Higher Ed Law Prof Blog

Is There Any Fun Left in College?

It’s been said, “If you remember the sixties, you weren’t there.” Well, I was there and I remember. Especially I recall how anxious I was to get back to college each September. One reason was long, hot summers as a bricklayer’s helper. My dad was that bricklayer and he knew what he was doing. Able to claim only six years of schooling himself, he made sure his boys knew the alternatives to a college degree. Come late August, I was always eager to resume the life of a fraternity “man,” which included plenty of beer, tobacco (and other leafy combustibles) and music (played very loud and very fast). Oh, yeh… and occasional classes.
The release of the Virginia Tech Panel Report last week could not have been better timed to cast a cloud over the hundreds of thousands of young Americans who headed off to our colleges and universities during the same timeframe. The good news is that most universities haven’t waited to review the report’s recommendations. Most that I know have behaved like Penn, which recently reported the creation of a new communication network with which campus security can simultaneously alert every blackberry, cell phone, computer and other electronic gizmo owned by every student, staffer and faculty member, when evil is afoot on the West Philly campus.
As scary as a crazed shooter is, binge drinking remains a far more serious threat on most campuses. The website www.kidshealth.org defines binge drinking as, “the consumption of five or more drinks in a row by men — or four or more drinks in a row by women — at least once in the previous 2 weeks. Heavy binge drinking includes three or more such episodes in 2 weeks.” Sometimes binge drinking results in alcohol poisoning. Occasionally that ends in death. USA Today recently put the number of alcohol-related deaths on U.S. college campuses at 620 since January 1, 2000. Most were the result of guzzling a lot of liquor. Some were more bizarre.
The cake-taker seems to belong to Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, where four intoxicated students shoved a pair of Roman candles under the bedroom door of their friend and fellow student. The “joke” resulted in 16 fireballs, each burning fiercely at about 1500 degrees, blasting into the sleeping lad’s room. His buddies hot-footed themselves downstairs, where they gleefully waited outside for their enraged schoolmate to emerge cursing from his bedchamber.
Instead, what they saw as they stood on the front lawn was the bedroom window glowing orange. While a girlfriend dialed 911, the pranksters tried to rescue the target of their practical joke. They were driven back by the intense heat. Meanwhile, the boy in the bedroom died of smoke inhalation. The jokesters are charged with felony arson for the August 12th tragedy.
Both the VTU massacre and recent alcohol-related deaths have sparked intense debate within the higher education industry. Many of us who work in that industry believe that we must reassess how we handle risk management on our campuses. Think about it: a college campus is in essence a small town --- some universities might qualify as small cities --- populated primarily by 18-20 year-olds. They have to be safely housed, fed, entertained, … oh, yeh, and educated.
“Animal House” has become an American film classic. The movie may also be well on its way to becoming an American artifact. Don’t misunderstand me. Plenty of booze will be guzzled on the nation’s campuses again this academic year. But the winds of change are blowing across many college quads. Indictments of some students and even administrators, when alcohol abuse resulted in student fatalities, are having their impact. Additionally, a predictable trickle-down effect from the heightened security-consciousness following the VTU tragedy is a general tightening up of law enforcement in higher ed.
The students were still excited when they came to our campuses last week. If we do it right, they won’t notice many of the new security steps we’ve taken, such as closed-circuit cameras at key locations. But many will encounter a panoply of new rules and regulations, ranging from tougher sanctions for alcohol violations to the imposition of resident directors in Greek houses.
Yes, Virginia, there is still fun to be had at college. But the light-hearted irresponsibility of the “Animal House” era… my era… is gone for good.
--- Jim Castagnera

VTU Professor's Comments Raise Provost's Interest

A VTU business prof, who used the massace as an example in a lecture on risk, got his next class visited by the university's provost. Now the professor, Vittorio Bonomo, is complaining that his academic freedom is being chilled. The university says it's just being sensitive to student feelings. Read all about it in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Increased use of adjuncts

This from one of my colleagues on Law Prof Blogs:

