Two points. A $75 fine. Ten hours of community service. Disciplinary probation, and a letter home to your parents.
Many Fairfield students are familiar with what happens in the judicial office once they get written up, but what many don’t know is that Director of Wellness and Prevention Jeanne DiMuzio is looking to change some of these all too familiar policies.
“Sometimes in judicial the messengers get misinterpreted that they don’t care about [the student],” said DiMuzio, “But they do.”
DiMuzio will be meeting with Dean of Students Mark Reed over the week of spring break to propose a new “multi-layer education approach” to current judicial policies on alcohol.
She said her goal is to rethink the way the point system is used and focus more on student safety though education.
“Sanctions have a place, a purpose,” said DiMuzio. “The agony of judicial should never outweigh safety, but it does.”
DiMuzio hopes that through alcohol education students will realize what is important.
“There is a real teaching moment, an ‘ah-ha’ moment,” DiMuzio said, “We’re here to save lives because we care.”
“The ‘ah-ha’ moment shouldn’t be while you’re sitting in court for a DUI,” DiMuzio said. “It should be well before.”
In the past year, DiMuzio has “looked seriously at different programs for alcohol education” and hopes to educate students in all aspects of drinking.
Scott Falciglia ’06 said he has had experience with the disciplinary policies here at Fairfield. He is among many students who believe the change would be beneficial to the student body.
“I’ve been written up seven or eight times,” said Falciglia. “The point system is a scaring mechanism, it doesn’t show any care for the students.”
Falciglia said his experience in the alcohol education program was beneficial, despite early reservations.
“Before I went to the alcohol education class I was like, ‘This is stupid’,” said Falciglia. “But after I thought it was the best thing ever.”
DiMuzio hopes students like Falciglia will share this message with other students.
“One of the important things is for students to tell other students the importance of safe drinking,” said DiMuzio.
Students are speaking out against traditional judicial policies at other schools.
Last month, six University of Rhode Island students were arrested for disorderly conduct after they tried to enter a meeting with the university’s judicial board to protest the university’s policies, according to the URI student newspaper.
Similarly, last year at the University of Maryland, students took a stand against the school. Students there are “displeased with the efforts spent of elimination underage drinking instead of campus safety,” according to that university’s student newspaper.
In the past two years, schools such as Syracuse, Stanford, Princeton and University of Iowa have been hoping to change the “us versus them” mentality, according to the University of Iowa’s student newspaper.
Reed said any change was still premature to discuss and would be a “rather minor one” that would streamline the process and make educational classes mandatory as opposed to optional.
Yet DiMuzio said she and Reed “are beginning to end up on the same page.”
“During the four years [at college], alcohol will be there,” she said, “but it should not be destroying futures.”
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