Dartmouth's Surreal Keg Policy: Asinine, Unreasonable, Preposterous

Monday, October 4, 2004

This is not an article that foretells the decline of Western civilization, by any means. Rather, it is a story that has to do with alcohol and with kegs and with frat parties and with Dartmouth College, and as such to the unsympathetic ear it could seem petty. However, it is also a story of bureaucratic meddling at its worst, and worth telling.

For some time now, in order to throw a party—in administrative parlance, a 'social event'—it must be 'registered' with the Office of Student Life, in compliance with the Social Event Management Procedures (S.E.M.P.), a set of guidelines that reflect "Dartmouth College's commitment to provide the safest possible social atmosphere for members of the college community and their guests. Its success depends upon the cooperative efforts of students, faculty, administration, and alumni in both understanding upholding the spirit of personal responsibility and respect for self and others that is embodied in these procedures." But this—say, here's a surprise—is a rather tiresome wheeze. In practice, the S.E.M.P. has changed the way social events at the College function, and, as the guidelines are currently up for review and revision, they're likely to change things a good deal more in the future.

The changes that've ensued, of course, have not always been for the worst. Indeed, what the S.E.M.P. emphasizes again and again and again is 'safety,' and the procedures have probably done something to make the campus safer. But they're also increasingly used not for 'safety' but to either deny the presence of alcohol at social events or to reduce its quantity so much that it's practically negligible. The S.E.M.P., in the wrong hands, has become a cloak that obscures more-controlling social engineering schemes. The real critique of the S.E.M.P. is not that it limits alcohol. It's that those limits are regularly, arbitrarily, and irrationally abused.

To those who are unfamiliar with these regulations—mainly, alumni, because the S.E.M.P. is a relatively new set of regulations, and unaffiliated students, because they apply mainly to Greek undergraduates—the rules probably seem arcane. A 'social event' is defined as "any activity that is sponsored by a student or organization and at which alcohol is present." A 'social event' must be 'registered' in specific cases, and most of these cases pertain to the College's Co-ed, Fraternity, and Sorority (C.F.S.) houses or other undergraduate societies. In this case, a social event must be registered if alcohol is to be served and the guests present will exceed either the number of members of that organization or forty people, whichever is fewer. In other instances, a social event involving alcohol must be registered if it occurs in a common area of a residential facility and the attendance is greater than ten students, or if it occurs in a private residence and might "affect the immediate environs." All social events on campus are encouraged to be registered, though registration is only required in the aforementioned circumstances.

Registration is a two-part process. The 'hosts' of the social event file a 'Social Event Registration form' with the Office of Student Life; later, they meet with a staff member of Student Activities (a sub-department of O.S.L.) to "discuss event management plans and procedures." The focus of these meetings is broadly on the S.E.M.P. guidelines and particularly on "safety." Assuming that the precautions planned are deemed sound, Student Activities gives the organization a go-ahead and alerts Safety and Security, the campus police.

Once an event is registered, the way alcohol is served throughout is strictly regulated. An organization must designate (in addition to the hosts) monitors, who work entrances and exits to "ensure the safety of guests, secure the facility, and compliance with [the S.E.M.P.];" and servers, who dispense alcohol "responsibly." All students who fill any of these rules are required to have participated in a "training course" on the fine points of the S.E.M.P.

The amount of alcohol served is also strictly regulated, which is whatever Student Activities determines is appropriate, based on a sliding algorithm (more on this to come). Serving more alcohol than allotted is of course prohibited; kegs are tagged with metal code bands that are periodically checked during the course of the social event by S&S to guard against deceitfulness.

Alcohol that is registered to be served at a party may arrive no earlier than the day of the event and any leftover alcohol must be removed from quarters no later than 3:00 p.m. the following afternoon. Guests must be served from a single central location; they are not allowed to serve themselves. Only one serving of alcohol is to be dispensed to an individual at a time, and no more than one drink per hour. Alcohol is not to be served to those who are underage or even mildly intoxicated. Non-salty snacks and non-alcohol beverages must be on hand for non-tipplers. S&S usually checks a registered social event twice—usually at the very beginning and at the very end—to ensure compliance with these regulations. "Alcohol," according to the guidelines, "may not be the primary focus of the social event."

So what's wrong with all that?

Simply by the book, not much. Aside from the massive amount of red tape and manpower that these procedures mandate, it's the way these procedures are being used that's cause for consternation. For the most part, they're not being used to ensure safety but to systematically prohibit the consumption of alcohol on campus—not for those who are underage, but for those who are in fact twenty-one and older.

