Vermont Cynic

Issue date: 4/11/06 Section: News

Media Credit: Ike Messmore In a strategic move, President Fogel revamps the University's image

Last week UVM students received a mass email from Residential Life informing them that all residence halls are becoming alcohol free, regardless of a student's age. This came as a shock to many students, especially the three hundred and seventy students of legal drinking age who will be living in the dorms next year.

The email encouraged students who are twenty one and have fulfilled their on-campus housing requirements, to consider this change when deciding on housing for the fall.

This new policy came from the recommendation of a task force made up of students, faculty, and administration. It is the first recommendation of the group, which examines University problems that relate to alcohol and other illegal substances.

Provost John Bramley, who appointed the members of the task force, made this comment: "We are seeking to better interconnect the campus housing environment and the academic life of the University. Alcohol consumption in the residence halls is simply not consistent with that."

Students can expect changes to occur as a result of the new policy. The task force suggested the use of stronger punishment in order to properly enforce the new policy, but these are not expected to be released until the fall.

From now on, no specific housing complex or floor will be labeled as substance free, because all dorms are expected to maintain this standard.

Overall, many students feel this policy isn't the correction action. One anonymous RA, from a freshman dorm, remarked, "I think stricter [drinking] policy is needed, but this is not the answer. It's punishing the wrong group."

Another senior RA believes that "the current effort to deal with on-campus drinking is legitimate." He does think that taking steps to deal with drinking is a good thing, but that "in the opinion of most RA's, dry residence halls are not the best way to deal with it."

An issue that lots of RA's expressed is that the "decision was made by a very select group of students that's not representative of the student body on-campus." The task force only included three students.

The senior RA also commented that he "has never had an issue with busting twenty one year olds in the dorms. He said, "It's interesting that people who have asked for statistics on the twenty one year old drinking problem [in dorms], have received no answers."

Continued...

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