Alcohol: Probation announced

By Seth Brown     2/24/11 6:00pm

Dean of Undergraduates John Hutchinson sent out an e-mail yesterday placing the residential colleges on alcohol policy probation, effective immediately. Hutchinson cited the abuse of hard alcohol - which he defined as anything other than beer, wine or ale - and the danger it was creating for students as the impetus for this decision.Martel College president Kevin Tran said that each college will enforce a probation on serving and providing hard alcohol to minors. However, the exact policy enforced by each college and the method of enforcement will vary by college.

Hutchinson cited unacceptably high levels of risk to student life for the timing of the announcement of the probationary period.

"We had multiple very serious threats to students' health within the week period leading up to the meeting," Hutchinson said. "That placed a sense of immediacy on the problem."

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Tran said that the significant rise in number of EMS transports due to intoxication has been frightening.

"In addition to the number, it's the severity of it - in the last two weekends, there have been a significant number of ambulances on campus all at once," Tran said. "To have five ambulances on one college campus is a drain on resources for the rest of the city.

According to Tran, somewhere on the order of 95% of our EMS transports have been due to hard liquor. Tran said that the new measures shouldn't be seen as punishment, but rather a provision.

"We just want people to understand the severity of the EMS transports have significantly increased - our fear is a loss of student life," Tran said. "We want to say we've done everything we can to prevent that."

Lovett College Chief Justice Jay Patel said that although there may be a correlation between the increased number of students on campus and the rise in alcohol-related incidents, it is difficult to pinpoint the exact cause.

"When we introduced each of the new colleges, we talked about logistics - we never really talked about the effects on what's going to happen in terms of the alcohol policy," Patel said. "[The current issue] is not something they really could have thought about, it's just something that we didn't know how to handle."

Hutchinson said that he thought the rise in abuse of hard alcohol is a cultural issue, and that historically students have chosen to drink beer at Rice.

"I think that in many cases, people look to what they perceive to be the cultural norm and then they attempt to meet the expectations of that cultural norm," Hutchinson said. "If a lot of people start drinking hard alcohol, then people perceive that that's what people do, but that's not our history at Rice."

The probationary period is necessary, Hutchinson said, because if the problem is to be resolved through education, community awareness and community enforcement, it will take time to reach a viable solution. In the meantime, Hutchinson said it is necessary to address the problems of hard alcohol so that students will remain safe.

In the letter sent out to the student body, Hutchinson wrote that the probation will be in place until further notice, which he said means until effective education and enforcement measures are put in place.

Hutchinson said that when he discussed the degree of the problem with student leadership, they asked to take on responsibility for it.

"The most effective responses are those which are student-initiated and student-created," Hutchinson said. "That's why these solutions are not in the letter - they're still being created."

Brown College President Joey Spinella said he anticipates working with the leadership of Brown to draft a plan that that they can implement together as a community.

"We have not yet determined the specific logistics but it will have short-term programming as well as long-term programming," Spinella said. "The college system is a defining characteristic of Rice, so it is most effective for each college to join together as a community and determine the best way to solve this issue."

Every college will hold a townhall-style meeting at 10 p.m. on the Monday night of Willy Week to spread the immediate message. Spinella said that in the longer term, the colleges are looking to establish more on-going integration of healthy alcohol habits in the college life and make changes in how alcohol is addressed during O-Week.

Spinella suggested that given athe existence of the current honor code test, Rice could implement a similar alcohol test that so that students would have to demonstrate a level of knowledge about the policy before registering.

According to Tran, for Martel, he believes that putting the focus on enforcement isn't the right way to go about it.

"I think the preventative measures are going to be enough," Tran said. "For us, we believe that we do have a really good community, good environment...I don't think that there are many issues at Martel specifically."

Wiess College President Charlie Dai said there will be an emphasis on assessing Rice's drinking culture. Dai said that at this point, it is imperative that students understand the urgency of this issue.

"I think right now it is best to make sure that everyone is on the same page, to make sure that people are really considering the issues," Dai said. "Perhaps the information wasn't disseminated well before, but we need to make sure students understand."

According to Dai, the best thing to do from this point is to have positive reinforcement and to let the students decide what is the best kind of action.

"We're looking at peer reinforcement in that students will look out for one another - it's important to let students make their own decision," Dai said. "We all have a vested interest - we need to make smart decisions that would be best for our entire community."

According to SA President Georgia Lagoudas, the SA will promote and support the newly-created Drinking Culture Task Force, so that the committee can quickly work to put together a long-term education plan and steps to take in order to promote campus-wide awareness. She said the DCTF can also work to help the colleges develop structures within each of their community that supports safe and responsible behavior.

"The DCTF will continue with their plan to address the drinking culture at Rice, but this will now be done with a sense of urgency in the light of the situation," Lagoudas said. "I hope that they can serve as a central source of information regarding alcohol abuse and can work closely with administration and college leadership."

Sid Richardson College freshman Caitlin Devereaux said that considering the recent instances of hard alcohol abuse, something needed to be done. She said that while the Rice alcohol policy has placed a lot of trust in the hands of the students, some students have violated that trust through their irresponsibility.

"While many Rice students have respected the alcohol policy, it is important to recognize that we are a community, and the full support of all students is needed to find and implement solutions that promote drinking safety for our campus as a whole," Devereaux said. "The administration has trusted students for a long time, members of our community violated that trust, and now is our chance to earn it back."

Brown College junior Philip Tarpley said that the alcohol policy is a privilege, not a right, and students need to show the administration that they can act responsibly. The problem currently is not the amount of alcohol, Tarpley said, but the culture surrounding it.

"Drinking at Rice used to be focused more on social drinking," Tarpley said. "Now we see a lot more binge drinking, which is much more harmful."

Hutchinson said that while it was unfortunate the announcement of the probation came right before spring break, it was important to protect the safety of students.

"I think that this action is intended to spark an ongoing conversation about the uses and abuses of alcohol and spring break is going to interrupt that, but the timing is such that I really think that action is needed," Hutchinson said. "That's why I initiated action with the students and that's why students asked for the responsibility.

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