If students are wondering why they haven’t heard more about recent changes in the campus alcohol policy, that is because there are none.
Despite circulating rumors, enrolled undergraduates are still prohibited from possessing, using, purchasing or distributing alcoholic beverages on or off campus, as stated in this year’s campus life handbook.
There are no plans to revisit the policy, said University President David Dockery.
The handbook lists five community values from which behavioral expectations are developed. Alcohol consumption is addressed under the value of “self-discipline.”
“We want to do community well, academics well and ultimately live well,” said Bryan Carrier, acting dean of students. “We don’t believe condoning alcohol will benefit us in reaching these values.”
Of the 3,028 undergraduate students at Union, 70 percent are younger than the minimum legal drinking age, Carrier said.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, those who engage in underage drinking are strongly associated with health and social problems such as poor school performance, memory loss, alcohol-related car crashes and fatal changes in brain development.
“We are our brother’s keeper,” Carrier said. “What one person does affects others. Regardless of alcohol or something else potentially detrimental, we either have responsibility to exhort one another or we remove ourselves from the situation.”
While the policy has not changed, Carrier said its minimum sanctions were changed two years ago to allow faculty and staff serving in judicial sessions to approach each situation involving alcohol case-by-case due to the complexities within situations involving alcohol.
Union faculty and staff also are held to the same standards as undergraduates regarding alcohol.
For those involved in adult and graduate programs, the values statement includes the same standards related to on-campus behavior as with undergraduates but does not mention off-campus behavior other than stating that drunkenness and driving under the influence are contrary to Union’s values.
Not all evangelical academic institutions have similar policies.
Wheaton College, a nationally ranked private Christian liberal arts college in Illinois, allows students of legal drinking age to possess and consume alcohol in private spaces and designated common spaces during events registered for alcohol.
The school’s policy states that “student health and safety is a responsibility shared by all members of the Wheaton community” and that its members are to act with care and respect for each other in addition to complying with state and local regulations.
