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Harvard holds carrot to clubs: shape up after two nearly fatal alcohol incidents

Link and Excerpt: The Committee on Social Clubs presented a report yesterday recommending that student leaders be held personally responsible for “serious harm” related to alcohol consumption or hazing during student group gatherings.

According to the report discussed at yesterday’s meeting of the Committee on College Life (CCL), Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross ’71 and General Counsel Robert W. Iuliano ’83 called for the creation of the committee in response to two near-death incidents resulting from alcohol overdose in fall 2006.

“[W]here serious harm, or the potential for serious harm, has come to any person as a result of consumption of alcohol or drugs at an event held, sponsored, organized or supported by a student group…and the individual or individuals directly responsible are not identified, the host or hosts of the event will be held personally responsible. If the hosts are also not identified, the officers of the organization will be held personally responsible,” the report reads.

By Hank Nuwer

Journalist Hank Nuwer tracks hazing deaths in fraternities and schools. Nuwer is the Alaska author of Hazing: Destroying Young Lives; Broken Pledges: The Deadly Rite of Hazing, High School Hazing, Wrongs of Passage and The Hazing Reader. In April of 2024, the Alaska Press Club awarded him first place in the Best Columnist division and Best Humorist, second place.

He has written articles or columns on hazing for the Sunday Times of India, Toronto Globe & Mail, Harper's Magazine, Orlando Sentinel, The Chronicle of Higher Education and the New York Times Sunday Magazine. His current book is Hazing: Destroying Young Lives from Indiana University Press. He is married to Malgorzata Wroblewska Nuwer of Warsaw, Poland and Fairbanks, Alaska. Nuwer is a former columnist for the Greenville (Ohio)Early Bird and former managing editor of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner in Alaska.
Nuwer was named the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists columnist of the year in 2021 for his “After Darke” column in the Early Bird. He also won third place for the column in 2022 from the Indiana chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. He and his wife Gosia, recently of Union City, Ind., have owned 20 acres in Alaska for many years. “The move is a sort-of coming home for us,” said Nuwer. As a journalist, he’s written about the Alaskan Iditarod sled-dog race and other Alaska topics. Read his musings in his blog at Real Alaska Daily--http://realalaskadaily.com and in his weekly column "Far from Randolph" in the Winchester Star-Gazette of Randolph County, Indiana.

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