Round Table on Drug and Alcohol Policy

The Round Table is a new feature of the Opinions section created for discussion between students, faculty, staff, and administrators. This week’s topic on Vassar’s drug and alcohol policy included the participation of Associate Dean of the College and Director of Campus Activities Raymon Parker, Strong and Raymond House Advisor Laura Dicke, Director of Security Don Marsala, Raymond House President Rick Rodems ’06, Student Fellow Jacob Shiffrin ’07, and EMT Matt Shapiro ’06. Round Table was coordinated by Rose Guiltinan, Guest Writer and Opinions Editor Amanda Melillo, appearing in italics.

I think the best way to start would be with the major recommendations of the committee are in general.

Ray Parker: I would just caution to say that these are recommendations to the task force, that may or may not be real, that would go to the Committee on College Life.

Laura Dicke: One of the concerns that I have had…There was an article printed [in The Miscellany News] where there were mistakes; one of them was glaring…There was the new recommendation for 25 guests, but it was cited against the current policy of 250 without the delineation of indoor and outdoor. If these recommendations are put in indoor and outdoor terminology, people will recognize that these recommendations aren’t really that much different [from current policy] at all.

I think we can start with what the current recommendations are, maybe to clarify where mistakes have previously been made.

LD: Well, the current recommendations are that the private party hosts would still required to be 21; that is unchanged. All private party hosts would still be required to take the party permission class, but the same as this year, it was instituted that students don’t need to be 21 prior to taking the class…The party class would probably look a little bit different; once all the recommendations have been either approved or denied, we’ll look at the content of that class. It is our recommendation that the curriculum be updated and renewed to reflect our new policies. All private parties taking place in the apartment areas would be allowed a maximum of 25 guests—that number came from fire code policy. That’s the current policy; there is a lot of confusion out there…In the beginning of the semester, we were told that the policy is 50, but it’s actually 25, so we’ve corrected that.

Matt Shapiro: Is it 25 per person, because more than one person can register?

LD: It’s 25 per house, inside. The [Private Parties] Subcommittee is recommending that the fire code be reassessed. It’s our understanding that the code is for the first floor only, and that there would potentially be 50 guests allowed per residence, which would be 25 more in the upstairs area—but that’s just a recommendation.

RP: And those fire codes come from the fire marshal; it’s nothing internal. That’s beyond Vassar’s control.

LD: And it’s not a change, it’s a mistake on the administrative end, and I believe 25 is what the party class handouts say. And all private parties that would take place in the residence hall multipurpose rooms would have a maximum of 50 guests. Now that’s very different from how it is right now—the multipurpose rooms can host a range of 50 to 250 people. We felt like that was a direction that we did not want to continue in. We’re recommending a one to 25 ratio, with 25 guests to every host. Kegs would still be allowed with a quarter keg to every 25 guests. Campus security would meet with all hosts prior to the start of the party to introduce themselves and to offer help if a problem should take place; they will periodically stop by to check in on activities, monitoring fire codes and behaviors. Students will be encouraged to call security if underage students enter the party or need help at no risk of judicial ramifications. However, if security were to stop at parties and there were problems, the host would be held responsible. So the whole idea is that we would be encouraging hosts to be proactive and take responsibility for their guests, and that would look radically different on the administrative end of things.

In terms of dialogue between students and security, what is the difference between what happens now and what would change?

Don Marsala: Well, that is pretty much what we have now, the officers meet with the hosts to go over the rules, tell them what numbers to call if they need help, if things get out of hand, if people start crashing the party, etc. They can call and we tell them we’ll stop by to monitor the progress of the party as the evening progresses. That hasn’t really changed.

LD: What we’ve been trying to do isn’t really a change, but to build the positive relationship between security and students and to let students know that’s why security is there. They can be there to help them and support them and make sure their party is a success.

Perhaps both students and faculty could comment on what they see might happen with social life because of policy changes that could occur on campus.

RP: This is really a three-stage process and it’s hard for me to speculate on what kind of social change is going to occur, because we’re so far removed from making any decisions. Students are going to have a lot of voice on anything that goes on. The goal isn’t to ruin social life; it’s to improve students consuming alcohol and helping students to understand the responsibility of hosting a private party.

To take it in a different direction: when you were considering possible changes to make, did you take into account what other colleges are doing and that some schools have chosen to have completely dry campuses?

