<p>If you're reading this, perhaps you too have an 18 year old, give or take, enrolled or about to in college. And if so, perhaps you also noted the report on the national news this past week of the 100 or so enlightened college/university presidents banding in a clarion call to lower the nation's drinking age from 21 to 18.</p>
<p>And of course they're using the same old arguments heard many years ago when the age was determined to be 21 ...
* Hey they can vote
* Hey they can carry a gun, fight, and die for their country
* Hey telling them they "CAN'T" only leads them to believing they can and will drink the forbidden fruit. It's biblical, right? Ala Adam & Eve.
* Hey our problems on campus will be diminished because we will all be adults and we can invite our students to the faculty happy hours that we might better discuss Freud, Monet, and how the basketballers got screwed by a lousy call. It nurtures that idyllic community of scholarship that is virtually impossible if the faculty can't sip suds with their coeds and classmates.</p>
<p>While we might all appreciate at least some of the points and adult responsibilities now available to our teenagers, their ownership does not suggest that they are physically or emotionally prepared to deal with the responsibilities that come with being able to imbibe alcohol, imo. And the stats would seem to bear that out.</p>
<p>But of course the real evidence and stats are virtually ignored. What is it ... something like drunk driving deaths among teens having dropped 50% in the years since it was dropped.</p>
<p>But to the real point of this post ...</p>
<p>Congrats to Denison University President Knobel for immediately and firmly coming out in opposition to his peers' position on this. This is not only extraordinary that he refuses to join his lemming pals, even those from prestigious institutions whom all schools seemingly want to be "like" ...and liked. Thanks for being clear, concise, current, and courageous. At least one among your observers agrees.</p>