The new GUSA Senate is planning to work with administrators on loosening the university’s new alcohol and party policies, reviving a movement that has quieted in recent weeks.

The Senate met last night to discuss the creation of an Alcohol Policy Review Committee consisting of both faculty and students to evaluate the alcohol policy and make recommendations to Assistant Vice President for Student Health Jim Welsh.*

If the committee is formed, it would work to produce a report and make recommendations to Olson on how the alcohol provisions in the Code of Student Conduct should be further amended. While last night’s discussion on the topic was only preliminary, senators expressed their desire to make the committee an open forum in which the views of students and faculty are equally represented.

“Dr. Olson has tentatively approved the creation of this working group, though negotiations and discussions are still ongoing in terms of what form it will take, what scope and jurisdiction it will have, as well as how precisely it will be organized,” Senate Speaker Eden Schiffmann (COL ’08) said.

Schiffmann, a former member of THE HOYA’s editorial board, said during the meeting last night that the committee would not replace the Disciplinary Review Committee, a body of students, faculty and administrators that reviews the Student Code of Conduct, or “limit Olson’s final authority, but will provide a new vehicle for students to be part of the process.”

Under the tentative plan, the committee will be co-chaired by Assistant Vice President for Student Health Jim Welsh and a student. It would include of 16 to 18 members and be evenly divided between students and faculty.

The university revised its alcohol policy this semester, imposing a one-keg limit for on-campus parties, requiring party training for hosts, banning certain alcohol-related paraphernalia and instituting new guidelines for punishing alcohol policy violators. It also added a guest limit and earlier registration requirements.

Matt Stoller (COL ’08), a student association senator and active member of the Facebook group Work Hard, Play Hard: Georgetown Students for Stopping the Madness, said the plans call for a committee consisting of students from each grade, including one or two GUSA representatives, one representative from the Residents of Color Council, one resident assistant and four to six other students who would be asked to submit applications to an independent group of administrators and students. In addition, the committee would include representatives from the Office of Residence Life, the Department of Public Safety, university lawyers, administrators and faculty members from the original FRIENDS Initiative, which played an integral role in defining the alcohol policy in 2004.

Stoller emphasized that he would like to see the committee represent a broad range of perspectives and “not just the Work Hard, Play Hard people.”

“I think it’s very important we have a balanced forum. Obviously, if there are all students and no administrators, or a highly imbalanced skew, the final report is not going to be as credible – and certainly not as informed – as it could be,” Stoller said.

Schiffmann emphasized, however, that they are still in the early stages of negotiation, and that the proposal at the meeting “is just our current plan.”

“Above all, we want to emphasize that this is going to involve the entire student body,” Stoller said. “This isn’t going to be a commission that no one knows about, producing recommendations that most students disagree with, and claiming to be the student voice, as happened last year.” He said it was important to “make it transparent” and to avoid making decisions behind closed doors.

In the coming months, the Senate will be working with Olson to determine the form they would like the committee to take and drafting a bill to create it, Schiffmann said.

GUSA representatives plan to meet with Olson tomorrow to discuss the formation of the committee and negotiations are expected to continue as plans take shape in the coming weeks.

*The article “GUSA Senate Plans To Form Alcohol Policy Review Committee” (THE HOYA, Oct. 16, 2007, A1) incorrectly stated that GUSA representatives were planning to meet with Vice President for Student Affairs Todd Olson on Wednesday. They planned to meet with Assistant Vice President for Student Health Jim Welsh.