UNC takes on lights, grades and drinking

UNC has been re-examining campus safety and student drinking all year, and contextualized grading has been an issue for several years. With the school year coming to a close, they’ve made progress.

Safer streets

Derek Kemp, associate vice chancellor for campus safety and risk management, has been working with the Nighttime Travel Working Group to ensure campus is well lit and safe for nighttime travel.

Kemp and his colleagues decided to bring in the company LiveSafe to improve the security of nighttime travel.

“It’s basically a safety app that links students to their buddies and (the Department of Public Safety),” Kemp said.

The new LiveSafe app will allow students to anonymously report incidents on campus, report broken machinery and take advantage of a companion contact system that will let their friends know where they are when traveling, Kemp said.

Kemp said the motion has been approved, and he hopes it can be implemented in the fall after a summer test.

“I think we’ll be able to stick to that (timeline),” he said.

A new type of transcript

Though a new contexualized grading system was supposed to go into effect in fall 2014, it was delayed due to student confusion and technical issues discovered by the registrar.

Educational Policy Committee member Theresa Raphael-Grimm said though the new system has been approved, the committee is waiting on the registrar to sort out the technical and logistical issues.

A pilot program where students receive both a traditional transcript and a contextualized one may go into effect in fall 2016.

Old issue, new approach

Dean of Students Jonathan Sauls and the High Risk Alcohol and Substance Abuse Working Group have been working to change the way students think about and talk about college drinking since March 2015.

“UNC, like most college campuses, has a challenge with high-risk and binge drinking,” Sauls said.

They have reformed a system that focused primarily on enforcement and have expanded it to include education and intervention, Sauls said.

“The old policy has been in place since the ’90s and really needs to be updated,” he said.

Sauls said the new plan focuses on providing accurate and accessible information on alcohol so students can make more informed decisions.

The information, Sauls said, will include more discussion of drinking at orientation and a new website that will inform students about the health issues associated with binge drinking.

Though he said changes to orientation will be ready as early as June, Sauls said he doesn’t have a definitive date for the changes. He said they are part of a comprehensive reform that might continue for several years.

“It’s more important to be right than fast,” Sauls said. “Cultures aren’t created overnight, nor are they changed overnight.”

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