Students caught misbehaving off campus should be punished not just by the police and judicial system, but by their colleges or universities, Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl said yesterday.

He said his administration is starting an effort to get other places of higher education to emulate Duquesne University, where a student code of conduct extends to off-campus high jinks.

"I think it's clear that we want the universities to have a more active role in policing their own students and realizing that they have a responsibility to be good neighbors in the city of Pittsburgh, and Duquesne has already acknowledged that they will be," the mayor said outside of the South Side Market House yesterday, in a neighborhood that has seen rising student-resident tensions. "Just because they're not on the campus doesn't mean they're not a student of the university, and doesn't mean that they don't have a responsibility to be good neighbors in the city."

The South Side is turning into a testing ground for the administration's effort to get universities to hold students accountable for their behavior.

The city and neighborhood groups have set up the Mayor's Advisory Committee for the South Side, which is working with Duquesne. Duquesne is just across the Monongahela River from the South Side, and at least 400 of its students live on the Flats, said Tim Lewis, director of commuter affairs for the university.

If a resident has a complaint about a student, they can turn it in to the South Side Community Council, and that organization will refer it to Duquesne. Most of the complaints involve noise, or students taking up too many parking spaces, he said.

"A lot of times, things can be resolved with issuing a warning, asking them to apologize to a resident of the South Side, something like that," Mr. Lewis said. "If it was something severe or that needed more action, then we'll have it referred to our university judicial process."

That process can lead to a hearing before university officials, and a range of punishments from a warning, to suspension of some privileges, to expulsion.

Duquesne's student code of conduct is unusual in that it applies to both on- and off-campus activities, said university spokeswoman Bridget Fare. "There's an expectation that you're an ambassador [for the school], whether you're sitting in a classroom or out in the community," she said.

Word of misconduct comes to the university through community complaints, contact between university and city police, and news reports, she said. "There aren't a huge amount of off-campus violations," she said.

The University of Pittsburgh's student code also covers off-campus conduct, and spokesman John Fedele said punishment is sometimes meted out for neighborhood misbehavior.

Students "would be more responsive if they knew there were going to be ramifications and repercussions perhaps levied by the university," Mr. Ravenstahl said. "Over the next couple of months, ideally, we'll bring [Duquesne] and the other universities that have large volumes of off-campus residents to our advisory committee."

Having a large student population has its pros and cons, said Jennifer Strang, marketing and communication manager for the South Side Local Development Corp. On one hand, some may become full-time residents of the neighborhood post-graduation.

On the other hand, she said, "There still needs to be a level of respect for people that live around here."