The first weekend under the thumb of Dartmouth’s new hard alcohol ban saw increased precaution but little in terms of incidents, students and campus security officials said.
Safety and Security received no unusual reports about social events, Safety and Security associate director Keiselim Montas said. Throughout the course of the weekend, one student overall was found in possession of hard alcohol, Montas said, when Safety and Security officials were responding to a call in a residence hall.
Montas said that officers “came upon something, investigated and found hard alcohol.” He emphasized, however, that officers were not there “looking for it,” adding that they never randomly check students’ rooms. Montas also rejected rumors that Safety and Security officers will be searching through the trash cans of Greek organizations looking for discarded handles of hard alcohol, calling the idea “preposterous.”
Chi Gamma Epsilon social chair Shaun Sengupta ’17 said that in his opinion, the hard alcohol ban did not decrease the amount of fun students had at their tails event this weekend and that attendance was high.
He added that while the fraternity did take extra precautions due to the new rules, their guests understood that those rules had to be followed so that if Safety and Security visited, there would be “no infractions on any front.” Such extra precautions included ensuring that people stayed in one designated tails area and not opening the basement until the registered tails event ended at 11 p.m., Sengupta said.
“We made sure things were very punctual and pretty much followed what we registered with the GLOS office point by point,” Sengupta said. “We made sure that 100 percent of the rules were followed.”
The ban will not deter the fraternity from hosting larger events this spring, such as their annual Green Key weekend Gammapalooza concert.
“We’re going to still have that big event regardless and just be more attentive to the rules,” Sangupta said.
Other social chairs declined or did not return requests seeking comment.
Student co-chair of the social event management group, entrusted with examining the College’s alcohol policy in relation to expectations for student social events, and member of Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity Taylor Watson ’16 said that he personally enjoyed the weekend more than previous weekends.
“One of the things that I feel like happened over the weekend was that events in general were a little more relaxed, a little more focused on people over the drinking,” Watson said. He said that he thinks that this trend will continue.
Watson said that as an example, when he drinks a mixed drink it is “more of a commitment to being out for the rest of the night.” When he drinks a cider or beer, however, he feels like he can go back to his room or resume studying later on.
Regarding fraternities hosting social events, Watson said he thinks that the only big difference is the stricter punishments for social event chairs if someone — even over the age of 21 — brings hard alcohol to an event and is caught by Safety and Security, as they can be suspended for one term. Social chairs of Greek houses met with the Greek Letters Organization and Societies last Tuesday night to discuss changes to the SEMP policies, several social chairs confirmed. Notable among the rules is that only one type of alcohol, either beer and cider or wine and champagne, may be served at a social event, though this regulation had been in place prior to the ban.
Even if an event were dry or the social chairs were unaware of the alcohol being brought in, they can still get in a lot of trouble, Watson said. However, Watson does not think that this will make social chairs significantly less likely to host social events, especially in regards to stable events that occur annually.
“I don’t see anything is going away because of the higher risk,” Watson said. Instead, he said social chairs are more likely to ensure that students do not bring hard alcohol to events.
The SEMP policy, Dartmouth’s policy on how organizations can serve alcohol at approved events, is now outdated because it contains several technicalities about serving hard alcohol at events. While Watson said the policy is generally updated every five to seven years, the new committee working to update the SEMP policy is different because it has more student involvement than usual, Watson later clarified in an email.
The group is composed of students, faculty and staff, and is currently researching ways to move forward with the new policy. The group is looking at what other schools are doing and what Dartmouth has done in the past, Watson said.
Watson said that the committee is trying to balance “individual safety and freedom with the goals of student organizations with responsibilities that those organizations need to maintain to themselves and campus in general.”
Of 12 students surveyed by The Dartmouth on Sunday, five said that they did not experience a change in the social scene this week.
Merritt Losert ’17 said while the alcohol served at tails was different, there was not a different mood or atmosphere.
Still, several students noticed a different social dynamic due to the hard alcohol ban.
“It’s definitely caused a lot more undercover parties in rooms,” Tara Simmons ’17 said. “Kids are drinking alone in their rooms instead of going out to tails.”
Arielle Gordon-Rowe ’18 said that she thinks the hard alcohol ban has made it more difficult for women to congregate in non-male dominated social spaces. For example, she said while it is easy to receive beer at a fraternity, if girls drink wine in a dorm room they are more likely to be caught and written up by Safety and Security.
“I look at the venues in which girls can consume alcohol, and I feel like there’s a double standard with the way the punishments work,” Gordon-Rowe said. “It’s kind of pinning blame onto girls and our consumptive behaviors.”
Gabrielle van den Hoek ’18 said while there she felt a change this week, she is not sure if it will last all term.
“Everyone’s cautious right now because no one’s been caught yet,” she said. “People are waiting for the first people to be caught to see how [the College] handles it.”
