University of Vermont students caught on campus with drugs and alcohol this year are paying a price. With advice from a national group of schools, Vermont’s largest university is implementing new fines for students caught doing drugs, and upping the fines for those with too much booze on hand. And since UVM is a dry-halls campus, they apply even for students 21 and older.
Annie Stevens, vice provost for student affairs at UVM, says the new fines are intended to serve as a deterrent, not to make a mint for the university — though they’re likely to do both.
According to Stevens, UVM signed onto the National College Health Improvement Program two years ago. Founded in 2011 by then-president of Dartmouth College Jim Kim, the program includes 32 member schools collaborating to reduce high-risk drinking. UVM’s decision to implement its new fines, says Stevens, was based on that program.
So, what are the fines? $250 for possessing a “common source” of alcohol — that’s 12 servings or more; $150 for empties found during routine Health and Safety inspections of dorm rooms; $150 for a student’s first drug offense; and $250 for the second drug offense. The common source fine went up this year from $150, and all the other fines are new this year, Stevens says.
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Get caught with a 12 pack of beer and you have a larger fine then an ounce of weed… even if your 21. Yup makes sense to me.
Are these fines in addition to the other penalties residential life has in place like suspension or expulsion. Or have they removed these penalties?
I’d also like to know what the success rate is of students who’ve completed the “eCheckup To Go” course. How many go on to use marijuana again?
Good question. Sorry this wasn’t more clear: These fines have been added in addition to the existing disciplinary measures Residential Life has in place.
As for the success rate of eCheckup To Go: I didn’t see any statistics on that during my reporting.
Just to be clear, if students make good choices, follow state laws and those policies that they agreed to follow by becoming a UVM student, and there would be zero “revenue”? Do I have that right?
Alternatively … the students that do decide to violate… those that do decide to get out-of-hand shit-faced to the point where they become incredibly disruptive and require the intervention of Res Life staff and Police services … and housekeeping staff to clean up their vomit and their destruction. Those are the students that will ultimately pay into the administrative costs of dealing with their inability to make responsible choices?
Do I have that right?
Don’t want a fine? Simple, live according to the clearly stated expectations for what it means to be a UVM student.
Yes, this is fairly obvious.
Obey your masters or they will take your money and force you to attend a re-education class. Compliance is the new freedom.
According to UVM policy the residence halls are dry. However, the RD’s and ARD’s are allowed to drink, according to Reslife policy, within their rooms located within the residence halls. This directly violates the overarching UVM policy and begs the question of why should certain people in the dorms be allowed to drink, while other 21 year old students are not?
I’m consistently amazed by people who seem legitimately surprised that a state institution would not become some sort of sanctuary where laws pertaining to alcohol and drug use are ignored simply because “they’re going to do it anyway”. You and I would probably agree that the age for legal consumption is too high. I think it should be 18. We may also agree that weed should be legal and is actually less harmful than is alcohol.
But that is not what this is about. It’s about teaching young adults to live by the standards a community has in place … work to change them if you can, but don’t be surprised when you’re held to that standard. If it really bothers you, don’t attend a university who has policies in place you feel to be too restrictive. There’s still plenty of time to drop.
To suggest that the UVM officials should just look the other way is to suggest that they take on incredible liability.
You’re just picking fights where they don’t exist. UVM staff members are, simply, not held to the Code of Student Rights and Responsibilities. Nor should they be. What about faculty who live in those apartments? Do you want to hold them to the student standard as well? Nobody is forcing anyone of legal age to live in the residence halls. For those that are required to live on campus, the likelihood that they’re 21 is pretty much zero. If you do happen to be 21 and are required to live on campus … do your research and find a campus who has alcohol policies you like.
Actually that is not true. Every freshman and sophmore student is required to live on campus, regardless of age. So the Iraq ?Afghanistan war vet coming home and using his GI bill to go to school can’t sit in his dorm room and have a few beers….
So your opinion is they should just find a different college to attend… and IMO that’s a pretty shitty way to thank them.
