In response to several student deaths and the Idaho State Board of Education’s request for the University of Idaho to be a leader in campus safety, two university task forces have been working since last spring to develop a plan for improving student safety.UI Interim President, Don Burnett, and Dean of Students, Bruce Pitman, delivered a presentation to the State Board of Education last week on the progress of two task forces — drugs and alcohol, and Greek life.
The task forces were created by former UI president, M. Duane Nellis. Pitman said the SBOE was “extremely positive” about the presentation and the list of recommendations both task forces produced.
Drug and alcohol task force
One of the major recommendations made by the drugs and alcohol task force include changes in the code of conduct to include off-campus activities, Pitman said.
“We are one of the very few universities, that currently, only has jurisdiction for behavior on-campus. WSU, Boise State, Idaho State, UW, University of Montana … all have codes of conduct that apply outside of campus,” Pitman said. “In that sense, we’re a decade behind.”
Pitman said other recommendations included conducting new research on drug and alcohol consumption at UI.
“We have national statistics, but we don’t have a lot of current information right now about student alcohol consumption behavior,” Pitman said.
The task force recommended creative outreach programs after concluding that many of the current alcohol outreach and education programs had little to no impact, Pitman said.
“Coming to the realization that some of the programing initiatives that we have spent time and money on have probably had little effect,” Pitman said.
Pitman said the death of a student on campus last year due to alcohol consumption had a substantial influence on the creation of the task force.
“I have to give respect to those grieving families by saying ‘we are doing some of this study and reflection and change to improve the odds of it not happening again,” Pitman said.
Academic regulations have also been changed so if a first year student receives a GPA of 1.0 or lower they are on automatic disqualification, and cannot come back for second semester. Pitman said the change in academic regulation was done independently of the task force, but was done with concern for alcohol consumption.
The task force totaled around 25 to 30 people, and included student leaders, UI student affairs staff, elected student officers, a local prosecutor, police officers, substance abuse officials and faculty members.
Greek life
The Greek life task force produced recommendations that are not as specific as the drug and alcohol task force, but did recommend actions to expand university oversight over Greek life.
“The task force is recommending and is supportive of the university playing a larger role in oversight in the fraternities and sororities,” Pitman said. “Yet, respecting the individual property rights of the fraternities and sororities, which are typically on private land.”
Pitman said a major objective of the task force is to create a relationship statement between the Greek system and UI that standardizes expectations for being recognized by UI.
Another recommendation by the task force was a set of rules that define behavior expectations and a disciplinary system if those rules are broken.
“A well defined system so that if a fraternity violates those expectations that there is a process to then define, basically, what privileges and rights will be withheld,” Pitman said.
The task force also recommended setting up a system of registering and approving chapter-sponsored parties to address risk management issues, Pitman said.
“All of this is said with great respect to the fact that we need to move these recommendations to conversations with student leaders, and chapter advisorsand stakeholders,” Pitman said. “To have them be apart of creating these systems.”
The Greek life task force was comprised of Greek alumni that have experience working for their national chapters.
Ryan Tarinelli can be reached at [email protected]