Amidst the excitement of the first weeks of school on West Campus this September, a regular safety service was missing from the scene.
Residence Life and Health, Counselling and Disability Services made a t operational decision to close down the Campus Observation Room (COR) West Campus location for 2006-07.
Daryl Nauman, co-director of Residence Life at Queen’s, attributed the decision to a lack of demand at the West Campus location.
“We looked at the numbers from last year, and demand for the service was pretty low,” he said.
Nauman said ResLife decided it would be better to pool their resources at the Victoria Hall COR, rather than split them between the two health services.
The COR, which has been in operation since 1990, operated during September and Homecoming weekend at Victoria Hall and Jean Royce Hall. According to its website, COR offers students “a safe, confidential and non-judgemental place to recover from their alcohol consumption.” COR services are still offered at the Victoria Hall location this year.
Nauman said that although there wasn’t a COR headquarters on West Campus this year, a COR volunteer was on-call on West Campus over Homecoming weekend to perform initial assessments on students in need of help.
“If it was appropriate for the student to be at COR, they were able to get there,” he said.
Students at West Campus seemed well-informed about the resources offered at their residences.
Patrick Hamer-Meunier, Comm ’10, said he isn’t worried about having a drunk friend on his hands and without a COR nearby.
“I would have phoned a don on-call that we have,” he said. “They told us about that in our first week.”
Hamer-Meunier said the COR’s absence on West Campus wasn’t an issue for him during Frosh Week.
“It was fun,” he said. “I never had any problems.”
Students in residence concerned about a friend who has been drinking are encouraged to speak to their dons, who are trained to handle intoxicated students.
Nauman said the Peer Observation Program, a volunteer service made up of students who look after intoxicated students in residence, as well as the Detox Centre at the Hotel Dieu, are other resources for intoxicated students.
Nauman said he’s uncertain about the fate of COR at West Campus in future years.
“We’re going to review just how Orientation went without having COR there last year.”
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