The Butler Alcohol Taskforce presented a report of recommendations to administration about potential changes to Butler University’s alcohol policy in January.

Dean of Student Life Irene Stevens said the administration didn’t act on the recommendations until recently.

Stevens will present the list of recommendations to the Board of Trustees in May, and various sub-groups and committees will work on the recommendations over the summer.

She said the need for the recommendations stemmed from alcohol violation and hospitalization data from the last three academic years.

“We’re seeing more and more students who are showing signs of high-risk drinking,” Stevens said. “There’s been a significant increase in hospitalizations.”

The recommendations are listed in four different categories—education, student culture, policies and enforcement.

“We felt like there were some mixed messages on whether or not it’s OK to drink,” Stevens said. “We’ve been talking about if you choose to drink, drink responsibly.”

Some recommendations regarding education include alcohol policy messages to new students, required alcohol programming in residential housing and Greek housing and education on how to identify signs of alcohol poisoning and high-risk drinking.

Stevens said that in terms of student culture, some recommendations include promoting more weekend programming, educating off-campus students about the liability involved with hosting parties and having alcohol education for students and alumni during homecoming week.

“There is also a suggestion to restrict first-year students’ access to the fraternity and sorority houses for a period of time in the fall semester,” Stevens said. “The goal is to inform students of this in advance.”

A recommendation involving policies includes establishing criteria where policy violators wouldn’t be eligible for Greek recruitment, apartment living and leadership positions on campus.

Stevens said the taskforce explored the possibility of restricting hard alcohol on campus, but there was no consensus on the recommendation. It was not presented to administration.

Some recommendations involving enforcement include a more consistent and firm response from campus police on underage and high-risk drinking and increased education and fines for students who violate campus alcohol policy.

Stevens said that some of the recommendations will be implemented in the fall, but many of them will not be implemented until next year.

Sarah Barnes Diaz, health education and outreach programs coordinator, said that after the various parties look at the recommendations, the taskforce will look at the funding and staffing available to put the recommendations in place.

“We also need to be mindful of the natural cycle here and make sure we’re not pushing recommendations that we don’t really have time to fully organize,” Diaz said.

Diaz said the recommendations should be clearly communicated to students.

“I don’t anticipate a huge uproar or any major shock to the recommendations there,” she said. “It’s seeing what’s worked on our campus, what’s worked on other campuses that are like ours and just continuing those things.”

Students are not the only ones working behind the scenes for Butler’s Student Government Association.

The PuLSE Office has four individuals who advise SGA and its various boards.

Dean of Student Life Irene Stevens said the role of an SGA adviser is to help executive members do the job to the best of their ability and help them avoid pitfalls they may encounter.

“I don’t necessarily always have the answers,” said Caroline Huck-Watson, director of the PuLSE Office. “But I can also help direct someone to figure out where those are.”

Huck-Watson advises the Council on Presidential Affairs, Finance Board, the SGA president and SGA’s Executive Board. As PuLSE director, she also helps other staff advisers when issues arise.

SGA President Al Carroll said the advisers are there to say when students are or are not on the right track.

“We don’t always agree with them,” Carroll said. “But that’s the way it is.”

She said that while there are no specific guidelines for her to follow as adviser, there are expectations in terms of the role she plays. She said the entire PuLSE staff follows university law and procedures.

She said that doing so allows the advisers to help students navigate university systems.

Other PuLSE advisers include Julie Pakenham, associate director; Rob Miller, assistant director; and Jen Agnew, assistant director.

The PuLSE staff reports to Stevens.

“I also work with the exec on some issues occasionally,” Stevens said. “It’s not unusual for me to have a meeting with the president of SGA, in particular the CPA president and vice president, about various issues.”

Stevens also said that her role allows her to attend various SGA assemblies.

“It gives me a sense of what’s going on with students and what the issues are that they’re dealing with,” Stevens said. “I do enjoy going in and hearing what they’re talking about.”

Stevens said the advisers are able to provide students with a historical perspective of SGA and the university.

