Committee shares alcohol policy analysis

March 19, 2007 —

The recommendations made by the ad hoc committee reviewing the student alcohol policy have been informally approved by Vice President of Student Services Robert Maurovich and President Eric R. Gilbertson. The Board of Control will forma lly review the committee's recommendations on May 12.

Four components of the existing policy were analyzed; the committee made recommendations for three of them.

The role of Resident Assistants was part of the committee's analysis. This issue was of fundamental concern for the University Residence Association and Residential Life.

Executive Vice President of URA Julie Phenis expressed her concern over resident's awareness of their rights in the case of an alcohol violation.

"[The issue] I felt strongly about was that residents are more informed of their rights and they are more informed of what is allowed to happened and what is not allowed to happen," she said. "And that there aren't going to be RAs sitting around waiting for them."

Assistant Vice President of Student Services Merry Jo Brandimore argued that the goal of the ResLife staff is not to catch every underage drinker in the act.

"What we're here to do is try to ensure that people are safe," she said.

The recommendation stresses that students need to be aware that they have rights and if they feel that they were approached in unfair manner, they should let someone know.

Another component of the policy that was analyzed was whether parents should or should not be notified if their underage student has been issued an alcohol charge.

The committee was unable to come to a concensus on the matter and recommended that the University conduct further research.

Brandimore said that Notices to Appear are a "powerful tool." They help pre-empt communication between students and their families, in addition to helping Res Life better understand any given violation.

According to Brandimore, students will often initiate contact with their parents after receiving an NTA, although she wanted to clarify that receiving an NTA does not mean that a student has been found guilty.

"The Notice to Appear is merely a notification to students that we need them to set up an appointment to talk to someone," she said. "That conversation becomes then the first point of contact, where we attempt to figure out that student's accountability relative to what happened in that environment."

ResLife values any observations made concerning the environment in which a student violated the alcohol policy.

While the current policy has parents notified of an infraction after an alcohol-related incident, Brandimore explained that it doesn't happen until the entire process is complete.

"Parents aren't notified until the entire process is complete," she said. "If a student appeals their accountability, we would wait for all levels of hearing to be completed before we would send any notification to parents."

Currently, the University is having its legal counsel research whether or not to differentiate between students who are financially dependent or students who are financially independent when notifying parents of alcohol infractions. This issue has proven particularly divisive.

"We don't notify any parents for people who are 21 and over," Brandimore said.

The committee's recommendations will be presented to the Board of Control on May 12.