GU Alcohol Policy Working Group

Party Training/Registration Discussion

2008-04-15T17:38:00.000-07:00

Summary of the GU Alcohol Policy Working Group

Wednesday, February 15 2008

Findings of the 2006 Campus Health survey (self-reported) were presented, which is the latest available survey of drinking behaviors at Georgetown.
1. The mean number of drinks consumed (last time socialized) in 2006 was: 6 for men, 4.8 for women, and the overall mean was 4.5. This represents a decline in all categories from 2004, when the figures were approx. 6.6/men, 5/women, and 5/overall.
2. In 2006, in response to the number of times a student has consumed 5 or more drinks in one sitting in a two week period (responses from 2004 bracketed), the numbers were: None: 51% (43% 2004); 1-2 times: 25% (27% 2004), 3-5 times: 19% (24% 2004), 6+ times: 4% (4% 2004). The numbers have declined across the board from 2004 to 2006.
3. Health survey being taken this semester – results will not be available until next semester.

Residence Life presented the following statistics for persons found responsible for the following violations (note, citations may overlap, e.g. a student may be cited for both alcohol in an alcohol free dorm and possession/consumption of alcohol). Numbers do not reflect students cited for the violations who were ultimately not found responsible.

Type of Violation	Fall '06	Fall '07
Code of Conduct	301	282
Alcohol in Alcohol Free Dorm	309	201
Possession/Consumption of Alc.	326	212
Unauthorized Keg	3	19 (did not start until October)
Noise (general)	359	192
Quiet Hour Disturbance	235	166
Incivility	10	3
Disorderly Conduct	30	25

Discussion ensued: Is campus quieter (i.e. fewer violations) because people are going off-campus? Or are violations unreported because students are taking measures to hide drinking? Or has stricter rules resulted in fewer parties being had overall?
Noted that the numbers above are only a snapshot – long-term trends cannot reliably be assessed yet.
Look into number of off-campus writeups? Suggested to contact Chuck Van Sant for numbers.
Noted that the Citizens Association of Georgetown is receiving/making many complaints of increased numbers of students partying off-campus.
Noted from students that, anecdotally, parties are getting quieter and more discrete. Many underage students are drinking hard alcohol in their dorms, going to bars.

Moved to discussion of party training program.
1. In old system, RAs physically needed to get list of students signed up for parties from DPS office – it was not emailed to them, and it was very ineffective.
2. New party registration policy: need to undergo party host training. 15 sessions in fall, 7 in spring – at least once per month. Students only need to go once in their entire Georgetown career – once attended, you do not need to re-go, even if it's a different class year.
3. 374 went as of February 13, 2008. Survey being taken soon to assess student opinions on effectiveness of party training program.
4. Topics covered in party training: how to be a responsible host, what to do if things get out of hand, RAs are there to help, etc.

Moved to discussion of a party host suggestion:
1. A 21-year-old could act as 'sponsor' in the case of no students in an apartment/townhouse being over 21. That sponsor would be subject to the same duties as the other party hosts, and would share the responsibility if something goes wrong and/or rules are violated. The objective being to encourage parties which occur in such apartments/townhouses to register legally, which allows RAs and DPS keep better informed of the situation.
2. Proposal roundly critiqued: Goes beyond permitting underage drinking to actively encouraging and supporting it. An apartment of students who are all under 21 are highly likely to have party guests who are all under 21. Georgetown has an obligation to shut these parties down if it finds out about them, not allow them.