“I rely on Caroline quite a bit,” SGA President-elect Mike Keller said. “Al has been great with the transition, but Caroline is who I look to for knowledge of the past.”

Huck-Watson said she sees challenging students as one of her roles.

“I would hope my role is that when students are making decisions, I’m helping them see a variety of different perspectives so that they can make the most informed decision that they can at that time,” Huck-Watson said.

She said she is ever-evolving as an adviser.

“It’s such a moment of pride to see a student be a successful leader, to make change on campus, to really feel empowered, to lead a group and to make decisions that have an impact on our community,” Huck-Watson said. “That happens every year. It’s so wonderful.”

Keller said he’s already had a great experience working with the advisers leading up to his transition into office.

The advisers sat in on his vice president interviews.

“It is my decision,” Keller said. “None of them tried to influence it, but they were able to provide a lot of helpful pros and cons for each candidate.”

Carroll said he has great respect and gratitude for all of the SGA advisers.

“They make my life easier,” Carroll said. “I’m thankful for that.”

Huck-Watson said she is blessed to have the opportunity to work with Butler students in such a profound way.

“I look around sometimes at events and things that are going on that our students are accomplishing,” Huck-Watson said. “It just takes my breath away sometimes.”

Faculty Senate members read through a motion Tuesday that could urge Butler University administrators to fund and staff the core curriculum, which is $400,000 short of funding for next year.

The motion states, “It is imperative that the university fully staff the current core curriculum, which was approved by the faculty in 2005.

“We must ensure that we have sufficient funding and faculty positions to support the core curriculum.”

The Senate decided to take two weeks to think about the motion and will discuss and vote on it at the next meeting on April 24.

“This has always been a problem,” Elizabeth Mix, associate professor of art, said. “I think it’s beneficial that we have a serious conversation about it.”

Tom Dolan, a biology professor who serves on the university’s core curriculum committee, said the point of the motion is to get the core curriculum taken care of and to get a decision made.

“If this motion is a way to support a discussion about funding the core, then view it as that,” Dolan said.

Graphic by Hayleigh Colombo

Several rising sophomores and juniors found themselves on a 2012-13 housing wait list after last week’s housing selection nights.

The lists contain a total of 90 students—36 sophomores and 54 juniors.

“We’re going to go through those wait lists as quickly as we can to get everyone into a place where they are pleased,” said Karla Cunningham, director of residence life.

Cunningham said the wait lists aren’t an unusual circumstance.

Twenty-four students were placed on wait lists for Apartment Village last year.

Dean of Student Life Irene Stevens said the housing shortage always gets worked out over the summer.

“Unfortunately I know it’s disconcerting to the students, but we will find a space,” Stevens said. “Once we get an idea of the incoming class and the numbers there and the numbers of the returning students, we juggle things around a little bit and see what comes out.”

Seniors were given first priority in room selection at Apartment Village. Seniors have the option of living off campus. Freshmen, sophomores and juniors have to live on campus.

Stevens said this year’s wait list is longer than last year’s because a few more seniors than usual signed up to live in Apartment Village. She also said next year’s junior class is bigger than usual.

“It may very well be that most of University Terrace will be juniors, where in the past it’s mostly been sophomores,” Stevens said. “UT is our flexible space that allows us to move people around a little bit.”

She said residence life doesn’t want to have to limit the number of seniors allowed to live in Apartment Village.

“Our philosophy has always been to reward seniors for being seniors, and if they want to live on campus in the village or in UT, we try to accommodate that,” Stevens said.

Sophomore pharmacy major Caroline Hedrick said she is waitlisted for AV but was assigned an apartment in UT.

“Hopefully I’ll get AV as a senior,” Hedrick said. “It’s not that big of a deal for me, but it’s definitely an inconvenience.”

Cunningham said some sophomores who didn’t get a room in Residential College have already been placed in Ross and Schwitzer Halls.

Freshman marketing major Allison Altenberger said she and three roommates put ResCo as their first choice and UT as their second but still were placed in Schwitzer. She said they are on the wait lists for Resco and UT in case a spot opens up.

