Calls home, revoked football tickets in order, too
Drinking underage is going to cost students both cash and football tickets this year, as USC moves to sober up its campus.
Sanctions for a first underage drinking offense will increase to $250, up from $50 last year. The first-time drug fine, which was also $50, will increase to $350.
In both cases, parents will hear about it with a call home from their child and his or her hearing officer.
Previously, USC only sent them letters about a first drug offense or second alcohol offense, according to Director of Student Conduct Alisa Cooney.
Punishments for second and third offenses have tightened a bit, too, Cooney said, but they mostly serve to support previously standing policies.
A second drinking violation includes a $350 fine; for drugs, a return to Judicial brings up a suspension of at least one semester. The same consequence holds for a third-time drinking offense.
The previous set of sanctions didn’t do much to deter students from “self-destructive behaviors,” according to Vice President for Student Affairs Dennis Pruitt. Take a slap on the wrist and write a check, and the process was over.
The crackdown will extend to football games, too.
Students who are ejected from “any sporting event for any reason” will lose their season football ticket, according to a new ticketing policy provided by Adrienne White, the student ticketing coordinator.
This year, USC expects to see about 150 students ejected from football games each week, Cooney said, though that number will probably vary from week to week.
If those students are removed for drinking underage, she added, they’ll be hit with the new fines as well.
Many students have taken issue with the new rules, calling them excessive and saying they don’t treat students like adults.
For some, like fourth-year political science student Katherine Brown, the fines represented “a huge burden on (first-year students’) parents,” because many of those students don’t have jobs.
Others took to Twitter to name their qualms about calling students’ parents. Many jokingly compared that measure to their time in high school or kindergarten.
A handful were more supportive, saying they hoped the ticketing provision would keep rowdy fans out of the stands.
The new consequences stem from the university’s first review of its alcohol and drug policies in a decade, Cooney said.
That process began in January, spurred in part by problems in the university’s culture of alcohol that administrators described as “environmental” and “systemic.”
But motivation increased during the spring semester, as USC was shocked by two separate fatal incidents in which five people died.
Three were students, one was a former student. Each had been drinking.
The new policies await official approval from the faculty senate in the coming weeks and are expected to pass as proposed. But in the meantime, Pruitt said, they’ll be enforced as a temporary measure.
Administrators reviewed the policies of 20 other large universities as they reconsidered USC’s. The new policies, Cooney said, will catch the university up with the rest of the country in an area where it had lagged.
They remove “legalese,” Cooney said, and delineate what USC prohibits — from being drunk in public to having empty containers or playing drinking games.
The policies also include a “shared responsibility code” that holds underage students accountable for being around drinking or partying.
“If you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, you need to extract yourself from that situation,” Pruitt said.
Collectively, Pruitt said he hopes the new rules and punishments will help to “raise the bar” on the university’s culture and to foster a sense of responsibility on campus.
In any case, the rules are sure to raise new funds for the university, and those, Pruitt said, will be funneled into USC’s judicial and alcohol education programs.
That’ll help cut delays in hearing students’ cases, and Cooney said that will make the meetings more impactful and effective. At present, she said, students wait about 30 days to meet with an officer.
It’ll also fund expansion of the Carolina Awareness on Alcohol Policies and Safety (CAAPS) class that students are required to take after a drinking offense.
Last year, all of the class’s sections filled up, forcing administrators to increase caps on their size; that, Cooney said, reduces their effectiveness.
The additions have Cooney and other administrators excited and hopeful, but they’re not alone. Haley Porter, a second-year nursing student, has found a silver lining, too.
“Well,” she said on Twitter Thursday, “at least there’s a higher chance of me getting a ticket (to football games) now.”