The University of Pennsylvania has formed a commission to review alcohol and drug use on campus and consequences for students who violate policy, according to an article from The Inquirer.
The Penn Commission on Student Safety, Alcohol and Campus Life will look at “the status of student social life at Penn,” and “pay particular attention to the potential for sexual violence and other forms of injurious behavior that can result from excessive alcohol consumption,” a Penn press release says.
A Penn spokesperson says that the panel was creased out of the university’s desire to respond to a national issue, not in reaction to any particular problem on campus, the article says.
Last month, however, attorneys announced that the parents of a student, 20, who fell to his death after a 2010 fraternity party at Penn would receive more than $3 million from the fraternity and a beer distributor in a wrongful-death settlement.
David and Helene Crozier of Yardley also reached a settlement with Penn, but the terms were confidential, The Inquirer reports. Their son, Matthew, a junior at John Carroll University near Cleveland, suffered severe head injuries after a 30-foot fall over a railing at the Phi Kappa Sigma house after attending the party while intoxicated. The fraternity is no longer active on campus.
Penn’s new commission will be chaired by Charles O’Brien, vice chair of psychiatry and director of the Center for Studies of Addition in Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine.