There’s an old saying that bad things happen in threes. While I was president of Randolph-Macon College, three crises descended on the college in less than a year. On October 19, 2002, the so-called Beltway snipers landed in Ashland, Virginia. John Allen Muhammad and his sidekick Lee Boyd Malvo had been driving around communities just off Route 95 randomly shooting people. They arrived at the Ponderosa Restaurant on England Street in Ashland, just a half mile from campus, and from the trunk of their car shot Jeffrey Hopper as he emerged from the restaurant. Hopper survived but ten other people spread between Maryland, Washington, DC, and Virginia didn’t. Needless to say, the good citizens of Ashland including the entire college community were terrified.
Muhammad and Malvo were eventually caught, but later that winter Ashland was hit by the so-called President’s Day Blizzard that shut down the entire East Coast. The following September, Hurricane Isabel made its appearance, killing thirty-two people in Virginia alone and causing $2.3 billion in damage, one of the costliest hurricanes in Virginia history. So I wasn’t surprised to receive the following e-mail from an understanding first-year parent with a good sense of humor: “Ironically, our vision of a ‘safe’ community was shattered with the snipers. It’s apparent that nowhere is really safe anymore. Combined with the blizzard and the hurricane we fear locusts for next year!”
Once they leave home for college, concern number one for most parents is the safety of their children. The literature we daily read about date rape, concussions, and the H1N1 virus that killed a large number of teenagers a few years ago (including college students)—not to mention occasional campus shootings—cause many parents to fear that college is some kind of black hole from which their children might never emerge—or emerge severely damaged. So what’s the truth? Are you sending your children into harm’s way? What are the available support services they can count on if they get sick or become depressed? What safety nets are available when they do stupid things like drink too much or wander alone downtown and get lost? In short, how can you know whether your children are learning in a safe environment?
Children, of course, occasionally get sick, but when they’re away at college, you aren’t around to take care of them. But don’t worry: virtually every college in America has some sort of health center. The problem is that parents are often unaware of what is available for their children on campus and panic when they get a call in the middle of the night with a health concern. So let’s see how Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, deals with student health issues.
One early morning, a group of students, some of them looking like death warmed over, is entering the Student Health and Counseling Services on the ground floor of the Queen Anne’s House residence hall. They register with an administrative assistant who finds out from them whether they need medical attention or counseling. On a large bulletin board in the reception area are various tips on good health, including a poster with statistics suggesting that, contrary to popular opinion, you don’t have to binge drink in order to be cool.
Dawn Nordoff, clinical director of health services, greets me with a smile, looking more like a professor than the nurse practitioner she is. She employs another full-time and two part-time nurse practitioners. She also contracts with four area physicians who are available to students a couple hours or so every day, five days a week. Serious medical cases are referred to the Chester River Hospital Center, which is adjacent to campus. This setup is typical of many colleges—a small health care facility linked to a nearby hospital—though many larger institutions like Tufts have their own in-house physicians.
Nordoff describes her typical day at health services. She normally arrives at about 8:30 A.M., along with one of the physicians, and begins seeing all of the students who became ill during the night. If the illness is serious enough, the RA or an officer from Public Safety won’t have waited until morning but will have sent the student directly to the nearby hospital emergency department. She also fields phone calls from concerned parents, follows up on diagnostic tests, and notifies students of the results. Depending on the seriousness of a given situation and the need to arrange for referrals to specialists or contacting parents, sometimes these activities take up most of her morning. Nordoff’s afternoons are filled with campus and community meetings, mostly committees that she serves on like the Emergency Operations Group, which exists to address campus-wide concerns like a flu outbreak. I ask her whether she ever has time to practice nursing. “Well, probably not today,” she responds. “But normally I can see about fifteen students each day. The hands-on aspect of seeing patients of course is my favorite activity, but everything I do here is part of practicing nursing.”
What are the most common health issues that Dawn Nordoff and her colleagues deal with? Asthma, gastrointestinal upset, anxiety, upper respiratory infections, and seasonal flu are the most common ailments, and a handful of students come in just for a little bit of mothering. “We do that too,” she says. What about more serious health issues? “Virtually every health issue you can imagine walks through those doors. I remember receiving a phone call from a freshman who couldn’t get out of bed one morning. The student was burning up with fever. I knew this student had recently traveled to a country where malaria is prevalent.” The doctor confirmed that it was, indeed, a case of malaria.
Increasingly, first-year students are coming to college with serious eating disorders like bulimia and anorexia and their parents are sometimes beside themselves about what to do. I ask Nordoff for her view on this subject. “Thank you for that question!” she exclaims.
I want all freshman parents to hear this: if your daughter or son has a serious eating disorder like anorexia or bulimia, please have them tell us before they arrive on campus. We really need to know about these conditions so that we can deal with them. We want to work with these students to put a plan in place that will allow them to be successful here. If we aren’t aware of a problem then we can’t help. I think some freshmen want to start out with a clean slate and so keep their health problems secret. But this can be a big mistake.
Nordoff gives me an example: a recent first-year woman who arrived at orientation thin as a rail was always exercising in the fitness center. Within the first two weeks of college she was in the health services office complaining of nausea and depression. When Nordoff suggested that this student seek psychological counseling, she refused. Nordoff was so concerned that, with the student’s permission, she contacted the mother. But even after she expressed concern, the mother would not admit that her daughter had an eating disorder. It took several more contacts with the student and her mother before the mother confided that just before orientation her daughter had been in the hospital for depression and anorexia. Nordoff feels that, had the daughter or her family informed the college of her health issue prior to arrival at orientation, the health services office could have been of more assistance sooner. This first-year student had a very difficult start to her college career.
