With the onset of the Guavaween holiday, school officials want students to be aware of the risks of intoxication.
According to recently released statistics provided by the Office of Student Conduct, there have been 215 alcohol policy violation charges and 46 social host violation charges documented so far this semester.
With the recently heightened sanctions for alcohol violations in the Student Conduct system, getting intoxicated at Guavaween is a “risky” business for many reasons, administrators say.
Still, school officials said the large number of alcohol charges is not necessarily indicative of a rise in the amount of drinking done on campus.
Associate Dean of Students Gina Firth, feels that the amount of drinking on campus is remaining relatively constant. But she insisted that students are becoming more receptive to reporting it.
“I didn’t see large gatherings like this that were brought to our attention last year,” Firth said. “We’ve seen some pretty large gatherings of 10 or more people.”
It’s important to realize that the figures above are indicative only of the number of charges, and don’t indicate whether the parties involved were found responsible. They are also slightly inflated due to the fact that all students at an event where an alcohol policy has been violated are charged, though they may not be found responsible.
Individual students aren’t the only ones feeling the pressure. Delta Zeta recently pled responsible and received sanctions for violating university alcohol policy. Kappa Sigma fraternity has been placed on summary suspension for alcohol-related charges, and as of press time is still awaiting their pre-hearing.
Regardless of the outcome of individual cases, the increase in charges is due directly to student and RA intervention, according to Firth. She added that some of the larger busts often start out simply as repeated noise violations reported by students.
“I’ve seen a lack of tolerance toward all kinds of policy issues with students this year,” Firth said. “Students are turning things in that they weren’t before because they have the opportunity to do it in an anonymous capacity.”
With students now able to turn in incidents without attaching themselves, Security says they are able to more effectively do their job.
“The Silent Witness program can be used for pretty much anything the student body would perceive as a policy violation or non-emergency situation,” said Kevin Howell, Assistant Director of Security.
Though students can make use of the Silent Witness program through text messaging, they have other options for getting in touch with Security, including calling the office or sending an e-mail. If a student calls the office and no one is at the desk, the call will be forwarded to one of the officers on duty.
Howell cautions that students should not wait to report incidents that could require the attention of Security.
“One situation we received was 10 days old,” Howell recalled. “It’s not that we got around to it 10 days later. We responded to it immediately. It’s difficult to take care of an issue if you’re [not going to report it immediately].”
Anonymous reporting or not, some students at UT continue to embrace binge drinking.
“It seems as if there’s a lot of high risk drinking,” said Judicial Coordinator Mike Gilmer. “We know Tampa’s a fun place, but we want people to graduate from here. We don’t want people to develop really bad habits and fail out of school, or worse.”
But an “or worse” scenario isn’t out of the question, either.
“In the past week or so, we’ve had a couple alcohol poisonings,” said Charles Mascenik, Director of Campus Security. “The other night one of our guys saw [students] carrying [an extremely intoxicated student] in and called the EMT