Interesting article about how different schools handle drug violations. Smaller LACs do a lot of education/discipline, large public Us seem to go right to arrest.
This might be of interest …
OHMom2 ==== http://www.thefire.org/supreme-court-decision-in-jones-and-students-fourth-amendment-rights/
The Jones case, while it makes for an interesting sidebar, doesn’t add much to the discussion at hand. The Fourth Amendment has been applicable to college dormitories for over forty years now.
“I see the WL numbers as one indicator of whether a school is “on the rise” or perhaps losing a bit of its luster.”
Ehhh, I think there are a lot of confounding factors there that we can’t know about. High WL numbers might reflect lower financial aid packages following a did in endowment returns, an enrollment manager who prefers a low-risk strategy after a year of over-enrollment…I don’t read much into this.
@robbietoy
That is such a stupid question it actually raises the question of whether you are really a h/s student that somehow got steered toward applying to Wesleyan or just another overly competitive NESCAC parent? Would you ask why there are so many rapists at Amherst, just because of one high profile case? I don’t think so:
@circuitrider – I agree with your statement, but I wish you did not start the sentence with "that is such a stupid question. Even at Wesleyan, where I attended, there were no stupid questions…
@drmom123 - Normally, I would agree with you. :-* But, once in a while, there are “stupid” and/or disingenuous questions, such as, “When did you stop beating your wife?”. In such a case, it’s the conclusory nature of the question that discredits it.
@circuitrider, I wouldn’t put robbietoy’s question in that category. To my mind it’s legitimate to question a campus’s culture when stories like this emerge. The correct answer IMHO would be “No, it’s not typical and here’s why…” or “It happens here but it’s not unusual among the school’s peers and here’s my evidence…”
BTW, many people did question the culture at Amherst and other schools with similar campus cultures in the wake of the Angie Epifano editorial.
@Sue22 - Fair enough. According to the 5C newspaper article quoted below, there were 39 drug related referrals from Pitzer - a college commonly ranked among Wesleyan’s peers - to the campus authorities in 2013. Pitzer is approximately one third the size of Wesleyan, meaning, that on a per capita basis the rate of occurrence was very nearly the same.
Moreover, the Pitzer referrals were strictly as a result of ambient complaints of suspicious activity, not from rigorous inspections for contraband. To the contrary, it appears as if the Claremont Colleges - which include Pomona, Harvey Mudd, Claremont McKenna, Pitzer and Scripps - have a far more passive approach toward drug enforcement than Wesleyan:
http://www.tsl.pomona.edu/articles/2013/2/22/feature/3613-drug-policies-prove-difficult-to-enforce
^And I think it’s perfectly legitimate to point that out. 
According to the article, Kramer had a “small amount” of marijuana and about 140 whipettes in his room. That doesn’t sound like a major drug dealer.
Back in the day, plenty of MIT students I knew–even ones who had graduated and had jobs as engineers–regularly smoked pot and occasionally did whipettes. They bought boxes of them from restaurant supply stores.
As a professor, we aren’t even charged with enforcing the drug policy. To charge a student employee to do so would be ludicrous.
However, I would be 100% in favor of:
- anonymous tip lines for crimes, including pervasive illegal drug use or dealing and sexual assault and domestic violence
- clear policies about drug use etc. that outline how you WILL lose your FA if you are caught doing let alone dealing drugs
The policy for Federal aid appears to be suspension of it until the student passes two random drug tests or goes through a rehab program. I think some kids would be more careful if they were aware of this.
(So will those students hospitalized lose their Federal student aid? It’s kind of sad, because anyone full pay can do drugs I guess, depending on a college’s own policies…)
One can purchase nitrous oxide equipment on Amazon.com, including the chargers:
http://www.amazon.com/Whipped-Cream-Dispenser-Liter-plastic/dp/B0008JGU9I
140 whippettes is a personal use level?
Circuitrider–I gotta agree with Sue22. My D went to Wes; I love everything about it, and the many Wesleyan students I’ve met over the years have continually impressed me. I’m heartbroken that the actions of the few may color how people see this school, which was absolutely lifechanging for my D.
But your in-your-face defense is just making it look bad. there are all sorts of ways to speak out about it without going into attack mode.
@circuitrider was replying to someone who had recently created the thread, “Does he look stoned or what?, lol.” [sic, I count two errors within seven words.] Based on that, and another recent antagonistic comment by the same poster, I think circuitrider may not have seen the value of a reasoned reply in this latter example.
@robbietoy or @Englishman
Look, whoever you are, you created a screenname three or four days ago, not to ask an innocent question, but to immediately post about half a dozen stupid comments bemoaning Wesleyan, “hippies”, and the LGBT community. This was followed up by a 50 comments posting spree in the space of about three hours which I can only assume was meant to cover your tracks so you wouldn’t stand out so much as someone with an axe to grind. So, in answer to your question, I don’t believe for a moment that you’re an actual h/s student.
@circuitrider, don’t you think you’re treading dangerously close to using the dreaded “t” word?
It would certainly make things a lot easier if we could just call a spade a spade! 