As part of an effort to collect student feedback about the proposed Alcohol Management Program, Dean of the College Tom Crady and special assistant to the Dean of the College Kate Burke held a question and answer session in Collis Center on Thursday night. Crady announced in December that he would delay his original plans to approve the AMP in order to solicit student input.
"My goal is to exhaust student input," Crady said, explaining that he will discuss the AMP with his staff and present an updated version of the policy for student comment before enacting it.
Budgetary concerns have delayed the transition from SEMP to AMP, Crady said, and he and Burke said it is unlikely that the policy will go into effect before the 2009-2010 school year.
"It would be highly unlikely and difficult for us to be looking at a new process for the beginning of Spring term," Burke said.
AMP, as currently written, establishes uniform regulations for all social events with more than 30 attendees and reduces limitations on serving hard alcohol and the number of kegs that can be present. The policy also requires organizations to provide complete weekly schedules of all upcoming events to the administrative department to which they report.
Several of the 15 students who attended the event voiced concerns about the weekly management plans, which prohibit students from registering spontaneous events
Student Body President Molly Bode '09 argued that the AMP policy must include a provision for "on-the-fly" events.
"If you were to implement the policy as is, I guarantee that almost all the Greek organizations would go on probation in a couple of weeks," she said.
Other students objected to the AMP's requirement, consistent with New Hampshire state law, that all servers of alcoholic beverages be at least 21 years of age. The SEMP policy does not include such a requirement.
"We assume that it's impossible to regulate alcohol completely on a college campus," Crady said, stating that AMP, as it stands, aims to recognize the implications of state law and the risk that organizations assume by holding parties where alcohol is present.
"It's much better for you to know, before you have an event, than not to know, and end up in a really bad situation," Crady said.
The current text of the AMP allows organizations to request the College to make exceptions to the rules. Crady and Burke admitted that the provision is "vague," but said it will be more detailed in the final policy.
He also said the College may be able to help organizations comply with the AMP's requirement that they serve food and non-alcoholic beverages at social events.
The College will delay the AMP's implementation for at least one term after it is finalized to allow students to be trained in the new policy, Crady said in an interview with The Dartmouth after the event.
Crady told The Dartmouth that he has met with at least 10 groups of students to discuss the AMP and has received more than 30 pages of comments on the proposed regulations. The student groups "cover about six or seven issues consistently," he said, noting that he feels he has collected almost as much feedback as would be useful.
AMP's final goal, he said, is to create a policy that complies with local, state and federal laws and is also "tailored from an environmental point of view for our campus."