Some parents reading this might wonder whether informing the health center of a child’s medical condition could result in their child not being accepted or invited to leave college after arriving on campus. The answer is no. First of all, it’s against the law for a college to discriminate against a student because of a medical or psychological condition. Medical histories shared with a health center are privileged information and unless those histories suggest someone might do harm to the community or to themselves, they are never shared with the college administration—including the admissions office. I can remember as a college president being concerned about the mental stability of a particular first-year student. He was being seen by a staff psychologist in the counseling center after publicly telling his classmates that he intended to torch a residence hall. I wanted to know the details of this student’s state of mind. I was told, however, that even as president I could not have access to the student’s mental health history but that I would be informed if it was felt that the student might do harm.
Eating disorders are part of a larger student issue—eating in general. As Julie Lampie pointed out at the Tufts orientation, what students eat is very much a health concern on America’s college campuses, especially in light of the growing incidents of student obesity. According to the American College Health Association, 40.6 percent of college men and 31.3 percent of college women are either obese or overweight.1 I am wondering whether, in Dawn’s opinion, college students, especially those that are free from home and family, eat healthy meals.
“Well, maybe,” she says slowly. “But their idea of eating healthy is not always mine. Freshmen who tell me that they are vegetarians or vegans sometimes raise a red flag. It makes me want to know more about what they are really eating. Being a vegetarian or a vegan is fine, of course. But what I often see are students not eating meat and then not replacing meat with another form of protein. So even though they say they eat healthy, they often don’t.” Nordoff tells me that when students with a weight problem come to Health and Counseling Services they are put in contact with a local dietician and encouraged to exercise at the fitness center. But obesity is an ongoing challenge. She tells me that it’s especially hard to see students this unhealthy at such a young age, especially students who have had gastric bypass surgery which can lead to additional health problems.
Smoking is also a big and increasing health concern on American college campuses. In a recent survey, 14.2 percent of first-year students reported smoking, and the evidence I have seen at my own colleges and the colleges included in this book—that is, cigarette butts all over the place—visually supports what students themselves say.2 Nordoff says that when she came to Washington College, smoking was permitted everywhere, including in the classroom. She personally lobbied the college administration not to permit smoking in the residence halls and won that battle. But students, women foremost among them, still smoke just outside the front doors of their residence halls. First-year students who come to the health services office are automatically asked whether they smoke. Those who say they do are encouraged to attend Kicking Butts, a tobacco cessation program sponsored by the college. Many colleges run similar programs. Students who wish to quit are then offered free nicotine patches, education, and prescription medications to assist them. Studies show that the longer a student smokes, the more difficult it is to quit, so places like Washington College feel that it’s important to get as much information as possible to first-year students about the dangers of tobacco use and the resources available on campus to help them quit.
Returning to the topic of parents of students, how does Dawn Nordoff handle those inevitable calls she gets from first-year parents, worried about any one of the student health concerns we have been discussing? According to the law, she can only release information to parents if the student gives permission. If it’s a truly serious problem, she will contact the parent or an emergency contact given to the college by the student. “If I am very concerned about a student I am seeing,” Nordoff says, “I generally will say to the student, ‘I think we need to talk to mom or dad. Which one do you want me to call?’ Only twice has a student refused to allow me to make that call.”
Nordoff’s general advice for first-year parents: “First, if you know your student has a health problem please have them share this information with us before they come to college. And, second, let go. Before they come to college, students need some practice handling their own problems, including managing their health care, because once they are here they have to accept that responsibility.”
Dawn Nordoff has arranged for me to meet three first-year students who have agreed to speak in confidence about campus health concerns from their perspective, and I have chosen to do this over lunch—not only because healthy eating is a hot topic with college students and their parents but also because I want to see the Hodson Hall Commons, Washington College’s magnificent new dining facility.
College dining has changed radically since I was a college student. Back then, you simply went through a cafeteria line and ate whatever was served up, usually some kind of mystery meat with overcooked vegetables. But the current college generation, habitués of suburban malls with their various food courts, require a variety of eating options, from fast foods like pizza and hamburgers, to vegetarian selections and salad bars, to what most of us would recognize as a proper meal. Hodson Hall Commons has all of this and more. It is really a two-story mini-mall with a variety of food courts on the first floor, all built around a circular core that features a small entertainment and performance space. On the second floor is a more formal dining area. Adjacent to these dining areas are meeting and recreation rooms.
I spot Tico, Michelle, and Sukie, three first-year students, waiting for me in Coyote Jack’s Grill.
“How’s the food?” I ask as I join them at the table after going through the food line and heaping my plate with healthy selections. “The food’s not that bad,” Tico says. “I’m a fast food freak so I appreciate all the burgers and fries I can eat. The pizza isn’t bad either,” he says as he bites into an enormous slice of pepperoni pizza.
Michelle feels differently. “I guess if I ate like Tico, this place would be veritable paradise. But I hate the food here. You either eat like a vegan or you eat fatty junk foods like Tico is doing right now. There are usually four vegan options and then a variety of junk foods. The food is boring and unhealthy. Almost everyone feels the way I do. I tried to petition the Student Senate to get more nutritional food but nothing happened. Maybe things will change with this new facility. But I’m not holding my breath.”
Sukie is vigorously shaking her head in disagreement. “How can you say that, Michelle? Everyone doesn’t feel the way you do. The food is definitely healthy. Just look around. The problem is that most Washington College students are like Tico. They want French fries, ice cream, and cookies. The bigger problem for me is not the lack of healthy food but the amount of it. Once you swipe your card you can eat all you want. I’ve put on at least ten pounds since I arrived here in August.”
So it goes. I have never met a group of college students who are of one mind on campus food! But as I look around this new facility, I find myself agreeing with Sukie. There are plenty of healthy food options, several of them on my plate. The problem is that, given their druthers and without mom’s supervision, too many new students quickly slink into eating fatty food.
