Campus drinking concerns aired

MSU, Mankato officials point out problems, changes

By Dan Nienaber

MANKATO — A family gathering in Chanhassen was all Mankato City Councilman Mark Frost needed to realize how much attention two alcohol-related deaths have brought to his city.

Frost’s Thanksgiving dinner was just days after Mankato State University student Rissa Amen-Reif was hit by a car and killed after ending up in the middle of a road on the edge town. She had been at a sorority event at a bar more than a mile away and police believe alcohol was a factor.

Less than a month before Amen-Reif’s death, Amanda Jax died after a night of drinking in Mankato. Jax, who had finished pre-nursing classes at the university and was about to start the MSU nursing program, had a blood-alcohol level of .46 when she died.

Broad changes in the city’s liquor licensing rules — created, in part, to curb drinking at downtown bars — were being formulated before the deaths. But the new attention also has amplified calls by city officials, including Frost, to get MSU to do more to address excessive drinking by students.

“This Thanksgiving dinner was a gathering of close to 50 people,” Frost said. “They all know I’m a city councilman from Mankato and, ‘What happened to these two girls?’ was all I heard about all night there. People were asking me, ‘What’s going on in Mankato?’

“I don’t ever want to hear that. I’m very proud of this city. The fact is we need leadership at every level of this city if we’re going to change things.”

Frost also said MSU has to do more to force those changes.

Richard Davenport, MSU president, attended the Monday City Council meeting where a unanimous vote clamped down on bar drinking specials. He acknowledged Mankato has a reputation for binge drinking, but added the university has many programs in place to curtail underage drinking as well as heavy drinking by older students.

“Eighty percent of our students choose not to drink or have one drink a week,” Davenport said Thursday. “We think we have strong programs, some of the best in the state.”

Frost and City Manager Pat Hentges both said they are frustrated by the vague answers they’re getting from university officials when they ask specific questions about the consequences students face on campus for alcohol-related offenses off campus.

Using campus directories, the city sends lists of student offenders to MSU and other area colleges. Hentges said Bethany College and Gustavus Adolphus College officials have told the city that students on the “arrest roster” are counseled and face consequences such as academic probation.

“We get the feeling there is a very limited amount of authority (MSU) has to intervene with off-campus behaviors,” Hentges said. “It appears that private colleges take a more active role in intervening when they begin to see a problem trend or when they see these alcohol-related behaviors with students.”

There are limitations to what the university can do when students are cited for underage drinking or other alcohol- or drug-related offenses off campus, said Pat Swatfager-Haney, MSU vice president for student affairs. Since MSU is a public college, there are state privacy laws that limit what consequences students can face for off-campus behavior, she said. Their actions have to be related to a university event or reflect poorly on the university.

Swatfager-Haney used the 2003 homecoming riot near campus as an example. Students convicted of offenses related to that event did face additional consequences through the university, she said.

There also are legal limitations to what the university can tell parents about alcohol-related problems their children are facing in school. During freshman orientation, students are given a form to sign that allows that information to be shared. Only about half of them sign off.

Any serious solution to solving what many agree is a growing binge drinking problem among young people will have to involve parents, Davenport added.

“If we can’t communicate and bring parents into the loop, we’re missing a very important link,” he said.

City and university leaders both agree that state legislation lifting some of the current privacy and sanction restrictions on state universities might help.

“It could give us some leeway to provide some new sanctions that would have an impact,” Davenport said. “We need to begin looking at things like that. If we put our heads together, I think we could come up with some proposals that would give us some possibilities for sanctions.”

The university also is in the process of planning a campus “high-risk drinking summit” that Davenport wants to take place before the current semester ends next month. A community-wide summit should follow because the problem isn’t confined to college campuses, he added.

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