Jubilee concert resulted in 8 to 10 emergency visits

The Jubilee concert Saturday resulted in the highest number of alcohol-related student emergency room transports since Halloween.

An estimated eight to 10 EMTs transported students to UNC Hospitals Saturday night during the concert, said Dean of Students Jonathan Sauls. More, he said, were taken to the hospital by friends or family and not reported to UNC.

“They poured out about 50 bottles of alcohol (that people tried to sneak in),” said Bobby Kunstman, the University’s senior associate director for student life and leadership.

The Department of Public Safety gave two citations for alcohol consumption at the concert.

Kunstman and 13 other members convened at Tuesday’s High Risk Alcohol and Substance Abuse Working Group meeting.

The working group discussed University-sponsored events at its meeting to revise the current alcohol policy.

Currently, students who try to sneak alcohol into University events are able to reenter the event after the alcohol is confiscated.

Psychology professor Andrea Hussong expressed concern about the effectiveness of the current policy.

“If we’re just sitting here dumping out alcohol all the time, it would be a waste of money and the policy,” Hussong said.

The group received recommendations from DPS Chief Jeff McCracken, including banning violators from attending the event on first offense and future events after multiple offenses.

“It may not make sense to prevent them from attending future events because we want them to attend the events — ideally, that would be alcohol-free,” said Dean Blackburn, director of student wellness and associate dean of students.

Sauls mentioned UNC’s “work hard, play hard” culture, warning that the last day of classes could bring another spike in emergency responses.

“Moving forward with an updated alcohol policy, we can link the current drug policy to that, but the adjudication process is currently run through different processes,” Blackburn said. “That may take a couple of more steps than what this group can do at the moment.”

The group discussed banning alcohol in all residence halls, even for students over the legal drinking age of 21, but members did not support the change enough to include it in the policy draft.

“I worry that if we make that the policy, we are going to push more students out into where they are less safe,” said Charlotte Boettiger of the Cognition & Addiction Behavioral Neuroscience Lab.

“If they’re stumbling home, there won’t be somebody there who can call the EMT for them.”

Sauls said he wants to unveil the new policy for freshmen orientation this summer, but said the document is still in the early editing phase.

The document is currently 21 pages long, and Blackburn wants to pare it down to be easily understood by students.

“We waited 20 years to revise this policy,” Sauls said. “I suppose we can take another month.”

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