“I am very disappointed in what has happened, but I am simply sharing my situation and the facts,” Altenberger said. “I think in doing that it will make the whole Butler community aware of a crucial problem that needs to be fixed.”

Stevens said on-campus housing is a numbers game that will continue for a while.

“I think the trustees have looked at whether or not we need another residence hall on campus, but no decision has been made in that respect,” Stevens said. “It probably won’t be made until the trustees and administration set some goals for student enrollment, as far as the numbers they think are ideal for Butler. It’s a combination of enrollment and facilities.”

Stevens said that she is asking waitlisted students to be patient.

“There’s no need to be too concerned,” she said. “There will be space come fall.”

RELATED STORIES:

PART 1 | Vote details will not be released

PART 2 | SGA to release election vote numbers

PART 3 | Despite assembly vote, election data not released

STAFF EDITORIAL | SGA, show us the numbers

Part 4 | SGA kills motion to release election results

The American Student Government Association is weighing in on the Butler University SGA’s refusal to publicly release its election results.

Butch Oxendine, the executive director of ASGA, said that the association advises its member institutions to release the data results of their elections.

“Student Government election results should be posted at all times, at all colleges and universities, including private institutions. Transparency is wise,” Oxendine said in a comment posted on collegemediamatters.com in response to a story about the Butler SGA’s decision.

Oxendine said ASGA is an advisory organization that trains student governments to be more effective.

Butler’s SGA is one of the 1,100 member institutions involved with ASGA. It was a founding member when ASGA began in 2003.

The College Media Matters story referenced that election numbers are not being released at Butler and raised the question of what the proper level of transparency is for student government elections.

The issue arose when The Collegian requested the data after the March election. The Election Oversight Committee and SGA president Al Carroll denied the request, but an SGA representative brought the issue up during assembly.

The assembly first voted 58-55 to publicly release the data.

The Monday following the vote, an SGA representative made a motion to reconsider.

At the next assembly, representatives voted again, and the result was to not release the data.

In an interview with The Collegian, Oxendine said that although private institutions have the authority to make their own decisions, a vast majority of them do release election results.

When presented with Oxendine’s comment from College Media Matters, Carroll said that, on a legislative level, he is impartial, but he personally believes it’s wrong to release this year’s results because candidates had no way of knowing a release could happen.

“On this issue, no amount of advising or public opinion would make me waiver in what I feel is a question of right versus wrong,” Carroll said.

Oxendine said that issues like this have come up at other colleges and universities, and he has found that the smaller the school is, the more likely it is to keep the results private.

“It’s really their prerogative to do what they want,” he said. “But Butler is definitely not the norm.”

SGA President-elect Mike Keller said the issue of releasing or not releasing results should be something SGA pursues and addresses before next year’s election.

“My goal is to work with the Election Oversight Committee and have a general review of election rules so that this issue is addressed earlier in the year,” Keller said.

Jill McCarter | News Editor | jmccarte@butler.edu

The Student Government Association president has suspended the release of detailed election results from last week’s races, despite the assembly’s vote last Wednesday to publicly release the data.

SGA President Al Carroll said he decided against releasing the data from both the presidential and class officer elections after an assembly member requested that the issue be reconsidered.

Sophomore Katie Palmer, who recently lost the SGA presidential election to Mike Keller, said she made the motion to reconsider on Monday, four days after the original vote.

A motion to reconsider can only be made on the day the original vote was taken or on the next day, according to Robert’s Rules of Order—the procedure that SGA follows.

The assembly originally voted 58-55 to release the data to the public after a 15-minute discussion at last week’s meeting.

During the meeting, Carroll dismissed a detailed discussion about when the data would be released and in what manner.

Parliamentarian A.J. Teare said that since there was no timeline established for releasing the data, Carroll could decide to wait.

“I felt it was the right thing to do,” Carroll said.

The proponents of releasing the data said that students deserve to know the outcome of elections because the winners are in charge of more than $700,000 in student money.

