|
Editorial Published:
Sunday, April 26, 2009
The Saratogian
Skidmore College had the opportunity this past week
to show its students, staff, financial supporters
and the community that it will not tolerate a
flagrant, public disregard of the law.
Instead, it did what it’s done every year on April
20, a national public marijuana smoking day: Keep a
respectful distance from the students, far enough
away to see no evil, smell no evil, cite no evil.
All the other years, “420” came and ended quietly on
the Skidmore campus. What was different this year is
that a reporter and photographer from The
Saratogian, with permission from the college, were
on campus at 4:20 p.m. on 4/20, and saw, smelled,
photographed and wrote about it. And when the
reporter immediately afterwards met with the head of
security and asked why he didn’t report the students
to the police, he asked why she didn’t report it. He
would have been better served by questioning his
security staff, who blithely reported that “the
crowd was fine and … they did not observe any
violations of the law.”
The Saratogian publicity about an event that most of
the public never heard of has sparked lots of
comments, discussion and consternation about the
college’s passive approach to 420 and President
Philip Glotzbach’s clueless public response.
Prodded by The Saratogian for comment, Glotzbach
wrote, in part, “I regret that out of a student body
of some 2,400 students, the actions of a small
number have raised concern within the community and
reflected negatively on Skidmore College.”
He doesn’t get it.
It’s not the small number of students (which the
school estimated at 40 and our reporter estimated at
100) who let down the college. It’s the president,
for a series of failures: failing to declare in
advance that Skidmore would not be an enabler on
“420,” failing to instruct security to pro-actively
break up the partiers, failing to cite a single
student, and failing afterwards to publicly
acknowledge (or even recognize) that Skidmore
screwed up.
Most of us at The Saratogian (except for a reporter
who’s a Skidmore grad) had never heard of 420 until
reading an article in the
April 17 Skidmore News that told what would happen,
when and where: “Students, as they have done in
previous years, are expected to populate South Park
green to smoke marijuana.”
In that article, the senior class president said he
was planning to sell root beer floats because “we
know that people will be outside and hungry.”
And what was the administration planning to do? The
students were forewarned by the security chief in
that article point-blank that smoking a joint in
public is a crime and will be treated as such — but
that the college security force would not be
aggressive about going up to people.
That’s pretty much been standard operating procedure
on Skidmore and other campuses nationwide for this
annual event since long before Glotzbach arrived in
2003. But, as we tell our children, we don’t care
what everyone else is doing. We care about what’s
right, healthy and legal.
What Glotzbach should have done was tell the
students that if they convene to publicly smoke on
420 they will be breaking the law and embarrassing
the college, and that security would be actively
enforcing both the criminal law and Skidmore’s own
rules.
Then he should have instructed security to be as
brazen as the students: to unapologetically walk
through the gathering — not just earlier in the day,
which they did do more than once — but right in the
thick of things. If the party moved, the security
people could have moved with them. Without
overreacting, they could have broken up the party
and maybe cited a few flagrant violators.
The purpose wouldn’t have been to harass the
students, but to demonstrate that the college cannot
afford, literally or figuratively, to let slide
illegal and potentially dangerous behavior right
under their nose.
Then, as soon as the event was publicized, Glotzbach
should have come forward saying Skidmore should have
known better and done better.
After all, Skidmore does know better.
The college works closely and regularly with the
city police department and other members of the
Saratoga community, including the Prevention
Council, to promote safe and legal behavior and a
safe environment for its students and staff. The
college has been increasingly proactive about
preventing underage drinking, and Glotzbach steered
clear of the bandwagon of college presidents pushing
to lower the drinking age to 18.
Sometimes the college deals with something big: Last
May, eight current or former Skidmore College
students, and one other individual, were arrested on
drug charges following an
18-month drug trafficking investigation involving
local and national agencies and three states.
Usually, the college is faced with considerably less
serious infractions, which are handled internally.
Last semester, for instance, the college referred
students 251 times for violations of its drug and
alcohol policies. Disciplinary sanctions were
imposed in 148 of those cases.
Enforcement of the college’s own code of conduct is
appropriate and sufficient most of the time; when it
isn’t, city police are called in.
Speaking of city police, where were they at 4:20 on
4/20? Chief Ed Moore says that while he didn’t know
about 420 ahead of time, Skidmore had casually
alerted his department and invited them to drive
around. But the police were never specifically
called to intervene, which was just as well from
Moore’s perspective, because his officers were busy
on other calls around the city: responding to a
domestic dispute, recording a citizen’s report of
thefts from two cars, following on a report of a
counterfeit ten-dollar bill at the racino.
Moore should have quit while he was ahead: Bottom
line, city police weren’t called onto campus. The
chief stresses that his department does not look the
other way when illegal activities are taking place
in public. They simply didn’t go where they weren’t
needed, and had more pressing business than a bunch
of college kids getting high.
Over at Skidmore, the publicity has prompted
discussion within the administration to better
ensure student compliance with the law and school
policies at open events, as described on this page
in the letter solicited from the college.
In addition, the publicity has prompted a private
meeting for later this week at which representatives
from the college, law enforcement, the Prevention
Council and the Saratoga Springs school district
will talk about the issues raised by Skidmore’s
handling of 420.
The gathering will be timely. On Thursday, the
school district heard the results of a survey that
showed that more than a quarter of its high school
juniors and a third of its seniors were regular pot
smokers, well over the national norm. What’s the
message these kids received from the local college
this past week?
College campuses may feel like islands to their
inhabitants, but they are part of a larger
community. The people running a college owe it to
their students, parents, backers and the larger
community to be leaders, to set a positive example,
to publicly disapprove of inappropriate behavior and
to show young people that their actions have
consequences.
|
