Although some universities are establishing policies to notify parents of student alcohol violations, Iowa State officials are waiting to make a decision on whether to enact such a policy.

ISU’s current alcohol policy does not call for contacting parents about their children’s violations.

Several universities across the country, such as Utah State University and the University of Virginia, have begun to implement parental notification policies.

Linda Ciccone, university coordinator of Substance Abuse Programs, said these new policies were made possible by Congress’ reauthorization of the Higher Education Acts, a federal law dealing with universities.

Ciccone said ISU is waiting for Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller to review the law to see if it conflicts with federal law.

All Iowa universities are waiting for the attorney general’s decision.

Dean of Students Kathleen MacKay said alcohol-related deaths and accidents on college campuses in the last few years may have influenced this legislation.

“It prompted the people who make the laws to allow universities to communicate with parents,” she said. “The lawmakers felt like we need to be able to do something different.”

MacKay said university administrators are concerned about alcohol abuse at ISU. “The situations that have been happening could easily happen on other campuses,” she said.

Ciccone said parental notification has good and bad points.

“The students perceive it as a punishment,” she said. “I don’t think that’s what the policy is supposed to do.”

She said parental notification policies try to involve parents with their children’s college lives.

“It forms a partnership between the parent, the school and the student,” she said. “The last thing we want to do is remove responsibility from the students.”

Students’ input will be used if the alcohol policy is going to be changed, Ciccone said.

“If this is an avenue we need to explore, we need to explore it very carefully and have students involved in it,” she said.

Ciccone said the difficulty with any policy such as parental notification is putting it into practice.

“Every regulation has the possibility of being ignored or being enforced to the extreme,” she said.

“The challenge is to find what works. We need to carefully examine the entire scope of this issue before we make a move,” Ciccone said.