“On the way over here I noticed lots of cigarette butts,” I say, seeing that this conversation about food has ended in a hopeless impasse. “Do you or your friends smoke? Do you see smoking as a health problem on campus?”
Tico says, “I don’t smoke and neither do most of my friends. But the thing that blew me away when I arrived here at orientation last August were the number of freshmen who do. Smoking is everywhere. I think many freshmen do it because they weren’t allowed to in high school. I’m an athlete so I’ve never smoked. But when I tell my friends who smoke not to do it because they might get lung cancer they just say, ‘Fuck off, Tico. Mind you own business.’ Also, many of the people I see smoking cigarettes smoke weed as well. So I think this is done mostly for social reasons.”
Michelle agrees with Tico. “There is lots of smoking here, especially outside the freshman dorms. Why? I think most freshman started smoking when they started drinking. Smoking and drinking seem to go together.” As she digs into a healthy-looking salad, Michelle continues, “I once asked a friend why he smoked. He told me ‘People who don’t smoke can never understand people who do. It just gives me a buzz. Relaxes me. My friends smoke as well and I want to be like them.’ I agree with Tico. I think my classmates smoke because of peer pressure.”
“Well,” Sukie adds, “it’s also addictive. I started smoking in high school and couldn’t stop. My parents were very concerned. But last week, during the Great American Smokeout, I attended a bonfire sponsored by a club here called Kicking Butts. We roasted marshmallows and were given ‘quit kits’ with nicotine patches. At the end we were encouraged to throw our cigarette packs into the bonfire. I haven’t had a smoke since!”
“Drinking can also be addictive,” I say. “What are your observations on this subject?”
Sukie responds that “drinking is a big issue on all college campuses. More freshmen drink than don’t. The problem is that they don’t know when to stop.”
Tico interrupts: “I think the problem also is that many freshmen never drank before they came to college so they don’t know what their limit is. Also, they are free from mom and dad and figure there is no one now to say ‘no.’ But they need to stop for three minutes and think about what they are doing.”
“Some of my classmates came from homes where there was little adult supervision and were drinking by middle school. When they got here they went ballistic,” Michelle says. “Also, the law that says you can’t drink until you are twenty-one is a joke. It only makes things worse. Freshmen are always going to want what they can’t have.” Michelle is repeating what Hank said at Morningside College about rebellious teenagers who drink precisely because they are told not to.
I carefully delve into a sensitive issue that is on the minds of students and especially their parents, namely, sex. “OK guys. I want you to be very candid with me now. And I promise to protect identities. But is sexually transmitted disease an issue here?”
Sukie says, “Our generation doesn’t publicly talk about sex that much. But when we do, it’s not so much about sexually transmitted disease but rather about getting pregnant. So those of us who are sexually active—and I’m not saying I am—take advantage of the reproductive counseling that is given here. Also, we can get Plan B free of charge in health services and our boyfriends can get condoms for free as well.” Plan B is a pill, now on the market, that, if taken at least seventy-two hours after sexual intercourse prevents pregnancy.
“What about AIDS?” I ask, knowing that for these kid’s Generation X parents, AIDS was the number one health concern when they were in college.
“AIDS isn’t big an issue anymore,” Michelle says. “All through high school we have been warned about AIDS. So most of my girlfriends practiced safe sex. Washington College is also good about providing information about STDs. At orientation we were told that if we do sex to do protected sex. Every residence hall bathroom has baskets of condoms.”
Sukie disagrees. “Well, I think we should be concerned about AIDS. Lots of women are on the pill, but some have the attitude that if you just pick your partners carefully you can enjoy unprotected sex. I’m concerned by the number of freshmen women I know who are sexually active with multiple partners.” According to a 2014 study by the American College Health Association, an alarming 28.7 percent of college men and 25 percent of women report having had sex with two or more partners within the last twelve-month period.3
I bring up the subject of mental health, and ask my friends whether any of their classmates have been struggling with depression or homesickness since coming to college.
Michelle doesn’t hesitate to respond. “My roommate is definitely struggling,” she says shaking her head.
When we arrived at college in August, Abigail was having a really difficult time adjusting. She is very close to her family and even though they live only a couple hours away, she was extremely homesick. She was crying all the time—in our room, at dinner, after class. As a result, her parents were on campus a lot, and this just made matters worse. She started crying all over again once they left. It was getting so bad that I suggested she go to the counseling service. “Only sickos go there,” she told me, kind of angry that I would even make the suggestion. “Hello Abigail, you are sick,” I thought to myself. But I later realized that Abigail was probably afraid that by going to counseling other freshmen might think that she was mental. Fortunately things worked out. She joined crew with me and then quickly bonded with our teammates. She finally stopped crying, thank God!
Tico jumps in: “I know a freshman on the soccer team who seemed so homesick at the beginning of the semester he sometimes couldn’t make it to practice. I’m not sure what was wrong with him. Rumor is that he had suicidal tendencies in high school. All I know is that he ended up in the counseling center. I never saw him again.”
The table falls silent. Everyone is now checking their watches. Afternoon classes are about to begin, so as we get up to leave, I ask the group if they have any advice for first-year parents.
“Yes,” Sukie says. “Parents have to understand that freshmen live in the equivalent of a small city where there are all sorts of health issues. But they really need to chill. Living or not living healthy is a choice each one of us has to make for ourselves, whether it’s getting enough sleep, eating well, or dealing with stress. When we do get sick we need to deal with it. Parents need to take off the training wheels.”
Sometimes parent need to listen to their own children!
