Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Joseph W. Watson has said he would allow the presence of alcohol at campus events sponsored by the A.S. Council under the condition that proper security measures are implemented, reversing a policy that has kept recent Sun God festivals officially dry.

Watson’s change of heart has come in response to efforts by Revelle College Senior Senator Rachel Corell, among others, to bring drinking for students of legal age back to the quarterly “Thank Goodness It’s Over” concert.

The policy change also follows the release of the Undergraduate Student Experience Report in September, which revealed that students desire to have more alcohol at on-campus events. The committee that prepared the report, composed of students, faculty and alumni, also specifically mentioned TGs as a possible event that could improve the campus’ social atmosphere.

However, the Community Collegiate Alcohol Awareness and Prevention program, run in association with San Diego State University, looks at TGs with concern.

“Although we don’t have any objections against alcohol-related campus events, it’ll be 10 steps backwards for the campus,” said Lupe Samaniego-Kraus, the UCSD representative for the program.

Recently, UCSD has earned prestige for implementing programs such as Substance/Alcohol Feedback and Education, which won AAA’s College and University Drinking and Driving Prevention Award in 2005.

The program was recognized nationally for taking innovative steps to avoid drunk driving and treat alcoholism among college students.

Sale of alcohol at events like TGs will be difficult to implement, Samaniego-Kraus said.

“Most of UCSD undergraduates are under 21, which will make it difficult for student organizations to ensure that underage drinking doesn’t happen, as it is a university and state policy,” Samaniego-Kraus said.

Although Watson supports having a beer garden at TGs, he still stands by past statements that alcohol is not the central catalyst to increase student interaction and enjoyment.

Late last year, Watson rejected a Sun God beer garden proposal because it would be hard for security to control.

“Sun God is a different matter than TGs because there are a lot more people to look after,” Watson said.

However, Watson had suggested to the A.S. Council that if safety precautions were taken for the beer garden, he would have approved the Sun God event, according to former A.S. President Jenn Pae.

“We were under the impression that if we applied ourselves toward safety concerns, we would be able to have a beer garden,” Pae said last year. “To have the idea be rejected was very sad.”

Although Corell agrees that strict measures should be implemented for any event serving alcohol, she insists that having a beer garden at Sun God should not be any different than having one at TGs.

“There’s a lot of alcohol awareness groups on campus for students and we should give students more freedom to use their best judgment while drinking,” she said. “I think we’re old enough to make our own decisions. As young adults, we need to be given room to … make mistakes.”

But Watson said there’s been confusion about where he stands on alcohol-related events, saying that he doesn’t object to them as long as they abide by campus rules.

“Controlling alcohol abuse at TGs isn’t full-proof because there will always be people who break rules,” Watson said. “But we can better facilitate and prevent alcohol problems by limiting the amount of alcohol being served, having nonalcoholic beverages and providing food to underage students.”

Implementing such restrictions has worked successfully at past events and would successfully control drinking at TGs, according to Watson.

“There was a Jack Johnson concert that had a beer garden last year and there weren’t any arrests or problems,” UCSD Police Lt. David Rose said.

Samaniego-Kraus, though, worries that alcohol could always ignite abuse and has negative consequences, even in the presence of tight security.

However, Corell said UCSD does a good job of alcohol control, citing the fact that she knows many underage students who have been rejected from purchasing alcohol at campus events.

TGs should come back to cater to students who don’t live on campus and are seeking a social event, she said. The event can also aid in diversifying UCSD’s image for alumni.

“Commuters and transfer students are a very important part of UCSD and we must look for ways to have them want to stay around on campus after class is over,” Corell said.

Alcohol wouldn’t be the focus of any of the events, she said.

Rose attended UCSD during the early 1980s, when TGs were popular and remembers them positively as a place for students, staff and faculty members to get together. However, there was little security and control to prevent underage drinking, he said.

The TGs were held at the grassy, hilly area between Student Center and Main Gym.

Although alcohol offenses have risen since he started working for the campus, Rose said statistical information can be deceiving, as it may be due to the growing number of police officers and higher rates of enforcement.

Although researchers from UC Berkeley have found that most cases of student drinking were related to off-campus parties, negotiations to revive the TG events are still underway, with logistics including finances and security still far from being finalized.

“As an alumnus, I don’t want UCSD to have the reputation of being a hard school with no social life, but we don’t want to create an environment where alcohol abuse exists,” Rose said.