It’s 1 a.m. on Sheridan Road. There’s a girl passed out in a bush.
Last winter, Gabe Cohen and his friend made the decision to act responsibly in the face of alcohol. After noticing the freshman girl, Cohen and his friend called the authorities, got her water and stayed with her until the police arrived to offer her further assistance.
“I don’t know how much longer it would have taken her to die,” says the Medill sophomore, who is Red Watch Band trained. “There is a fine line between a nice level of intoxication and dangerously ill.”
It’s no secret that Northwestern students drink.
The Keg on Monday. The Deuce on Thursday. Party any day. There exists a culture around alcohol that cannot be ignored. Historically, the university has taken a “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach to alcohol on campus — if they cannot see the red plastic cups, then they don’t exist.
Two years ago, SESP freshman Matthew Sunshine died in his dorm room after taking 17 shots of vodka at a house party. That night, students carried him down to his room while a couple floors below while he was still conscious. The following day, another student found him dead. If the students had called the authorities, Sunshine might still be alive.
In September, Sunshine’s family reached a $2 million settlement with the university. Northwestern agreed to a rider laying out ten provisions aimed at reevaluating its alcohol policy. Now the university has taken a new interest in the alcohol environment on campus, opening discussion on how to address alcohol to ensure the safety of students.
This isn’t as basic as telling students underage drinking is wrong. Along with recognizing that students drink, the university is finding new ways to make students more responsible in the way that they drink, especially when it comes to dealing with high-risk situations.
“We’re working hard to keep changing things,” says University President Morton Schapiro. “[There are] always questions about redefining amnesty or articulating more clearly what it already is.”
Over Homecoming weekend, two students from the Elder Residential Community went to the hospital for alcohol poisoning. In one of those situations, it was a group of students who had also been drinking that took the initiative to call the authorities and care for the student.
The Responsible Action Protocol at Northwestern was designed before fall quarter 2009 to offer some protection to students who call in alcohol emergencies. The policy states that any student who takes “responsible action” in the event of a health or safety emergency may receive no or lessened penalties for any policy violations that might have occurred in conjunction with the emergency.
According to Assistant Dean of Students Jim Neumeister, the protocol was instated to encourage students to make responsible decisions without fear of getting in trouble. But in the protocol, the university makes no promises that students will not be penalized.
There has been dialogue on campus about “amnesty” policies adopted at other schools which ensure that students who follow guidelines in the case of an emergency receive no disciplinary actions.
But Schapiro says that even if the RAP were changed, he would be in favor of keeping the policy open enough for the university to treat each alcohol incident on a case-by-case basis. “You don’t want to have no consequences so that people make really bad decisions,” he says. “On the other hand, if they make really bad decisions, you don’t want any delay in ensuring the health of the kids. So that’s the balance. That’s why I think case-by-case and a certain amount of ambiguity might not be bad.”
Plus, the administration suggests that the “amnesty” policies at other schools are the same as the RAP, just under a different name. “Amnesty has become a generic term…for any type of policy that provides some level of protection for students who either summon or receive emergency aid for alcohol,” Neumeister says.
The university evaluated alcohol policies at 125 other institutions and found many similarities to Northwestern’s RAP, says Neumeister. “None of the policies I know of guarantee immunity from either meeting with university officials or educational actions being followed up by officials [or] by the possibility of legal matters with the police,” Neumeister says. “I am not aware of any school that has a ‘complete amnesty policy.’ The word amnesty unfortunately has given students a false sense of expectations.”
These “follow-up actions” to alcohol incidents are mostly educational in nature and do not typically involve serious sanctions against students who act responsibly, according to Director of Health Promotion and Wellness Lisa Currie. First time offenders typically get slap-on-the-wrist penalties, while repeat offenders may have to take educational classes, Currie says.
Northwestern is more concerned with the students who don’t call in the case of alcohol emergencies, according to Currie. As stated in the RAP and the Civility Policy of the student handbook, students have an obligation to take the initiative and call the authorities in the case of an emergency. Inaction may lead to further disciplinary measures. This obligation to act is one of the ten provisions listed in the rider from the Sunshine settlement.
Even though the RAP does a lot to cover the individual, it does not provide the same amnesty for organizations. In 2009, Weinberg senior and former president of the Theta Chi Fraternity Steve Bock sat in an Inter-Fraternity Council meeting during the announcement of the RAP, hoping Northwestern would provide some kind of protection for fraternities facing an emergency situation involving alcohol. After the announcement, however, Bock says he was disappointed by the result.
