Student Association Debates Juicy Campus, Wants to Help Educate Students on Drinking

Don’t accuse the Student Association of being out of touch with University undergrads.

At their bi-weekly meeting Tuesday night, the members of the Student Association General Assembly discussed the same issues students are talking about – drinking, drugs and JuicyCampus.com.

Afifeh Alaween, SAGA speaker, called on the 28 members of the board to step up as student leaders and work with the administration to deal with the rise in drinking issues on campus. Improving visitation hours and the Pryzbyla Center are important long-term goals, though Alaween pressed the body for ways to educate undergrads about the dangers of drinking.

Representatives suggested one of the reasons students turn to alcohol is that there is nothing to do on campus, and said administrators and students needed to work together to create more ways for students to have something to do.

“I think that the administration is definitely aware that there is a disconnect,” said Alaween. “We need to figure out how to reach the students who are sitting in their dorm rooms planning on going out tonight.”

“Our job is to educate kids on campus about this. It is a serious problem,” said Ryan Winn. “But at the same time we don’t want to be bar police. I don’t think it’s our job to tell people where they can and cannot go. Let’s get the information out there, but let’s not try to become some moral authority. We’re here to keep kids safe, but we’re not here to judge them.”

Some representatives thought the substance abuse issues on campus went beyond just alcohol.

“They’re not just drunk, they’re doing very illicit drugs,” said sophomore representative Alexander Pinnix. “My issue is not the freshmen and sophomores who are drinking, my issue is the freshmen and sophomores who are doing crack and cocaine and all these other sorts of things. Everyone is going to drink, the hard truth is we’re a drinking school, let’s not pretend that we’re some innocent place.”

“I think we need to step away from using the term ‘drinking school’ for one of two reasons,” said junior Dominic Bonaduce. “One, it’s a really negative image and if we’re admitting it that’s a huge problem. Two, I’ve been around been around the country to many colleges and universities, and every college has a drinking problem.”

The administration deals regularly with the owners of local bars according to Alaween.

“One of the things that I think is going along with the increased use of liquor and increased use of drugs and alcohol on campus is the whole Juicy Campus nonsense,” said sophomore Charlie O’Neill. “I think that as a student government, we need to really start doing something about this.” He related the story of a girl who was posting prayers for the people on the website, only to have those prayers taken down.

“This is not an open forum, this is somebody who is deciding what is getting on Juicy Campus,” said O’Neill. “This stuff has to go, and most students on this campus don’t stand for this.”

Other representatives were not sure if blocking access to a website was the right approach and worried about the precedent it would set.

“The idea that everyone has is that either we can block it or prevent students from going to it, but if we do that, it just looks like the University is trying to censor what students see, and we already have that problem with the speaker policy,” said sophomore Chris Pierno.

Senior R.J. Peterson said asking the administration to block a website would be the wrong move, citing the results of student government action at Pepperdine University. There, students asked the administration to block the site. They refused, saying they did not want to infringe on academic freedom, but the attention made the site even more popular.

“It caused a whole lot of awareness on the campus, and they said it was the worst thing they ever did because more people knew about it and more people got hurt,” said Peterson. “This is a sucky situation, but we just need to bite it and ride it out.” Peterson suggested SAGA purchase advertising space on the website with contact information for the Counseling Center so people who were hurt by the site could get into contact with somebody to help them.

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