There's a lot to do on campus on a Friday night, and that's just the way University officials like it.
"There's such a variety of things that might be happening at any one time," said David Greene, vice president for campus life and student services. "You can have what some people think of as a very traditional college experience by going to a fraternity or sorority party, for example, but you can also hear an a cappella group, you can see different bands that are playing, you can go to a cultural event that's happening on campus."
That diversity of options, Greene said, is the "hallmark" of Brown social life.
"It's not dominated by any one group or any one activity, and that seems to reflect our community pretty well," he said.
But, like other college campuses, Brown is host to underage drinking, illegal drug use and all their related problems. A number of incidents last fall - including Queer Alliance's Sex Power God party, which led to almost 30 students receiving medical attention - precipitated the University's first major review of social events policies in almost a decade.
As University officials seek ways to curb dangerous behavior and encourage a healthy, vibrant campus social life, they see a multi-tiered approach as necessary, combining enforcement with education, financial and other support for alternative events and promoting of community standards of behavior.
"There's no one answer," said Greene.
Fighting back
Every Monday, Associate Dean of the College Kathleen McSharry reads incident reports provided by the Department of Public Safety. After the Sex Power God party last November, the dean for issues of chemical dependency read those reports and was "shocked."
"Some of these students are lucky they're not dead," she thought to herself.
The fallout from Sex Power God - and the national publicity it gained from footage aired on "The O'Reilly Factor," on Fox News - has been felt on campus since last November, most visibly in the ad hoc committee to study social events policies that was formed in the immediate aftermath of the party.
The Alcohol and Other Drugs subcommittee of the Campus Life Advisory Board had already begun to review the University's alcohol and drug policies prior to Sex Power God, McSharry said, but "Sex Power God made clear that students are engaged in behavior that is harmful to them."
Brown is not unique in its problems, McSharry said. First-years, and to a lesser extent sophomores, have been presenting alcohol abuse problems at colleges and universities nationwide more this year than in the past.
"Our level of alcohol abuse is that of our peers ... which is not to say it's OK, but it's not elevated above the level of our peers," she said.
McSharry also noted that Brown and other private New England universities have problems with marijuana and cocaine, and said Brown's use of marijuana may exceed that of its peers. But, she said, "Alcohol's by far the biggest problem."
Greene and other administrators said pre-gaming - the popular practice of drinking in advance of parties and other social events - is the biggest problem facing campus social life.
"That's the thing we worry about the most," Greene said, calling pre-gaming "the riskiest behavior around alcohol."
Frances Mantak, director of health education, said pre-gaming is frequently seen in Emergency Medical Services follow-ups, and is "very challenging to address."
The final report of the Ad Hoc Committee to Review Social Events Policies and Procedures, released in March, recommends increased monitoring of alcohol use in the residence halls from 9 to 11 p.m. - peak hours for pre-gaming.
"We're a campus that allows students a lot of freedoms, and they also have responsibilities to follow the rules on campus," Greene said. But, he said, the University is leaning toward having student counselors or staff monitor dorms, instead of police patrols.
"I think the move to have our police act as a police force and not as residential advisers is the right thing to do. They're trained to be dealing with crime and with a variety of other things that happen, and that's where they should continue to focus their efforts," Greene said.
Still, more effective enforcement of alcohol and drug policies would be welcome to some students, who often complain the rules are applied inconsistently, McSharry said.
"Certainly from a student perspective, there are inequities in enforcement," she said, noting it "really is a crapshoot" whether students will be caught and punished for violations.
Striking a balance
The balance between respecting student freedoms and supporting student safety is a difficult one, administrators say.
"There are all sorts of dangers associated with just driving alcohol consumption completely underground, and we should be aware of the unintended consequences of different policies and practices," Greene said. "But at the same time we have an obligation to uphold our own policies, to uphold the law and to provide a safe environment for students."
But, McSharry said, "Brown is not going to become a police state in terms of drug and alcohol issues."
The solution, according to University officials and the report of the ad hoc committee, is to do more than ramp up enforcement and punishment. One approach is to increase the University's support for social events that do not involve alcohol.
"Students have been saying they want to see the University put more resources into sponsoring social events, particularly alcohol-free social events, so there are more attractive alternatives to things like more traditional parties that might be happening on a college campus," Greene said.
The University's Late Night Fund, established as a pilot program this semester, gives financial support to student-run social events that do not involve alcohol.
Facilities can also provide an alternative to alcohol abuse, Greene said, such as athletic facilities staying open later.
