January Interim Experience at Gustavus offers a different campus atmosphere than the full terms between which it is sandwiched. Students are only required to take one credit during January Interim Experience and only two of these credits during their four years at Gustavus. January Interim Experience offers some unique experiences, such as study abroad programs around the world, internships, yoga and dance classes, but it also leaves students with a lot of free time on their hands.

“There is a perception that [January Interim Experience] is a slack term, and it is that mentality that creates [a bad] situation,” Director of Residential Life and Assistant Dean of Students Charlie Strey said.

“If that is that general attitude towards J-term, then we have a problem” Director of Alcohol and Drug Education Judy Douglas said. This year, Campus Safety reported 13 alcohol related incidents involving one or more people. Five of these cases resulted in students and student guests being sent to Detox.

“This January Interim Experience has been a bad one for us,” Director of Campus Safety Ray Thrower said. “We were active in several cases of drinking.”

While January Interim Experience is intended to be a break between semesters, the intention was not for students to fill their free time with drinking. PLEDGE and other campus groups host entertaining events that attempt to free students from the peer pres- sure to drink that they may feel.

“We try to provide alternative activities,” PLEDGE Council President and Senior Political Science and English Major Ethan Marxhausen said. “We stress that [drinking] is a decision that every student has to make for them- selves. We cater activities toward those who choose not to drink.”

PLEDGE hosted a weekly game night in the Dive every Thursday night over January Interim Experience. Saturday Night in Lund, sponsored by a combination of on campus groups offered a variety of sports, food and entertainment every Saturday night over J-term. Even with such activities available, there was a spike in drinking cases over January.

“What concerned me were a lot of high Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) levels. We saw high .20s and low .30s, which is very concerning,”Thrower said. The trend of higher BAC’s and tolerance levels among students is not an isolated Gustavus issue. This trend has been observable at colleges nation-wide over the past five years. Another concerning Gustavus trend was the shift in students being sent to Detox. In the past, two-thirds of Detox cases involved first-year students. In recent years this figure has shifted to show that now, two-thirds of Detox cases are among upper-class students. This trend shows that it is no longer the younger students on campus who may have less experience with alcohol that are drinking to dangerous levels; it is now the upper class students who are pushing their own boundaries and getting into dangerous drinking situations.

The rise in Detox cases may be related to a positive effect of Gustavus’ amnesty policy.

“Gustavus is unique in that we have the amnesty program that allows students to get help for their friends,” Thrower said.

The amnesty program states that students who request assistance for friends or acquaintances who are overly inebriated are exempt from judicial sanctions. Though reporting students may be asked to attend alcohol education seminars, there will be no permanent record of the incident even if they were under the influence of alcohol when requesting help for friends.

Though January Interim Experience has gained a negative reputation in recent years, it is not necessarily a true one.

“People come back from our programs saying they have had absolutely fantastic experiences,” Douglas said. Changing the perception of [January Interim Experience] may take some work on the parts of students and administrators. There have been suggestions of surveying students on how to make January Interim Experience more positive and active, and campus groups are constantly creating programs and events that divert students from drinking situations. Drinking cannot be completely ruled out, however.

“We know students drink,” Thrower said. “We hope they drink responsibly.”

Campus Safety typically has a few main concerns with alcohol use. First, heavy alcohol abuse can lead to alcohol poisoning, which can be deadly. Sexual Assault rates also climb when alcohol is present, along with vandalism and other crimes on and off campus.