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BY JACK KEEFE

In print | February 22, 2007

It’s there if you want it … at Paces, Olde Club, DU, Phi Psi, at the German department’s “Oktoberfest,” in the lounge down your hall, in your own room. Frankly speaking, alcohol is flowing in every corner of campus. However, criminal incidents in which alcohol is a factor, such as those that occurred last weekend, prompt a critical look at the role of booze in the Swat bubble. While it’s extremely unlikely that the school will ever revert to its status as a dry campus, the present freedom surrounding alcohol at the school comes under scrutiny when drinking and dangerous behavior overlap.

There’s a lot that your average student doesn’t know about alcohol and the college: What have been the changes to the alcohol policy in the college’s recent and distant past, and how have these changes effected student life?

Historical Perspective of the Policy

“And now a brief word about the essential but disreputable — moosing and liquor,” a freshman advice column penned in the Phoenix in September 1959 reads. While the art of “moosing” (roughly translated as “messing around”) at Swat may deserve its own analysis, it is clear that who’s drinking, where and what has been an issue for at least half a century. “As you know or will soon know,” Woody Fleisig continues, “The possession of liquor is prohibited. However, there are certain establishments beyond the confines of the campus where acquisition of the rare blends is not too difficult.”

This article marked a shift in how people talked about alcohol on Swarthmore’s campus. Up to this point in time, few articles and opinion pieces openly dealt with issues of alcohol on campus. Regardless of whether they were hitting the bottle after a hard Tuesday seminar, students were officially on a dry campus.

“When I was a student here, it was a dry campus. No alcohol on campus, period,” former Dean of Students Bob Gross ‘62 said. "It didn’t always stop us, but the school drew a clear bright line on use of alcohol. In boxes of minutes from the Men’s Judiciary Committee [from the time], most of the cases were about alcohol and parking and possession of alcohol."

However, coinciding with the increasing liberalization of youth culture that marked the ’60s, students began to bring the issue out in the open through articles and opinions pieces.

The Phoenix satirized apparent ineptitude on part of the Men’s Judiciary Committee, as in one case where two individuals accused one another of consumption. After a lengthy debate, the issue was eventually tabled due to “lack of evidence.” The decision was a culmination of this increasing dialogue about alcohol, student dissatisfaction and the overall atmosphere of the times.

The shift in the ’80s toward a slightly more hard-line alcohol policy did not, in fact, occur because of the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984, which tied funding from the Federal Aid Highway Act to setting the age of 21 as a minimum for the purchase and public possession of alcohol. More precisely, changes began to occur around this time due to new state laws shifting alcohol laws from an apparently lax Liquor Control Board to the State Police.

In a Phoenix article titled “RAs Amend Alcohol Policy” written in September 1988, then-Dean of Students Janet Dickerson said that the state police were empowered by the changes to “raid college campuses” and that they had “used undercover agents to spot abuses of the alcohol code.” Additionally, this set of laws, passed in May 1988, reinforced the principle that the person or persons hosting the party were liable for the infractions of partygoers, especially in cases of underage drinking, placing both the college and hosts at increased threat of legal culpability.

It’s curious to note that during this period of alcohol liberalism, money given by the Student Activities Fund (SAF) for public parties had been allowed to be used for the purchase of alcohol. This law ended the practice for good, at least legally. In May of 1989, the Alcohol Policy Task force, called by the administration in response to these laws, suggested to the Board of Managers that students be no longer able to purchase alcohol with SAF funds, out of fear of legal trouble for the college. The Board of Managers followed affirmatively with this recommendation.

It is here that the practice of forging receipts began, which brings us, coincidentally, to the present.

The “Table Effect”

The incident is now infamous: an accident in which a female student was hit in the head by a table thrown off the second floor by an inebriated student at a co-sponsored SASS, SASA and SOCA party at Sharples in September 2005. The event sparked changes, accepted by the Student Council and approved by the administration in subsequent months, which were targeted primarily at reducing the possibility of students successfully forging receipts through new receipt requirements and increased penalties for forgers.

“was relatively accepting for a need for a change,” Educational Policy Representative Eleanor Joseph ‘07 said, "Prior to the change, the college’s policy was that … to some extent they would turn a blind eye to students using SAC money for alcohol. Post-Sharples incident, we needed to close that loophole as it would constitute serving alcohol to minors."

According to SBC manager Veronika Dubajova ‘07, there have been no incidents this academic year in which purchases for a party have activated disciplinary and retributive measures due to suspected fraud, though she admits, "It’s hard for us to truly track how many people are forging receipts."

