healthy choices.

UMatter helps the Princeton community prevent and address three health and safety issues common to college campuses:

• Interpersonal violence and abuse (Respect Matters)
• High-risk drinking (Limits Matter)
• Mental health distress (Connecting Matters)

In addition, Action Matters is the "umbrella" or cross-cutting theme emphasizing the importance of making active choices, both for your own well-being and to support the health and safety of those around you.

UMatter's Methods

UMatter primarily achieves its goals through two approaches: health communications, which serve as opportunity to increase initiative visibility and enhance skills development; and service offerings, in the form of prevention efforts that span indicated and universal audiences.

Health communications methods include:

• Social media
• Events
• Website
• Giveaways and gear

Service offerings methods include:

• Trainings
• Consultations

UMatter’s Partners

Collaborative relationships with various University bodies (e.g., residential colleges, centers for diversity and inclusion, Graduate School, Outdoor Action and athletics) are fundamental to the success of UMatter. Our partners enrich UMatter programs and can serve as co-facilitators with staff in three key departments within University Health Services:

• Counseling and Psychological Services (CPS)
• Health Promotion and Prevention Services
• Sexual Harassment/Assault Advising , Resources & Education (SHARE) Office

Current students are key UMatter partners who drive UMatter's social media content and events. 

UMatter's Inspiration

While Princeton’s UMatter initiative is tailored to our unique culture, we want to acknowledge the campaign that inspired us: the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh’s UMatter campaign. We are grateful to its creator, Shelly Maxwell, and appreciate the wisdom and guidance she provided during our development process.

Social Media Policy

As an initiative of the Princeton Community and in accordance with the Princeton University social media policy, UMatter reserves the right to delete user comments that promote commercial ventures or that do not comply with other University or (platform) policies. Posts that are off-topic, abusive, contain profanity, are threatening in tone or devolve into personal attacks will be deleted. Account administrators reserve the right to review all comments and posted materials and remove such materials for any reason.