BLACKSBURG -- Wait until I tell your mom and dad what you did this weekend.

That's the message Virginia Tech students younger than 21 were contemplating this week following notice of a new university policy.

Bowing to parental requests, Tech officials decided to exercise a provision of the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act that allows the university to notify parents when students are disciplined for alcohol and drug-related infractions -- even on a first offense.

The new policy became effective earlier this month, and students were notified by campus e-mail Jan. 22.

Tech already had a strict "three strikes" policy in place for both on- and off-campus alcohol violations. Tech also has cooperative agreements with local and state law enforcement agencies that report off-campus violations, such as underage possession of alcohol, to the university.

Students sanctioned for alcohol or drug crimes by off-campus police are subject to on-campus sanctions through the Office of Student Conduct.

Under the old policy, however, parents were notified of violations only after a second offense.

"What's happened over the years is you'd have a student who's found responsible for a minor violation," considered one strike under the university's policy, said Vice President for Student Affairs Ed Spencer.

"Then they get involved in a major, or second, strike, and before the parents even knew about it, they were suspended."

A number of parents complained, saying they would have intervened if they'd known about the first offense.

"We thought they had a decent point," Spencer said.

For the same reasons, Radford University adopted a similar first offense notification policy in the fall, Dean of Students Trae Cotton said.

"We'd been talking about it for a long, long time," he said.

Radford also enforces a strict three-strikes policy that can result in suspension.

Officials at both schools said they are hopeful the policy will encourage parental involvement in combatting substance abuse and related problems and reducing repeat offenses.

Congress amended federal educational privacy laws to allow parental notification of alcohol and drug violations after a rash of alcohol-related student deaths in 1997. That year two Virginia Tech students and one Radford student died, Spencer said.

Not surprisingly, Spencer said the change has been popular with parents.

And, while some students see the new policy as a violation of their privacy rights as adults, others agree with it.

"It's a good change for the most part," said Eric Evert, an 18-year-old Tech mathematics major. "You're only going to be angry about it if you're going to be doing it -- and you shouldn't."

"Parents are paying the bill for college," 18-year-old biology major Grace Mulholland said. "They should be notified."

Law enforcement officials say anything that helps deter excessive drinking among college students helps them, and that university penalties can be effective deterrents to off-campus violations.

"Most young folks are more afraid of what happens to them on campus than off," Blacksburg police Chief Kim Crannis said.

Read the notice sent to Tech students at tinyurl.com/y9nna69.