The Department of Public Safety is enforcing a policy that conflicts with information dispensed to students by the Office of Student Life.
DPS automatically issues a municipal citation when responding to calls where a student potentially has alcohol poisoning if that student is under 21 years old and is sick enough to need transportation to a hospital, DPS Interim Director Tom Hicks said at a Public Safety Advisory Group meeting Tuesday.
But the Office of Student Life hands out information cards on alcohol poisoning that say there will be no consequences for students who call to get help, said Laura Blake Jones, associate dean of students and director of the Office of Student Life. She said the DPS policy is “a little bit different than what practice has been in the past.”
“Essentially, our message is ‘call 911, save your friend and there will be no consequences,’” Blake Jones said. “That’s been the practice the 10 years I’ve been here.”
Blake Jones and several other people voiced concerns that automatically issuing citations to people with alcohol poisoning will have a “chilling effect” on whether students will call when they think they need help.
When students living off campus take friends to the hospital because of alcohol poisoning, they do not typically receive citations, Blake Jones said. She said sending students through University Housing and the student judicial system would more effectively prevent future incidents, and she worried the threat of going through the city’s court system and paying municipal fines could deter underage students from calling for help in situations involving alcohol.
“If this is our practice, we’re going to have students, particularly first-year students, not being as willing to get their friends help when they need it,” Blake Jones said.
“The chilling effect is real and the danger of allowing it to happen is so much greater,” ASUO Legal Services Director Ilona Koleszar said. “Enforcement shouldn’t be done to where it’s chilling whether (people) get assistance.”
Hicks said DPS’s position is meant to protect the campus community.
“There needs to be a bit of a wake-up call for this problem,” Hicks said. “It creates widespread community concern for safety, and if (students cited for drinking) persist with this kind of behavior, they’re going to be putting themselves in jeopardy.”
DPS Lt. Herb Horner said the one or two cases of alcohol poisoning that occur in University residence halls each week use a tremendous amount of resources, taking up the time of
facilities workers, paramedics,
emergency workers and public safety officers who respond to help.
“We cannot protect (students) by not enforcing really basic laws and holding them accountable for their behavior,” Horner said. “If we don’t teach them these lessons now, then they’re really going to be in trouble when they get out into society.”
The meeting did not produce an agreement on how to handle the University’s policies on alcohol poisoning, but a compromise is necessary, Koleszar said.
“We can’t have one part of the University doing one thing and another part of the University doing something that contradicts it,” Koleszar said.
Hicks said he hopes PSAG will get input from other groups on campus. The group will continue to review the policy on alcohol poisoning at a meeting near the beginning of spring term.

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