This June, most of the students who knew Matthew Sunshine personally will graduate. It’s been nearly three years since the SESP freshman died due to alcohol poisoning in his Foster House dorm room.
Since then, the Sunshine family has engaged in a more than year-long legal battle with the University, been awarded a no-fault $2-million settlement and, most recently, received a report from the administration’s lawyers on the University’s progress on the 10-part non-economic rider to the settlement.
Legally, the case is closed.
But the tension between Jeffrey Sunshine, Matthew’s father, and the University is far from resolved.
After receiving an update in late March from the University’s lawyers about the progress on the non-economic terms of the settlement, which stipulate the University will support and implement a series of programs and research aimed at deterring binge drinking, Sunshine said he is not pleased with how the University has followed through with the agreement.
Sunshine said he is concerned about the vagueness of the language in the report, the lack of concrete action on many of the provisions and its overall “dismissive” tone.
“I find the content of the report to be profoundly disappointing,” Sunshine said.
University Provost Dan Linzer said he does not believe the University has failed to make sufficient progress on the rider and added administrators and NU staff members are also working beyond the terms of the document to encourage a safer drinking culture on campus.
“I don’t know what more we could be doing to comply,” Linzer said.
Beyond legal obligations, University President Morton Schapiro said in a recent interview with The Daily that it is difficult to measure how, or if, the drinking culture on campus has changed.
“Is the campus a lot safer as a result of that terrible tragedy? You know, I don’t know,” Schapiro said.
‘There’s no magic solution’
The tension between the University and Sunshine has more to do with action - an area in which Sunshine claims the University has seriously lagged – than intent. While NU has not legally violated any of the provisions of the rider, which allow for a two- to three-year time frame in which to complete most of the terms, Sunshine said the report reflects a lack of either clarity or prompt action.
The Daily has obtained an exclusive copy of the three-page report in which the University’s representatives at Sidley Austin Law Firm describe the status of each of the provisions.
Sunshine said the report fails to provide specific and complete updates on the University’s progress. Some of the updates are one or two paragraphs in length, while others are no more than a sentence long.
In response to the eighth term of the agreement, which stipulates the University will support and promote the creation of alcohol- and substance-free housing, the report is succinct and, according to Sunshine, “vague at best.”
“Northwestern agrees to continue to support and publicize the availability of alcohol-free and other substance-free housing options for students of Northwestern,” the report reads.
One of the only measures that has been fully completed is the call to review the University’s Responsible Action Protocol, which “expects” students to call in situations “involving imminent threat or danger to the health or safety of any individual(s).” That code was reviewed in the fall and, for the most part, left intact.
Sunshine said he wishes it was more punitive in nature and said students who do not call in such a situation should be held accountable.
In addition, Sunshine said the University has failed to regularly communicate with him about its progress, noting he had to request an update several times before receiving one in March.
Linzer said the University’s contact with Sunshine is limited by the legal nature of their relationship.
“For legal reasons we have to be very careful about our legal actions with him,” Linzer said. “But I have met with him recently, and the University is fully invested in complying with the rider and in doing even more.”
Linzer pointed to the success of the Red Watch Band program and NU’s recent decision to join the Learning Collaborative on High-Risk Drinking, a group led by Dartmouth College President Jim Yong Kim. The 14 schools participating in the coalition, also called the Dartmouth Collaborative, will hold meetings and exchange information to discourage binge drinking on college campuses.
“It’s about Matthew Sunshine, and it’s also about the student population at large,” Linzer said. “But there’s no one magic answer to solving this problem. We are not going to rush into something when they are so many opinions about how to address dangerous drinking habits.”
Students as beneficiaries
But for Sunshine, the clock has been ticking since his son died in his dorm room in June 2008 after consuming enough alcohol to register a .396 blood alcohol content, according to medical reports.
“I believe, as the intended beneficiaries of the rider, students have the right to hold the University accountable for the terms of the rider,” Sunshine said. “It’s for them. If the University is not acting in a timely manner, it affects them, and I have not seen the administration do that with the rider, based on the report I received and the lack of communication.”
One of Sunshine’s attorneys, Timothy Tomasik, released a statement to The Daily on Thursday on behalf of the Sunshine family.
Tomasik was one of three attorneys from Clifford Law Offices who represented the Sunshines in their suit against the University, helping the family to secure a $2-million settlement.
“With the anniversary of Matthew Sunshine’s death approaching, the implementation of the Red Watch Band program has been quite laudable, however, it’s a bit of a disappointment there has been such a passage of time in implementing the scholarship, academic research and educational website on binge drinking for students.”
The scholarship in Matthew Sunshine’s name will be implemented, on schedule, in the fall of 2011 according to the report. As for the website, the last provision of the agreement, progress has yet to be made, though the rider also promises it will also be available in the fall of 2011.
‘I still haven’t gotten over it’
Tomasik’s praise of the Red Watch Band program is echoed across campus by administrators and health educators alike. The de facto poster child for alcohol education on campus, the Red Watch Band program is more about treatment than provision, according to Lisa Currie, who directs the program at NU as well serving as the director of Health Promotion and Wellness.
