Panel reacts to reports of alcohol abuse, sexual assault

In response to a high number of alcohol-related hospitalizations and alleged sexual assaults over February's pickups weekend, residential college advisers held a panel discussion yesterday night designed to spark a campus-wide dialogue about alcohol abuse on campus.

The discussion, hosted by Wilson College, featured two panels. The first included representatives from University Health Services (UHS), Public Safety and the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students. The second, which was off the record and closed to the press, included a conversation led by three students: a volunteer paramedic, a sexual health adviser and an eating club president. All individuals present who were not students were asked to leave to allow students to have an open and uninhibited conversation.

During the first panel, University officials refrained from mentioning specific incidents, citing legal constraints protecting individual students' right to privacy. Chief Medical Officer Danny Silverman, however, related some of the events of pickups and initiations weekend without mentioning the names of students or specific eating clubs.

Silverman said that a number of students developed gastroenteritis because "students were drinking each other's vomit" and said that several students were locked in rooms and told they could not come out until they had finished an "extraordinarily large" amount of alcohol.

When an audience member asked if there had been any confirmed uses of date-rape drugs on campus, John Kolligian, UHS director of counseling and psychological services, said the department had screened several patients but found no evidence of drugging.

Though none of the University officials provided statistics detailing reports of sexual assault over pickups and initiations weekend, they all admitted abuse was a problem on campus. "One [sexual assault] is too many and there have been more than that," Silverman said.

In an earlier meeting with residential college masters, UHS and Public Safety officials told the masters that this year was "an unprecedented bad Bicker season" in terms of crimes and illness, one RCA who was briefed by his college's master told The Daily Princetonian earlier. Silverman has also described this year's incidents as a "perfect storm."

Federal law requires universities to report incidents of sexual assault, and Public Safety's website has a log which tracks all reported incidents while preserving individual anonymity. Public Safety, however, only provides information on reports it receives, and the department is officially reporting only one alleged assault over the weekend.

Victims can also report assaults to UHS, which is covered by different privacy regulations. Silverman supported his policy of not providing data on the number of assault reports received by arguing that people often take statistics out of context.

Silverman added that he was actually pleased that the number of students hospitalized for excessive intoxication has grown over the past four years, even though many people might consider it an ominous trend. "I'm delighted that more people are being hospitalized with us ... because they're in a safe setting," he said.

The organizers of the event expressed mixed opinions over the University officials' decision not to discuss the specific details of the incidents. Two Wilson RCAs said that Wilson College Master Marguerite Browning had spoken to them more candidly in an earlier meeting, and that the discussion had motivated them to take action.

"I don't think that's how people left [the event]", Wilson RCA Joanne Caceres '07 said. She said she was disappointed the panelists did not provide "concrete evidence" and "anecdotes," even though event planners had been "assured" that such accounts would be provided.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

Other event organizers suggested that panelists had said as much as they could while staying within the law, and that the facts provided were enough to motivate systemic change.

"I think we need to go beyond shock value and talk about responsible ways to deal with the issue," Wilson RCA Caitlin Sullivan '07 said. "The people who really care abut the issue don't need shock value because they realize it's longterm [and] systemic."

ICC president Marco Fossati-Bellani '07 said that while the eating clubs are often the focus of alcohol abuse at the University, they are only a venue, "and in that respect, the presidents of the clubs are responsible for what goes on at the clubs."

"Students need to realize they are always responsible for themselves and their actions when they are partying at the clubs," he added.

The student-only discussion, which followed the University officials' panel, focused on ways in which student leaders can help fix the problem in clubs and other organizations and emphasized the need for students to take care of one another as members of a community, several individuals present at the discussion said.

— What happened at pick-ups? (April 5, 2006)