Depression and homesickness are on the increase among college students, especially those in the first year. According to a survey involving thousands of first-year students published in The American Freshman: National Norms Fall in 2009 and then again in 2014, the percentage reporting above-average emotional health dropped from 55.3 percent in 2009 to 50.7 percent in 2014.4 The same year (2014), 15.7 percent of first-year students reported frequently feeling depressed, with slightly less feeling lonely or homesick.5 Stress over the economy as well as the fear many have that they might do less well in life than their parents probably has a lot to do with this. So what can parents do when their children become homesick or depressed? How does homesickness in college manifest itself? To answer these and other questions and to get a professional perspective on first-year mental health, I head back over to the Counseling Center and meet with Ann O’Connor, a part-time counselor who has been at the college for over a decade.
Ann O’Connor’s accent betrays her British roots. A native of Gloustershire, England, she earned her license in the United States to become a certified social worker, after which she was hired by Washington College in 1999 as a part-time counselor. The combination of positions she holds today must give her an interesting perspective on life, to say the least: for part of the week she counsels college students who are just beginning their adult lives, and then, for the rest of the week, she works at a local hospice providing bereavement support for hospice families before and after the death of a loved one.
I ask O’Connor to describe a typical day on campus. She tells me that she arrives at the Counseling Center at 8:30 A.M., about the same time Dawn Nordoff does, and is available to students until about 4:30 P.M. or later on Mondays and Wednesdays. She sees all kinds of students, including those who are homesick or have a significant mood disorder such as anxiety and depression. According to the American College Health Association, the most common causes for visits to the counseling center are anxiety (14.3 percent), depression (12 percent), and panic attacks (6.7 percent).6 A typical counseling session generally lasts about fifty minutes and involves a wide variety of issues. She says that staff at the Counseling Center have their own strengths and that students are matched with counselors who will best serve them.
We talk first about homesickness, which makes up a relatively small number of the cases she and her colleagues deal with—in large part because students who get homesick or who are depressed often don’t seek professional help.7 O’Connor tells me homesickness in first-year students manifests itself in various ways. Frequent calls home complaining about classes, roommates, or college life in general are one sign. Isolating themselves and falling behind in class are two others. What O’Connor says supports what Dean Long told me about the factors leading to first-year attrition at Vassar.
Parents are often the first to know when students are homesick or depressed, so I ask O’Connor how they can help out. She suggests they can do so by listening to their children, proposing that they become involved in a student club or other activities available on campus, or remarking on the possibilities of college weekends and opportunities to meet and connect with other students. She cautions that while parents should be supportive, they should also be careful not to encourage too many trips home. By avoiding the effort to connect with classmates, college adjustment will only become harder. In her opinion, involvement with activities on campus is the key to student satisfaction.
She tells me that parents can also be helpful by being aware of how their children are progressing academically. “Frankly,” she says “it is difficult for me to understand why parents who pay a small fortune for tuition don’t get permission from their children to access their grades. Low grades are a good indication of some problem going on, and I would think parents might want to know about this because the sooner we can address academic underachievement the better for the student.”
Several parents I interviewed in preparation for this book asked me what they can do to assure their child’s success in college. O’Connor shares some of her thoughts on this subject. She proposes that parents can help their children with practical matters, such as teaching them how to budget, to use a credit card wisely, to balance a checkbook, to take care of personal health and hygiene, to be careful to do their laundry regularly, and to be respectful of a roommate and his or her space. Parents can also help by discussing with their kids the academic challenges they might face, encouraging them to search for and use the many academic resources available in the Counseling Center. She suggests that we need to talk with them about making wise choices, especially in developing friendships and mixing in groups, and discussing with them the temptations that will cross their paths. She points out that listening in conversation is always a good parental gift.
“One last thing,” she says as a student arrives for an appointment. “Allow your child to make mistakes. A good number of freshmen do. Let them learn from these mistakes. Encourage them to do better and support them in making the right decisions. Avoid making comparisons either to themselves or their siblings. And don’t try to fill your own aspirations through your child.”
Before leaving this conversation with Ann O’Connor, I would like to address a complaint I sometimes hear from parents of first-year students, namely, that their children have a difficult time gaining accessing to the counseling center at their college. One mother recently told me that it took two weeks before her son could see someone at the counseling center at his Midwestern college. All college counseling centers want to see their clients as soon as possible, within twenty-four hours, it is hoped, if not sooner. But when they are understaffed, especially at larger universities, they will often have to do triage in order to determine who needs to be seen immediately (for example, a student expressing suicidal tendencies) and who can wait a bit longer for an appointment (a student who needs counseling on proper diet). If, however, your student is deeply depressed and can’t get an appointment to see someone in the counseling center you should immediately get them help in the community and then report the incident to the dean of students. No college wants to delay helping a student who is in serious need.
In the basement of Wicomico Hall, a 1960s era dormitory, I meet Jerry Roderick, director of Washington College’s Department of Public Safety. The office is situated a few steps down into an area that looks more like a renovated basement family room than a modern campus police station. Roderick tells me later that sometimes during a Northeaster, this place is called the Pond because it floods so easily. He is a slim, fit, and about as low key and informal as you can get in his profession. Indeed, he seems the antithesis of the officious, close-minded police officer many of us imagine people in his position to be.
When I appear for our meeting, he is sitting in his office with a concerned-looking senior discussing an incident that happened the previous night involving some townies and Washington College students getting into a shoving match. The senior is the student government’s liaison with Public Safety. Roderick invites me to sit in on the conversation.
Like most four-year colleges and universities in the United States, Washington College has an open campus, meaning that anyone who wants to can walk onto its property unimpeded. In this case, eight townies, probably bored high school students with nothing better to do, strayed on campus at about 10:30 P.M. and tried to crash a party that was taking place in one of the residence halls. When they were denied entry, there was some pushing and shoving, which only escalated when a first-year woman was verbally insulted by one of the invaders. At first the college students thought that they could handle the situation by themselves, but when the jostling intensified someone called Public Safety. Both Public Safety and the Chestertown police were on the scene within minutes, but by the time they arrived the townies had taken off. One college student suffered a minor bruise on his face from a random punch, but otherwise nobody was seriously injured. The student government rep wants to know what Public Safety is going to do about this unfortunate incident, especially since it seems to him to be just another example of rampant crime in Chestertown.