“When you sign up for an election, you know that someone is going to lose and that someone is going to win,” said Katie Bolinger, the representative for CMENC. “They release those numbers in every other election.”

At the time, all four SGA presidential candidates also had told The Collegian they wanted to know the detailed outcomes.

Opponents of releasing the data said that a devastating loss by one candidate could emotionally hurt the student.

“I don’t see what the point of it is,” said E.J. Oldfield, a Residential College representative. “It doesn’t seem like it would do anything except cause a fight.”

Others who spoke out against releasing the data were Carroll, SGA adviser Caroline Huck-Watson and James Schubert, chair of the Election Oversight Committee. Neither Carroll nor Huck-Watson is allowed to vote in assembly.

Carroll, Huck-Watson, Schubert and David Alder, Butler’s senior web systems analyst, are the only people who are allowed to see the detailed election results.

Council on Presidential Affairs Chair Mike Tirman said he thinks releasing the data is pointless, because there already is adequate oversight in the election process.

“I wholeheartedly trust the process,” Tirman said.

Adam Goldstein, the attorney advocate for the Student Press Law Center, said that the release of numbers could increase confidence in the elections’ accuracy.

“Students are entitled from a moral standpoint to know so that they have confidence that their votes matter and are being counted correctly,” Goldstein said.

“But how can you measure this if there are only four people seeing it?”

Huck-Watson said she doesn’t think the data should be released.

“To me, it doesn’t feel right to release it,” Huck-Watson said during the assembly meeting.

Tirman said numbers should not be released because it could potentially deter students from running in future elections or keep them from getting jobs after graduation. He also said he wanted to protect the losing candidates.

Goldstein said that point is moot.

“Anyone who wants to have authority to distribute the money of other students generally ought to be thick-skinned enough to take the results of the election,” Goldstein said. “If they’re not, student government is probably not something they should get into.”

Palmer, the former candidate, said in last week’s assembly meeting that releasing the data would be useful in helping her understand if her campaign was effective.

She said she later reconsidered this position after speaking to Tirman and other CPA members.

“Mike Tirman tried to submit the motion last week, but it had to be done by me,” Palmer said of her decision to request the reconsideration.
As an executive board member, Tirman is not allowed to make such motions.

Tirman said he did not try to submit the motion to reconsider.

“I was helping organize what was going on,” Tirman said. “I helped guide her.”

Palmer, who is also a class officer, said her current stance on the matter is that she wouldn’t mind if the presidential results were released, but that she would not like class officer results to be released because there could be drastic differences in the votes these candidates received.

Both Teare, the parliamentarian, and Schubert, the Election Oversight Committee chair, said there will be discussion about possible options to move forward in assembly today, including amending the original motion or killing it entirely.

“(Carroll) has decided to let the rest of assembly hear the new arguments which brings another view to the situation,” Teare said.

Columnist Dan Savage’s sex-advice articles are not for the faint of heart.

But for those looking for straightforward, raunchy advice and the humorous rambling of a strong-willed gay man, his articles in the alternative Seattle newspaper The Stranger entertains.

Dan Savage is coming to Butler University to speak about the It Gets Better Project, which he started in September 2010, and I highly suggest that Butler  students attend.

Savage started the project in response to several suicides by gay teenagers who had been bullied,  and his goal was to reach out to bullied teens to promote his message.

His message is one that all Butler students should hear: for those who are in despair because they are being bullied for who they truly are, life gets better.

Here at Butler, I have not seen a strong presence of the LGBTQ community, nor have I seen much anti-LGBTQ sentiment.

But I feel that Savage’s speech can bring this topic to greater attention.

The It Gets Better Project’s YouTube campaign has put videos up from prominent figures such as The Colbert Report’s Stephen Colbert, singer Adam Lambert, TV talk show host Ellen Degeneres and even President Barack Obama.

However, Savage loves the thousands of videos from everyday people over the celebrity endorsements.