Moved to discussion of party registration.
1. Currently, all parties must be registered by 10 AM Thursday for the weekend (and following week up to the next Wednesday night). Students notified later in the day if their registration is allowed. Students may register as far in advance as they wish, and register for every night of every week, but the decision to allow parties are made that week and not in advance.
2. Why would a party be refused registration?
  1. “Block parties” -- if there are several parties in one stairwell or row of townhouses, involves increased traffic and noise.
  2. Too many parties going on at once – priority generally given to those who haven't yet thrown party (so if it's your 4^th party on a crowded night, and another student is throwing their 1^st, likely for the latter to get approved over the former)
  3. Party hosts have not attended mandatory party training, or students are on housing probation.
3. Why is the deadline 10 AM Thursday?
  1. Stated that Thursday – Saturday is generally considered the 'weekend' at Georgetown, so better to start at the beginning of the weekend.
  2. Stated that DPS needs to be informed of the number of parties that are happening in advance to prepare. This is related to their staffing needs. i.e. if there are a large number of events on campus and a large number of registered parties, more staff may need to be brought in or existing staff redeployed.
  3. Why 10 AM? Staff needs to manually download spreadsheets, cross-check names, and confirm, which can potentially take some time. Does not need to be at 10 AM, but needs to be reasonably early to get back approvals in time.
4. Why just Thursday? Why not Friday, Saturday as well?
  1. Owing to the work required, Residence Life staff are reluctant to do it more than once per week. Also, staff don't normally work on Saturdays, making party approval that day problematic.
5. Discussion ensued: It is clear that the 10 AM Thursday registration is not capturing all the parties that are happening. Additionally, many people are registering for parties 'just in case' – meaning that the numbers of actual approved parties may be inaccurate and inflated.
  1. The old, cumbersome system of registration was found to only capture 10% of the actual parties on campus, defeating the purpose of registration (to allow RAs and DPS to ensure that students are partying in a safe manner, and to be there in case anything goes awry).
  2. If this system does not capture a significant percentage of the actual parties going on, it is not an effective system and needs to be streamlined to encourage more people to register.
    1. Counterpoint: Students can still have parties, they just run the risk of being written up. Failing to register a party, additionally, is not an alcohol violation.
      - Response: If purpose of party registration is to notify DPS and RAs so as to ensure a safer party environment, having unregistered parties does not help and in fact hinders this purpose. Also, if many students decide to register every weekend for every week, so as to never to accidentally miss a party if they want to have one on one weekend, the system will grossly inflate the number of parties actually happening, equally unhelpful to RAs, DPS and to those actually holding parties who may be denied because others have used 'placeholder' registration.

Suggestions

N.B. No suggestions have been formally voted on. They do not necessarily represent the majority opinion of the committee; they are only offered to inform students what ideas committee members are proposing.

Have a party registration database that checks if hosts are 21 and have attended party training. Students are automatically added once they turn 21. If either condition is not met, the student is not allowed to register. In this way, all Residence Life staff has to do is see if there are too many parties happening in close proximity – which should only take a few minutes. In this way, registration can be moved up later and can be done Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
If only one day can be chosen, move the party registration process to Friday, because many people forget the Thursday deadline, or don't decide until Friday that they want to have a party.
Move the party registration process up a few hours, which still gives time for Residence Life staff to complete the process and get back to students in time. Increases the amount of students who register, improving percentage of actual parties reported.

Party Training / Registration Policy

2008-02-06T14:52:00.000-08:00

Next meeting the committee is scheduled to debate the party training and party registration policies. We'd like to get your input (anonymously, of course, on some points!)

What's working? What's not?

Especially helpful are those who actually have thrown parties -- did you register your party or not, and is this routine? Any problems with RAs/DPS?

Do you feel the party registration system (must register by Thursday at 10 AM to be able to have a party) hinders your ability to throw a party?

Looking forward to your thoughts.

Keg Limit Discussion

2008-01-30T17:07:00.000-08:00

Summary of GU Alcohol Policy Working Group

Thursday, January 24 2008

Meetings will alternate between Wednesdays/Thursdays to allow all members to attend.
Next meeting will take place on Wednesday, February 13 and will discuss the Party Notification policy.
The APWG was given a history of the Disciplinary Review Committee's recommendation to Dr. Olson, the Vice-President of Student Affairs, last fall to ban all kegs:

The original policy in place from approximately 2002/3–Fall 2007 was to allow up to two kegs.
The DRC is comprised of four students (two GUSA appointees and two appointees by Dr. Olson), the Associate VP for Student Affairs, Director of Student Conduct, Director of ResLife, Assistant Director of Student Conduct and three faculty/staff members. Voting is by majority.
After the recommendation by the DRC, several town hall meetings and meetings with members of GUSA and other student bodies, Dr. Olson ultimately decided not to adopt the DRC's recommendation of a total ban, but instead limit kegs to one per residential unit.
Why did the DRC decide to recommend to ban kegs? Three main reasons.

