New year brings stricter dorm alcohol enforcement

Though the University has made no formal changes to student alcohol policy, it is stepping up education programs and vowing to enforce more strictly standing regulations concerning alcohol use.

"This year the RAs, MAAs and RCAs have been asked to increase their efforts to confront violations of the alcohol policy that jeopardize the safety of students or property or that show disrespect for the community," said Dean of Undergraduate Students Kathleen Deignan in an email.

To curb dangerous drinking this year, the University also encouraged the Class of '07 to take AlcoholEdu — a three-hour online course on alcohol and the law — during the summer, instead of when they arrived on campus.

"The policy is pretty much the same, but the tolerance associated with its implementation has gone down," Wilson College Assistant Master Rupinder Singh said in an email. "Especially when the case involves alcohol-related violence, vandalism, alcohol poisoning, etc."

According to the University's 2003-2004 Rights, Rules, Responsibilities, discipline for repeated offenses "may involve campus service, removal of on-campus residential privileges or separation from the University. Deans and directors of studies may require an alcohol evaluation by University Health Services Staff when deemed appropriate and may notify a student's parents following any significant incident of alcohol-related misconduct."

Parental notification for students who repeatedly violate alcohol policies was not included in the previous edition of Rights, Rules and Responsibilities.

Assistant Dean of the College Hilary Herbold said that parental notification was included this year because "parents need to know if a subsequent violation would lead to" more serious penalties, such as an appearance before the Committee on Discipline.

Though Herbold said she understands that the notification of parents raises a "boundary question," she said, "Parents are still sources of support and advice."

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Some University officials, however, have reservations about the system.

"The basic principle cannot be discipline and punishment. Rather, it should be self-formation," Singh said. "A good education means becoming effective citizens and better moral and intellectual beings . . . Students need to either understand or not disregard this goal."

Forbes College Assistant Master Joyelle Jones said she also thought there should be a shift in the current policy.

"If I had to change the policy, I [would] tailor the punishment more to fit the crime," she said. "For example, when students are forced to perform campus service for drinking violations, I would require them to serve in places where they're forced to see the effects of alcoholism. I would require them to write research papers on deaths due to alcohol on college campuses."

AlcoholEdu

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AlcoholEdu, which has been available to the past two freshmen classes, plays an important role in the administration's current strategy to combat dangerous drinking.

"AlcoholEdu was a great success this year in terms of sign ons and completions by incoming freshman," said Chief Medical Officer at McCosh Daniel Silverman in an email.

Gina Baral, coordinator of health promotion services, said in an email that 98 percent of incoming freshmen visited the site, and 85 percent completed the course. Baral said these were much higher percentages than those of the Class of 2006.

"We're extremely pleased with these results," Baral said.

When asked if the course was required this year, Baral said simply that participation was "expected."

University officials say the attendance jumped this year because the Class of '07 was directed to the site over the summer, before the pressures and distractions of the school year set in. The Class of '06 took the course once they arrived on campus.

"While it was somewhat successful [last year], students complained that once classes had started it was difficult to find the time to complete the program which takes several hours," Deignan said.

Meanwhile, University officials grapple with how to enforce alcohol policy on a day-today basis.

Singh stressed that his role as Assistant Master is not to actively police student activity.

"We do not burst into rooms or check them for alcohol (even when we know that there are Vodka bottles in a room)," he said. "The [assistant master's] role involves making a judgment call: that is to know which form of intervention is most effective in a given scenario. The foremost priority here is the students' health and safety, and their academic future."

A major concern is not only the safety of those drinking, but also its effect on those around them. The present drinking climate is hard on nondrinkers, Singh said, because of dangerous alcohol-related behavior such as vandalism and sexual incidents.

"Princeton is a close knit community and each student should be at all times civil and respect every one else's communal rights," he said.

At the same time, he said he would take a student with alcohol poisoning to McCosh and "respect their anonymity and talk with them, instead of reporting them for disciplinary action."

"In such emergency or dire situations, students need not fear contacting us," Singh said.