Council pleads for prevention of alcohol deaths

At yesterday's University Council meeting, talk also surrounded outsourcing. Responding to the recent alcohol-related hospitalizations of several University students and numerous alcohol-related assaults, administrators, faculty members and students are brainstorming ways to fight unsafe drinking among students. University President Judith Rodin led what she called a "preliminary" discussion on the issue at yesterday's University Council meeting in the Quadrangle's McClelland Hall. The campus-wide advisory body sought help from all corners of the University in an effort to prevent an alcohol-related death in the future. The alcohol discussion took up more than half of the two-hour meeting, which also saw heated arguments break out over the University's move to outsource facilities management. Rodin said she was pleased with the alcohol session, even though administrators didn't prescribe any immediate remedies for the situation. "I don't think that there will be a consensus on this issue," Rodin said after the meeting. "I think that, ultimately, we will have to make some hard and important decisions." The forum focused on the effects of binge drinking, defined as the consumption of at least five drinks in a row for men or four in a row for women. Administrators, students and faculty members recounted recent incidents involving students who nearly died as a result of alcohol poisoning or were assaulted by other intoxicated students. Several members of the University community expressed concern that too many students consider drinking to be a normal part of life, rather than a less desirable alternative. Hoping to reverse that feeling, health educator Kate Ward-Gaus called for a "norm" of "health, responsibility and consideration of one another and ourselves." "Anything less is unacceptable," said Ward-Gaus, the Drug and Alcohol Resource Team adviser. College sophomore Matthew Chait, who was allegedly assaulted in his home September 28 by three Penn football players in an alcohol-related altercation, told Council he worried the message wouldn't reach its intended audience. "I think the people who need to hear all these scary statistics and stories like mine are not in the room today," said Chait, an Undergraduate Assembly member. "We need to find those people." Also at the meeting, several people blasted the administration's handling of the decision to outsource management of University properties, accusing officials of unfairly keeping workers in the dark until the deal was announced October 8. A-3 Assembly Chairperson Donna Arthur and others lashed out at administrators for not consulting facilities managers before deciding to turn the employees' jobs over to Dallas-based Trammell Crow. "Why was this kept so secret?" Arthur asked, adding that the University is "shutting people out of basic decisions that affect their lives." Arthur called for the formation of a committee to discuss the affected employees' concerns and asked that the University's top human-resources official report to Council every two months on the status of future outsourcing agreements. Council didn't vote on either suggestion. Executive Vice President John Fry stressed that about three-fourths of the 175 affected managers are expected to get jobs with Trammell Crow, and those who do will be eligible for salary bonuses and stock options. He added that it was "fairer" that employees got the news three hours after the agreement was signed instead of from unreliable leaks. Council yesterday also saw a rarity -- a quorum -- allowing the body to approve an amendment to its bylaws which lowered the number of members necessary for a vote from a simple majority to 40 percent. Council Parliamentarian Mark Frazier Lloyd originally counted 41 members present -- five short of a quorum, eliciting groans and laughs from many of those present. But five more members in the audience revealed themselves, giving Council a bare majority and allowing the vote to lower the quorum to 40 percent. At its November meeting, Council will vote on whether to grant a seat to the United Minorities Council. Council couldn't vote on the UMC seat last April because there wasn't a quorum, mainly because many faculty members didn't show up.