Rick Rodems: The only times I’ve heard the phrase “dry campus” used is by people that don’t know what they’re talking about. It’s never been a part of the discussion of the Committee on College Life and the Task Forces and the subcommittees; that was not on the table.

LD: Yes, I would say it wasn’t really on the table for us, not that it’s not being discussed—I mean, there was a whole range of potentials discussed and it would be short-sighted of us to not take into account what other colleges and universities out there are doing. But there are colleges that are dry campuses and there are colleges that are probably even more far-out than we are.

Is Vassar particularly out there in terms of alcohol consumption?

RP: I would say that I think our students for the most part are very responsible. The academics here are fairly demanding, and that’s a top priority for them and they work very hard.

LD: I would agree with Ray that in comparison to other places I have been, Vassar students are fairly responsible when they are drinking and I don’t see the abuse that I have seen in other places. You measure it by the number of incidents that take place related to alcohol, amount of vandalism on campus, the number of parties that security is breaking up; that kind of thing.

RR: We take care of each other and we’re not obnoxious…usually.

You were talking about security and how you look to incidents that have occurred in the past. How have incidents of this year compared to the past?

DM: It’s been pretty steady; on weekends we get a lot of action, but I don’t think there’s been any real spike in any category. We have had more activity in the residence halls, and I think that’s due to the fact that, for whatever reason, people aren’t using the Mug as much. The Mug attendance has gone down for whatever reason, and that’s what I think generated the rumors in the beginning of the semester Security was cracking down when we weren’t really cracking down at all.

If Vassar’s recommendations go through, do you think that would push parties off-campus?

DM: There’s been no push to have parties off-campus. I mean, we want to have parties on campus.

LD: [The recommendations] are just sort of streamlining and tightening what’s happening. Right now it’s extremely difficult to register a party…All of that would be improved.

What was the impetus to look at the policy and places where it could change?

RP: There was a meeting last spring with one of the lawyers the College uses…Basically, what our lawyer said was that we should require the same kind of supervision at private parties as we do at public parties, meaning that Security should ID and bracelet, and that the Mug should supply the alcohol and bartenders, and set the same kind of procedures in place for public parties and private parties. That discussion led us to think about looking at alcohol consumption and systems a little more closely, in order that we can continue to improve the way we’re managing alcohol distribution.

Are there any rumors that you would like to dispel?

RP: There have been rumors that the administration is out to dry the campus, and that’s not true at all. I think that allowing an individual student to hold a party with 250 people is ludicrous…We all know that in the private parties that are occurring where there is a large number of students, [these] are not private parties. There are violations that are occurring because everyone is supposed to be invited to a private party. Now we have a private party policy that is being abused by students, and there’s no way that the College should tolerate a situation that is dishonest...We need to have a policy that makes sense, that people can agree to and live with. People are not going to get everything they want out of this process, but I think we can prove ourselves so that we can honestly say, ‘This is our policy and this is what we’re doing,’ so that it all makes sense.

MS: I’m not involved in changes in the Committee or alcohol policy, but I am an EMT…We haven’t seen a jump in on-call volume, if that’s a measure of how much people are drinking.

RP: How many years have you been an EMT?

MS: This is my second year. There’s a history of call volume that’s recorded; we keep records of calls we receive.

RP: Has it been pretty stable within the last couple [of years]?

MS: About 300 calls a year.

What is the EMT process when people call in?

MS: What is supposed to happen is that EMTs show up, the call is confidential, there is a report written that goes into your medical files. John Craig, the PA at Baldwin, our Medical Director, reviews write-ups, and as of now, at his discretion, he calls in people to talk about alcohol and drug abuse, and then sometimes he makes a recommendation that the person take an alcohol and drug awareness class. As for what happens after EMS is involved, that’s currently in discussion.

Jacob Shriffin: What’s nice that I was talking with Dr. Craig about is that students who go to the hospital or have the EMTs called on an alcohol-related issue won’t be back again—there’s a very low retention rate. That kind of speaks to the nature of how people are mostly responsible, which is a large juxtaposition to back home, where I live near a series of fraternities, where we still have the same assholes every year run through our yard naked.

RP: We have streakers here.

JS: Yeah, but it’s on a whole new level.

RP: I like to think we’re different from other places in a very positive way, even though the problems are still real.