In an interview on “Chicago Tonight” in December 2010, Savage said, “What we wanted to tell [LGBTQ teens], and we have because there’s thousands and thousands and thousands of videos from average people, is that you don’t have to be Ellen, you don’t have to be the president of the United States, you don’t have to be Adam Lambert to be happy, safe, secure, welcome and have a life full of joy, a life worth hanging in there for.”

For all who go to the Reilly Room Wednesday night, expect to be taken aback by Dan Savage.

His more extreme comments will certainly be overshadowed by the laughs that he will bring and the lessons he will draw from the crowd.

Just as each fraternity and sorority member probably does not want to be lumped together with every member of their Greek house, each independent is not represented by Independent Council.

When asked about representation of Greek and independent students on campus at the Collegian’s Student Government Association debate, all four SGA presidential candidates said they had talked to IC, and offered few other examples of how they would bridge he gap between Greeks and independents.

The administration has been working with IC on Homecoming and other campus-wide events and engagement issues.

This is a great start, but everyone must look beyond a singular group if true representation is to be achieved.

Since its founding in 2008, IC has increased independent engagement in events like Spring Sports Spectacular and made strides toward achieving the goal of more independent involvement.

I have taken part in some of their events, including Spring Sports Spectacular, in my four years as an independent student.

I like that the IC provides an opportunity for participation in these events for people who choose to participate in them, and this kind of involvement does help to bring the entire campus together.

IC executive members have left their legacy, opening a dialogue between students and administrators and trying to bridge a representation gap.

But some people who want to get more involved and learn leadership skills outside of the group still fall outside of this representation. Butler is mostly independent, and more than one voice is needed to represent these individuals, just as more than one voice is needed coming from a fraternity or a sorority.

Going through a group with an established structure is easiest, which is part of what Vice President for Student Affairs Levester Johnson said makes it so easy for Butler to have Greek leaders.

Easy isn’t good enough, nor is it all-encompassing enough.

Creating a structure is not as easy when dealing with thousands of unaffiliated students, and that is not the best answer anyway because of the population size.

No student, regardless of affiliation, wants to feel like he or she is only represented by one entity.

Pushes to create more leaders, both Greek and independent, and increase engagement can come through many avenues—residence halls, student organizations and individual mentorship.

Working with IC is a good start, but it should not be the only point of contact for administrators or be assumed to represent the voice of all independents.

If you ever have sat in your room late at night cursing the dining halls because you used all your meals for the day and still feel like you haven’t eaten in the past year, your time for action is now.

The school has a plan in the works to replace the current meal plan system for next year.

In order for the school to approve this plan, students need to speak out.

As The Collegian reported in “New meal plan could take effect next year” (Feb. 22) the highlights are an all-access plan and more flex dollars.

This new plan solves the biggest problems with meal plans—other than cost—because it allows more accessibility to dining halls.

The new all-access plan allows students to swipe multiple times during any meal block.

This liberty gives everyone the freedom to eat as many meals as they wish.

I frequently have been studying when my concentration is broken by the grumbling and aching of my
stomach.

For all of you who compulsively spend your money at places like Starbucks, this meal plan will put a few more flex dollars in your pocket so your funds don’t run dry within the first month of the semester.

Director of Dining Services Stacy Puck said this new plan eliminates the meal plan in C-Club but most of the meal exchange items will be turned into value meals so they still will be available at a lower price.

These value meals will be available at lunch, giving students the ability to get a reasonable amount of food on the go in the middle of the day.

These new additions will still cost the same amount as it does this year.

So it’s up to you to get the full value of your meal plan.

If you’re still on the fence about supporting the new meal plan ideas, remember that all of the dining halls should be serving better quality cuisine next year.

Do not be the person next year complaining about how C-Club meal exchanges don’t come with enough food or how you’re hungry because you ate dinner six hours earlier.

Be proactive and spread the word about supporting the new meal
plan.

The best way to express your opinions is by writing in a comment box in the dining halls, emailing food@butler.edu, contacting the Butler cuisine bureau or by filling out one of the surveys that are advertised in the dining halls.