Work towards implementing the recommendations made by the Student and Presidential Alcohol Harm Reduction Committee in May including the creation of an administrative team to review the recommendations has begun, though many recommendations will not be implemented until at least Fall Term, according to Acting Dean of the College Sylvia Spears.
"We're in the middle of working on the recommendations," she said in an interview with The Dartmouth. "A lot of them are really already being worked on."
A joint task force between Dartmouth and Town of Hanover officials one of the primary recommendations from the SPAHRC report has met three times so far, Spears said. The group which includes multiple representatives from local law enforcement, health services, student leaders and College officials is co-chaired by Spears and Hanover Town Manager Julia Griffin, Spears said.
"We're looking at a variety of issues, really what are our education programs, coordinating what does the [Town of Hanover] do, what does the College do," she said.
Good communication between the town and the College is important because the town is "very much" a stakeholder in the process, according to William Schpero '10, current presidential fellow in the Office of the President and former SPAHRC student co-chair.
The SPAHRC report also recommended fundamental changes to students' alcohol education before matriculation, and the administration will seek to employ new methods to educate members of the Class of 2014, according to Spears.
"We anticipate that the first-year students coming in will have a very different introduction to Dartmouth in terms of alcohol," she said. "It's my understanding that President Kim will actually kick off that discussion."
Hanover Police and Safety and Security will collaborate on a portion of the new program, Spears said.
Incoming students will be required to complete an online education course using an "online suite of programs" called My Student Body, as well as to likely attend additional educational sessions during orientation and participate in an alcohol "screening mechanism" to evaluate any negative predisposition to alcohol, Schpero said.
My Student Body which is designed specifically for incoming freshmen will asses students' risks on the basis of information provided by each student in several areas, including alcohol, drugs, tobacco, stress, sexual health and nutrition, according to the program's website.
The program will cost the College "several thousand dollars" to use, according to Spears.
Administrators will have access to reports profiling "aggregate data" and will be able to monitor when students complete the course, according to the website.
"The primary [recommendation], because it's time oriented, is orientation," Schpero said. "The administration is incorporating a lot of things on that front."
Most other recommendations, however, will not be implemented during Summer term because they require more careful analysis and could have negative effects if they are instituted too quickly, Schpero said.
"I think that we are moving forward with the issues we can't wait for," he said.
The administration began evaluating the feasibility of certain recommendations during Spring term when SPAHRC presented its findings to the College, according to Schpero.
An updated SPAHRC report was finalized last week to include data from the 2009-2010 academic year, Spears said, though Schpero, who headed the revision, said it made no fundamental changes in the SPAHRC recommendations.
Many of the recommendations are subject to administrative approval, according to SPAHRC student co-chair Max Yoeli '12.
"Once that approval comes forth for specific measures, larger policy changes should progress quickly," he said in an e-mail to The Dartmouth.
The possible appointment of a College alcohol coordinator a primary recommendation of the SPAHRC report has not been decided on and is "central" to the administrative review team's analysis, according to Schpero.
"That's something that's actively being considered," he said.
Spears, who will lead the analysis of that recommendation, said that she will consult with officials from Dartmouth's peer institutions to evaluate the feasibility of instituting a new position, but cost is a primary concern.
"[The] biggest hurdle is finding the salary dollars to do that, but that's not an insurmountable hurdle, I don't think," she said. "But it is a hurdle."
College officials are also re-evaluating whether to keep Dick's House open during the evening and weekends for future Summer terms, Spears said.
"We're asking [Director of College Health Services] Jack Turco and his team to look at the viability of that," she said. "I'm particularly interested in what is the necessary level of care for all Dartmouth students in the summer."
Spears said administration officials will also evaluate the College's Social Event Management Procedures, which currently set guidelines for managing alcohol use at campus social event. An Alcohol Management Policy which was finalized in Spring 2008 and was slated to replace the SEMP guidelines official College policy was unexpectedly rejected by the administration in Sept. 2009, The Dartmouth previously reported.
"It is very difficult for organizations to follow SEMP to the letter of the law and it is certainly impossible for the College to enforce it," Schpero said. "So the bottom line is we need to come up with a common sense alcohol policy."
Schpero is a former member of The Dartmouth Senior Staff.
Staff reporter Emma Fidel contributed to the reporting of this article.