Roderick listens to the senior and then makes the suggestion that when students see a suspicious group of people coming on campus they need to call Public Safety immediately, before the situation escalates. Had this been done, he tells the senior, Public Safety might have prevented a fight and caught the intruders. Meanwhile, the incident is under investigation. He also points out that crime is not rampant in Chestertown, that in fact theft and vagrancy are down by 30 percent over previous years. The meeting ends and Roderick promises to keep the senior updated on the investigation.
In my experience, parents have mixed feelings about campus law enforcement. On the one hand, they appreciate having a trained campus police force around to protect the safety of their children. On the other, they worry about their children getting caught by these same people doing something illegal like drinking underage or smoking marijuana. So any good campus police force must walk a fine line between preserving the openness and safety of a college campus and enforcing the law when students break the rules.
Roderick and his department first make contact with new students soon after they arrive at orientation. At this point, of course, they are on information overload, so he tries to make his message clear and simple. He tells them that Public Safety exists to protect them and that if they follow the rules and obey the law they won’t have any problems with his officers. “Most of our freshmen are incredibly mature and responsible,” he says, “but a few almost immediately get into trouble. For them it’s as though college is one big party and they are already on spring break. Consequently, we sometimes witness some unbelievably bad behavior.”
Roderick reiterates that immaturity is a big factor, especially with first-year males. “When you walk through one of their residence halls and see the number of penises drawn on their doors,” he says “you understand what I mean.” Some first-year students also have a difficult time with community rules and expectations. What they think is acceptable behavior, upper-class students find appalling. For example, the college recently built two new residence halls, each accommodating a hundred students of which twenty are first year. Within six weeks of the buildings being occupied, the elevators had to be locked down because of the damage done to them by the first-year occupants, several of whom had been drinking. The upperclassmen, who really appreciated finally having elevators, were not happy about this. They had been complaining all semester long about the senseless and sometimes malicious behavior of their first-year hall mates. “This is just one example of the huge difference between adolescent first-year students and mature seniors,” he says. “When they catch first-year students doing stupid things like this I tell my officers, ‘Just remember, we haven’t graduated them yet. We still have time to work on them!’”
Of course, as my recent lunch partners noted, much of this bad behavior is alcohol related and caused in large part by peer pressure. Before they arrived on campus, many of these first-year students probably drank only a couple beers or no alcohol at all. But when they meet upperclassmen who introduce them to high-energy drinks laced with vodka, they start drinking as well, followed by foolish and sometimes risky behavior. “But as the semester progresses, these incidents taper down,” he says “because the reality of a very demanding academic program begins to set in. Midterm grades are out. And all of a sudden, mom and dad are on the telephone having a serious conversation with Johnny who just got three Ds and an F.”
What happens at Washington College when a first-year student is caught drinking or using drugs? If Roderick’s officers catch a first-year student (or any student for that matter) with illegal drugs, the student is immediately turned over to the Chestertown Police, which means that they will automatically be charged with possession. He then files an internal report with the campus judicial board, which means the student may be suspended. Washington College’s no-tolerance policy on drugs is similar to Morningside College’s and is standard for most colleges and universities.
Roderick tells me that it’s a bit different with alcohol. In the first couple of weeks after orientation, his officers take the educational approach when they see an underage student using alcohol. They make sure the offending student understands campus policy and state law. After the second week, however, his officers go into an enforcement mode. First-year students caught drinking receive a citation with a monetary penalty. A copy of the citation is sent over to Student Affairs, where they will keep track of future offenses. At three citations, the student must complete mandatory alcohol counseling and evaluation. Beyond this, students face judicial action, including possible suspension. There are many strategies on how to deal with this growing problem, but Washington College’s “education first, enforcement second” policy is quite common.
As we have already seen, underage drinking is a big issue on most college campuses. And first-year students are often the worst offenders. Estimates vary, but according to recent studies, 46.5 percent of first-year students report drinking beer and 54.1 percent drinking wine or liquor either frequently or occasionally since entering college, and of these students, 33.6 percent reported having binged in the past two weeks—40.9 percent for men and 29.8 percent for women. Binge drinking is defined as more than five drinks in one sitting over a two-hour period for men and four drinks over the same period of time for women.8
While these figures are instructive, many believe that irresponsible drinking is pervasive in the first year. I am remembering, for example, my conversation with Hank and Barry at Morningside who told me that 90 percent of their first-year classmates drink. Unfortunately, naive and easily influenced first-year students often follow what they think is the norm and begin to drink excessively themselves. It is for this reason that many colleges are posting statistics in the student newspaper and on campus bulletin boards, as I recently saw at the Health and Counseling Services office there, showing that perception does not always match reality and that in fact many students choose not to drink at all.
Irresponsible drinking is often related to aggressive sexual behavior, and so we discuss how Washington College deals with date rape. Roderick tells me that date rape is not a significant issue at Washington College, but that nationally it’s probably a bigger problem than most think. As we both know, only a small number of rape victims will report what happened to them. Larger numbers probably go to friends. Still, when a date rape victim steps forward most colleges will spend a lot of time providing the victim with support and legal advice.
Roderick tells me of an off-campus party several years ago where a first-year women had been drinking all evening. She started flirting with a junior who took her to his residence. They went back to his room back on campus where they started to hug and kiss. When the junior started to put the moves on her, she told him that she didn’t want to go any further. He then raped her.
