<p>LOCAL POLICE ARRESTED 11 members of Dartmouth's Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority for underage alcohol consumption late Monday night, the Dartmouth reports. The sorority had rented out a roller rink in Enfield, N.H. for what may have been an initiation ceremony or party. A few too many drinks later, some members were on the floor, and 911 was called. Enfield police arrived, rushed three students to the hospital, and administered breathalyzer tests to everyone under 21.</p>
<p>The arrests come at the end of Dartmouth's fall rush season and amid several other incidents involving fraternities and sororities on campus. Kappa Kappa Gamma, for one, was already serving a four-week punishment, due to end Oct. 22, according to an earlier Dartmouth article that named six Greek houses on probation. (It's unclear from the article what being on probation entails, and today's Dartmouth piece doesn't mention it.)</p>
<p>Because Monday was fall bid night, when the Greek houses extended offers of membership, it's believed the roller-hockey event was part of an initiation ceremony. The Enfield police chief, in an odd twist, says that Hanover police may be investigating whether any hazing took place, but offers no evidence. Kappa Kappa Gamma's president wouldn't comment. Dartmouth says it's investigating.</p>
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Maybe now they'll be placed on double super secret probation.
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<p>Or at least scurry around putting out several press releases describing how Dartmouth's sorortities aren't like the ones at other schools where drinking is a major focus of chapter activities and hazing is a part of the pledge process.</p>
<p>"Or at least scurry around putting out several press releases describing how Dartmouth's sorortities aren't like the ones at other schools where drinking is a major focus of chapter activities and hazing is a part of the pledge process."</p>
<p>And they also clothe the sick, heal the hungry, and feed the naked, and provide goodie baskets to old-age homes, and blankets for their cats.</p>
<p>I thought I was reading some sort of Flashback report on How It Used to Be. Is there no forward progress with some organizations? Discouraging to the max.</p>
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And they also clothe the sick, heal the hungry, and feed the naked, and provide goodie baskets to old-age homes, and blankets for their cats.
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<p>Not to mention the "Balanced Woman Program" being initiated by the national headquarters.</p>
<p>it is parents weekend there this coming weekend....perfect timing.... lots to talk about.....</p>
<p>how about the poor family in VT right now...parents there visiting for their parents weekend...daughter disappears around 2am.......no show for dinner the next evening.......I can't even imagine my kid being out of touch all day of parents weekend.....with no one who knows where the kid is??? </p>
<p>if only we could impress on all kids that this thing called life is a marathon... not a 100 yard dash......</p>
<p>Each one of these stories about frats and sororities saddens me. My son would love to be in a group of guys that did things together and felt a kinship. Unfortunately, he has been unable to find a frat that doesn't engage in hazing. These organizations could be such good things and offer support systems to students but.....</p>
<p>Perhaps I used the term hazing too loosely or inappropriately. But these types of functions seem to put pressure on initiates to participate in the behavior. Maybe that is in fact not "hazing", but it is certainly promoting poor choices.</p>
<p>The title of the article begs the question as to whether the mess-up was that they got arrested or that they are a bunch of publicly drunken sots?</p>
<p>"The College thinks that if we use cans instead of kegs we will drink less. They are mistaken. In all honesty, it would be almost physically impossible to drink more than we already do...."</p>
<p>The students at Dartmouth all chose to attend. It's not like Dartmouth's party repuation is a big secret.</p>
<p>I know a Dartmouth undergrad who routinely complains about the absurd amount of drinking and the difficulty in finding friends who don't get plastered beyond recognition as entertainment. I have to bite my tongue to keep from asking, "Then, why did you go there?"</p>
<p>"If there is one thing that detractors of the system should know by now, it is that the "rageyness" that characterizes our isolated campus is not something that can be mitigated by legislation, probation or arbitrary sanctions."</p>
<p>Well, he's got that right. The people with the power to change it work in the admissions office.</p>
<p>Is there some sort of weird epidemic going on? I came out of a culture of teenage drinking. The legal age was 18, I don't think I was refused service in a bar or liquor store more than two or three times after my 16th birthday, and I spent the year before that in Europe, where there was no restriction at all. In college, I was on a speed beer-chugging team; we practiced AND competed, sometimes the same night. I saw drunken kids all the time. Like Eskimos with their 50 words for snow, we had 50 terms for vomiting.</p>
<p>But in all those years of irresponsible drinking with college age kids or younger, I never once saw, or even heard of, anyone taken to an ER for alcohol poisoning. (Everyone knew alcohol could be dangerous, of course. Especially combined with cars. And a HS classmate of my sister actually froze to death when he went to sleep in a snow drift walking home from drinking at a friend's house.) Now, it seems like I hear a new story every week. </p>
<p>What's going on? Are kids actually drinking more now than we did 30 years ago? In the words of the Dartmouth student, that doesn't seem physically possible. Have the categories changed, so that people call an ambulance rather than just holding a kid's hand while he or she vomits? Or is there really some physical difference in the way kids are responding to too much alcohol?</p>