News
It might not come as much of a surprise to students, but a significant majority of those who tangle with Dartmouth's disciplinary system do so because of alcohol, official College reports indicate.
For the third straight year, roughly 60 percent of the cases entering the disciplinary system this past academic year resulted in students being found responsible for either public intoxication or underage possession of alcohol, according to the latest Office of Undergraduate Judicial Affairs report.
In all, 261 students were found responsible for public intoxication and 85 received violations for underage possession of alcohol, according to the report.
This represented 68 percent of sanctions, down slightly from last year.
In a particularly serious incident involving drinking this past year, one intoxicated student started a fire in a residence hall stairwell and then ran away, in the end getting expelled from the College.
"The sanction reflects the seriousness and danger of the student's behavior, inconsistencies between the student's account and the physical evidence and the fact that the student ran away from the fire without pulling an alarm," the report concluded.
The incident, described in the report as "not typical," was one of 588 disciplinary cases handled by the College during the 2003-04 academic year.
Four students were suspended for driving under the influence, and also faced local court cases, while 17 students were disciplined for possessing drugs or drug paraphernalia.
The report also recorded five serious cases of students becoming "extremely belligerent and uncooperative" with Safety and Security and Dick's House personnel, leading to two suspensions and some court charges.
In one case of alleged sexual abuse, a male student was suspended for six terms.
In another incident, two students having relationship problems were placed on College Discipline and "directed to have no further contact with each other," and one of the students was later suspended for violating that order.
"Though students may hope to keep their relationship issues private, there can be disciplinary ramifications when problems in a relationship lead to either noise complaints or other situations that bring the matter to the College's attention," the report noted.
Most other College discipline cases involved the Academic Honor Principle.
Seventeen of 18 students found responsible for violations received some type of suspension.
