This summer, the College added the “Help Seeking Policy” to its Code of Community Standards. The policy, which officially codifies a practice that has existed informally, protects students from disciplinary responses for reporting medical emergencies resulting from alcohol or cannabis use.

Under the Help Seeking Policy, when a student seeks medical attention for alcohol or cannabis use, the College will not take disciplinary action against the individual in need of medical attention, the student who called the Office of Safety and Security or 911 or the hosts of a registered event where the incident occurred. The policy also outlines the follow-up process for the student who needed medical attention, which typically involves meeting with a dean and often Health Services or Counseling Services.

“The hope with this is to encourage students to call when they need things, when they need support, specifically, and to put their mind at ease about what will happen after that,” Associate Dean for Community Standards and Case Management Jimmy Riley said.

For many years, the College has operated with this policy as an unwritten rule, prioritizing safety over disciplinary responses to requests for medical assistance following substance use. Over the past year, a committee co-chaired by Riley and Director of Residential Life (ResLife) SJ Tinker worked to codify this practice into a formal policy. As part of this effort, the committee examined similar policies at other colleges and considered what would work best at Bowdoin.

“What we tried to do was pull people from various parts of campus, in various leadership roles on campus, to get a perspective across the board of like, ‘Do we need this thing? Is this valuable? Is it something that will work for Bowdoin?’” Riley said. “And overwhelmingly, the answer was yes.”

Student input played a key role in developing this policy. The committee included five student members representing different groups on campus: Noah Goldwasser ’27 from the Conduct Review Board, Fiona Bor ’25 from Peer Health, Arjuna Sivapala ’25 from ResLife, Anyi Sun ’26 from the Bowdoin Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and Harper Stevenson ’27 from Bowdoin Student Government.

“I think the most important part of the process was the student perspective. I can’t say that enough. I think they brought really great ideas and a very important perspective,” Riley said.

The College is working to spread the word about the Help Seeking Policy to all students, especially those working in residential spaces, including at ResLife student staff training and College House orientation. Additionally, Tinker explained that the perspective of ResLife student staff, who may encounter substance use emergencies through their work, was especially important to this process. She also noted that the provision protecting hosts of registered events stemmed from student advocacy.

“The ResLife collaboration definitely came from a place of ResLife student staff, [who] especially when they’re in first year bricks and on duty nights, often are the folks who are seeing what students need and thinking about helping students access assistance if they’re in need of it,” Tinker said. “So [they are] definitely a great student group to tap into to understand how this policy would benefit students and how it would encourage safe behaviors. That is really the heart of this policy—encouraging behaviors that keep everyone safe.”

Bill Harwood, Associate Vice President of the Office of Safety and Security, stated that this policy will not change how Security responds to calls. He said that while he finds Bowdoin students tend to already be comfortable calling Security in an emergency, he hopes that having a formal policy surrounding the follow-up process will further reduce hesitation to seek help.

“I hope the word will spread, and I think the impact is that those who are concerned about calling will be more free to call now,” Harwood said. “Because if somebody truly is in that sort of a situation where they’re unconscious or something like that, I hope the impact is people won’t even think twice now. They’ll call.”

Additionally, while Harwood noted that Security does not control when or how the Brunswick Police Department may choose to respond to an incident, a similar policy titled, “Immunity from arrest, prosecution and revocation and termination proceedings when assistance has been requested for suspected drug-related overdose” exists in the Maine Criminal Code.

Harwood also emphasized that while students are still expected to follow laws and regulations around substance use, this policy exists to ensure students feel safe seeking help even when violations do occur.

“We definitely want people to know they still are expected to follow state and federal law and expected to follow College policy, but we also understand that there are going to be times that people are going to violate [policy], and we’d rather them think of safety than those rules and regulations,” he said.

Harper Stevenson ’27 is a member of the Bowdoin Orient.