Sanction policies unknown to students

According to Dean of the College J.J. Jackson, Director of Campus Activities Raymon Parker, and Main House Advisor Lauren Hoyt, the most common infraction at Vassar College is underage drinking. In an effort to combat these violations, the College is working to create a set of sanctioning guidelines designed to educate as well as reprimand students. “Awareness is very important,” said Jackson, “the Student Activities Office and Residential Life give me the understanding that regulations are quite well known.” Hoyt added that Student and Community Fellows are also informed of the College’s policies regarding infractions and sanctioning.

Several Student Fellows who wish to remain anonymous, however, disagree. “I talked to my freshman about alcohol and what the culture was like at Vassar,” said one Student Fellow, “but honestly I didn’t know much about enforcement…[In Student Fellow training] they didn’t list what punishments corresponded to what violations, but they did give us a binder that no one really read.”

The College provides opportunities for alcohol education through venues such as the website alcohol.edu, which incoming freshmen and Student Leaders are recommended to visit before arriving in September. Additionally, Student Fellows are told to encourage their fellowees to attend an alcohol awareness meeting during orientation week. These methods, however, are generally geared towards personal edification and, said the Student Fellow, “did nothing to inform [students] about school policy.” Student Fellows are a primary resource for freshmen, yet some feel inadequately prepared. “My freshmen often come to me asking about punishments and I don’t know how to respond…I don’t know much about enforcement, because I didn’t know about it when I was a freshman,” said a Student Fellow.

The discrepancy between what College administrators think and what Student Fellows know about the degree of awareness among underclassmen may identify a lack of policy “transparency,” the College’s current buzzword, as the main source of this problem.

“Most students found drinking have been freshmen and sophomores,” said Parker, but added, “the number of students found guilty for second time offenses is very low.” Clearly students are learning, but it’s through a process of trial and error. The nature of education traditionally values prevention over punishment, suggesting that a shift in focus is necessary.

While the College is taking steps to examine its current policies and procedures through the Committee on College Life and is aware of the timely nature of this issue, the student body has yet to see any concrete changes. Although the Committee has deliberated for months and held many productive conversations, no policy has been set. Furthermore, students have no access to the minutes of the Committee meetings, making it impossible to judge or even guess as to the progress made. If the College is really serious about creating a “transparent” system, they should give the students a clear idea of both the process and the products.

Members of Residential Life currently have a chart, created by the Office of College Life, which outlines basic drug and alcohol infractions and their consequences for first, second and third offenses. House Advisors use this as a “basic guideline” for deciding sanctions, especially for first offenses.

Even with this flow chart, there’s still a great discrepancy etween enforcement of these policies and official sanctions. Based on where the infractoin takes place, a student can face a number of different administrators to receive punishment. These leaves litle room for consistency and, thus, transparency.

The College should begin training Student Fellows in the particulars of policy so that they can provide appropriate answers to their fellowees’ questions. It would also be pertinent to hold an orientation session on current College rules and violations. While it is indisputable that alcohol consumption is a part of college life, making students more aware of the consequences to their actions will hopefully allow them to make safer, more well informed decisions.