Members of Pomona’s administration and ASPC President Brian Andrews ’01 have decided to train students to provide security at CCLA parties to supplement campus safety. The move is expected to relieve the financial burden on the ASPC Senate, which currently pays Campus Safety to take care of all security concerns at parties.

"Myself, [Dean of Students Anne Quinley], [Director of the Campus Center] Neil Gerard, and [Assistant Director of the Campus Center and the planner of the program] Dave Swenson hammered out how we wanted to address security issues on campus," ASPC President Brian Andrews ’01 said. The project draws inspiration from successful student security staffs at other colleges, including Harvey Mudd and Claremont McKenna, and will be developed through the joint efforts of the Senate, Campus Safety, Campus Life, and Student Affairs.

The new staff will be charged with maintaining the safety of students at parties, preventing students from bringing alcohol into parties or removing alcohol from them, and dispersing students when events are over.

Funding has yet to be formally approved for the project, and the speed with which the Senate votes on funding will likely depend on the degree of student interest.

Students need no special prior training to qualify for the job.

"[We] feel that we can provide the necessary training. The most important quality we are looking for is reliability. We need students who we can trust to take this responsibility and follow through as appropriate," Swenson said. Between one half and one full day of training will be required of all student security members. The content of training has yet to be finalized.

Swenson conceded that students had a clear conflict of interest in enforcing school policies on their fellow students, but was confident that this would not be problematic. "positive experiences with our own RAs here and other schools’ reports that student security has been effective make us feel confident that our students will be able to meet this challenge," he said.

Swenson also suggested that student security might be better equipped to handle some situations than campus safety officers, but that campus safety will definitely step in if a situation becomes dangerous.

Andrews expressed similar confidence in the ability of students to provide security without bias.

"I think we have students who are responsible enough to do the job," Andrews said. "They might be better than Campus Safety in some ways. They have more insight into the students and would be able to relate to them in some ways."