"We are working very closely with the Hanover Police Department to get this right," Kim said. "We sit over the table and worry about if we're going to lose one of you [to intoxication.]"
Currently, when an underage student is subject to a Good Samaritan call or found intoxicated by the police for the first time, the student is eligible for the Alcohol Diversions Program, a one-time offer that allows him or her to avoid arrest by completing an alcohol education class. Due to the high number of student arrests in recent weeks, however, this policy may become unreasonable to the police department, Kim said.
"Hanover Police did us a big favor [by giving students the option of the Alcohol Diversions Program]," Kim told the audience. "How can I continue to ask them to do that if we have case after case of people going to the hospital?"
When contacted by The Dartmouth, director of Safety and Security and College Proctor Harry Kinne said he did not know the number of students who had recently been arrested for intoxication and declined to provide an estimate.
To keep himself informed, Kim said he reads reports from Safety and Security every morning about alcohol-related incidents at the College.
"We just barely missed losing somebody [recently]," he said. "I find out what your [blood alcohol content] was, and it was frightening."
Following an alcohol-related death at Ball State University on Sept. 11, its administration responded with a "great" alcohol program, according to Kim. He stressed that such initiatives need sustained long-term attention and can suffer from a lack of support.
"They'll have a great program for a year, and then they'll forget about it," Kim said. "We have to go into every evening thinking we just lost somebody last night."
While Kim did not disclose specific details of the College's ongoing collaboration with the police, he said the alcohol program was of critical importance to the school.
"I am dead serious about preventing people on this campus from dying of alcohol-related incidents, and I am dead serious about preventing sexual assault," he said. "I am not going to stop until we have the best program in the country."
Since Hanover Police announced plans to launch "sting operations" and compliance checks in February to crack down on Greek organizations serving alcohol to minors a policy that faced significant opposition from the student body the Student and Presidential Alcohol Harm Reduction Committee, formed in response to the policy, has been working to assess Dartmouth's drinking culture. Hanover Police announced in March that they had decided to postpone the implementation of compliance checks indefinitely.
As part of its work on alcohol policy, College administrators formed a SPAHRC sub-committee to manage relations between the town of Hanover and the College. SPAHRC's findings, released in May, also recommended the creation of a permanent task force to include town officials in decisionmaking on alcohol policy.
An effective alcohol policy will not detract from Dartmouth's "fun" reputation, according to Kim.
"Dartmouth is not the place where fun goes to die," he said. "But the fun that we have here is because we're a community. It's because we're tight-knit."
Dartmouth students must change their community culture in order to prevent further harms from alcohol abuse, Kim told the audience.
"I want you to start a new culture in which if someone is getting in trouble, you will not turn your head," he said.
The rest of the evening included information on College and town policies regarding underage drinking from Hanover Police Captain Frank Moran and Kinne. Later, a panel of students shared their experiences with alcohol at the College.
Several students interviewed by The Dartmouth said they felt the College's policies would have a positive effect.
"It's a good thing that the people in charge acknowledge the fact that underage drinking is occurring," Adam Mehring '14 said. "They're willing to work with us on that issue, not throwing people in jail and slapping fines on everyone. They're working on a compromise."
