Author: Gil Alcaraz
Oxy students, beware: You may want to think twice next time you go out partying on a Friday or Saturday night. Now, in your time of need, when your friend is begging you to leave the lame party you’re at to go to another one blocks away, Campus Safety won’t be there to give you a lift.
On Oct. 9, an e-mail was sent out to the student body with an important announcement from Dean of Students Barbara Avery and Director of Campus Safety Hollis Nieto about changes that are being made to the Campus Safety policy. This new policy dictates that students won’t be allowed to call upon Campus Safety to transport them from one off-campus party to another. According to the e-mail, this new policy will “allow for officers to be more readily available in case of an emergency situation.” But will this really solve problems, or just create more?
The administrators, in enacting this rule, are hoping to be more readily available to deal with situations that may arise on campus. However, I think this will only cause more off-campus problems, which are usually harder to take care of due to a lack of supervision and sober people in the immediate vicinity. Students under the influence of alcohol with no supervision or a sober, clear-headed person around can only lead to bad things.
This raises the possibility of students deciding to drive drunk from one party to another now that there will be no escort made available to them.
The e-mail sent out gives tips on how to be safe while going out on weekends, telling students to “walk in pairs, secure a sober driver and let a friend know your whereabouts before going out.” But who on a Saturday night, when they’re going out to a party, really thinks about these things or makes an honest effort to make sure that they are safe when they’re out that night? Even if they do, being under the influence can often make these precautions worthless, as the alcohol can tend to take control of what students say and do, causing them to throw caution to the wind.
Students who have consumed alcohol aren’t exactly prone to making good decisions, and when there isn’t an easy alternative to walking to another party which may be far away (or just too far for a drunk person to walk to), there’s a good chance they’re either going to drive drunk or take a ride from a drunk driver.
And what about those people who I’m sure we’ve all seen at a party before . . . the ones who have obviously had too much to drink and can barely keep themselves from falling over? Without Campus Safety to help them from one party to the next, I can only imagine the terrible places they may wander to in the neighborhood when they try to walk themselves over to the next party on their agenda.
However, Campus Safety is still offering escorts for students from a party back to their dorms. Although this does keep officers closer to campus and allows them to get students back to the safety of their rooms, there doesn’t seem to be a huge difference between that and driving them to another party in order to avoid students driving drunk or wandering off in a drunken haze.
This new rule almost seems like a selfish or lazy act. In the e-mail that was sent out, the first line reads, “Your safety is one of the top priorities at Occidental College.” Although safety may be one of the top priorities, convenience still seems to take priority over it. Due to this new rule, even though Campus Safety may be making itself more available for emergencies, the number of incidents off campus is bound to increase.
Gil Alcaraz is an undeclared sophomore. He can be reached at alcaraz@oxy.edu.
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