Morgan Jones | Problematic policy

Access to the Quadrangle building access will be restricted during Fling. Starting at 10 a.m. on Friday April 12, only Quad residents and their registered guests will be allowed inside the buildings. Everyone will be allowed in the outdoor spaces, but AlliedBarton guards will stop entrance into everywhere else.

According to Penn, the administration is trying to “curb the threat of underage or irresponsible drinking” and reduce the number of hospitalizations, which increased 61 percent between 2011 and 2012.

I don’t think the new policy will be effective. In fact, I think it may have the opposite effect.

It’s true that students will have access to fewer rooms to drink, but I’m not sure how much that will curb irresponsible behavior. People will still drink beforehand (maybe even more than before to compensate), and the policy will not stop them from sneaking alcohol into the Quad, either.

And it’s not like the Quad is the only place students drink. Between frat parties, drunk brunching and house drinking, students can make up for any consumption they miss inside Quad rooms — underage drinking will proceed.

And furthermore, hospitalizations won’t necessarily decrease under the new policy either. College senior Meechen Okai says that she believes the drastic increase in hospitalizations last year was due to something beyond the control of the faculty: the weather.

“My freshman and sophomore years, we didn’t have great weather. That deterred people from drinking to such excess. However, last year was a different story. The nice weather brought more people outside and together for longer periods of time, which meant more people were drinking.”

The weather this year looks as though it’s going to be warm again, signaling that the number of trips to HUP may stay around the same level regardless of who is allowed into the Quad. And they might even increase due to the policy itself.

Rooms in the Quad do allow more daytime drinking, but they also provide a safe haven for those who have had too much to drink. Considering students will still drink to excess, the policy removes an important resource for those who are inebriated.

Last Fling, one of my good friends ended up getting much drunker than usual. Much, much drunker. Thankfully, some members of our group who were living in the Quad were able to take her inside and let her lie down. They brought her water and food and checked up on her throughout the rest of the day.

If my friend had not been able to go to their room, she would have gone to the hospital. And she wouldn’t have been the only one.

By closing off the Quad buildings to everyone except residents, Penn is limiting the care some friends are willing to give, and this is extremely dangerous. If I have to leave the Quad to take a friend up past 40th street to put her to bed, I can’t make as many trips to check up on her. Some who won’t want to trek back and forth to 40th may just opt to have their friends go to the hospital so that they won’t have to care for them at all, further increasing the number of hospitalizations. It’s a selfish outlook, but it is a reality that will result from the policy.

While the policy won’t decrease drinking or hospitalizations, there is one thing it will do: save the interior of the Quad from being completely trashed, especially for residents on the first floor. After the extensive renovations of last year, I can see why the University would rather provide Porta Potties than give thousands of drunk students access to the 160 bathrooms that have been reworked.

Meechen says that while her hall on the fourth floor was hardly touched by Fling because no one wanted to climb all the way up there, she “felt sorry for the kids on the first floor — their stuff got trashed.”

If the University wants to limit underage drinking, it needs to begin by targeting the undergraduate drinking culture. If this new policy won’t achieve its goals, is saving the Quad first-floor bathrooms worth stationing AlliedBarton guards at every single door?

Morgan Jones is a College junior from Colorado Springs, Colo. Email her at morganjo@sas.upenn.edu or send her a tweet @morganjo_. “Nuggets of Wisdom” usually appears every Thursday.

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