A group of administrators, faculty members and students will address high-risk drinking on campus and draft a report by mid-May, the University announced yesterday. The group will discuss how to create a healthier drinking culture and hold students more accountable for alcohol abuse.
The coalition — which currently includes Butler College master and electrical engineering professor Sanjeev Kulkarni, interim University Health Services Director Janet Finnie, Associate Dean of Undergraduate Students Hilary Herbold, Public Safety Director Steven Healy and five students — is soliciting nominations for five or six more undergraduate members.
"This is a health and safety issue: we don't want any of our students to be harmed (or to die!)," Vice President for Campus Life Janet Dickerson said in an email.
"High-risk drinking," she added, "has been an ongoing concern ... of the administration, the faculty and the trustees of the University."
Yesterday's announcement comes in the wake of controversy over newly announced changes to the University's alcohol policy, which include Public Safety patrols of dormitories for alcohol violations and a heightened role for RCAs in enforcing drinking rules. The revisions sparked criticism from students who were concerned that no undergraduate feedback had been incorporated in crafting the changes, and USG president Rob Biederman '08 recently met with administrators to discuss student concerns.
Administrators, however, said the coalition's formation is not linked to the recent changes or to students' objections to them. "It happens that they're more or less contemporaneous, but there hasn't been any connection between the two," University Vice President and Secretary Bob Durkee '69 said. He added that the coalition "really is intended ... to provide an opportunity for students to take a lead."
"This is not about drinking in general," he said. "This is about high-risk drinking, sometimes described as dangerous or excessive drinking."
Agatha Offorjebe '09 will co-lead the coalition along with Kulkarni. Other student members currently include Anna Bialek '09, Daniel Degeorge '09, Esther Lee '08 and Will Scharf '08. Dickerson said the student members were "nominated based on their interests and involvement in activities."
Lee said she is "positive that the coalition can do a lot of good on campus."
The group will examine the efforts of other universities to quell high-risk drinking and look at how Princeton can improve on that front, Durkee said. The idea for the coalition came about last spring, he added, and drew from recommendations by the Healthier Princeton Advisory Board.
Kulkarni stressed that students will have a vocal role in the coalition. "Student presence will have an important impact by providing a perspective and generating ideas from the very constituent identified in the [goals] articulated by the planning committee," he said in an email.
The coalition's efforts began earlier this semester, when the University established a planning group to outline the coalition's objectives, which include encouraging healthy behaviors and promoting social activities not related to high-risk drinking.
One of the group's specific goals, according to a University statement, is to "promote a culture in which undergraduate students who choose to drink alcohol do so responsibly in a safe social environment and make decisions about their use of alcohol, free from unhealthy peer influence."
Another is to "support policies and processes that hold individuals and student groups accountable for their actions with respect to alcohol use and that address problematic alcohol use consistently and effectively."
The coalition plans to offer three to five workshops in February for members of the Princeton community.
The group's conception comes as drinking on campuses has garnered national attention, sparking concerns from university officials and investigations by the media. In March, Rider freshman Gary DeVercelly died after binge drinking at a fraternity party, while this fall Justin Warfield, a freshman at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, died after consuming a combination of alcohol and heroin.
Following the spring death at Rider, charges were brought against two Rider administrators, which have since been dropped, and against three students, all of whom pled not guilty. Rider also revised its alcohol policy this semester, strictly enforcing a ban on underage drinking on campus, prohibiting any public displays promoting alcohol and including a "Good Samaritan" clause that protects underage students who come to the aid of intoxicated students.
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