AFS asks Trustees to reconsider on-campus drinking policy

The Association of Furman Students announced Monday that it has drafted a new resolution, urging Furman's Board of Trustees to reevaluate the university's policies regarding alcohol on campus. The announcement was made before the nearly 300 students in attendance at Monday's AFS meeting, which was conducted in the style of a town hall open forum to discuss Furman's current alcohol policy. Junior class senator Bran Fowler closed the forum, confirming that AFS will vote to pass the new resolution at its meeting next week.

Held at 6 p.m. in the Watkins Room of the University Center, the AFS forum gave students an opportunity to present their comments and questions before a panel of administrative representatives, including Connie Carson and Carol Daniels of Student Services, Edward Young and Jason Cassidy of Housing and Residence Life and Stephanie Boyd, Furman's resident Health Educator.

One by one, students posed questions concerning alcohol-related issues, including the Greenville Sheriff Department's grant to reduce drunk driving and underage drinking, the university's off-campus conduct policy and - perhaps most frequently - students' desire for university policy reform.

Towards the forum's end, Carson said that successful reform will require a unified, thorough student proposal, backed by both the Furman University Substance Abuse Council and the Office of Student Life. The proposal will then be given to the Student Life Committee - a group consisting primarily of trustees, with representatives from the faculty and from the student body - to present before the full Board of Trustees.

"We've held 3 or 4 of these forums in the ten years that I've been here," said Boyd Yarbrough, vice president for Administrative Services. "This was the most students I've ever seen show up in support of any one particular issue."

Though this is by no means the first attempt to reform the university's on-campus alcohol policy, it is certainly one of the most logical, pragmatic and cohesive, Yarbrough said.

AFS president Ben Able said that the coming months will be spent garnering support for the resolution amongst student groups. AFS plans to bring its resolution before the Board of Trustees when it reconvenes in November, or later when the trustees meet next February if necessary.

"As the liaison between the administration and the student body, we are attempting to channel the energy and popular sentiment of students into a viable plan of action, and into obtainable goals that will ultimately benefit students," Able said.

Coincidental or not, AFS's proposal is being ushered in on the coattails of what one student columnist termed as the perfect storm of Greek life - a time when a new Greenville housing ordinance, increasingly strict Inter-Fraternity Council regulations and a federal grant received by the Greenville Sheriff's Department have threatened the viability of Greek organizations on campus.

The Greenville City Council passed a new ordinance last May, effectively banning housing used by fraternities or sororities that is not located within a multi-family zone. Three Furman fraternities - Sigma Chi, Sigma Nu, Sigma Alpha Epsilon - were impacted by the change, and were forced to vacate their off-campus houses.

"A group of us actually went down to the City Council meetings and wrote up proposals to try to influence their decision," SAE president Stewart Koch said. "They gave us until August to get out of our house."

Once a staple of Furman social life, open fraternity parties - meaning any party where alcohol is present that does not require guests to obtain an invitation from a chapter member - were officially banned last year when IFC began requiring guest lists at all fraternity house parties.

The guest lists initially contained all members of the student body. This year, however, IFC revamped its policy to include automatically only Greek students and freshman on the guest lists. However, each chapter member may also add the names of up to three additional students not encompassed by either of those two groups.

Jack Heron, the president of Kappa Alpha Order, supports IFC's new policies, but believes Furman needs to assist fraternities as they begin to put the policies into practice. Heron proposed before IFC that the administration provide fraternities with police officers - Furman Public Safety or otherwise - to help fraternities carry the burden created by IFC's policies.

"The guest lists are beneficial from a risk management standpoint, but Furman is expecting the fraternities to institute these new policies without offering enough support," Heron said. "Financially, we're having trouble adjusting."

A federal grant was given to the Greenville County Sheriff's Office earlier this year, intending to pursue three core objectives: increase the amount of DUI checkpoints across the county, reduce the amount of underage drinking and eliminate the sale of alcohol to minors.

With this grant, the Sheriff's office established the Alcohol Enforcement Team - or "party patrol" -to combat social gatherings that may be conducive to underage drinking, including fraternity functions.

Edward Young, the Assistant Director of North Village and Greek life, believes that with the external pressures from City Council and the Greenville Sheriff's Department, the changes to IFC policy are imperative to keeping Furman's Greek system afloat.

"There will continue to be changes to IFC policy, but the changes are necessary if we want to continue to have a Greek system at all," Young said. "You know the one thing on earth that refused to change? Dinosaurs - and they're gone."

With these new hurtles in place, fraternities now more than ever are beginning to revaluate their risk management policies, including how to best manage and enforce their guest lists, how to prevent underage drinking at their houses and where to host their parties.

"As seniors, we can't expect the same parties we went to as freshman any more," Pi Kappa Phi president Alistair Hay said. "We've reached a point now where our fraternities, and Furman's social life in general, are going to have to adapt. We just need to be more creative.