Officials from Grand Valley State University held a press conference today at 1 p.m. on the Allendale Campus to address the four male students that were taken to Spectrum Butterworth in Grand Rapids last night around 7:15 p.m. after public safety responded to a call from a Resident Assistant at Frey Living Center describing the students’ behavior as unusual.

The students were transported to Spectrum Health Hospital and are currently being treated for the use of what Eric Klingensmith, coordinator of the Alcohol Campus Education and Services office, said are still “unknown narcotics” at this time.

“It’s a broad range of things we’re looking into, trying to piece together what happened – when, where, how,” said Bart Merkle, dean of students at GVSU.

Reports from some students in Frey Living Center at the time indicated that the four males being transported resisted assistance from public safety, however Merkle said police and living center staff were able to safely transport the students and no parties were harmed in the process.

“I think public safety was able to deal with them, I couldn’t speak to the specifics of whether they were resisting assistance or not,” Merkle said. “Our biggest concern was getting them transported so we could get them down to Spectrum.”

Merkle added that GVSU does have an emergency on-call response set up, wherein certain staff members are notified of any incidents following initial notification to the Department of Public Safety. A number of RA’s, graduate assistants and living center staff are also placed in each building for aid in emergency situations.

Klingensmith said that at GVSU, and across college campuses nationwide, alcohol is the most commonly used drug by college students, followed by marijuana. The university offers a number of education, awareness and prevention programs for both drugs through the ACES program as well as a similarly structured course for marijuana offenders.

“We do education and awareness in the residence halls, through student groups and organizations, anyone who wants to come out we definitely do that for them,” Klingensmith said.

On first offense, students with an alcohol or marijuana violation must complete the three-hour course for alcohol, ACES, or the shorter 1.5-hour course for marijuana offenses, MACES. On second offense, students are required to attend a one-on-one session with a counselor to talk more about their substance abuse.

In the case of the students in question, Merkle said it is hard to know at this time what the possible repercussions might be.

“We don’t know because we don’t really know what they were taking, and so the potential effects depend on what was involved,” Merkle said. “All we know at this juncture is that they’re in the hospital, they’re being treated, being monitored.”

Klingensmith said the university tries to keep “ahead of the curve” in regards to knowing what drugs students are using, adding that GVSU officials will attend an upcoming Emerging Drug Conference held by the Ottawa County Health Department in an effort to keep up with trends.

“(Alcohol and marijuana) are our two main focuses,” Klingensmith said. “We try to keep up with trends across the country so if things are popping up we want to start addressing them. As we start seeing things, we’ll definitely shift our focus. But we want to make sure our efforts are tied to the two we see the most.”

Both Merkle and Klingensmith said students should “keep an eye out for each other,” and said the university as an amnesty policy for residence halls that allows students who are worried about another student to call the police without fear of getting in trouble.

Merkle said they do not have a medical update for the four students at this time, but said the sense from the doctors conducting treatment on the students is that it will be about 24 hours before officials know more about what the students were taking and how health matters are progressing.

“We’re very hopeful that they’re going to be okay and we certainly are concerned for their families and for family and friends that are in the community,” he said.

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