Well if students are being held to a high standard, then why not the RDs that supervise them? Shouldn’t they be setting a good example for student conduct, or better yet, adhering to the actual university policy? As for professors or other non-ResLife University employees living in the dorms, nothing requires them to live there. They could easily rent their own apartments downtown. Same as students who are 21.
At UVM there are hundreds of 21 year old students living within the dorms. Just because they are a small percentage is no reason to deny them a right to drink within what is their own home. Less then a decade ago 21 year old students were allowed to drink within their dorm rooms. The university changed policy in order to reduce the amount of drinking on campus. However, the recent statistics only show a rise in alcohol usage, drug usage, and student damage to the residential halls. Thus, the plan of improving the quality of life by not allowing 21 year olds to drink has backfired.
Make a few calls. You’ll realize that a non-traditionally aged student has options other than living on campus.
Again … quite simply … staff members are not held to the Code of Student Rights and Responsibilities. Nor should they be. It’s student policy. If you don’t like it, don’t become a student. I’m not suggesting it’s good policy, just that there are options beyond whining about why they don’t apply to staff members. They just don’t … it’s a student policy. If you don’t want it to apply to students, then work to change it. Pointing out that staff don’t have the same policies as students is, probably, an ineffective way to change that policy.
Live-in res life staff can have pets, too.
“If you don’t like it, don’t become a student.”
You’ve mentioned this several times now. Frankly, it’s an invalid argument. UVM is a state university funded in part by the taxpayers of the State of Vermont to create an institution whose mission was to educate vermonters (and others). Many VTer’s go to UVM because its cheaper then going somewhere out of state, because its the only in state college to provide their choice of major, as well as other reasons.
The unintended consequence of these draconian policies is to drive the hardest partying students into Burlington neighborhoods. How has that worked out for everybody?
“If you don’t want it to apply to students, then work to change it.
Pointing out that staff don’t have the same policies as students is,
probably, an ineffective way to change that policy.”
Also, pointing out that a policy is bad or ineffective is not the same thing as wanting to or trying to change it. Just an FYI.
I would venture those consequences are in fact intended. No one could be so oblivious as to not realize that’s what will happen.
” The time has come for someone to put his foot down. And that foot is me.”
-Dean Wormer
We’ll agree on this point. And then the pendulum will swing again.
It is true that certain staff are not held to Reslife policies as they pertain to students. However, all university staff are held to university policies. The UVM drinking policy for staff and faculty quite clearly limits staff to only being allowed to consume alcohol at university functions with prior approval. Living in a dorm is not a function. Thus alcohol is banned for even the faculty within their living quarters according to university policy.
Furthermore, every ARD is a student of the university and thus must comply with student alcohol policies. However, ResLife policies as they apply to ARDs are in direct violations of UVM policies which clearly state “no person, regardless of age, is permitted to possess or consume alcohol within the on-campus residential areas of the University.”
You don’t go to UVM to publicly get drunk or smoke dope. Jesus.
Jesus is not making policy for UVM.
He might be
That’s not a particularly smart response. What is your argument for why there SHOULDN’T be consequences to a student at UVM — who by definition is too young to legally drink — who gets caught with alcohol on campus?
I object to your blasphemy. That aside, I support the traditional and usual consequences for drinking : hangover, vomiting on your cothing, getting a blackeye, going to a concert with Andi Higbee…
The Professors would never put up with that. They’d get a petition going telling Him He doesn’t exist.
It is well within the University’s discretion to determine that your so-called “traditional and usual” consequences are insufficient to deter the activity. After all, historically they have not been. It is also within the University’s discretion to prevent harm from alcohol and drugs — harm to both the student herself and others — BEFORE the harm occurs. Kids using alcohol have killed themselves and others. Do you include suicide and homicide as within the “traditional and usual” consequences that we should just let happen?
Valar Morghulis.
It’s not an invalid argument. In many, many areas of life we don’t have choices about where to go or what to do. But the fact that we might only have one option doesn’t mean that that option can’t come with rules or conditions. Just because UVM is your only choice for college doesn’t mean that they can’t impose rules you don’t like.