“In the Greek system, we were really frustrated by it,” Bock says. “The way the RAP reads, is that as long as you weren’t doing anything wrong you can report somebody and not get in trouble. But if there was something wrong in your house or something, sorry, you are still going to get in trouble. That definitely stands in the way of reporting something that needs to be reported.”
Bock considers this a huge roadblock in reporting an alcohol-related incident for fraternities because it puts members in a tough situation; they have to decide between doing what’s best for an individual versus doing what’s best for their fraternity.
According to the RAP, organizations do not receive the same treatment because student groups are held to a higher standard and are supposed to have established risk management efforts that handle dangerous situations. Such inconsistencies in Northwestern’s alcohol policy are just a small consideration for the University in the process of creating a safer community. Northwestern is discovering ways in which people are less likely to partake in high risk drinking so situations like that stay hypothetical.
Northwestern recently started the Campus Coalition for Alcohol and Other Drugs, most commonly referred to as the AOD Coalition, to addresses issues of alcohol and drug abuse on campus. This organization is co-chaired by Currie and Director of Fraternity and Sorority Life Dominic Greene, including includes both faculty and student representatives from a variety of organizations — Associated Student Government, Counseling and Psychological Services, University Residential Life and Norris Center.
“The coalition is taking a multidimensional look at what’s happening on campus to try and create change try to enhance and create a healthier and safer environment that’s supportive for students,” says Currie. “It’s not as simple as saying ‘hey students behave’. It’s really looking at everything.”
The main job of the coalition is to develop a strategic plan that consists of recommendations to departments across the university. These recommendations could stem from a variety of factors that affect the drinking environment in a way that reduces high-risk behavior.
However, all recommendations are not made equally. Currie believes some things will be harder to implement than others. One thing she says that will be easy to implement is increasing the funding for school-sponsored activities on the weekends that may deter students from drinking.
One idea that may be a little tougher would be recommending that academic affairs look at students’ course scheduling to ensure that classes are spread out through the week instead of being clustered in the middle, resulting in an extended weekend.
The coalition expects to take a long-term view of the issues. This is the first time the university has created a standing group against alcohol problems — instead of a task force, which takes up a specific focus on certain issues. Currie feels that looking at these matters for the long run will result in longer lasting change.
“We are talking about change that may take years to implement,” she says. “That doesn’t always jive with students who want to see something happen before they graduate. Sometimes, universities don’t move that fast.”
Currie says provisions found on the Sunshine settlement rider are only part of what Northwestern is trying to do to change the drinking dynamic on campus. She feels the process of bringing about change is more complicated than just the ten provisions listed on the rider.
Important factors that Currie and the Sunshine settlement stress are increasing education and communication about alcohol to both students and parents. The AOD is developing ways to ensure that education lasts throughout the four years and not just as a brief lesson as a freshman, says Currie. This includes creating a website for AOD issues, funding academic research into binge drinking problems on campus, and increase support for the Red Watch Band Program on campus.
One of the most progressive educational programs at Northwestern on the topic of alcohol is the Red Watch Band program — a bystander intervention program that trains students on a variety of subjects regarding alcohol, ranging from alcohol’s effects on the body and the symptoms of alcohol poisoning to role playing on what to do when faced with an alcohol emergency.
The program was developed at Stony Brook University and implemented here at Northwestern in 2009. So far, about 400 students have been RWB trained at Northwestern.
Cohen, who the risk manager for the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity, completed RWB training as a requirement for ZBT. He says he finds it handy when handling risk situations involving alcohol. “It’s really about spreading awareness,” he says. “It’s not just important for Greek life; it is important for everyone to get involved in and at least have some sort of training or have some sort of idea of what to expect.”
Bock, who is also RWB trained, recognizes the emphasis of RWB is not only to teach you how to take care of yourself, but to also teach students how to take care of their peers. He also remarks that student-to-student follow-ups may benefit more than those done by the university in stopping high risk drinking behavior.
“It’s pretty easy, I would imagine, to disregard [university follow-ups],” he says. “That’s the university doing something. But I bet it doesn’t stick as well, as say, your friend comes up to you and says, ‘Hey I took care of you last night, asshole.’”
The RWB program empowers students by giving them applicable knowledge that stresses both the reality of alcohol on campus and its seriousness. According to Neumeister, these have certainly been two values the university has taken into account when developing new ways to address these problems. The key is to make sure that the student body understands these values as well.
“You can be an authority,” Bock says. “I think if you take a certain amount of seriousness and do not just go there to make your organization look good, you can be a name. It gives you a certain amount of credibility as push comes to shove.”