By Erin Kelly
When students from other schools get in trouble while visiting Northeastern’s campus, the Northeastern University Division of Public Safety (NUPD) reports the violation to campus police at the college where the student attends, said Jim Ferrier, associate director of public safety.
However, NUPD does not receive many complaints from other universities about Northeastern students, Ferrier said.
“We encounter students here from other colleges acting inappropriately far, far more often than we are informed by other universities that Northeastern students are found acting inappropriately there,” Ferrier said.
Ferrier said he recalls one incident in recent months involving a Northeastern student sanctioned for a violation at another campus.
Valerie Randall-Lee, director of the Office of Student Conduct and Conflict Resolution (OSCCR), said the expectations at Northeastern differ from other colleges and universities. Therefore the way each university deals with an individual who commits a violation varies, she said.
“It depends on what the school wants to do. If [a Northeastern student] is visiting the University of Virginia and [gets in trouble at] a party, the University of Virginia may not want to do anything, they may choose to tell NUPD about it or choose to contact my office directly,” Randall-Lee said. “There is no written rule on how that would occur.”
Anyone can submit a report alleging the Code of Student Conduct violations involving a Northeastern student, but the most common parties that submit reports are NUPD, Boston Police Department (BPD), Residential Life and the Office of Government Relations and Community Affairs, Randall-Lee said.
Consequences for students who get in trouble off-campus or at other universities is handled the same as those who get in trouble on campus, Ferrier said.
However, some students seemed unfazed by Northeastern protocol.
Rafael Corbala, a sophomore international business major, seemed unconcerned.
“I don’t think [I’d] get in trouble,” he said. “They wrote my name down like two months ago and I haven’t heard anything.”
All incidence reports, whether on or off-campus, are forwarded to OSCCR, where the reports are reviewed and evaluated to determine what action should be taken based on the circumstances of the incident, Randall-Lee said. The fact that the violation occurred off-campus or at another university is not considered when evaluating the violation, Randall-Lee said.
The amount of violation referrals from school-to-school within the city of Boston is higher because Mayor Thomas Menino has high expectations of colleges and universities in the city, and expects the universities to hold responsibility for overseeing behavior of their students, Randall-Lee said.
NUPD reads every Boston Police report that has to do with a loud party, major crime or alcohol violation, and if a Northeastern student is found to be committing these crimes, NUPD reports the student to OSCCR, Ferrier said.
Ferrier said while it is rare that NUPD is notified about students getting in trouble at another college, it is common to find students hosting and attending large, underage off-campus parties on Mission Hill and other surrounding area campuses, which attract neighbors and BPD. NUPD then reports these students to OSCCR, Ferrier said.
Marissa Kapfhammer, a middler physical therapy major, said she was charged with a violation for attending an off-campus party at Mission Hill but later had her charges dismissed.
“The cops came because people were taunting them outside and the neighbors called the cops due to the noise level,” Kapfhammer said.
The assumption is that more students are getting in trouble at other campuses but that is not true, Ferrier said.
“There are small numbers, and the ones who do get arrested or sanctioned are flagrant,” Ferrier said.
– News staff reporter Rachel Zarrell contributed to this report.
