Controversy erupts over alcohol forum

Tonight's open forum on the University's alcohol policy will not take place as originally planned due to an order issued by Office of Residential Life and Learning (ResLife) Director Yolanda King.

The forum was originally scheduled to include a panel consisting of Director of Drug and Alcohol Education Services Margot Abels, Director of Student Activities Jodie Nealley, Director of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs Todd Sullivan, and seven resident assistants (RAs).

A week ago, King notified both the RA panelists and sophomore Speech and Debate Society President Vinda Rao, who is moderating the forum, that the RAs would not be allowed to participate as panelists.

RAs can still attend the forum, but must attend the forum simply as students and not as any position of authority on the alcohol policy as originally intended. "They're not authorized to speak for ResLife or to critique the policies," Dean of Students Bruce Reitman said.

Now, only the three administrators will speak on the panel.

The RAs' dual role as ResLife employees and students made their position on the panel difficult to clarify. "It's not an appropriate thing to ask somebody who is accepting salary to discuss the policy," Dean of Student Bruce Reitman said.

Rao said she wanted to have RAs on the panel to answer students' questions and to address the difficulties of implementing the alcohol policy. "Students have a right to know about the policy," she said. "It's an attempt to open the lines of communication."

Since the forum is being moderated, Rao said RAs would not be put in the position of answering compromising questions. "If a question is inappropriate for an RA to answer, I would make sure they didn't have to answer it," she said. "That choice has been taken away from me."

According to Rao, the forum is "not an attempt to target ResLife," and that one of the forum's goals is "to make students aware that RAs aren't the enemy."

Reitman questioned whether the premise of the forum was still an open discussion to clarify the policy, or if it had instead been changed to a debate about the policy. "It was originally scheduled to be a forum, not a debate," Reitman said.

RAs who were not scheduled to be on the panel were told about the forum change either by their hall directors or heard about it via word of mouth.

One RA said his residential director scheduled a meeting with all of the building's RAs. The hall director said that "what she was saying was coming from ResLife." According to the RA, the hall director "couldn't tell us not to go, but she asked us not to go."

Another RA was notified of King's decision by a Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate e-mail to a campus list-serve. "I was pretty shocked," the RA said. ResLife policy barring RAs from speaking "was pretty ridiculous," she added.

Reitman said the University is open to RAs' opinions. Referring to response from last school year, "the feedback from RAs and from [Tufts Emergency Medical Services] TEMS literally resulted in the change of the policy that took away the disciplinary policy for first offenses."