Council Streamlines TIPS Training

Author: Thomas Drescher

The Community Council voted Tuesday to approve a TIPS training reform proposal. The legislation, effective immediately, introduces a shorter, more concise training process for student party hosts at Middlebury College.

The proposal was drafted over the summer by a subcommittee of Council members, including Student Co-Chair of Community Council Erin Sullivan '04, Director of Public Saftey Lisa Boudah, Associate Dean of Library and Information Services David Donahue and Director for Campus Activities and Leadership Doug Adams. According to Sullivan, the primary objective of the subcommittee was "to condense the current TIPS information session into a more concise format that would emphasize Vermont's liability laws and the College's alcohol policy."

The revised training process will be held once a week and will be conducted by the Department of Public Safety. Rather than being a three hour-long class, it will last no more than 45 minutes, said Sullivan of the proposed legislation.

"The ultimate goal of Community Council with regards to TIPS training is to make the process more accessible and to enable students to meet the requirements of hosting a party in a more effective fashion," she added.

The proposal, presented by Adams at Tuesday's meeting, met with overwhelming support from the Community Council and was approved unanimously. Following Adams' brief outline of the proposal, Dean of Student Affairs and Faculty Co-Chair of Community Council Ann Hanson moved that the proposed sessions, which can last anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour, be required each semester for students hosting parties. Hanson's revision was incorporated into the final approved legislation.

"Ninety percent of functions on campus are hosted by one person once," said Doug Adams, the primary author of the reform legislation. At Tuesday's meeting, Adams called the new training sessions a "Best of TIPS" program.

He explained that the proposed reforms would allow students who do not normally host parties to obtain permission for hosting without going through the lengthy, inconvenient TIPS process. The current TIPS training program is a three-hour-long class held about once a month. Upon completion of the program, students of legal drinking age are permitted to host registered on-campus parties and serve alcohol.

Adams emphasized that, by approving the proposal, Community Council members were not eliminating the current training program. TIPS training will continue to be held once a month and twice in January.

Students who complete the TIPS training process will still be eligible to host registered parties and serve alcohol for the remainder of their time at Middlebury, while students who attend the new sessions will only be able to host parties for that particular semester. According to Donahue, most social houses will continue to require that their pledges go through the original TIPS program.

According to Sullivan, "there has not been significant clamor about parties and TIPS training," but the apparent connection between the program's flaws and a decline in registered parties on campus has forced the Council to take action.

"We have been waiting to resolve the issue of TIPS training for a while now," said Sullivan, "but we as a body have been occupied over the past few weeks with addressing proposed changes to the sexual assault policy. I am eager to see the proposal implemented soon. I think it represents positive change to the current practice of TIPS training."