A newly enacted policy will allow Virginia Tech administrators to contact a student’s parents or guardians following a drug or alcohol violation.
An e-mail from the Division of Student Affairs announced that the Office of Student Conduct would be able to contact parents “any time a student under the age of 21 is found responsible for an alcohol and/or illegal drug violation.”
Parents would be notified of student violations through mail notifications, the same way that notifications are sent for major violations. Previously, minor offenses that were labeled “probationary” were not passed on to parents.
“What’s now caused us to rethink this is we’d have students who had a minor offense, so parents weren’t notified,” said Ed Spencer, vice president of student affairs, who approved the policy on Nov. 6, 2009. “They then would commit a major offense, which would give them two strikes.”
As a result, parents would only find out about a student’s violations after they had already been suspended.
“We’ve had several cases where parents have been upset they weren’t notified about previous offenses,” Spencer said. “They felt if they had known they would have been able to talk to their students.”
The notification policy officially started at the beginning of January. Letters will not be sent until after a case is resolved.
The rules match a 1998 amendment to the Family Educational Rights Protection Act, which states that schools may disclose information to a parent about an alcohol or controlled substance violation of a student under the age of 21.
The change in policy is similar to those made by Radford University for the fall 2009 semester. While the university held out on sending letters to parents with exceptions for second offenses or students whose alcohol consumption endangered their safety, the school now contacts parents for every alcohol or drug violation.
David Horton, assistant dean at Radford University and director of the school’s conduct program, said the policy was changed to engage parents as their students “show signs of trouble with drugs or alcohol.”
“Most students don’t want their parents to know if they’ve made a mistake, but they realize the importance of being open and honest,” Horton said. Noting that the policy had not received a major negative reaction from students, Horton said the change in policy has been met with approval from parents.
“The parents are very happy they’re being notified,” Horton said. “I think it allows the parent to be more interactive with their students.”
Steve Clarke, director of the Campus Alcohol Abuse Prevention Center, stressed the importance of communication between students and parents involving alcohol and drug use.
“Some parents don’t know what is happening,” Clarke said. “I think that was a major concern to address.” Clarke noted that part of the issue stems from a lack of knowledge in parents about college drinking patterns.
“Even at orientation, parents may say that their child doesn’t drink,” Clarke said. “They’re not aware of the drinking culture these days.”
Clarke noted that the notification policy could be frustrating for students.
“While parents can be very helpful, they can also penalize students, or do things that students might not be very happy about.”