University President Jehuda Reinharz announced the formation of an ad-hoc Alcohol and Drug Policy Committee in an e-mail sent to the Brandeis community last night.The committee will "examine alcohol and drug use and misuse at Brandeis and recommend policies to ensure the health and safety of our students and the entire university community," Reinharz wrote in the e-mail.

This news comes 2 weeks after Pachanga, at which according to an Oct. 26 Justice article, 20 students required some sort of medical assistance and two students were arrested for disorderly conduct and assaulting University police.

In an e-mail sent to the Brandeis community on Oct. 25, Reinharz described the events as "unprecedented."

Prof. Len Saxe (Heller), the chair of the committee, said in an interview with the Justice that "many folks on campus have been long concerned with alcohol and drug use" on campus.

While Saxe described the hospitalizations and arrests from the weekend of Oct. 25 as "distressing," he stated that "even if that hadn't happened, [creating the ad-hoc committee] was still an important thing for us to do."

Recommendations from the committee will be produced before the end of the semester and will focus on "current policies concerning health services, public safety, student life and enforcement of norms of conduct," Reinharz wrote.

Saxe explained that the ad-hoc committee was aimed "to get a representative group of the whole community, undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty, the staff who are on the front lines both in the counseling center and the health center as well as those involved in student affairs and student life to think about what our policies are."

While three students are currently serving on the ad-hoc committee, Saxe explained that the committee will seek input from the student body, possibly in the form of focus groups, individual student interviews and the creation of a website that would depend on available resources and time, for people to comment on the project depending on available resources and time.

The committee is comprised of nine faculty, staff and experts in the alcohol-abuse field and three students.

The committee includes Associate Dean of Student Life Jamele Adams; Dr. Avraham Almozlino P'08 P'11, chief of neurology at the Newton-Wellesley Hospital; Director of Public Safety Ed Callahan; Prof. and Associate Dean for Research at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management Constance Horgan, who is also the director of the Institute for Behavioral Health and the National Institute for Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism; Academic Advisor Brian Koslowski; Prof. Margie Lachman (PSYC); Constance McCashin, a University psychological counselor; Director of the Health Center Dr. Debra Poaster; and Dawn Skop, the Health Center's alcohol and drug counselor will serve on the committee in addition to Seth Merker '11, the director and clinical supervisor of the Brandeis Emergency Medical Corps; Graduate Student Representative to the Board of Trustees Scott Motyka, and Undergraduate Student Representative to the Board of Trustees Heddy Ben-Atar '11.

Senior Vice President for Communications and External Affairs Andrew Gully explained in an interview with the Justice that the Student Union had been thinking about how it could help to promote alcohol-abuse awareness programs on campus, and that Reinharz had also spoken to multiple students about alcohol-abuse awareness programs on campus.

"I think this is a decision on [Reinharz's] part to deal proactively with a problem," Saxe said.

According to Saxe, who studied substance abuse through the Heller School during the '90s, the committee will begin to meet immediately, and one of its first goals will be to examine the "best practices" of other universities concerning drug and alcohol abuse prevention.

"This is a problem that affects every college and university," Saxe said.

"A lot of the focus right now is on culture and environment and what you can do to prevent problems rather than to simply treat them."

According to collegedrinkingprevention.com, a website designed to help prevent alcohol-abuse referenced by Saxe in an e-mail to the Justice, some of the "best practices" include "offering brief motivational enhancement interventions" in which students are provided feedback about their drinking habits and encouraged to formulate plans to develop safer habits, and "adopting campus-based policies and practices that appear to be capable of reducing high-risk alcohol use" as well as creating "a campus and community coalition" to implement chosen strategies.

"We're also fortunate that we have at the Heller School through the Institute for Behavioral Health . a whole group of people where this [alcohol-abuse prevention] is what they do," Saxe explained.

According to the e-mail from Reinharz, "The committee will be assisted by staff members and doctoral students from the Heller School's Institute for Behavioral Health who are part of the National Institute for Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism pre-doctoral training program.