“It’s just one really important component in addressing drinking on campus,” Currie said. “Students are going to be in situations where they, or their friends, are consuming too much alcohol. We are there to make sure they know what to do next and are compelled to act on that knowledge.”
The program was first piloted by Matthew Sunshine’s mother, Suzanne Fields, at Stony Brook University in New York, where she teaches.
Communication senior Kelli Greenberg was one of Matthew’s closest friends at NU. After his death she helped bring the program to NU as a way of “honoring Matt and keeping anything like that from happening ever again.”
“It was so incredibly hard when he died,” said Greenberg, a student board member on The Daily’s parent company, the Student Publishing Company. “I still haven’t gotten over it, I keep a picture of him on my desk. But the Red Watch Band program gave me a way to at least try and make a difference.”
‘We can always do more’
Currie and Greenberg have worked together to tailor Red Watch Band’s programming to NU students. At the end of Spring Quarter, Currie said she will begin working on a report to be given to th
e Sunshines about the program thus far.
Since its implementation in spring of 2010, Currie said more than 800 students at NU have participated in the program, which aims to educate and equip students about how to act in high-risk situations where alcohol is present. Most of those participants have been student group leaders, though she intends to recruit more students in non-leadership positions.
“It’s definitely something we’re aware of, how to target more students,” Currie said. “Eight hundred is great, but we can always do more.”
Currie said most of the presidents and risk managers in Greek chapters go through training, as well as all peer advisers.
Jeffrey Sunshine maintains that had students called for help sooner, his son would not have died.
In a recent meeting with The Daily, Schapiro said he was proud there were no hospital transportations due to alcohol during last fall’s Wildcat Welcome week.
Greenberg said many factors likely contributed to the success, but that she thought there was probably some correlation to the Red Watch Band program.
Sunshine, however, is a bit more cautious about his praise.
“Yes, that is a great thing,” Sunshine said. “We were really happy to hear that, and I know the Red Watch Band program has been very successful. But, to be totally honest, I think there was also a whole lot of dumb luck surrounding that as well.”
‘Sunshine is getting more than he asked for’
Another point about which Sunshine and the administration agree is the need for more empirical research on how to effectively treat and deter binge drinking. Schapiro, a noted labor economist, said it’s difficult to measure the success of a program without hard numbers.
“We have all these different experiments out there, and no one has ever systematically analyzed the data,” Schapiro said. “This is what I do. I do data, right? And so does Jim (Kim). So I offered - in any way I can. I’m really glad that Northwestern’s partnering with Dartmouth on this because I’ve been frustrated as a president for 11 years.”
To that extent, Schapiro hired Dr. Michael Fleming, a member of the prestigious Institute of Medicine, in January 2011. Fleming, whose name appears in several places on the rider, is in one of the few specific people cited throughout the report. He is also one of 10 scientists working with the Dartmouth Collaborative.
Most notably, Fleming is charged with leading a variety of pilot studies about binge drinking on campus. The rider mandates the University spend at least $150,000 over a three-year period, starting “if practicable” in fall of 2010.
Fleming said he has had several meetings with administrators about the best way to allocate this research since arriving on campus in the winter.
“The intent of this settlement is going to be realized through this research,” Fleming said. “Given everything that we’re doing, Sunshine is getting more than he asked for.”
Though Fleming said most of the research is still in the “planning stages,” he recently hired a full-time research assistant to help with implementation.
Fleming said he plans to look at how screening students for high-risk drinking behaviors before appointments at health service centers on campus could be implemented as well as following up more extensively with students who have been hospitalized due to alcohol consumption. He also intends to study the success of the Red Watch Band program.
“We don’t know much about what Fleming is doing,” Sunshine said. “We thought we would get a chance to have some input or allowed suggestions about the research. That hasn’t happened.”
Fleming, who said he meets frequently with the administration, including Linzer, said he would be willing to meet with Sunshine.
“The administration has been very supportive,” Fleming said. “We are committing ourselves to this in every way possible.”
‘The rider is his legacy’
Around the same time Matthew Sunshine’s class graduates this June, University representatives will attend the first Dartmouth Collaborative meeting. Though Schapiro initially said he would be in attendance, Currie said Schapiro could no longer make the meeting.
Still, she said she expects he will be very involved.
“I think it was a really important step for him to get behind the collaborative,” Currie said. “It’s a visible way for students and administration to see the University is serious about drinking on campus.”
Just days before the first meeting, most of the students who knew Matthew Sunshine will graduate.
It’s a fact that is not lost on Currie.
“We invoke Matt’s spirit a lot at Red Watch Band,” Currie said. “But as students in his year graduate, and it gets farther away, I think he becomes more of a specter.”
Sunshine said he is not as worried about the graduation of his son’s class but instead is focused on the implementation of the agreement’s terms.
“If the University fulfills the rider it won’t matter,” Sunshine said. “That’s his memory. The rider is his legacy in a lot of ways.”