“She reported this to the Health Services and to Public Safety,” he says. “Both families threatened to lawyer up. It became a classic ‘he said, she said’ case. Charges were filed at the college through the sexual assault and grievance process. It was a very difficult campus hearing. In the end he was found responsible.” Here was a first-year woman, he laments, who went through the awful experience of date rape, had to relive the experience in a contentious campus hearing process, and really never completely recovered after the hearing was over. He tells me that she eventually dropped out of college.
Roderick’s observation that date rape is underreported on most college campuses is borne out by my own experience. In a survey done several years ago of Randolph-Macon College women by the Pan-Hellenic Council (a group of sorority presidents), respondents were asked: “Have you ever reported an incident of date rape to a college authority?” Only 1.7 percent of those who said they had knowledge of a date rape bothered to report it. Part of the problem, of course, is that many victims of date rape are either too ashamed or too scared to report what happened to the authorities. In some cases, the victim doesn’t even realize she was raped. Education around this issue, for men as well as for women, is extremely important.
Roderick and I discuss what safety strategies are in place to make sure that students—men as well as women—are safe. Like most colleges and universities, Washington College has an emergency broadcasting system with loudspeakers and twenty-two surveillance cameras that are monitored by his officers. In addition, the college has an alert system that can notify students via e-mail, text, and landlines of emergencies as they arise. But it’s the college’s nine full-time and two part-time officers that are the backbone of campus security.
Though Washington College’s security system is impressive, when the Beltway snipers come to mind, I wonder out loud whether these precautions would be enough to head off the kind of tragic incident that happened at Virginia Tech not so long ago.
The shootings at Virginia Tech in 2007, which killed thirty-two people, have more than any single factor led a lot of people to think that college campuses are not safe. In fact, though, college campuses are among the safest places on earth to be—if students use common sense. Statistics on incidents of violent crime committed on college campuses are insignificant compared to incidents of crime committed elsewhere, and according to a recent survey, 78.7 percent of first-year students report feeling perfectly safe on campus.9
“Everyone thinks that Virginia Tech was a landmark event, and in some ways it was,” Roderick says, “but my FBI father told me long ago of being on the University of Texas campus in 1966 when Charles Whitman, a deranged student, shot fourteen people to death from a perch in the campus bell tower. Virginia Tech is not a new phenomenon. Unfortunately, tragedies like this occasionally happen, in shopping malls, in post offices, and even in schools. God knows how many school shootings there have been since Columbine in 1999. But because of the media attention Virginia Tech has received, many parents think this is a new phenomenon and that college campuses are very dangerous.”
Roderick tells me that even before Virginia Tech, Washington College’s officers were trained to respond to a campus shooter. If such a person were to appear, the college would simultaneously lock down the campus and operationalize the campus alert system, and then (because Public Safety officers are not armed), call in the Chestertown and Maryland State Police, both of whom are only seconds away.
Many small colleges, including the two where I was president, do not arm their officers, and so I ask Roderick whether, in light of Virginia Tech, he thinks this still advisable. “I think guns can become a liability in a tightly crowded situation like we have on most small college campuses,” he responds. “Using a gun runs the risk of inadvertently shooting an innocent bystander. On the other hand, not having a gun forces my officers to ‘work smart,’ to stop and think about how they are going to handle the situation. Again, for us this would mean immediately calling in the Chestertown and Maryland State Police who are especially trained to deal with a situation like this. Still, I get calls from parents wanting to know whether Washington College has a SWAT team.”
I believe Roderick is right in his thinking about the use of guns on small college campuses. When universities like Tufts have a police force especially trained to deal with hostage takeovers or shooters, being armed makes sense. But the campus police at most colleges are not trained for extreme events like these and so it’s almost always better to pull in law enforcement officers, like the state police, who are. The idea that students should be fully armed, a movement that is gaining traction in some circles, is simply mind-boggling to me and other college and university presidents.10
Jerry Roderick and I have covered a lot of territory. We’ve talked about many of the safety concerns that are on the minds of most prospective college students and their parents. What advice would he give parents if they were here in this room with us? “Before their children leave for college,” he says “parents should have a frank conversation about what they and their children expect the college experience to be. If there is a big disconnect, they should talk about it. They should talk about alcohol and drug use and about personal and community safety.”
He then shares his philosophy of what it means to be a college community. First-year students need to think of their residence hall as their home. At home they keep the doors locked, not blocked open as too often happens in the residence halls. At home, they don’t bring strangers into the house. At home they look out for their parents and their siblings. “And you know what?” he says, “Most kids respond positively to this conversation. Most are responsible people when they come to college. They do look out for themselves and for their classmates. They call Public Safety if help is needed.”
At a coffeehouse in downtown Chestertown, I meet with four Washington College students who are in their first year, all of whom are in some way involved with campus safety issues. Courtney and Connie participate in Safe Ride, a student organization that provides rides for classmates who get stranded downtown on weekends, and Susan and Tony work as dispatchers for Public Safety.
I ask Courtney how Safe Ride works. She illustrates by telling me of a recent incident in which she fielded a call from a first-year classmate attending an off-campus party that had been busted by the Chestertown Police because of the town’s noise ordinance. The student, slurring her words because she had too much to drink, told Courtney that she was at a house downtown but didn’t know where it was located. She wanted to know whether someone could pick her up and drive her back to campus. Courtney knew where the party was because another student had called Safe Ride earlier. “So Connie and I ran over to the van and drove downtown to the party where we found this girl standing on the front porch of the house,” Courtney says. “She was really spaced. Couldn’t walk a straight line as she approached the van. We thought she was going to throw up. Everyone at the party was laughing at her, which was ridiculous. They should have been showing a bit more concern. Anyway, we delivered her to the residence hall and called the RA.”
