After less than a month of discussion, members of the Alcohol Policy Rules and Regulations Committee have discovered that implementing the University's new alcohol policy is not going to be as easy as it might have seemed.
The policy, approved last April, requires that students bring their own alcoholic beverages to social events or that alcoholic beverages be distributed by University-approved bartenders.
While the committee has successfully laid out strategies for providing bartenders, it has have yet to define regulations for the bring your own beverage policy.
"The BYOB policy continues to be a challenge," said Paul Bumbalough, associate dean of students and a member of the committee. "When looking at BYOB we have to decide how we can still allow for freedom while trying to have individuals take responsibility."
Kathleen Wallace, assistant to the dean of student development and chair of the committee, agreed that the policy is not an easy one to define. "A BYOB policy is a big challenge to try and regulate because it brings up so many other issues," she said. The committee will have to look at historically important issues such as carding, monitoring and the noise policy, she said.
Trinity senior Peggy Cross, president of Duke Student Government and also a member of the committee, said that although BYOB may be a complicated issue, the committee should not overregulate. "I don't want us to make a lot of rules and regulations that nickel and dime the policy to death," she said. "The policy will become too complicated to be effective."
Some members of the committee say they are concerned about whether or not the policy can be effectively enforced. The policy will be designed to emphasize more conscious and individual decision making by students, but that successful enforcement will require active involvement from many different areas, Wallace said.
"This is a community-owned policy, not just the administration's," she said. "We're going to share the responsibility with students and everyone else."
But Trinity junior Takcus Nesbit, DSG vice president for student affairs and a member of the committee, said he does not have much faith in the policy. "I just don't think we're creating a policy that is enforceable," he said.
Nesbit said that keg parties allowed the University to monitor exactly where alcohol was being distributed. The BYOB policy will make it impossible to locate and control where students are obtaining alcohol, he said.
Lewis Wardell, assistant director of public safety, said that although enforcement has not been rigorous enough in the past, it will be increased next year.
Students will also be expected to take more responsibility for their actions, Wardell said. "Public safety wouldn't even exist if people had self-control," he said.
Wardell said that despite some differences of opinion between students and administrators, he has been surprised at how quickly the committee has been able to compromise on most issues. "Everybody has the same bottom line of providing for the health and safety of students," he said.
Jeanine Atkinson, a substance abuse specialist for student health and a committee member, said that any such tension between students and administrators resulted from minor instances of miscommunication.
"A lot of the administrators on this committee have been working together for a long time on these issues and because of that there may be some communication between those administrators that seems unspoken and remains unclear to student members," she said.
Bumbalough said that students on the committee might feel they have more of an investment in the policy itself. "It is difficult to come up with a policy that is only going to affect a small portion of the committee," he said.
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