"People want to play pick-up basketball at 11 o'clock or 12 o'clock on Friday night and not go to a party, but the OMAC closes down," he said, referring to the Olney-Margolies Athletic Center.
McSharry said a real student center would also be beneficial in encouraging "larger social events not centered on alcohol," even if it included a bar.
Administrators said more alcohol education is needed for incoming first-years. In addition to the required alcohol and drugs meeting during Orientation Week, the Class of 2010 will take an online course on alcohol issues this summer, though Mantak said the details have not yet been fleshed out.
Another approach is to do a better job of setting standards of acceptable behavior for students.
"There are a lot of students who are just sick and tired of some of the terrible effects of alcohol abuse that they see in their own living quarters," Greene said, such as noise, vandalism and vomit.
The "backlash against that traditional college culture among Brown students," he said, is "healthy" and "will help push things in a better direction for us."
In fact, he said, the University needs to help students develop standards of acceptable behavior and hold students accountable. Those standards exist already, he said, but student acceptance and enforcement will improve the situation.
"We have very high expectations of our students. They don't always live up to those expectations. They don't always meet the values and standards of our community," Greene said.
McSharry said each living community - from program houses to substance-free housing to first-year dorms - "is going to have its own dynamic." Students must understand how their actions will affect others, she said, and that knowledge will help moderate alcohol abuse.
"Students live in communities, and I would like them to look at their choices regarding alcohol and drugs in the context of living in those communities," she said.
Greene said he thinks the University has traditionally done a good job approaching alcohol issues, with a focus on support and treatment rather than punishment.
"I think we've generally drawn a pretty good balance on campus, where we don't have a dry campus, we actually allow alcohol under certain circumstances with certain precautions in place, and that seems right to me," he said.
Finding a place for bacchanalia
So what place, then, do traditionally alcohol-soaked events like Sex Power God and Spring Weekend have on campus?
"Events like Spring Weekend evolve over the years and are part of campus history for students. I think the students and the alums, for very good reasons, feel strongly about the rituals in place at Spring Weekend," McSharry said.
But, she said, "the University has ownership of the events" and must "make sure they're consistent with Brown's educational mission."
Greene said events such as Spring Weekend are acceptable in moderation.
"It's one weekend a year. I think that's what's important about Spring Weekend," Greene said. "If the Brown campus was like Spring Weekend for 15 weekends a year, it would be a very different place, and I think we would have a serious problem because the focus would really be in the wrong place."
Greene said it is "traditional on college campuses to have some kind of a weekend like this," and pointed to safety measures taken during the weekend, such as limiting the number of official parties, heavy staff patrols and giving away food to soften the effects of alcohol.
Mantak said major campus social events are not set in stone, but evolve over time. Spring Weekend, for example, "has gone through a lot of changes through the last decade," she said.
A decade ago, she said, "a lot of Brown students felt very uncomfortable with it and people would leave campus for it." Many events on Wriston Quadrangle were open to the public, she said, and "there might have been a lot of people who were not part of the Brown community and who would harass students."
After "a few particularly difficult incidents," she said, changes were made to increase safety.
It is often such visible increases in incidents that prompt the University to re-examine its policies. Fall 2005 saw 374 EMS runs, a 9 percent increase from Fall 2004. Of the Fall 2005 runs, 28 percent involved alcohol, while another 3 percent involved other substances or a combination of the two, versus 26 percent involving alcohol and 2 percent involving other substances or a combination in Fall 2004.
Almost a decade ago, in the fall of 1996, the University banned all social functions for two weeks in reaction to a number of disturbances. There were 60 assaults and alcohol-related offenses involving students reported in the first 34 days of the semester, including a stabbing outside of Harambee House on Sept. 21, 1996, and a sexual assault at Phi Kappa Psi three weeks later.
The University introduced a new set of alcohol and social events policies later that semester.
"The first month of the school year has seen an unacceptable number of incidents and altercations at campus social functions which have resulted in several serious injuries and an overall social environment which is unhealthy and unsafe," wrote then-Dean of Student Life Robin Rose in a University memorandum announcing the moratorium.
Any University approach can only do so much, administrators said, and must be realistic.
"Our culture has a lot of ambivalence about alcohol," Mantak said. "The messages people get about alcohol, they've been getting for 18 years before college," she added.
"There is always going to be some level of alcohol abuse. We're not going to eliminate it. We need to make sure our policies don't encourage irresponsible drinking," McSharry said.
But, Greene noted, things may be changing for the better.
"The sort of mythology of college as a time (when) drinking and unadulterated behavior is acceptable - I think that's changing. I think people are waking up to the fact that too many college-age students are dying due to alcohol abuse," he said.