Prior to the changes, common techniques to attempt to slide past the SBC receipt requirements were to stand outside of establishments such as Genuardi’s and ask passers-by for their own receipts, and then to use those that would best match what non-alcoholic items should have been purchased for the party. Additionally, items could be crossed out on the list and ignored in the verification process.

Additionally, new requirements have been added, including a requirement for “durable purchases” such as black lights and fog machines to be held by the office past the date of possible store return so that they are not returned for alcohol funds.

The observed general consensus, though, is that now it has become a great deal more difficult to attempt to forge receipts. While few individuals interviewed wish to have their name attached to the sentiment, some admitted that while they, prior to the changes, were either involved in or had witnessed attempts to pass off receipts listing false purchases, none reported being witness to any attempts since the changes. While this does not necessarily mean that receipts do not get forged, it would appear that the frequency of doing so, at least anecdotally, has gone down.

Legalities and the Worth Connection

Much of student concern about alcohol involves not the actions taken by those under the influence of alcohol, but what the consequences of those actions are, and how institutions such as the college health system and the borough police interact with what inebriated students do.

“Usually we see if they can walk. It’s okay if they need to be assisted to walk, but if they have to be carried [they can’t leave]. A lot depends on respiration, how well they respond, if we can wake them up if they’re asleep,” director of Worth Health Center Linda Echols said, “If a friend stays with [you], it is one way of making sure you don’t go to the hospital.”

While it is strongly reinforced during events such as the freshman alcohol orientation, it nevertheless does not hurt to emphasize that agents of the Worth Health Center will not have any interactions with the police except in extreme circumstances.

“A student has the right to ask the nurses not to [issue an infirmary report] to the deans. We act on the student’s consent, and the deans know that. But once Public Safety is involved, it is automatically reported,” Echols said. She also emphasized that they don’t use tools such as breathalyzers in the process of student care, and that, typically, the only case in which the police are activated is as part of the 911 emergency system (aside from more obvious examples, such as a drunk student assaulting a nurse).

Perhaps even more than fear of retribution from the college, tension exists over the presence of the borough police.

“What I can share with you about that is that I have heard from a fairly small number of students about that concerns … that is something I want to look into: how and when the police get involved, for what reasons, and what those reasons might be,” Dean of Students James Larimore said. Larimore continued to explain that “how we can talk to the police chief and others … The piece of this that is always sensitive is that the police are not part of the college, and their job is to enforce the law.” Policies already in place that are relevant for the discussion include that police will not enter parties held on campus unless there has been a complaint that runs beyond the level of a noise complaint. Furthermore, in their training, PAs are reminded that, in calling for Public Safety at a given event, that the police may listen in to the Public Safety radio band.

The Scene As It Is

“Could we achieve a dry campus? No, not going to happen, hasn’t happened anywhere. Our official mission/policy is ‘harm reduction,’” Gross said. “If students are going to drink, let us create an environment that is as safe as possible so bad things do not happen. So students who aren’t dealing with alcohol in bad ways are recognized and interventions are made.”

Other current trends as to how people drink include the increasing frequency of tabling for funds for alcohol for parties (ranging from events as disparate as the Halloween party and Sager), and the appearance of an increased number of paid parties versus unpaid parties.

“Increasingly, students are becoming accustomed to being asked for money and donations … the number of pay parties has also increased, I would say. Which I would think of as a negative thing, being one of the best values of Swarthmore is that you don’t have to pay to attend events,” Joseph said. However, she noted that the changes may have, to a small extent, furthered what she viewed as one of the administration’s main goals in changing the policy: to reduce to some small extent the presence of alcohol on campus.

Another growing campus issue seems to be one that frequents the annals of college history: the role of fraternities on campus and how that relates to alcohol.

“Our alcohol policy is much stricter than the school’s, and we follow through on it,” DU co-social chair Ben Mendelson ‘08 said. "… I know that things seem very cloudy right now to people outside of DU’s walls, and we want to break down those walls. If you want to ask something, ask any one of us. We don’t believe articles in The Phoenix are the right means to do this."

As for what the recent changes to the alcohol policies were intended to do in the first place, did they accomplish what was initially intended?

“When something is free, you value it less. For example, food at Sharples is valued less than food at Tarble … it’s arguable, but I’d say that the ease of which it was accessed contributed perhaps to slight overconsumption,” Joseph said.

While Swarthmore students continue to drink, it remains unclear as to how long our relatively liberal alcohol policy will remain in place.

Additional reporting by Maria Khim ’10.

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