I WRITE in response to Sean Bozalek’s letter to Grocott’s Mail (26 September), in which he deplores the behaviour of Rhodes students who abuse alcohol. In his letter, he acknowledges that Rhodes is making an effort to counteract the “drinking culture”, and I am pleased to note that these efforts have not gone unnoticed.
I WRITE in response to Sean Bozalek’s letter to Grocott’s Mail (26 September), in which he deplores the behaviour of Rhodes students who abuse alcohol. In his letter, he acknowledges that Rhodes is making an effort to counteract the “drinking culture”, and I am pleased to note that these efforts have not gone unnoticed.
For the record, during the past year, Rhodes has endorsed a new "Policy for the Responsible Use of Alcohol"; we have introduced new admission of guilt penalties of 20 hours’ compulsory service for alcohol-related offences into our Disciplinary code; we have launched a very successful Dean of Students’ alcohol-free challenge competition amongst our halls of residence; and we have initiated discussions with pub-owners in town.
Your paper has reported (30 September) on the University’s successfully prosecution of a student living in digs for bringing the university into disrepute by disturbing the peace of residents in the neighbourhood because of excessive noise. The sentence handed down was a suspended exclusion and 70 hours’ compulsory service. In addition, next year we will be launching a “Get home safe” project as part of our responsible drinking campaign. In sum then, Rhodes does NOT ignore or condone alcohol abuse of any kind.
However, rowdy and unacceptable behaviour of students living in town remains a matter for the police.
We encourage you, as residents, to make yourselves known to your student neighbours, and discuss reasonable limits in terms of hours and levels of noise. If students ignore these, the next step is to request intervention from the police, and to bring your concerns to the attention of the University by contacting the Oppidan secretary (oppidan.secretary@ru.ac.za or 046 6038229), who will pass your matter on to the Hall Warden as well as to the relevant Subwardens, who are willing to assist you in negotiating mutually acceptable codes of behaviour. Rhodes does not involve itself in call-outs to the scene of the noise.
In extreme cases, if there is sufficient evidence, a disciplinary hearing may be held. In such cases, members of the public must be willing to give evidence and to face cross-examination as in a court of law. The test that is applied is whether the noise was so grossly excessive, and attempts to stop it, either personally or by calling the police, so futile that an imaginary reasonable person in that situation would think less of Rhodes. The reasonable person is neither over-sensitive to noise nor extraordinarily tolerant.
Generally, however, mutually agreed solutions work better than solutions imposed at disciplinary hearings.
