Drug task force meets

Members of the Alcohol and Drug Task Force heard the first round of presentations from different campus groups about the role and effects alcohol and drug use have on campus.

The Academic Standing Committee, Sexual Assault Support Team (SAST), Resdential Life and Services, Judicial Board and the Office of Safety and Security all gave presentations Wednesday. Next week, Human Resources, the Counseling Center and Health Services will deliver reports to the task force. The presentations are not open to the press.

The task force will use the presentations to gain different perspectives and more information on alcohol and drug use on campus.

"It was an informative and well-done discussion," Charlie Ross, director of the Counseling Center and co-chair of the task force, said.

Others agreed. "It was pretty helpful," said junior task force member Matthew Norton. "We got a fairly wide variety of views."

Most of the information provided by the groups, Ross said, was observation-based and anecdotal. He named the Academic Standing Committee as an exception.

Associate Dean of Student Academic Affairs David Hershiser, on behalf of the Academic Standing Committee, said that of the 40 dismissals and suspensions that occur each year, he estimates that about 10 percent of them are alcohol or drug related.

Hershiser said, "That's not much. Compared to other factors, alcohol and drugs are one of the smaller contributors [to suspensions and dismissals]."

Junior Joshua Kaye, a task force member, agreed. "I think everyone [on the task force] was surprised with the low rate of suspensions and dismissals. 10 percent is not a lot."

Hershiser also presented the results of a questionairre administered to students that asked whether they thought they had a problem with alcohol or drugs, whether they had ever sought help for alcohol or drug problems and whether they had ever sought advice for alcohol or drug problems.

Kaye said the number of positive responses to the question of whether a student has problems with drugs or alcohol also surprised him. Nine percent of those surveyed indicated that they thought they had a problem with drugs or alcohol. "That's a larger number that I would have expected," Kaye said. "It just goes to show that maybe we need more education [about drugs and alcohol]."

Associate Dean of Residential Life Deb McNish and Assistant Director of Residential Life Yeworkwha Belachew delivered the presentation for Residential Life and Services. Belachew and McNish spoke about the impact alcohol and drug use has on students, Residential Coordinators and the entire community, what support services are needed for students at Oberlin and the lack of support for student party planners.

Belachew said that a problem Residential Life encounters is students feeling that they cannot trust Residential Life because the department is also charged with carrying out disciplinary action.

Kaye agreed. "I can't imagine students who would trust anyone who is telling them not to do something they want to do."

SAST reported that a majority of its calls do involve questions of alcohol intake. "For the most part," Kaye said, "[those calls] are not assault but some sort of ambiguous situation."

Suggestions for areas of improvement were also made by presenters. Belachew said that party planners do not have the resources to prevent underage drinking at parties. "When we work with the party planners we talk about how to make sure underage students don't drink," Belachew said. "It's the most difficult task to make sure that doesn't happen."

She also said Oberlin does not have adequate support services for students in need. "There's the Counseling Center or Residential Life or the Office of Chaplains or advisers … I don't think that's enough," Belachew said.

And another issue is obtaining data. Ross said, "There was a lot of anecdotal [information at the presentations]. One of the observations I made was that we might be able to develop some systems that might improve the quantitative aspects, with raised consciousness of the issues."

Hershiser agreed. "More data will always be nice to get," he said.