The Texas University System has some rather odd ideas when it comes to alcohol. I’m not sure; it is possible these instructors are committing a criminal offense by employing holding office hours in a licensed premise.
In the late eighties, early nineties a Texas A&M lobbyist was sentenced to state prison for ten years, for the misuse of University funds. His job was to contact with legislators and other interested parties and push for issues favorable to the Texas A&M University System. Part of his outreach was to maintain a hospitality room. I don’t know if this was a daily or weekly thing. When the hospitality room was open, guests could avail themselves of open bar and a buffet while circulating among Austin power brokers, legislators, and beautiful girls.
When you are dove hunting, you go where the birds have natural forage and a place to get water. When you are hunting legislators, the same basic premise applies. Ask yourself where would alcoholics, prostitutes, and con men go. They go where the booze is free; there is a promise of a free lunch and a likelihood that before the night is over somebody is going to get screwed. The A&M hospitality room was successful, and the lobbyist was lauded for his excellent work by the University.
There was only one problem, by statute the University and by extension, the lobbyist, could not expend University funds on alcohol. At the urging of his University superiors, the lobbyist was told to continue his efforts and find a way to pay the bills. The hotel was more than helpful in arriving at a solution. They eliminated the alcohol sales as a line item on the monthly bill and padded the food costs, room rent and wherever else they could hide a few bucks. So every month the University paid an exorbitant room rent but bought no alcohol.
I am familiar with this scheme because I was working for TEEX a part of the Texas A&M University System. TEEX was awarded a grant from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) passed through the Texas Department of Transportation, (TXDOT), on to the Texas A&M University System, received by Texas Engineering Extension Service (TEEX) to finally rest at the Law Enforcement and Security Training Division. The grant was to certify police officers as instructors in Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus (HGN) Field Sobriety Testing. The curriculum, program, performance goals and successful outcomes required student police officers to practice on people exhibiting varying degrees of intoxication. All of the agencies named above have a complete and utter ban on purchasing alcohol with their funds. The kicker is that there was a line item in the grant. The grant included $80,000 for booze, set-ups, and snacks. We were told, buy all the booze you need, just don’t call it alcoholic beverages.
We were not allowed to use University property since we were serving alcohol. We resorted to using hotel function rooms for our classroom space. Most hotel catering departments were more than happy to cater to our alcoholic beverage needs. The problem is that a hotel bottle of bourbon is three times the cost of a liquor store bottle of bourbon. At that rate, we wouldn’t have enough supplies on hand to fulfill the teaching commitment.
The solution, approved by my boss, his boss, and TXDOT program manager worked like this: A local restaurant billed us for meals they never prepared. TEEX paid the restaurant. The restaurant reimbursed the wholesale liquor distributor, for the alcohol TEEX Used in the program. We began receiving bills from a third party for goods never delivered, that bill happened to equal the monthly liquor bill,
As far as I know the program was operating in that same manner all during the trial of the unfortunate lobbyist. It has been a long time since this trial and my memory may be faulty, but I don’t believe there was any allegation that the lobbyist diverted any funds for his use.
This is a long way around to say that instructors using a licensed premise to meet students are in violation of the statute governing the expenditure of state funds to purchase alcohol. Consider the following:
- Students have already paid for the course, possibly with federal or state student loan money. Part of what they paid for was access to their professor or instructor during “office hours.” Meeting with an instructor or professor during office hours is not a social activity. If the student buys an alcoholic beverage, that is directly related to the course and may be prohibited.
- Instructors and grad students are the slave labor of the academic world. They are paid a stipend for each course they teach to include conducting office hours. At the end of the night, the tab must come due. I have never met a teacher who will pay a bar tab when there is an expense account anywhere on the horizon to pick up the slack. Purchasing alcoholic beverages on the school expense account is a violation. Hint: the credit card receipt may say one cheeseburger and 19 ice teas, but chances are the restaurant check will reflect the actual purchase.
- Finally, just to ram their politically correct posturing to where the sun doesn’t shine. Some students such as practicing Muslims, Baptists, Seventh Day Adventurists and Mormons who would normally eschew entering a licensed premise are forced to do so if they want to meet with their instructor. This forced meeting seems to constitute a hostile learning environment and be insensitive to the beliefs of the students.