After a night of drinking, Iris Pechenik’s friend walked away and didn’t come back.

When Pechenik and others searched for him, they found him on the floor of his dorm room, vomiting what looked like blood.

No one called for help.

‘We didn’t want to get in trouble for drinking in the dorms, and we also didn’t want to be held responsible for anything that was wrong with him,’ said Pechenik, a sophomore music major.

A year later, Pechenik now knows her friend hit his head on his bed frame and split his lip when he blacked out. The blood was from the cut lip, not because he was sick, she said.

Many students, like Pechenik and her friends, avoid calling for help. And those who do call sometimes find the focus is more on discipline, not on safety.

Devon Stewart, president of Syracuse University’s chapter of Students for a Sensible Drug Policy, first proposed a medical amnesty policy two years ago that would protect students from punitive judicial action when calling for help in alcohol- or drug-related emergencies. Last spring, Student Association began collaborating with SSDP on the policy.

But almost two years later, such a policy still does not exist. The administration recently completed a reflection process that evaluated how a policy would affect different divisions of student affairs. The administration is now forming a task force charged with making a recommendation for a specific proposal, said Thomas Wolfe, senior vice president and dean of student affairs.

Under Syracuse University’s current policy, students found violating the Code of Student Conduct could face sanctions for the use or possession of alcohol when they are drinking underage, drinking and driving, or displaying public intoxication, among other prohibited activities.

SU’s sanctions for the first violation of those actions include residential probation, disciplinary reprimand or community-involvement referral, according to the student handbook.

Although the proposed policy, also known as the Good Samaritan Policy, would protect students against these sanctions, students involved in alcohol- or drug-related situations would still have to attend a risk management meeting, in which they would discuss the incident.

The policy would not provide amnesty for other policies violated under the influence of alcohol or drugs, such as vandalism.

It’s important for a student to sit down and talk about what happened to avoid it in the future, Stewart said. If a student is a repeat offender, the university may take further action.

Students are encouraged to seek medical assistance if someone is intoxicated, according to the handbook. But if students are scared that they’re going to be punished by calling for help when they’re in a dangerous situation, they could be discouraged to find assistance, Stewart said.

‘You want to make people comfortable to get help,’ he said.

Stewart, a senior film major, took an interest in SSDP during his freshman year, but he was inspired to change SU’s current policy after his own experiences with DPS, he said.

A friend called for help when Stewart was intoxicated, but when a DPS officer arrived in his dorm room, he saw materials about SSDP and began questioning Stewart about what drug paraphernalia he had in his room rather than helping him.

‘I didn’t feel they were really looking for my well-being,’ Stewart said. ‘It kind of got my blood boiling.’

Following the incident, Stewart had to attend SU’s Options Program, an alcohol and drug education program.

Stewart first introduced the idea of a medical amnesty policy to Chancellor Nancy Cantor via e-mail in June 2009. She responded, saying she was interested and suggested he meet with Thomas Wolfe, senior vice president and dean of student affairs, according to the e-mail obtained by The Daily Orange. Wolfe and Stewart met that summer to discuss the policy.

After several attempts to meet with administration members throughout fall 2009, Stewart informed Wolfe and others that he would contact local and national news outlets if they did not respond by the next day. Stewart received a response immediately but mentioned the media multiple times afterwards.

‘We need action now, and if nothing more is done by February, I can guarantee you there will be articles in the Washington Post and Post-Standard,’ Stewart wrote in a January 2010 e-mail to Wolfe and others.

Last spring, Neal Casey, then the chair of the Student Life Committee and current SA president, approached Stewart about helping, Casey said. On March 1, SA passed a resolution sponsored by SSDP that called upon the university to enact a medical amnesty policy.

Nearly a year later, the university has reassured SA that the policy is being looked into, Casey said. The administration is now moving forward with the process.

Wolfe said the administration has just completed the reflection process, which took a long time because there were many areas to look into.

‘We’re now pulling together a task force charged with making a recommendation, a proposal related to responsible action protocols,’ Wolfe said.

The task force will be made up of various units within the division of student affairs, including representatives from the Options Program, the Office of Residence Life, the Office of Judicial Affairs, the Department of Public Safety, the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs and the Office of Off-Campus and Commuter Services.

Wolfe said the task force would take student opinion into consideration, as well as its own expertise, to make a recommendation for the policy. He has also asked SA to create focus groups with students to get their opinion on the proposed policy.

‘We’ve given a lot of thought to this,’ Wolfe said. ‘And now it’s time to bring our thoughts together and have a conversation with students.’

When SSDP first proposed the medical amnesty policy to Wolfe, Stewart presented studies he had found from other universities with similar policies. At least 92 universities have a medical amnesty policy.

Prior to enactment of Cornell University’s medical amnesty policy, 9.3 percent of students did not call for help in alcohol-related emergencies because they were not sure if the person was sick enough, and 3.8 percent chose not to call because they didn’t want to get in trouble, according to a 2006 study in the International Journal of Drug Policy.

Two years after the new policy was enacted, those numbers dropped to 8.2 percent and 1.5 percent, respectively. When the new policy was enacted, the number of EMS calls jumped by 22 percent, according to the study.

The Cornell policy is similar to what Stewart would like to see at SU.

DPS Capt. John Sardino said he was in favor of the policy, but amnesty should depend on whether or not the student reporting the situation is responsible for it. If the person reporting is found responsible for what happened, he or she shouldn’t be given amnesty for his or her mistake, he said.

‘Our primary goal is to get there and get the person the medical help that they need,’ Sardino said. ‘Everything else is secondary.’

Two years after he originally proposed the policy to the administration, Stewart, now a senior, said he hopes to see the policy enacted by the time he graduates.

Said Stewart: ‘We’re going to keep pressuring them until we get this through.’

lgleveil@syr.edu

 

 

 

Published on February 16, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Laurence: lgleveil@syr.edu | @lgleveille