At a University that prides itself on student self-governance, Tuesday’s panel featuring several leaders in the University and Charlottesville community offered students advice for how to best utilize the opportunity they have to self-govern.
The event, hosted by the Office of the Dean of Students, consisted of speeches from Dean of Students Allen Groves, Dr. Christopher Holstege from the University Medical School, University Police Lieut. Melissa Fielding and Judge William G. Barkley, who presides over Albemarle and Greene Counties.
Groves opened the meeting by discussing his office’s “Dean on Call” Program — a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week service that allows students to call in and discuss crises with individuals working in the Office of the Dean of Students.
The “On Call” program, Groves said, handles a wide range of problems from accidental injury to fielding calls from distraught parents saying, “I haven’t heard from my son or daughter in a week and I’m very concerned.”
Leaders should know how to pair safety with self-governance effectively, panel members said Tuesday. Fielding highlighted the need for what she called “risk awareness and risk reduction strategies” for life around the Grounds. Trust your instincts, use the lighted pathway system and avoid binge drinking and drugs, she said.
Holstege’s top-10 list of pieces of advice echoed Fielding’s advice: Pay attention to the concentration and quantity of alcohol consumption, avoid the use of illegal and emerging synthetic drugs, and be wary of the interaction between alcohol and prescription drugs.
When students graduate from the University they are taking their experiences of self-governance with them, but Barkley said they could also be weighed down by the poor decisions they made during college.
“What I want to do is figuratively grab you by each ear and say ‘don’t do it,’” Barkley said. “You don’t understand how it’s [going] affect you.”
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