The recent trend of universities adopting policies exonerating alcohol-poisoned students and their friends who call 911 have put administrators nationwide in a bind.
Statistics found by a Cornell University study show such policies increase the likelihood intoxicated students in danger will receive medical attention, and many top-tier universities across the country have adopted such measures in recent years. But administrators at many other universities have shied away from these kinds of policies, which they fear send mixed-messages about drug and alcohol use.
The University Senate’s Student Conduct Committee is weighing the same debate. The senate, the university’s most powerful policy-making body, will decide whether to institute a “Good Samaritan” policy here, which would reduce penalties for students who call ambulances for endangered friends.
The code of conduct punishes such students with penalties as steep as loss of on-campus housing. But universities across the country are letting them off scot-free, hoping to encourage them to call for help without worrying about the consequences.
Cornell University, a forerunner on the policy, instituted such a program five years ago. Since then, the number of students that have called emergency services to report alcohol poising has more than doubled to 155, said Deborah Lewis, Cornell’s alcohol projects coordinator.
And for Lewis, that means the program has succeeded.
“That is exactly what the goal was,” she said. “We think this is a big success because students are more likely to call police in alcohol situations.”
The University of North Carolina is the only one of the university’s five peer institutions considering such a policy, said Dean Blackburn, UNC’s assistant dean of alcohol and drug intervention. Administrators there have exempted students who call ambulances for their intoxicated friends from university penalties for the last six years. The student who is hospitalized, however, would likely incur punishment, unlike at Cornell.
Still, UNC has also seen an increase in 911 calls.
But UNC students aren’t completely off the hook. The school requires them to attend counseling sessions customized to each students based on his or her circumstances, Blackburn said.
“I would like to see us develop a clear and comprehensive policy that will sort of help us define the university’s consistent responsibility to students who seek medical help,” said Blackburn.
The senate’s Student Conduct Committee is undertaking its own survey of other universities with the policy, but has no immediate plans to act on its findings.
While any formal conclusions remain far away, Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs Warren Kelley, who oversees alcohol programming at the university but is not on the committee, stressed the importance of learning from other schools.
“We look at other schools that are like us,” said Kelley. “It would make us pause to find out why they don’t have it.”
But not every school has approached Good Samaritan policies with such enthusiasm. The University of Michigan, another one of this university’s peer institutions, employs a policy where students sent to the emergency room are required to do community service.
“If you drank and you’re underage, the effect is really on the community,” said Greg Merritt, director of residence education at Michigan. “There’s a whole big impact on the community. Some of that harm is that you might’ve gotten resources that somebody else would’ve needed.”
Eventually, the committee will offer a recommendation to the full senate body, which would have to approve the recommendation, along with university President Dan Mote and the University System of Maryland’s Board of Regents, which govern all 13 public institutions in the state.
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