Increase Use of Adjuncts At Community Colleges

The Courier News Online has an article entitled Central Jersey Community Colleges See Rise In Adjuncts, which as the title implies is about the increasing use of adjuncts in community colleges. The numbers of adjuncts used at community colleges is astonishing. As the article states:
At Central Jersey community colleges, 74 percent of the faculty at Raritan Valley Community College in the North Branch section of Branchburg are adjunct professors; 70 percent are adjunct professors at Middlesex County College in Edison; and 59 percent are adjunct professors at Union County College in Cranford.
"There are large numbers of part-time faculty at all three colleges, which is unfortunately quite common for community colleges nationwide," Curtis said, noting the national average for community colleges in fall 2005 was 66 percent of all faculty employed part-time -- another word for adjuncts.
While I do not know the exact numbers, I believe a trend exists in our nation's law schools to increase the number of adjuncts. While I am all for adjunct employment, a law school and a good college needs a core group of full-time faculty who will be there for the students. If a school employs too many adjuncts, that says something about the school. Faculty shape the school. Committee and curriculum work is important.
Mitchell H. Rubinstein

Charges dropped

Hazing charges dropped against Rider officials
Posted by The Times of Trenton August 28, 2007 11:43AM
Categories: News
A Superior Court judge dismissed aggravated hazing charges against two Rider University administrators Tuesday, after prosecutors said they did not have enough evidence to convict the pair.

Judge Maria Sypek dismissed the fourth-degree felony indictments against Dean of Students Anthony Campbell and Director of Greek Life Ada Badgley, who were charged August 3 along with three students in the alcohol poisoning death of fraternity pledge Gary DeVercelly Jr.

In a motion filed Friday, Mercer County Prosecutor Joseph Bocchini asked Sypek to dismiss the charges against the pair.

"Simply stated, there is insufficient evidence to substantiate a finding, beyond a reasonable doubt, that either Campbell or Badgley acted either knowingly or recklessly with respect to the indictment that resulted in serious bodily injury to (DeVercelly and freshman) William (Williams,)" the motion read.

Contributed by Darryl Isherwood.

Charges Likely to be Dropped in Alcohol-Death Case

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - A prosecutor on Monday asked a judge to drop aggravated hazing charges against two Rider University officials in a case involving the drinking death of a fraternity pledge.

Mercer County Prosecutor Joseph Bocchini declined to say why he filed the motion to dismiss charges against Dean of Students Anthony Campbell and Director of Greek Life Ada Badgley. He said he wanted first to explain the decision to the judge at a hearing scheduled for Tuesday.

Earlier this month, a grand jury indicted the administrators and three Rider students on aggravated hazing counts in connection with the death of freshman Gary DeVercelly Jr., 18, of Long Beach, Calif.

DeVercelly had a blood-alcohol level of 0.426 percent, more than five times New Jersey's legal limit for driving, when he was pronounced dead March 30, authorities have said. He died one day after drinking at a party at the Phi Kappa Tau house on the private school's campus in central New Jersey.

A grand jury indicted Campbell, 52 and Badgley, 31, along with Adriano DiDonato, 22, a student who was also the residence director and house master of the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity house; Dominic Olsen, 21, pledge master of Spring 2007 Phi Kappa Tau pledge class; and Michael J. Torney, 21, the chapter president.

Campbell's attorney, Rocco Cipparone Jr., said Bocchini had no choice but to move to dismiss the charge against his client.

"From my reading of the grand jury transcripts, there's a complete absence of probable cause," Cipparone said. He attributed the indictment to "a groundswell of determination to indict higher-up administrators without factual basis."

Neither Badgley nor her attorney could immediately be reached for comment.

If convicted, Campbell, Badgley and the three students each face a maximum penalty of 18 months in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. All have pleaded not guilty.

The two officials were believed to be the only college administrators charged criminally in a hazing death, and college administrators across the nation have been paying close attention to the indictments.

Attorney Douglas Fierberg, who has been retained by DeVercelly's parents, told The Times of Trenton for a story on its Web site Monday that the family was not happy that the prosecutor was seeking to drop charges against the administrators.

(Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)