“But Public Safety officers get involved in more serious incidents,” Tony, the student dispatcher, quickly adds. “For example, just the other night a freshman woman was walking alone through the graveyard just off campus going to a party on High Street when she saw a suspicious person approaching her. She called Public Safety, and I answered the call. I radioed one of our officers who responded within seconds and so did the Chestertown Police.”
“Never walk by yourself, men included,” Connie states the obvious. “Make sure your keys are out. Be aware of your surroundings.”
Susan agrees. “I feel very safe here. But be aware of your surroundings. Don’t trust people you just met.”
Listening to these students you might think that Chestertown is a dangerous place. Quite the contrary. Chestertown is a quaint colonial town with many of its original eighteenth-century houses still lining the Chester River and a downtown that attracts tourists as well as students with small shops, restaurants, art galleries, and a fine old hotel. But as I learned from John King, director of public safety at Tufts, vigilance is needed even in seemingly safe environments.
“So any advice for new first-year students?” I ask the group.
“Yeah, don’t get fake IDs,” Susan immediately responds. “It’s not worth getting caught. Believe me!”
Susan is reflecting on the fact that many first-year students come to college with fake automobile licenses saying that they are over twenty-one. I remember a conversation I had at Tufts orientation with a junior resident assistant. She told me that first year she had a fake New Jersey driver’s license and used it to enter a well-known downtown Boston nightclub where lots of college students hang out. Unfortunately for her, the Massachusetts State Police were doing a sting operation that night at the front door and she ended up in tears calling her parents from the precinct. This was her first offense, and she wasn’t charged. But she learned a lesson. Susan’s advice is worth heeding.
“Also,” Tony adds, “If you see a fellow student in trouble, call Public Safety even though you might have been drinking illegally yourself. We have an amnesty policy here that says that unless gross negligence is involved, a call for help from a friend who might also be under the influence will not get the caller in trouble. Without the amnesty clause, a student might have second thoughts about calling Public Safety for help worried that they will also end up in the dean’s office. The college’s main concerned in these matters is always student safety.”
Jerry Roderick has arranged for me to accompany Sergeant Burton Brown of the Washington College Public Safety Office on his rounds so that I can witness firsthand how they deal with the party scene on a busy weekend night. It takes great confidence for Jerry—and Sergeant Brown for that matter—to accommodate me, considering that it’s Halloween and first-year students will be out in force. Who knows what might happen!
I’m excited because I will finally see what the “Orange Fence Party”—advertised on signs around campus with the tag line “What goes on inside stays inside”—is really all about. This event has been billed by the first-year students I have met as something between an old-fashioned mixer and a drunken orgy that no college official, including Public Safety officers, are permitted to attend. I doubt this is true, but I’ll soon find out.
Sergeant Brown finally arrives. He is a big bear of a man, maybe six feet two, with a round face and a neck as thick as a telephone pole. He looks more like a tackle on the Baltimore Ravens than a member of the Department of Public Safety. He takes my measure, probably asking himself why anyone besides a Public Safety officer would want to spend a perfectly good Friday evening watching first-year students party until two or three in the morning. I introduce myself, and we establish some ground rules. Brown will do his rounds in the normal way, and I will tag along. In the unlikely event that something dangerous happens, like a fistfight, I will back off and not get involved. Otherwise I will be privy to everything he and his officers do.
Brown is unarmed. He only carries a nightstick and a can of mace. But he is so physically imposing that he could probably take on a whole army of intruders by himself. I ask him what he would do if confronted by someone with a gun. “See this radio I’m carrying?” he says. A faint voice can be heard coming from it, saying, “Copy that, Tom. We have the guys you mentioned in sight walking up Washington Avenue toward campus. We’ll check them out for you. 10–4.” He continues: “Hear those voices? One of them is a Chestertown Police officer checking out a group of townies walking up Washington Avenue towards the campus. The other is one of my officers over at the Orange Fence Party. All of us, the local police and my officers, are constantly in radio contact with each other. In the unlikely event I see someone who is armed, all I need to do is call for help, and the Chestertown Police will be here within seconds. And they are armed!”
We see a gaggle of first-year women dressed up in cat costumes blithely skipping across the grass as they head for the Orange Fence Party. They are giggling hilariously. Brown and I follow the women. They are very happy to see him. “Hey Burton, what’s up?” one of them shouts. “How do you like our costumes?” He gives the girls two thumbs up, “Out of sight.”
“So does everyone know you?”
“Most students do. Maybe not all the freshmen yet. But they will by the end of second semester. That’s a big part of my job. Getting to know the freshmen. Making them feel safe.”
We approach the Orange Fence Party. It is located in a courtyard surrounded by three fraternity houses. An orange plastic fence is wrapped around the perimeter with an entrance on one side and an exit on the other. Manning the entrance is a big hulk of a man wearing a tan shirt with “Public Safety” emblazoned on his chest and looking like a nightclub bouncer. Standing next to him is Sara Feyerherm, the associate vice president for Student Affairs, who will have ultimate say over this evening’s activities. She greets me, but it’s hard to hear what she is saying. Music is blasting from three huge speakers as students line dance to “Shake Your Booty.”
Brown suggests that we walk through the area. “Hold on,” I shout to him over the blaring music. “I was told by some first-year students that neither Public Safety nor anyone else from the administration can walk into the area.” He shouts back, “Really? Just watch me.” With me in tow, he defiantly walks into the courtyard. Some students acknowledge his presence. Most ignore him and just go on dancing.
I join Brown at the beer station. “How does that work?” I ask, pointing to a long table that sports several brands of low-carb beer. The music has temporarily stopped so we can now hear each other.
“If you are twenty-one or older you can bring three cans of beer into the party,” he says. “The adult ‘bartender’ behind the table then keeps track of which cans are yours. You can retrieve from him one of your beers every half hour or so until you’ve consumed all three. But when it’s gone, it’s gone, and you can’t bring in any more. Of course, first-year students aren’t allowed to drink.”
