Pitt-Greensburg’s Student Leadership Seeks to Change Campus Alcohol Policy

Since its founding, Pitt-Greensburg has been considered a dry campus, which means that no alcohol is allowed on the premise. Jon Lerch, speaker of SGA’s House of Representatives and community assistant for Westmoreland Hall, spearheaded the operation of potentially changing this policy.  

“This is something that would benefit the campus and leave my mark on campus because this my last year here,” Lerch said.  

He believes that changing the dry campus policy will ultimately raise both retention and admissions rates.  

The plan in question involves changing most of the resident halls on campus to “wet” buildings, meaning places where alcohol is permitted for students over age 21. 

There would still be access to dry buildings on campus for those who  prefer not to be around alcohol. According to Lerch, the buildings that would remain dry would be Robertshaw Hall and one of the houses in the Academic Villages.  

Lerch has worked with Troy Ross, the director of Residence Life, on approaching this project.  

“I looked at policies mainly from the Oakland campus, the Johnstown campus, and the Bradford campus,” Lerch said. “I compiled the policies and used them as guidelines to formulate what ours would specifically look like.”  

Lerch also created a committee of fellow student leaders that helped give different perspectives on what the new alcohol policy could be like.  

At this point in the project, it is unclear when exactly this new alcohol  policy may come into effect, but Lerch said that the policy could be implemented as early as next year.