Formerly, when Student Activities calculated the amount of alcohol to be served at a social event, they looked at the number of expected guests in attendance—say, 500—and supposed that a quarter of them (the seniors, basically) would be legal drinkers (in this case, 125). Then, they used the event's intended length—say, thee hours—and, at one drink per-hour per-person (125 times 3), calculated the number of servings allowed (here, 375 servings). And because a keg contains between 120 and 160 servings of beer, this hypothetical party would probably be allocated two or three kegs—no more, and, hopefully, less.

Fine. But lately, the Student Activities bureaucracy has started monkeying around with the numbers, in an attempt—by its own admission—to diminish the presence of alcohol on campus, regardless of the presence of legal-age drinkers. Only a fool would argue that the College shouldn't fight against alcohol abuse or underage drinking. But the point of the S.E.M.P.—according to its own mission statement—is to make the campus social scene safer. It isn't meant to eliminate it altogether.

Linda Kennedy, the director of Student Activities, arbitrarily decided last winter that the policies in place weren't lining up with reality—namely, that the attendance numbers Safety and Security officers were reporting on its registered event paperwork were much lower than the attendance projections the C.F.S. houses were submitting in advance of the event. So now, instead of employing the projected number of guests, Student Activities calculates alcohol consumption by the recorded attendance at past social events. The policy is the same. But it's increasingly being used in a dishonest and unrealistic way.

That is to say, the turnout numbers Student Activities is employing have been melted down and reconstituted and reinterpreted so many times that they're entirely meaningless. First of all, Safety and Security walks through at the very beginning of the social event (when attendance is low) to ensure that the S.E.M.P. precautions are in place, and at the very end (when attendance is low) to ensure the precautions were followed and nothing went awry. S&S officers are rarely present, if ever, when a party is at its commanding heights. Their estimates are not really reflective of the actual attendance of any event. And S&S repeatedly told Student Activities pretty much the same thing.

Besides, using just about any set estimate at any given time is unrealistic. It's like a judging a motion picture by looking at a still frame. It doesn't account for any dynamism, for those guests who come and go.

Furthermore, every event is different. The way the system works now doesn't account for any diversity, for the fact that most every event is going to be different from the one before it, depending on the time, the planning, and the place.

All this can seem insignificant and small; but the issue isn't about loudly caterwauling for more alcohol. It's about putting on successful, responsible events—open to the entire campus, whether the guests are affiliated or not—where they can socialize and alcohol happens to be present. It should be common sense that alcohol can be served and consumed responsibly.

But the results of this new Student Activities policy can be surreal, completely out-of-step with actual campus life. Things came to a head this week-end, when Phi Delta Alpha attempted to register a party and was allotted only one (1) keg.

Here's some more context. Five houses are currently on probation, meaning that they can't absorb any of the students going out on the town on any given evening. The same amounts of people are compressed into a smaller number of fraternities and sororities. It was the first weekend of the term, and attendance everywhere was expected to be at maximum capacity. Phi Delt's social event was registered for four hours. The house had hired a band to play for the duration.

More to the point—Phi Delt's membership stands at forty-nine, and twenty-eight members are of legal drinking age. The band had eight members and a roadie or two. This made the guest total fifty-one before the party even started. Even employing the current formula, the one keg proscription assumed that there would be zero guests.

This isn't the way that the system should work. Phi Delta Alpha was able to file an eleventh-hour appeal, which allotted two more kegs for a total of three. But given the conditions—the party was mobbed, and frequently at fire capacity—it was hardly enough. The situation is the same all over campus.

Clearly, this is a policy in need of reform, without any qualification or proviso. Right now, Dean of the College James Larimore has convened a Social Event Management Procedures Review Committee, to "review and assess" this terrible, terrible system. The committee will include Joe Cassidy, the Associate Dean of Student Life; Deborah Carney, the Assistant Dean of Residential Life; Marcia Kelly, the Director of Undergraduate Judicial Affairs; Harry Kinne, the Director of Safety and Security; Ryan Travia, the Coordinator of Alcohol and Other Drug Education Programs;—and six seniors in good standing, three of whom will be elected. We'd encourage you to apply. It's high time to be realistic and sensible, instead of consistently working to capsize the Greek ship of state.

Dartmouth's Surreal Keg Policy: Asinine, Unreasonable, Preposterous

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