Good Samaritans

It was a battle with no end in sight, but that didn't stop a select group of students from dedicating their lives to the cause.

Alumna Stacia Cosner was the first person at this university to speak the words "Good Samaritan policy" about four years ago. After researching its success at other schools, Cosner presented students and university officials with a revolutionary idea: crafting a policy that would protect students from university sanctions if they risked calling for help for themselves or their dangerously intoxicated friends.

In the years that followed, several other students became ensnared in the fight.

Today, many of these students and alumni will gather in Stamp Student Union's Atrium to watch as the University Senate votes on a proposed Good Samaritan Policy, which would replace the more flexible Promoting Responsible Action protocol that has been in place for the past two years. And for the first time since Cosner raised the issue four years ago, it seems, these individuals may get what they've been battling for.

Student Conduct Director John Zacker, who has written every version of the protocol and policy thus far, said it was student activists — and undergraduates' response to a referendum posed by the Student Government Association three years ago — who convinced him that the Responsible Action protocol needed to be implemented as a policy.

"When we initially reviewed the matter in committee, there was a general sense at that point that it was unnecessary to address the underlying concerns," he said. "Over the following year, we reviewed the matter and obtained more data in the form of interviews and surveys. It was really student opinion and statements from student leaders that convinced me that we should adopt this."

But when Cosner, a newly elected undergraduate senator, proposed the notion in 2007, Zacker, along with much of the administration and many senators, was not so keen on the idea.

"It was interesting working on the [senate] committee because there was a lot of hesitation on the behalf of the administration on the committee that students would abuse the policy or that it was not necessary," she said. "We underwent surveys and student input, and that process was very long. When I left, it wasn't even a protocol, and it still hadn't made its way out of the Student Conduct Committee."

It was then that Irina Alexander, who became president of Students for a Sensible Drug Policy and eventually a university senator once Cosner left, continued the fight.

"I've been in emergency situations myself where students have hesitated to call for help when a person's life was potentially at risk," said Alexander, who graduated last semester. "Although convincing students to call for help regardless of consequences is part of our battle, we cannot pretend it's as simple as that. It's important to solidly ingrain safety into UMD policy, instead of into a mere protocol, to make future generations of students aware of the priorities on campus."

Alexander personally collected data to show that students were in favor of adopting a Good Samaritan policy and worked with the SGA to draft a resolution in support of a permanent policy. The SGA also polled students that year to determine undergraduate support, and the results were overwhelming: More than 90 percent of undergraduates who voted said they would call 911 without hesitation if a firm policy were in place.

Brad Docherty, an alumnus who served on the senate's most powerful committee the year the policy proposal was changed to a less-powerful protocol subject at the whim of the Student Conduct Office, said the policy's humble beginnings are a testament to what can be done when students band together around an issue.

"I think it's great [that it's up for a vote] because it's all coming from student activists that saw a need for a more effective policy," Docherty said. "I got to see the front end of it and how it was being visualized, and now that it's hopefully going to actually happen. It's interesting to see how something can go from a grassroots level to hopefully something in the books, so to speak."

Senior art history major Kevin Tervala, now a Diamondback opinion editor, served in the SGA his freshman year, when he wrote the original SGA resolution supporting a Good Samaritan policy in 2008. Tervala, who later pushed for the issue as a member of the senate, said seeing the policy come this far is an "incredible feeling" that is the culmination of years of student struggle.

"It's an amazing moment; I have worked on this for four years and other people have too, and when I look back on everything I've done in college, this is the issue I'm most proud of," he said. "I've poured most of my energy and time and soul into this, and to see it come to the senate floor as a policy is just indescribable."

When Tervala was not reelected to the senate last year, he said he was not worried about the future of student activism around the Good Samaritan issue. Because the protocol, which was supported by the senate in spring 2009, was given a year to prove its effectiveness before it would be subject to senate review, he said he knew there would be students there to pick up the charge.

Lisa Crisalli was one of them.

Crisalli, an undergraduate student senator who has lobbied for the policy, said she is hopeful but still apprehensive about today's vote.

"I'm kind of biting my nails," she said. "I'm trusting the senate to make the right decision, but I've learned in my time on the Senate Executive Committee that nothing is ever final. ... I'm waiting to see the results and trying not to get ahead of myself before then."

But Zacker said the document has been thoroughly edited and reviewed by multiple officials, and he is confident the protocol will become a concrete policy after today's vote.