For sober students, a dry Quad housing program awaits

Expect a more sober Quadrangle next year.

Fisher Hassenfeld College House will institute a Substance Free housing program that will go into effect next year, the Undergraduate Assembly announced earlier this week.

It will be part of the existing Healthy Living program, which focuses on helping students maintain and improve their well-being.

The criteria for participating in the new program - which was proposed by Undergraduate Assembly member and College freshman Enoch Arthur-Asmah - require that students abstain from alcohol and drug use, as well as engage in social and community-service activities.

Because it is still in its early stages, the Substance Free housing program does not yet have specific penalties for students who break the rules regarding alcohol and drug use.

The "goal is to help [students] find a supportive community," College freshman and Residential Advisory Board member Laura Winchell said.

The RAB, the student liaison between undergraduates living in on-campus housing and the University, helped Arthur-Asmah's proposal come to fruition.

According to Arthur-Asmah, the University was eager to implement his idea.

"We found [Fisher Hassenfeld Dean] Jane Rogers to be the most responsive," Arthur-Asmah said. "She was very enthusiastic to have it as part of an extended healthy-living program."

Still, officials say there are some potential pitfalls to look out for.

Laura Swann - University of Texas at Austin's coordinator for the Center for Students in Recovery - said there is a clear distinction between those in recovery houses who have a very specific "goal to stay substance free" and those participants "on a floor that calls itself substance free."

The latter, she said, don't have as great of an incentive to abstain entirely from substances.

Lisa Laitman - director of drug-resistance education at Rutgers University - suggested "making the people feel like a community" and ensuring "that there is some oversight" in order to help sustain the program.

"What we have learned is that there needs to be some way to connect communities," Laitman said. "There will always be students who want to be around others who don't drink, but there has to be more."

Arthur-Asmah thought of the proposal after hearing about a study done by the Office of Alcohol and Policy Initiatives that found that 14 percent of undergraduates abstain from alcohol.

The current Healthy Living program has about 80 participants and expects to expand to about 100 next year after it adds the 15 to 25 students participating in the Substance Free housing program, Arthur-Asmah said.

And Penn isn't the only school creating these types of programs.

Brown, Columbia, Northwestern, Dartmouth and Duke universities, for example, have similar housing options.

Some Penn students seem to be excited about seeing a comparable program come to the University.

"I think it would help a lot of people," said Engineering freshman Shriya Raghunathan. "For many students, there aren't a lot of things to do socially if you don't drink on the weekends."

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