DRC members contested that Georgetown University is one of the few universities in the United States that even allow kegs on campus.
Kegs encourage “last call drinking” at the end of the night, where if a keg is not empty at the end of the night, students are encouraged to finish it, because once opened kegs have a short shelf-life. This is different from cans of beer, where if at the end of the night cans are left over, students are not compelled to drink it to avoid spoiling.
Dividing the number of people legally allowed to be at a party (25 in Henle / Village B, up to 80 in Village A / Townhouses if outside is included) by the number of beers in a keg (165 12 oz. beers) works out to a high number of beers per person (6 per person in Henle / Village B). Thus, kegs 'inherently' encourage binge drinking.
Actual data of student drinking rates, as gathered from scientific studies conducted each year at Georgetown, finds that:

82% of Georgetown students drink
18% do not.
70% of students report that they drink 5 drinks or less on an average night. (1 drink = 1 12 oz. beer, 1 glass of wine, or 1 shot of hard alcohol)
30% of students report they drink more than 5 beers more than once in a two week period – this has been traditionally defined as 'high risk drinking.' Studies show that high risk drinking at universities is positively correlated with sexual assaults, property damage, etc.

Reports from GERMS indicate, however, that in almost all circumstances where students are GERMed, hard alcohol consumption is the cause, not beer.
The Committee then moved to discussion of the one keg limit. Arguments will be grouped into “arguments for keeping the one keg limit as is, or banning kegs” and “arguments in favor of increasing the keg limit.”

N.B. Simply because an argument is on this list, on either side, does not indicate any endorsement one way or the other. We want to list all arguments that were made in favor or opposed to the keg limit and allow readers to judge for themselves.

Arguments for Limiting Kegs	Arguments for Increasing Kegs
With more than one keg out at one time, more people have easier access to kegs and drinking.	Kegs effectively limit consumption: lines around kegs greatly slow down the number of drinks students have.
Pregaming is not exacerbated by keg limits; it doesn't matter whether kegs are numerous or banned.	The pregaming scene increases when kegs are limited, because students expect less access to alcohol and therefore drink more to make up for it.
“Last Call” drinking (see #2 on DRC)	Instead of finishing the keg in one night, students generally opt to hold smaller parties on subsequent nights to finish the keg.
Fosters an environment encouraging binge drinking (See #3 on DRC)	Binge drinking hasn't changed since the keg limit has gone into effect; clearly a keg ban does not address the underlying problems.
Very few universities allow kegs on campus (see #1 on DRC)	While many campuses have banned kegs, several of Georgetown's peer institutions have overturned their previous keg bans, finding them ineffective -- these include Harvard, Princeton, BC, GWU, Dartmouth and others. Also, in many campuses that have banned kegs on-campus, various off-campus social areas exist (e.g., fraternities or simply a large portion of students living off-campus) that mitigate the influence of an on-campus keg ban, whereas in Georgetown most students live on-campus where a keg ban would affect social life more acutely.
The one keg limit encourages smaller, more manageable parties.	While this is true to an extent, the decreased amount of beer means that hosts are far more likely to turn away more and more people away from parties. This has extremely deleterious effects on Georgetown's unique social scene, as parties become more 'exclusive,' and students are forced to move off-campus or to bars, which pose safety risks.
	If kegs are banned, or one keg which generally runs out early, students will exit for other parties, usually drunk, which is a safety concern.
	Hard alcohol consumption will increase to make up for keg limits, which is far more dangerous and hard to control.
	Resorting to cans actually increases alcohol consumption, because students do not have to wait in line but can instead immediately get cans. Students can also “shot-gun” beers, drawing safety concerns.
	A keg ban increases an overall feeling of isolation, especially for underclassmen. With more exclusive parties, students are increasingly cut off from access, and therefore an ability to meet fellow Hoyas, and in-room pregaming in response to smaller parties poses and safety risk.

Suggestions

Allow “What's After Dark” programming to allow the sponsorship of alcoholic events. This way, DPS could check IDs to make sure only those of legal age are allowed in, and bartenders or hosts serving alcohol can monitor consumption to make sure individuals do not become dangerously intoxicated.
Sponsor other alcoholic events that help students learn how to handle alcohol consumption post-college, e.g. a seminar on how to conduct themselves with alcohol during business parties, or a wine-tasting seminar.
Increase the keg limit back to two, but only allow one keg to be on tap at once.
Increase the keg limit back to two for Village As and townhouses, where the increased backyard or rooftop space allows it, but keep the one-keg limit for Henle and Village B.
Sponsor a bartender course at Georgetown, where students can become certified to serve alcohol at parties (could be used in After Dark programming events, for example).

