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September 10, 2004 > News > ABPAC to reconsider changes

ABPAC to reconsider changes

By Ian Everhart | Thresher staff

Despite stalling last spring, college-specific Alcohol Policy guidelines may still be implemented by the end of the year. Changes to the Rice University Alcoholic Beverage Policy proposed by the Alcoholic Beverage Policy Advisory Committee will be discussed again at meetings this year, ABPAC Chair Steve Cox said. Cox, a Sid Richardson College master, said he plans to meet with President David Leebron during the next week to discuss the possible changes to the Alcohol Policy before convening ABPAC. Cox said he wants to know Leebron’s thoughts on the Alcohol Policy before ABPAC discusses the matter. ‘The students, faculty and staff on ABPAC are going to want to know, ‘Where does the president stand on the current policy?’ let alone its need for revisions or amendments,’ Cox, a computational and applied mathematics professor, said. In February, ABPAC approved changes to the Alcohol Policy requiring that individual colleges create sets of guidelines for the consumption of alcohol at private parties in their facilities. Under the proposed new policy, college governments would be required to establish a maximum number of kegs permitted in a room or suite and a maximum number of private parties allowed over a given time period and in a well-defined space of the college, such as a hall or stairwell. Cox said the Alcohol Policy changes were developed after last year’s college chief justices asked for more details to guide them in enforcing the policy, particularly in relation to private parties. Lovett College President Lanny Bose said the chief justices had difficulty maintaining safe conditions when many simultaneous parties happened in close proximity. ‘On nights where there were public parties at the colleges, private parties associated with those parties reached sizes that were simply unmanageable and unsafe by virtue of the crowds in them, not just the alcohol involved,’ Bose, who served as Lovett chief justice in 2003-‘04, said. Former Baker College President Megan Batchelor, who served on ABPAC in 2003-‘04, said the chief justices wanted to have a stronger position to enforce the rules for private parties. ‘[They wanted] some sort of codified rules that they could rely upon when controlling parties at the college level, so that it doesn’t appear to be just their discretion or arbitrary designation of what’s appropriate,’ Batchelor, a senior, said. ‘[It would] give the chief justices more leverage and more authority when trying to enforce the Alcohol Policy, so it was less ambiguous.’ The proposed Alcohol Policy changes stated the individual colleges should submit their guidelines to the Committee of College Masters and Presidents by April 10 for approval. According to the original timeline, the new policies would be in place by the start of classes in the fall. Former Vice President for Student Affairs Zenaido Camacho provisionally approved the changes in March, pending further consideration after receiving each college’s guidelines. M&P discussed the policies at its meeting April 15. In a two-hour meeting, the committee reached a consensus that M&P was not the proper body to approve the colleges’ guidelines and decided not to vote on approving the sets of guidelines. Cox said everyone at the M&P meeting agreed it would be wise to promote responsibility for the hosts of private parties, but the group was unable to agree on the best way to do so. ‘The hard part came down to finding the right measure for saying what’s safe and what’s unsafe,’ Cox said. ‘We got stuck with arguing about the right amount of beer, and that’s a strange place for the masters and presidents to be.’ Rather than voting on the colleges’ policies, M&P recommended revising the Alcohol Policy changes to state that the individual colleges’ governments should approve their own sets of rules. Cox said he had planned to discuss the direction of the changes with Camacho during the summer but was unable to do so because of Camacho’s retirement in early August. ABPAC has not met this fall, Interim Vice President for Student Affairs John Hutchinson said. Hutchinson said he thinks ABPAC will continue to review its recommendations but no new changes will be implemented before the new dean for undergraduate education is selected. ‘ABPAC can continue doing its work, but I suspect that once ABPAC reaches the point of making a recommendation, that that recommendation is likely to go to the dean of undergraduate education rather than the vice president,’ Hutchinson said. Cox said he expects ABPAC to revisit the changes and pursue them further. ‘The chief justices want a definition of a private gathering that’s more clear than the current Alcohol Policy, and I think ABPAC can speak to some of those inadequacies,’ Cox said. ABPAC includes 12 students and 10 faculty and staff members, including three college masters, a chief justice or president from each college and the Student Association president.

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