When first-year psychology student David Johnson and his
roommates were found with alcohol in their room, they received a
sanction of 10 hours of community service and a questionnaire to
fill out after completing an Alcohol 101 CD-ROM program.
But when first-year undeclared student Caroline Fleming and her
roommates were found with three bottles of beer in their room, they
were told to organize and host an alcohol awareness program for 45
people.
“(The sanction) was a lot harsher than anything I’ve
seen anyone get,” Fleming said. “But we broke the
rules, so although it was harsh we still deserved to be
punished.”
Fleming and Johnson are two of the many students who have
received sanctions for committing infractions in the residence
halls.
However, the difference in their sanctions arose partly from the
fact that ORL does not offer prescribed sanctions for the various
infractions students may commit.
Prescribed sanctions are specific sanctions given for particular
infractions, often following an “if … then …”
policy, said ORL Judicial Affairs Coordinator Christine Coons.
This lack of prescribed sanctions has some students believing
that the sanctions they receive are arbitrary.
“A couple of my friends got called for noise violations.
One of them got community service, but another one just got a
warning. It should be kept more consistent because it just
doesn’t seem fair,” said second-year political science
student Catherine Lee.
Even so, ORL feels that by having more flexibility in the
sanctions students are better able to learn and develop from their
experience.
“We don’t have prescribed sanctions for two reasons:
education and accountability. We need to keep the students
accountable, but we want to help them learn from it,” Coons
said.
For instance, a student who receives an alcohol offense for
underage drinking might not have a drinking problem. On the other
hand, another resident with the same infraction may show apparent
signs of alcohol misuse, Coons said.
A prescribed sanction would give both students the same
punishment, but ORL gives different sanctions based on their
surrounding circumstances.
“I think it’s okay that they don’t have set
rules for their punishments, because I’m sure that there will
always be some students who deserve them more than others,”
said second-year physics student Jessica Flores.
There are no plans to come up with prescribed sanctions, Coons
said.
“We have a pretty low percentage of people who go through
the residential life conduct system and return for repeating an
infraction. I read that as they have learned from their
experience,” she said.
ORL’s student conduct system also strives to make the
sanctions follow an educational goal. Having prescribed sanctions
could make them less educationally appropriate, Coons said.
A prescribed sanction might suspend a student with a minor fire
hazard, whereas an educational sanction would have the student make
flyers indicating different fire hazards that aren’t allowed
in the residence halls.
In this case the student does research and looks up information
which forces them to learn something from the policy sanction,
Coons said.
But Fleming feels that her sanction did not teach her anything
new about drinking.
“It reinforced why drinking is bad, but more than anything
it taught us not to break the rules, instead of (teaching us) to
stop drinking,” she said.
To try to keep sanctions somewhat consistent, RDs have weekly
meetings in which they discuss different issues. They ask each
other for feedback and use similar past cases they have had, Coons
said.
“The RDs are fairly consistent in giving out sanctions …
my job is to keep an eye on that. If the sanctions are too severe I
could confront the RDs on that, but I haven’t had to do
that,” Coons said.
If students are concerned about the severity or appropriateness
of the sanctions they receive, they can appeal them.
“I knew I could have appealed, but at the time, I just
wanted to get it over with … now, in retrospect, I wish that I
had because it was so much work,” Fleming said.
Johnson, on the other hand, felt that his infraction justified
the sanction he received.
“I felt like I was getting punished for what I did, and I
had to take time to fill out the questionnaire and do the community
service. … I’d definitely think twice about getting caught
because I don’t want to spend time doing all of that
again,” Johnson said.