Can dormitory advisors also be enforcers?
By Clair Abramowitz, Special Writer
Proposed revisions to Princeton University’s alcohol policy, including an increased enforcement role for dormitory advisors, are raising concerns on campus about potential damage to the relationship between advisors and the students who are their responsibility.
”A lot of people are saying that they don’t want to be turned into policemen, that they don’t want to have to report their advisees to the dean every weekend for what’s going on,” said George Lace, a Butler residential college advisor (RCA). Mr. Lace said he is worried that the new policy will dissuade prospective advisors from applying.
Nic Byrd, an advisor at Wilson College, said the changes could damage the counseling role that advisors play. “I feel like it’s going to be much more difficult for people to come talk about specific sorts of alcohol issues, mostly because there’s a certain point at which the RCA is going to be required to investigate,” Byrd said.
Such concerns were expected to be among those addressed today in a meeting with university administrators, according to Rob Biederman, president of the University Student Government. It will be the first official dialogue the administration has with students regarding the revised policy, which was drafted by residential college masters and the dean and assistant dean of undergraduate students.
The revisions include the implementation of public safety officer patrols in dormitory hallways and, starting next fall, an increase in the role residential college advisers play in enforcing alcohol regulations.
Although research and planning began more than a year ago, the revisions are colored by the death of a freshman at Rider University in April due to alcohol poisoning.
”We’ve had a terrible tragedy in our neighborhood, and we don’t want to have to experience something like that at Princeton in order to really look at what we’re doing to keep people safe,” said Hilary Herbold, assistant dean of undergraduate students. Alcohol consumption and high risking drinking seem to be a growing problem on college campuses, she said.
Currently, residential college advisors at Princeton are obligated to intervene in situations where the safety of the student is in jeopardy, and are forbidden to provide drugs or alcohol to those they advise, but how they address other situations involving enforcement of alcohol regulations is mostly left to their discretion. The new policy, which will be implemented in the 2008-2009 school year, outlines the actions advisers must take in specific situations much more explicitly.
It requires that any time a residential college advisor encounters “a violation of university rules and regulations,” he or she must address the situation and inform the students that they are in violation of the alcohol policy. When an advisor encounters certain “significant” violations, there is an obligation to “take action to stop the violation.” The policy notes that the category of significant violations includes, but is not limited to, parties where alcohol is being served to underage persons, drinking games, “pre-gaming,” and hazing or initiation activities.
”Obviously, when you’re talking about a spectrum of least to most dangerous, there’s not a bright line, so we had to decide where we’re going to draw that line and say, ‘This kind of behavior seems safe enough, whereas this seems to be potentially dangerous enough that we need to ask advisers to intervene and stop it,” Ms. Herbold said.
”We’re aiming for that middle zone, where something is being planned or going on that has the earmarks of something that could become dangerous,” she said.
Under the new policy, advisors “have no choice but to call Public Safety” if those they advise do not cooperate with intervening action.
However, the policy was modeled after those at other universities similar to Princeton where research and written surveys reported that the “expectation of intervention” did not adversely affect advisor-advisee relations, Ms. Herbold said.
”We’re very confident that this is not going to foster a climate of mistrust,” she said.
The new hallway patrols, which consist of two public safety officers monitoring all undergraduate dormitories from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, have also raised concerns about campus climate.
”The dorm is a community in and of itself, and depending on how you play it, you could consider it a large family in some senses,” Mr. Byrd said. “It’s a closed space, and having someone randomly, at least on a weekend night, be able to violate that … I don’t like it at all.”
Ms. Herbold called the patrols “one prong of a multi-pronged approach.”
She added, “The university wants to balance legitimate concerns about student privacy and the climate in the colleges with the consideration of their safety, and I do think that those discussions are ongoing.”
However, Ms. Herbold noted that public safety officers are often in the hallways for various reasons, to let locked out students into their rooms or to respond to complaints.
Despite the assurances from administrators, many students remained skeptical.
”I think this policy is probably going to build up more animosity between kids and administration and contribute to the idea that we as students are somehow against them,” said sophomore Sarah Hogarty, a member of the student government’s U-Council.
”A lot of students see it as being parented,” she said.
Mr. Byrd questioned whether the changes target the appropriate problem areas.
”Most of what the university is trying to prevent are deaths and near-deaths due to dangerous alcohol consumption, and from what I’ve heard, most of those are either people drinking alone in their rooms or take place during initiations in upperclassmen’s rooms,” he said, noting that both of those events are more likely to occur if underclassmen are afraid to throw parties because of the new policies.
Although the new policy is still in the “draft” stage and is subject to modification, Ms. Herbold said that the absence of student input in its formulation was somewhat deliberate.
”This is a situation where we felt we have a bottom line in terms of our responsibility that we have to meet. We will solicit student input to the extent that we think it will support that and inform that, but this isn’t in the end something that we are going to decide by popular vote,” she said.
Many students, though, called for a more holistic approach to alcohol on campus.
”You need to do more than just break up parties if you want to solve the alcohol issue at Princeton,” Mr. Lace, the Butler College residential college advisor, said.
”It’s a shift in the student perspective on alcohol that’s going to help students stay safer,” Ms. Hogarty said.
”What we need is to be watching out for each other, caring for each other, realizing that something really bad could happen, and knowing that there aren’t going to be repercussions for addressing those situations other than the fact that everyone will be safer and have done the right thing,” she said.
The university’s current program of alcohol education, which includes an Internet course for incoming freshman called “AlcoholEdu” and planned discussions with residential student advisor groups during the first week of school, is also up for revision.
Administrators, deans of student life, and University Health Services are working to create a new module of alcohol education with a peer-to-peer element, Ms. Herbold said. The program will be in place next fall, but may be piloted in residential student advisor groups this year.
”We want it to be an open and non-didactic program, because I think that the research has been done to show that those are the most effective,” Ms. Herbold said.
”It’s going to involve some very specific and real discussion of the kinds of decisions that students make about drinking in this environment and why they may make one decision or another about whether to drink, where to drink, how much to drink, and the factors that play into that,” she said.

