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By Karissa Donkin — The
Aquinian (St. Thomas University)

FREDERICTON (CUP) — Thirty
seconds can change everything. Over
time, Dianne Sheehan has pieced
together what happened to her son
Nick before he fell to his death from a
residence window at St. Francis Xavier
University in March of 2009.

She knows it was shortly after 9 p.m.
when he fell. She remembers, three
hours later, receiving the knock on
her Fredericton home’s front door that
every parent dreads.

She knows he was partying that
night and took drugs. Nick didn’t have
much experience with drugs and his
body had a psychotic reaction when he
took them.

His friends have told her Nick was
standing outside a room on the fourth
floor of the university’s Lane Hall
residence, talking to a female resident.

From what Sheehan understands,
30 seconds later, her son was dead.

More than two years after Nick’s
death, Sheehan still doesn’t have all the
answers about what happened that night
— and she realizes she may never have
them all. But she’s come to terms with
what happened.

“I would have loved to have called
my son that evening, but it wouldn’t
have changed anything,” she said. “He
was a good kid who was a hard worker
who made an error in judgement.”

The Sheehans aren’t the only
family mourning the loss of a son.

On Sept. 6, 19-year-old Jonathan
Andrews was found unresponsive in
his Acadia University residence room
after a night of heavy drinking. He was
transported to the QEII Health Science
Centre in Halifax, where he later died.

Almost a year ago today, on
Oct. 24, 2010, St. Thomas University
student Andrew Bartlett died from an

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accidental fall in his apartment building
after a night of drinking, which police
determined was a contributing factor to
his fall.

Bartlett, 21, had just made the
school’s volleyball team and had been
at a rookie party meant to initiate new
team members.

Like Sheelian, Andrews and
Bartlett weren’t characterized as party
animals in obituaries and by friends
after their deaths. In all three cases, it
appears as if something went terribly
wrong.

Their deaths have been a wake
up call for university administrators
in the Atlantic provinces, some of
whom are asking if they can do more to
steer students away from partying and
excessive alcohol consumption.

In a country where, according
to the Canadian Study on Substance
Abuse, students are binge drinking
on a regular basis before they reach
university, some are saying the problem
goes beyond universities.

A thirst for life

Jonathan Andrews was a scholarship
winner who played rugby, swam and
loved to travel. His obituary says he
worked three jobs in high school to
be able to travel to places his parents
hadn’t gotten to go to.

While attending Western Canada
High School in Calgary, he would
give what was left of his lunch to
homeless people hanging out around
the dumpster behind the school.

Andrews died the day before
classes were set to begin at Acadia
University, where he was set to study
sciences.

His obituary says the last thing
he told his parents was that he wanted
to make as many friends as possible
during those first two weeks.

Acadia’s orientation week

activities are dry, but residences are not,
university spokesman Scott Roberts
said. Drinking games are prohibited
and only residents older than 19 are
supposed to have alcohol in their
rooms.

The investigation into Andrews’
death was conducted by the RCMP and
Roberts said he isn’t in a position to
release more details than are already
available.

“The only thing that I have as
information ... is what the RCMP
reported at the time,” he said.

Since Andrews’ death, the
university has asked Dr. Robert Strang,
Nova Scotia’s chief public health
officer, to investigate what policies
are in place at Acadia to discourage
binge drinking and which ones can be
improved.

“Our plan is to receive his report
in whatever form it comes and share
it with our community and implement
changes that we can,” Roberts said.

Nova Scota universities:

Party schools?

Strang has been in his role for the last
four years and isn’t afraid to sound
alarm bells when he thinks something
is wrong.

He says 50 per cent of university
students in Nova Scotia binge drink,
defined as more than five drinks on one
occasion, at least once a month.

“Nova Scotia has some of the
highest rates of binge drinking in
general in the country,” he said.

“Nova Scotia universities are
known as party universities. We need
to step back and question, is that really
what we want our universities to be
celebrated for?”

While Strang admits Andrews’
death was tragic and a wake-up call for
the university to re-examine its policies,
he’s quick to point out that death is the
worst-case scenario.

Recent incidents at Atlantic universities
accelerate changes to campus drinking policies

He knows many other students
deal with less severe consequences of
binge drinking and excessive partying
and end up in Nova Scotia hospitals on
a regular basis.

“There are certainly not [many]
deaths but there are injuries and people
who are made extremely ill and end
up in emergency rooms through acute
alcohol intoxication on a regular, if not
weekly, basis,” he said.

Part of this problem is that binge
drinking has become normalized on
campus over time, he explained.

“Tt used to be more of a male
behaviour, but now young women
are adopting those binge drinking
habits and have about the same rates
of binge drinking as young men do,”
he said. ““That’s concerning because
young women who are intoxicated are
especially vulnerable.”

Strang expects to present the first
draft of his findings within the next
couple of weeks. While his work has
focused on Acadia, he plans to use
the findings to start a conversation
about partying at other Nova Scotia
universities.

But he recognizes it will take more
than a report or a set of new policies to
change attitudes about binge drinking
on campuses.

“Binge drinking on campus doesn’t
happen in isolation,” he said.

He wants to ask questions about
the alcohol industry’s presence on the
Acadia campus and get all three levels
of government involved to regulate
drinking establishments and hold the
alcohol industry accountable.

Without addressing the
environment students are in, you won’t
be able to change their behaviours,
according to Strang.

“It’s not just the tragic death of one
kid — it’s every day, every week [that]
families and individuals are impacted
by alcohol in Nova Scotia or across the