More underutilized still, however, are the officers of the University who students live with and know best. Because proctors, House Masters and senior tutors have divided duties to students—at once disciplinarians, academic advisors and surrogates of safety—students are sometimes wary of turning to them with questions like the one I asked my senior tutor when considering taking my friend to UHS: should I seek help, or am I overreacting?
This reluctance is particularly acute among first-years, who arrive from high school with a latent distrust of authority that, compounded by signals from University officials, drives drinking underground. First-years are told during orientation week that absolutely no alcohol is permitted in the Yard dorms, that proctors will report any instances of underage drinking to the Freshman Dean’s Office and that prefects must avoid their prefectees like the plague anywhere alcohol is served. “Because of the perception of strict enforcement of drinking rules,” says a former assistant dean of freshmen who spoke on condition of anonymity, “freshmen more than anyone else tend to conceal their drinking in ways that may be more harmful—such as drinking more quickly or drinking at off-campus locations that may be less safe.”
Outside the Disciplinary Box
Proctors and house tutors may be in the best position to enforce the ban on underage drinking, but they are also in the best position to protect students who are reluctant to confide in strangers at UHS. Given the mantra among administrators that alcohol is a health issue before it’s a disciplinary issue, the College should de-emphasize the disciplinary role of proctors and House tutors to foster these critical and often difficult conversations.
The College should also clarify the disciplinary consequences for underage drinking so that students know not to hesitate in emergency situations before enlisting the help of those with disciplinary power. On the whole, penalties are neither unreasonable nor particularly severe. “Students almost never come before the Ad Board merely for getting drunk,” according to Assistant Dean of the Faculty David B. Fithian, who was secretary of the Ad Board for three years. First-years may get a warning from their freshman dean, but those warnings leave no trace on one’s transcript. They do follow first-years to the Houses, but senior tutors are not likely to dwell on them in cases that involve only underage drinking. “It doesn’t bias me in any way,” according to Adams House Senior Tutor Michael R. Rodriguez, “it’s just one more piece of information that I know about a student.”
The committee should also consider designating student health advocates who, with no disciplinary or academic responsibilities, would serve as trusted resources when students fear the disciplinary or academic repercussions of reporting health crises. These health advocates would likely be exempt from the legal gag on conversations about responsible drinking, given their role as health care providers and their insulation from administrative responsibility. Whether registered nurses or graduate students with health training, they should be tightly integrated into residential life. If first-year dorms and upperclass Houses are too cramped to house them, then they should frequent study breaks and dining halls to make their faces familiar.
Out, Damned Spot
In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, alcohol “provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance”—to be lecherous, in this context—just as the College’s rhetoric about health “provokes the desire” to seek treatment while its disciplinary rhetoric drives alcohol underground and “takes away the performance” of getting help. The committee must persuade students that it understands their partying, respects their desire to drink and above all, will not be disheartened—or draconian—when students continue to party hard, because they will. Instead, the committee should ensure that student health is jeopardized neither by state law nor by a prudish disdain for student habits. The pursuit of drunkenness, like it or not, is here to stay. But health crises that lead to tragedies like Scott Kruger’s, the MIT first-year who drank himself to death in 1997, can be avoided through the committee’s care and diligence.
Blake Jennelle ’04 is a social studies concentrator in Adams House. His column appears on alternate Mondays.