Unless we believe that total abstinence can or should be enforced at college parties, I think this is an excellent way to educate students around responsible drinking. It shows students who are over twenty-one that responsible social drinking does not require the consumption of large amounts of alcohol.
Brown and I leave through the back entrance to the roped-off courtyard. Two more burly bouncers guard the exit. “Who are those guys?” I ask him. “They are supervisors at the local minimum-security prison who work for us on busy nights like this,” he replies. “I sometimes joke with the students that if they get into trouble, they might end up dealing with these guys rather than with me. So, better behave.”
Around 10:30 P.M., Brown and I walk toward some first-year residence halls. Small groups of costumed students continue to saunter toward the Orange Fence Party. We soon come upon a young woman dressed up in a fairy outfit who looks genuinely scared and disoriented. We are in a poorly lit area in the back of one of the residence halls, and she is alone. “I don’t know where I am,” she says, obviously panicked. “I’m trying to get to the party but I’m a freshman and I don’t know my way around yet.” Brown speaks into the microphone on his lapel. “Is there an officer near the back of Sassafras Residence Hall? I need an escort,” he says. In less than fifteen seconds, Officer Gene Davis wheels up on his bicycle.
As we enter the courtyard of Sassafras Residence Hall, Brown spots a student dressed like a Catholic priest. He sports a clerical collar, a huge silver cross dangling from his neck, and in his right hand he holds a large red cup, which, as soon as he sees Brown, he hides behind his back. Brown asks, “Are you a Washington College student?” Sheepishly, the student responds, “I’m a freshman.” But Brown seems suspicious of this. “Let me see your college ID,” he says. The student now looks sullen. “Don’t have it with me,” he replies.
At this point two other security officers, Tom Knox and James Shaw, both also on bikes, have assembled near Brown. They have been listening in on the conversation over their two-way radios. Shaw asks the student for his name and his residence hall. The dispatcher back at Public Safety checks the information and confirms that this kid is who he says he is. I recognize the dispatcher’s voice. It’s Tony, the first-year student who works for Public Safety.
“OK,” Brown says, “Give me the cup.” The student reluctantly hands him the red cup. It’s half full of beer. Brown pours it into the bushes. “I’m going to give you a citation,” he says, “and I don’t want to see you drinking again. You’re underage.”
Officer Knox pulls out a pad and writes the young man up as though he were getting a speeding ticket. The kid sheepishly apologizes and thanks Brown for being lenient. “Just get your act together, young man,” Brown says, as though he were talking to his son. And then picking up on the theme of the costume (and with a sparkle in his eyes) he makes the sign of the cross. “Go and sin no more.” Everyone laughs and the crisis is over.
The radio crackles again. Two officers on the top floor of Sassafras are heard dealing with a student who has just passed out in his room. Brown and the two other officers take off, entering Sassafras through different doors and steaming up opposite staircases. Out of breath, I follow one of them. Down the hall, we see a cluster of students standing around a first-year student on the floor. He has passed out, not because he was drinking, but because he slipped on a wet floor after taking a shower and banged his head against a mirror, breaking it into pieces and creating a bloody head wound just above his right eye. An officer administers first aid as Brown calls for a squad car to take the student to the hospital emergency room for stitches.
It’s now 11:30 P.M. Brown and I resume our patrol, heading back toward the Orange Fence Party. “I’ve noticed, Sargent Burton,” I say as we walk at a brisk pace, “that you don’t check everyone who has a red cup.” Three students pass, all holding cups. “Our policy here,” he says, “is to assume that students are not drinking underage. Some, of course, are, but many are drinking soda pop. If we checked everyone, we wouldn’t be able to focus on much more important safety issues like the kid who just sliced his head open in Sassafras.”
“Then why did you stop the kid in the priest’s costume?”
He tells me something I kind of knew. “You might have noticed that when we approached him, he tried to hide the cup. When a student does this it’s almost always a sign that he or she is underage. Whenever this happens, we will confront the student. Also, while I don’t know all the first-year students yet, I know most of the upperclassmen and how old they are. I didn’t know this kid so I assumed that he was underage.”
It’s almost midnight. The Orange Fence Party has reached a feverish pitch. We stand at a distance and just watch the action. I ask Brown whether a student has ever accosted him. “These kids just aren’t that way,” he says. “Most of them are polite, and if they get into trouble and I have to deal with them they will be cooperative. Only one time has a student been abusive. He was a freshman who had been drinking too much. Alcohol often brings out the worst characteristics. When I started to write him up he used the N word and took a swing at me. This kind of behavior is forbidden at Washington College and I turned him in to the dean’s office. Next morning he was at Public Safety with his father profusely apologizing for his behavior. He went through J board and got the book thrown at him. He learned an important lesson.”
By 2 A.M. a light rain begins to fall and the Orange Fence Party starts winding down. It’s been a relatively uneventful night and Brown starts to relax. As they leave the party, more students come up to him and ask what he thinks of their costumes.
Clearly, Washington College students are fortunate to have people like Burton Brown and his fellow officers watching out for them. Jerry Roderick has set up a campus safety operation at Washington College that is appropriate for a college community, with safety officers who understand that their priority is community safety. Unfortunately, not all college and university safety officers are this way. We recently witnessed the spectacle at the University of California, Davis, where a university police officer was caught on video spraying mace on a group of otherwise peaceful student and faculty demonstrators. This is inappropriate on any college campus. If your child is being treated like a criminal rather than a student, she should express her concerns to the powers that be. It is often the dean of students to whom campus security report. Parents should also know about the Clery Act, which requires all colleges and universities to file annual crime statistics on their campuses. You can find out ahead of time what the crime rate is, if it exists, on any college campus in America.