VERBUM ULTIMUM: Wasted Effort

By The Dartmouth Editorial Board

Published on Friday, March 5, 2010

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Correction Appended

When Hanover Police announced its intention to implement compliance checks and sting operation at Greek organizations (“Stricter alcohol plans outrage Greek orgs.,” Feb. 5), it highlighted that there are two related, but distinct, aspects of drinking at the College that must be addressed: underage drinking and health risks. In reaction to this announcement, College President Jim Yong Kim formed the Student and Presidential Alcohol Harm Reduction Committee ("Kim starts committee to address alcohol use," March 1), but failed to adequately address both concerns.

While Hanover Police focused mainly on the illegality of underage drinking, the administration's response primarily investigates harm reduction. While harm reduction is indisputably a paramount concern to student health, we fear that by failing to fully accept and address the unlawfulness of underage drinking, SPAHRC pre-emptively undermines itself.

Hanover Police's proposed compliance checks and sting operations were poor policies because they attacked a mode of alcohol procurement without addressing the potential dangers that could result from the policy. SPAHRC, however, is no better suited to address the problem if it primarily considers health risks stemming from the excessive consumption of alcohol. An explicit and realistic assessment of the legal dimension must be incorporated throughout all sections of the committee for local law enforcement to take it seriously.

Furthermore, the historical lack of change made by other campus committees hardly justifies an optimistic outlook for SPAHRC. As stated in a College press release on the subject, SPAHRC seeks “to solicit input from the Dartmouth community, gather research data and identify relevant best practices.” While the committee is still in its formative stages, it is crucial that it extends its efforts well beyond collecting data and analyzing the obtained information. Implementation of new policies must be the overarching goal if the committee does not wish to join the ranks of previous review committees at the College that yielded nothing more than a report suggesting potential ways forward. Two similar committees — the Social Event Management Policy review committee and the Alcohol Management Policy committee — have now spent well over a year reviewing problems with nothing substantive to show for the time spent.

SPAHRC’s subcommittees are charged with doing what various administrative offices already exist to do. The Dean of the College office is staffed with employees whose responsibilities include dealing with many of the issues that the student members of SPAHRC will be reviewing. If SPAHRC can meaningfully overhaul those offices’ operations or bridge gaps between existing organizations, then it has the potential to make a valuable contribution. But the committee will be a wasted effort if it duplicates the work of groups like the Drug and Alcohol Peer Advisors — or worse, merely meddles in existing operations, leaving the situation more confused than when it arrived.

Perhaps, under Kim’s direct oversight, SPAHRC will fare better than many of these other committees, but to do so, the committee must overcome the College’s ubiquitous inertia. It will take a more serious showing than a statement outlining aspects of College life that the group intends to review for the facilitation of lasting change.

The original version of this article incorrectly stated that the committee is not addressing legal concerns, when in fact the SPAHRC Town Policy sub-committee is focused on addressing issues associated with legal compliance.