On May 5, students and faculty gathered in Trollhaugen to discuss their ideas, concerns and other issues around the topic of alcohol. Geoffrey Carlisle '10 moderated the event, which included two student presentations and audience discussion. The event was attended by a large number of students, with some people having to stand at the door or sit on the ground.
"[Alcohol-related issues] seem like it's been occurring more than typical this year, so we thought this would be a good time for a discussion," Carlisle said in his opening statements.
To begin the discussion, two student research projects were presented. The first, by Emma Johanson '10, was entitled "St. Olaf Community Assessment: Incidents of St. Olaf Students' Use and Abuse of Alcohol."
In her survey of 533 students, she found that the odds of an Ole consuming alcohol is 10.47 times greater than if a significant other does not drink. The survey also found that students whose closest friend group in high school drank are 3.05 times greater of drinking in college.
The second project presented was from Jon Mahnke '10, Katie Mangan '11, Emily Quinnell '11 and Stacy Robert '10, for the sociology/anthropology 373 ethnographic research methods class. They studied Northfield community members' attitudes and beliefs about off-campus students.
They found that Northfield neighbors of off-campus students see alcohol as the main problem, leading to vandalism and noise disturbances.
The second portion of the meeting focused on how over-consumption of alcohol affects the community – both St. Olaf and Northfield as a whole – how to create awareness about risks and consequences of behavior due to over-consumption and encouraging community members to work together to find solutions. It was noted that the meeting was not about changing the St. Olaf alcohol policy, but rather communication and changing student attitudes towards alcohol.
"There is a widely held perception among Northfield citizens that St. Olaf students are worse community members than Carleton students," Carlisle said to get the conversation started.
The idea of a "drunk bus" to transport students to and from downtown Northfield came up. It was tried to a extent last weekend, when a bus shuttled students to and from the Grand, but there were issues of intoxicated students being rude to the bus driver.
"I love the idea of more public transportation getting students to and from campus … but our experiences like the ones that reportedly happened Saturday are why the bus company stopped doing it," said Greg Kneser, vice president of student life and dean of students. "The way the drivers were treated, the buses had to been cleaned and people were jumping out of the bus while it was moving,"
Another issue that was addressed was how to get the conversation about the topic of alcohol going."I hope when the 865 new students arrive in September, we can, as a community, talk really honestly about what's going on in our halls," Director of Residence Life Pamela McDowell said.
Alice Kovacik '10 agreed. "It's clear there's a conversation that needs to be had, and it needs to happen among students," she said. "Peer-to-peer conversations are more powerful than an adminstrator or professor telling you … I agree this is a conversation that needs to happen from the get-go when you arrive on campus."
Attendees of the meeting also discussed the negative aspects of the relationship between residence life staff and their students. Many students agreed that a more open conversation needed to happen between the staff and students in order to eliminate the fear that can arise between alcohol-consuming students and their JC or RA.
Kenyon Thorp '11 brought up the point that she wished the administration would do more to help students.
Kneser responded, "What more can we do? This is your life, this is your reputation. I've lived here 20 years; my reputation is established.""I do think its interesting some comments that are being made … there are some things I want to just touch the surface of, I guess," SGA President Taylor Broby '10 said. "When drinking with friends, you need to realize that this is something that can kill you … to say this is what we want the administration to drink is very interesting … you have the power to tell people, ‘You need to slow down, you need to stop drinking right now!'"
The continuing conversation on alcohol at St. Olaf will continue into the next school year, with more meetings, planning and ideas being implemented to make things safer and easier for members of the St. Olaf community and the Northfield community as a whole.
skaggs@stolaf.edu
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