As students navigated the drinking culture during their first weekend on campus, the Office of Residential Life and the Office of Safety and Security relied on the College’s help-seeking policy, which is now in its second year.

Associate Dean for Community Standards and Case Management Jimmy Riley emphasized the collaborative process between students and his office in creating and promoting the policy.

“Prior to me being [at Bowdoin], there were a couple of students who came to our office to talk with former [Senior Vice President and Dean for Student Affairs Janet Lohmann] about it, and they initiated this conversation around what this policy would look like,” Riley said. “In spring of 2025, we had a group of students work with us to write it and sort of bring it to life.”

The student body turns over every five years, meaning it takes time to shift campus culture, especially in regard to safer alcohol and drug use. The Help Seeking Policy is entering its second year in effect, and Director of Residential Life SJ Tinker is optimistic that as it is introduced to each first-year class, changes to campus norms will follow.

“We would hope and expect that four years after the initiation of the Help Seeking Policy, it has become embedded as a norm that people are hearing from the moment they step on campus from their proctor, from Security, from their peers,” Tinker said. “That educational piece becomes so embedded in the infrastructure of the place that we’re not actually changing culture; we just have a new culture.”

According to last week’s Security Report by Associate Vice President for Safety and Security Bill Harwood and the Office of Safety and Security, several minor students have received wellness checks since the start of the academic year.

“There definitely were some wellness checks this weekend, but there were no transports due to alcohol,” Harwood said. “In comparison to last year, it was almost the same number, so it was not unusual. It was pretty consistent with prior years.”

That being said, students, especially residents of College Houses, recounted some instances this past weekend of intoxicated first-year students needing supervision.

On Saturday night, Boody-Johnson House and Baxter House hosted their annual “White Lies” party. Although the party was registered as not serving alcohol, Levin Brenner ’29 and Anna Dedman ’29, Event Hosts (E-Hosts) at Boody-Johnson, noted that first-year attendees were inebriated throughout the night.

“From my experience, since people want to stay buzzed throughout the night, the options for many are between bringing substances into sub-free events or drinking heavily beforehand, sometimes irresponsibly,” Dedman wrote in an email to the Orient. “We dealt with both of those cases last Friday, with several [first-years] who arrived at the house very inebriated and needing assistance.”

Residents of Boody-Johnson made calls to Security to seek help, as well as going through a post-party sweep of the house with officers to “make sure no one was staying behind or needed help getting home,” Brenner wrote in an email to the Orient.

“The officer we talked to definitely was not happy with us … I remember him getting out of his vehicle and saying ‘Well, I was lied to’ in reference to the alcohol at our event,” Brenner wrote.

“[Security] let us know that we had people gathering at the back of the house drinking, which they saw through security cameras,” Dedman wrote.

As both Brenner and Dedman noted in their emails to the Orient, it is not possible for E-Hosts to prevent all alcohol consumption at a College House party, especially if attendees bring their own drinks to these events.

Given this reality, Harwood encouraged students to seek help when concerns about substance use arise.

“We do drive cruisers. We do wear uniforms. But we’re not law enforcement officers, and we are part of [students’] safety net in their four years while they’re here,” Harwood said.