Is it contributing to the stigma surrounding the food service industry? 

For as long as Dean of Students Roberta Bigger can remember, “community restitution,” or volunteer work, has been among the punishments for students who receive on-campus drug and alcohol violations. Depending on the level of offense, students may face fines, be required to call home and attend an educational workshop. Recipients caught for underage drinking and illegal possession of drugs may also be required to do “community service” on campus in departments such as culinary services, campus safety or facilities.  

Does “community restitution” on a campus as small as Wofford simply end up being a concentrated version of public humiliation? Does the affable nature of a stint in Burwell lessen an offense that would earn jail time in the “real world?” Is Wofford contributing to the stigma sometimes placed on careers in the service industry by sentencing student recipients of drug and alcohol violations to “community restitution” next to salaried, full-time employees? 

Dean Bigger does not consider the community restitution method of discipline to be problematic, and said that the process through which sanctions for on-campus student drug and alcohol violations are decided has been thoroughly thought out and revised. Though Bigger is not actively a voting member on the committee that oversees sanctions, she says of the student-run system, overseen by Dr. McQuisten, “When I first started at Wofford 23 years ago, the first couple times we evaluated [the policy], the student’s main concern was that they didn’t want that first alcohol violation on their record… so it’s now called an official written warning, the education option. And that’s because, for the hundreds of students who have that, they don’t have to consider it a violation unless they get a second violation. So, if they get a second violation before they turn 21, both of the violations go on their record.”  

Stephan Baity, director of Culinary and Board Operations for AVI Fresh, has no recollection of any student ever working off a D.V. or A.V. in Burwell during the two years he’s worked at Wofford with AVI. Bigger says the grounds crew and previously employed food service company, Aramark, “loved” the help of students sanctioned for community restitution. “He [head of grounds crew] said to me, “Roberta, those fraternities are great, I can get so much done when 20 guys show up for an hour…” 

Burwell employee, Phil Jeter, who does recall having students work off violations in Burwell, does not have any problem with students working off violations. “I would love it,” he says. “I talk to them all the time, and we get along good.” Jeter does not feel like Wofford’s use of work in the service industry to reprimand students who have received drug and alcohol violations demeans the service profession. “I would hope it would help. Some people kind of look down on it, and I don’t know why, but it shouldn’t be that way.”  

One student who wishes to remain anonymous was given community restitution in Burwell after being given an A.V. for underage drinking, saying, “the only other option they gave me was to do yard work. … My friends would come and take videos of me, and we would laugh, but it’s actually disrespectful that the school makes this be a punishment because all the workers there are working full-time jobs to support their families, but all we see it as is punishment.” 

“I think that when they make these types of jobs ‘punishment’ it makes other students feel as if they can’t work there because they are embarrassed and assume people will think it’s because they have gotten in trouble.” The anonymous student stands by the idea that the stigma around the service industry could be lessened if Wofford sentenced students to community restitution off-campus.  

Bigger says her biggest concern is in regard to the attitudes of Wofford students to police officers off campus, saying that if students spoke to a highway patrolman in the same way they speak to Campus Safety officers, they would probably end up in jail.  

Pierce Ormond has been working at Chick-fil-a in Zach’s for about a year and a half as a part time job. Although Ormond has never had to work off an A.V., he says that when we first started working in Zach’s people thought he was doing it for punishment.  

“I still think it’s a really tough question because you know it’s like if not [working hours in Burwell or with the Grounds Crew] then how do we punish kids for AV?,” says Ormond. “I think it’s probably a better system than sending kids to jail or whatever, but I still think there could be a better system for it, even though I’m not quite sure what that is. … I think that something needs to change about [the attitude that this] is where they’re shuffling people to get punished instead of promoting that this is a great opportunity for you to earn money and help out the Wofford community.’” 

Colleges are legally bound to re-evaluate their drug and alcohol policies every two years, says Bigger, and this semester the committee responsible for Wofford’s policy will meet to reevaluate the system. Dr. Dawn McQuisten chairs the committee that oversees beverage alcohol and other drug policies. Also on the committee are representatives of the college’s board of trustees, Student Affairs, Campus Safety, the Wellness Center, Campus Union, the Judicial Commission, Greek Life and Residence Life.  

Dean Bigger confidently stands by the intentionality of Wofford’s approach to the issue of student violations. Modeled after schools like Duke, Sewanee, Rhodes and Wake Forest, Wofford’s drug and alcohol policy, which currently cannot be found online due to the recent website revamp, she says that some of the protocol parallels to the federal approach. 

“Last year we had a fraternity that was sanctioned and they were going to help with the Easter egg hunt by stuffing all of the little eggs with candy and hiding them and stuff, but then it rained and we didn’t have the Easter egg hunt after all that work,” Bigger says, laughing.  

For the first semester of Fall 2018 and Interim 2019, the student violations of the code of student rights & responsibilities were as follows:  

90​ Alcohol Violations 

9 Calls for Amnesty/Assistance (Compared to 19 for all of last year) 

20​ Drug Violations (Compared to 13 for all of last year) 

2​ Conduct 

2​ Fire Safety 

11 ​Honor Code