From Dean of Women Frances Willard’s efforts in starting the temperance movement at the end of the 19th century to the successful student attempts to bring a bar to Norris University Center in the ’80s, alcohol has always played a large part in the public discourse at Northwestern. However, since the death of Matthew Sunshine from alcohol poisoning last spring, administrators and students have been re-examining the role of alcohol on campus and how to stem binge drinking.
“It’s the number one public health problem,” said Michele Morales, NU’s director of health education.
Morales said there are efforts underway by the university to evaluate a medical amnesty policy for alcohol and to “codify” changes that have already been made to the university’s alcohol policy.
However, she added that these changes would not reduce the enforcement of underage drinking.
“There will be, if not increases in enforcement, then continued enforcement,” Morales said. “Northwestern will not be a place that is an exception from the law.”
NU Director of Judicial Affairs Jim Neumeister did not specify which existing practices would be codified into policy, but offered a description of a procedure similar to amnesty for students who aid intoxicated students in need of medical attention.
“We often take no action against students – even if they may have violated a university rule – when they help another student in a crisis,” he wrote in an e-mail.
Students who seek medical attention for intoxication generally are required to undergo follow-up screenings and probation, Neumeister wrote. The students’ parents are notified, but otherwise Neumeister wrote that the mention of underage drinking is not passed outside the university unless the circumstances involve suspension or expulsion from NU.
Judging from meetings with Neumeister, an amnesty policy is likely to be established in the near future, said Associated Student Government Vice President Tommy Smithburg.
“He never says it’s an amnesty policy, although I’m pretty sure it will be,” the Weinberg junior said. “(Administration officials) want to lump an amnesty policy with how to enforce an amnesty policy and pass it all at once.”
While the administration has been reviewing its policy, ASG established an Alcohol Safety Task Force in Winter Quarter, which has been working to find methods to increase awareness of what constitutes dangerous drinking. The 14-member committee, which Smithburg leads, is lobbying to create conditions for students to participate in activities other than drinking.
NU’s lack of a centralized source of information regarding alcohol abuse at NU was a major issue that arose, said committee member Michael Lobel. The Weinberg sophomore said this issue led to his work to create a Web site to provide the information to students.
“Once you have an online portal, you can put all the education materials you want, and also to put all the contact information to get it,” Lobel said.
ASG External Relations Director Jilian Lopez also discussed how the lack of an NU off-campus housing office leads to increased risks of alcohol poisoning, since students do not have a definitive resource on how to proceed in an alcohol emergency once they move off campus.
“You lose that close knit feeling that you can talk to any of the CAs,” the Weinberg junior said. “Do you turn to the city? Do you turn to the administrators?”
Committee members and administrators spoke to the problems caused by the lack of information about drinking on campus. For example, 90 students sought medical attention for intoxication this academic year versus 73 last year, according to statistics Neumeister provided.
Smithburg initially attributed this increase to heightened awareness of alcohol’s dangers in the wake of Sunshine’s death.
“It means that more people who need help get help,” Smithburg said. “If there’s a fall, it means that less people are getting help who need it.”
He later acknowledged the figures could also mean an overall rise in binge drinking.
Meanwhile, Morales cautioned that amnesty policies have had mixed results. She cited an experience where, at a recent conference, the dean of “an Ivy League” school shared significant problems that the university had experienced since implementing an amnesty policy last year.
Lobel said there was no way to reliably eradicate the problem of excessive drinking, only ways to mitigate it.
“Trying to eliminate a behavior is almost impossible,” he said. “But it’s possible to change the culture to people going out to get buzzed from where it currently is, where the norm is going out and getting blasted.”
