A concrete set of alcohol guidelines that clarifies rules laid out in College President Phil Hanlon’s “Moving Dartmouth Forward” policy initiative will be implemented Oct. 19, and other administrators are further developing components of the “Moving Dartmouth Forward” policy goals.
The newly crafted Alcohol Management Procedures will replace the Social Events Management Procedures as the guidelines for organizing social events on campus. AMP specifies rules for each type of social event student organizations can host. The Office of Student Life will oversee AMP.
Organizations will be able to have events with mixed types of alcohol, though no punches or hard alcohol will be allowed. The policy specifies three tiers of social events. Tier one is members only and can be internally managed. Tier two events, defined as those for between 40 and 150 people, must have two students on door duty, two walkthroughs by Safety and Security and two bartenders, who can be members of the organization holding the event. Tier three events, defined as those with over 150 people, have the same door duty and walkthrough policies as tier two events, however, there must also be third-party bartenders and security provided by a separate organization. The College will evenly split the cost of third-party security with the hosting organization.
Third-party bartenders will be College students trained according to AMP. Events with less than 40 people do not need to be registered.
AMP will no longer allow on-the-fly party registration, but will allow on-the-fly cancellation.
The new policy was formally revealed to leaders of Greek houses last Wednesday.
Former co-chair of the social event and alcohol management group and accountability chair for the Greek Leadership Council Taylor Watson ’16 said the biggest goal of the new policy is to be realistic about alcohol at social events on campus.
“Only about 25 percent of social events were actually being registered, which is bad, so the main goal is to get to a point where all events are registered,” he said.
Watson said the new policy puts more responsibility on organizations but takes away some of the restraints. For example, the rule dictating that events cannot have both cans and bottles of alcohol is being eliminated, he said.
Sigma Alpha Epsilon alumni chair Robert Scales ’16 said that his fraternity has not been approached as a whole about the implementation of AMP yet, but certain individuals have been and he is aware of the policy changes.
“I think the key thing is ensuring strong cooperation with Safety and Security and making sure that they are ready to implement it according to the design,” Scales said.
The AMP launch date coincides with the end of the freshman fraternity ban, associate dean for student life Eric Ramsey said.
“I’ve been at Dartmouth for 12 years, and I’ve seen a lot of different iterations of the Alcohol Management Program, and I want to get this one right, so we’re committed to making sure everyone has the information and resources they need to have a gentle transition,” Ramsey said.
Ramsey is working on the implementation of AMP and the Student Organization Accountability Project, which will be implemented this winter term. The Student Organization Accountability Project encompasses rules Hanlon mentioned in his Jan. 29 “Moving Dartmouth Forward” address — the elimination of pledge terms, the requirement that houses have one male and one female faculty adviser and that they undergo an annual review to ensure they are contributing to the academic and personal welfare of their members. These conditions must be met in order to maintain recognition by the College.
Ramsey said accountability involves recognizing the work of students and getting all organizations to reach the same level of responsibility. He added that the process is open to changes subject to feedback from students as it goes on.
“Accountability sometimes has a negative connotation around here, but we really are working hard to set up students for success,” he said.
Ramsey said right now student groups are highly involved in these two programs and are working with staff through the evaluation of the rollout process to talk about the new procedures.
“Both of these are very student-intensive processes,” he said.
Senior associate dean of student affairs Liz Agosto said that after vice provost for student affairs Inge-Lise Ameer assumed her new position, the student affairs division reinvigorated the office of student life. Agosto said the purpose of this was to ensure that Greek Letters Organizations and Societies, the Dartmouth Outing Club and the Collis Center report to the same place and all organizations receive the same information.
“This is so no one department has it all, but that student life is looking at the big picture and looking at how are we holding all of our organizations to the same level of expectation and accountability,” Agosto said.
Agosto, who has been responsible for coordinating the student life and co-curricular portions of “Moving Dartmouth Forward,” including sexual violence and alcohol management, said multiple aspects of the policy initiative are making progress in their implementation this term.
She said several pilots for the sexual violence prevention program were put into place for orientation, and the committee is working with the first-year residential education program to adapt the sexual violence pieces that are part of the new curriculum for students. The LiveSafe iPhone application was also introduced to the Class of 2019 during orientation.
Dean of the College Rebecca Biron, who assumed the role in July, is charged with coordinating the house professor component of the new housing community system. She is also working on the Dartmouth Thrive initiative, which is coordinating with student affairs to be a bridge between academics interests and programming for students and co-curricular offerings all over campus. The “Moving Dartmouth Forward” plan describes the Dartmouth Thrive pilot program as one that develops leadership skills and focuses on building a well-rounded person “in mind, body and spirit.”
This summer, Biron worked with the house professors selected to for the residential housing program, which will launch next fall, to start planning their specific roles as well as to continue the planning for the physical transition into the six new housing communities.
Over the course of the year, they plan to convene a number of student working groups with the new house council — comprised of representatives from the office of student affairs, office of campus services and house professors — working on how the experience of the communities will roll out this year.
“The communities are going to last forever, but how they are experienced by students is something we expect to be organic and designed by the students and the house professors once they actually start on the ground,” she said.