2008-01-21T21:48:00.001-08:00

Welcome to the blog of the Alcohol Policy Working Group! The APWG was formed at the beginning of the Fall '07 semester after consultations between Dr. Olson, GUSA and student leaders on campus. Its task is to examine the alcohol policy and make recommendations to Dr. Olson. Through this blog, we hope to keep in contact with the student body through the year, and involve them in conversations about the policy. We will update the blog several times a month with agendas and summaries of meetings, upcoming topics to discuss, questions for you to get your input, and more -- so please check back often, subscribe to our posts, and take part in our discussions!

The group is comprised of 16 members, 8 students and 8 faculty/administrators. It is co-chaired by Dr. James Welsh, M.D., the Vice-President for Student Health Services, and Matthew Stoller (COL '08), a member of the GUSA Senate.

The makeup of the Alcohol Policy Working Group is as follows:

Co-Chairs:

Dr. James Welsh is the Assistant VP for Student Health Services and is co-chair of the working group. He has worked at Georgetown since 1995 in various roles. Since 2003 he has had overall responsibility for the Student Health Center, Counseling and Psychiatric Service, Health Education, and the Office of Student Insurance. He is also an Associate Professor of Family Medicine and in the Department of Human Science.

Matt Stoller (COL '08) is a senior and the student co-chair of the working group. He is a member of the GUSA Senate, organized the referendum on the keg ban last year as Deputy Chief of Staff to President Twister Murchison, and was the Director of Logistics for Work Hard, Play Hard.

Student Appointees:

Adam Alfi (MSB ’11) is a freshman and student member of the working group. He is a member of the Alpha Epsilon Pi Fraternity, an affiliate of the Jewish Students Association, as well as a student organizer for the John Main Meditation Center on campus. He is a GUSA appointee.

Patrick Dowd (SFS '09) is an International Politics major from San Francisco. He lives off campus and is the founder of Party for a Cause, a student-run philanthropic organization. He is a GUSA appointee.

Joseph Hill (COL '11) is a freshman in the College and a GUSA Senator. He is a GUSA appointee.

Anna Thomas (COL '11) is a freshman at Georgetown and the appointee for InterHall.

Obehi Utubor (SFS '09) is an appointee from the Office of Student Affairs to the policy working group as well as the Disciplinary Review Committee. She is majoring in Culture & Politics with a thematic focus in Theater and Performance Studies. She is a member of the Black Theatre Ensemble, The Write for Rights Campaign, the African Society of Georgetown, and the CMEA Peer Mentoring Group. Obehi will also be hosting a radio show on WGTB this semester in collaboration with The Fire This Time, Georgetown's only publication created by students of color.

Nathan Srinivas (SFS '09) is a junior studying Int'l Economics. He represents GERMS on the working group, where he serves as a Crew Chief and Director of Public Relations.

Lindsay Van Kirk (SFS '09) is a junior and the student representative from the Office of Residence Life. She is a 2nd year RA in Henle Village and has been involved in previous discussions on the alcohol policy earlier in the year. She is also the Business Manager for the Georgetown Phantoms.

Faculty/Administration Appointees:

Patrick Killilee is the Associate Director of Residence Life. He has been at Georgetown since August 2007, but has significant student affairs experience, primarily in residence life and judicial affairs, from previous employment. He oversees the upperclass residence areas and works closely with Student Conduct.

Patrick Kilcarr, Ph.D., is the Director of Georgetown University's Center for Personal Development. He teaches in both the School of Nursing and Health Studies and the Philosophy Department. The Center works with individuals and groups to develop strategies that reduce personal risk while simultaneously enhancing social/emotional potential.

Melissa "Missy" Foy (COL '03) is an Assistant Director in the Office of Undergraduate Admissions and supervisor of the nearly 200 student recipients of the GSP Scholarship. She co-supervised the GAAP program from 2005-2007 before transitioning into her role with the GSP students.

Bill Cessato is a 1998 graduate of Georgetown University. He is currently director of communications at the School of Nursing & Health Studies.

Joan Riley is an Assistant Professor in the School of Nursing and Health Studies, as well as a Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP).

Morris Britt is the Assistant Director of the Department of Public Safety.

Judy Johnson is the Director of Student Conduct.