Substance-free living violation-free so far

The new substance-free residential program at Fisher Hassenfeld College House has entered its second semester with no reported violations.

The program stipulates that residents will not use or be under the influence of drugs or alcohol while in the hall.

Although only about half of the residents on floors where the program is in effect signed up for the program, students and supervisors report that the program has created a sense of community and mutual respect in those two halls.

"There's kind of a peer-policing going on," said College freshman Mark Pan, who signed up to be in the program because he liked the vibrant social environment of the Quadrangle but "didn't want to be somewhere where ridiculously drunk people would be screaming down the halls at 4 a.m."

Pan perceives the peer-policing as communal and preventive rather than punitive, he said.

"It's a lot easier not to take drinking to a dangerous level when you're around other people who do the same thing," he said.

College freshman Devanshi Jalan, agrees.

"It really helps you restrain yourself, knowing that other people are in it with you," Jalan said. "It's something you keep at the back of your head."

Neither Pan, Jalan nor any of the program's supervisors said they have heard of any students breaking the program's agreement by using substances in their hallway.

"There really is no enforcement [of the program] other than the usual 'illegal drugs are illegal drugs, so don't do them,'" said Rebecca Stephens, a graduate associate on one of the floors. All undergraduate residents on Stephens's floor are underage, so intoxicating substances are technically off-limits to them anyway.

Stephens said the program provides a "community standard" for what is acceptable.

House Dean April Herring said if a student were caught using illegal substances, she would consult the floor on how the student should be punished, in addition to Penn's usual disciplinary protocol.

But Herring also emphasized the community created by the program, rather than the emphasis it places on abstinence.

"Substance-free programs are really more of a living environment where you know other people won't be doing drugs or throwing up on the floor," she said.

Pan and Jalan both commented that some participants in the program undoubtedly signed up just to get a room in the coveted Quad. But the hallway those students ended up on is something of an anomaly in the famously raucous College House.

"We hang out in our rooms and play boardgames or just go out to a movie - something non-drinking-related," Pan said.

The program will be around next year but will move down to the first floor, said Pan, who has already signed up for it again.

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