When Trouble Knocks, Perry, Nowak Answer
By JIM KEVLIN • HOMETOWN ONEONTA
Edition of Friday, Oct. 3, 2014
For Steve Perry, the lowest point in 30 years of trying to keep the student rowdiness under control came in the mid-1990s: One year, SUNY Oneonta “dismissed” 300 students at mid-year, sending them home for poor grades and out-of-hand behavior.
That was a breaking point, the campus’ vice president/student development recalled in an interview in his office in the Netzer Administration Building.
So in 1996, SUNY Oneonta administrators put their collective foot down: The college’s affiliated fraternities were prohibited from pledging freshmen who had arrived at college just a few days before. That would have to wait until second semester, and pledges would have to achieve a GPA of at least 2.0.
That had an unintended consequence: 8-10 fraternities broke ties with the campus and went downtown, mavericks, some still affiliated with national fraternal organizations, others simply social clubs, free of the administration’s control.
That has not deterred Perry, who before the start of each school year sends a letter to parents, outlining the rules for Greek Life and warning of the added dangers associated with the non-affiliated frats. “Thousands of alumni around the country have had positive experiences with fraternities and sororities,” his letter cautions, “but there are also risks.”
Across West Street on Oyaron Hill is Perry’s Hartwick College counterpart, Meg Nowak, vice president/student affairs, whose thoughts have also been intensely occupied for the past month with what is perceived as a hike in student misbehavior – the statistics are mixed – since the colleges reconvened at the end of August.
Both attended the stormy Tuesday, Sept. 16, Common Council meeting, as did SUNY Oneonta President Nancy Kleniewski, and both are waiting to hear from Mayor Dick Miller, who has said he will reconstitute an ad hoc committee he created in 2012 after the closing of three downtown bars for serving underage patrons pushed partying into residential neighborhoods.
Since serving on the mayor’s committee then, both Perry, who arrived at SUNY Oneonta in 1984 after eight years at St. Bonaventure, and Nowak, lured away from Ithaca College after Hartwick President Margaret Drugovich arrived in 2008, have been the key leaders in upgrading anti-drinking and rowdiness programs at their institutions.
In separate interviews, both reported incoming freshmen are required to take a self-guided alcohol-education course at www.alcoholedu.com before arriving on campus. At SUNY, students who don’t find their records frozen, and are unable to register for a second semester.
Both also point to the upgraded communications between Oneonta City Police, University Police and Hartwick’s security force since the 2012 troubles. Ranking officers, City Police Chief Dennis Nayor or his lieutenant, Douglas Brenner, University Chief Daniel Chambers, and Tom Kelly, the retired state trooper who leads Hartwick security, meet every Monday morning to revisit the weekend’s events and identify emerging problematic trends.
Nayor or Brenner are also fixtures at a 90-minute program on “life choices” that all incoming Hartwick students take each fall, where the consequences of alcohol, drug use and violence — violence “often stems from alcohol and other drugs,” Nowak said — are discussed.
She points out to them that public urination brings the charge of “public lewdness,” and asks about the impact of a future employer seeing that pop up when Googling a job applicant. “We try to catch their attention,” she said.
Nowak doesn’t face the challenge of unaffiliated frats that Perry does, but both strive to exercise oversight of their affiliated fraternities and sororities. Her program ensures off-campus hosts recognize the dangers of a big party vs. a small party, and requires fraternities to go through the tipsuniversity.org program, teaching student bartenders to check IDs and to recognize when an imbiber needs to be cut off.
When trouble does happen, a referral from city police can put a SUNY student into the campus disciplinary system. “A single noise violation will not get you into our system,” said Perry. “Public fighting will.”
That only 1 percent of students who enter SUNY Oneonta’s disciplinary program will end up there again is a sign to Perry that it’s working. But “I don’t think there’s a single key,” he added. “I don’t think there’s a silver bullet. It’s a lot of things.”
That both campuses are “dry” gives Perry and Nowak’s programs more leverage (and Hartwick also benefits from only permitting seniors to live off campus, which she recognizes is easier to do with a 1,500 enrollment compared to SUNY’s 6,000.)
Perry, who participated in the 1985 debate after the drinking age in New York State rose from 18 to 21, said “dry” status takes the argument out of any confrontation: Students with liquor are always in the wrong.
Still, students get a mixed message from beyond Nowak and Perry’s programs. Perry, for instance, was confronted by a student’s father last year the day after a drinking party was broken up and the liquor confiscated. “He wanted us to pay for the vodka,” said Perry.
