<p>CNN Article: <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/03/25/college.wine.soirees.ap/index.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/03/25/college.wine.soirees.ap/index.html</a></p>
<p>Friday afternoons, the cafeteria serves wine and beer with dinner for a small group of students. The events emphasize moderate consumption and teach the attendees about different wines and beer types. Anti-drinking types claim the university is encouraging alcohol consumpition, while proponents of the events claim they teach the students moderation while improving their ability to navigate social events after college.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Anti-drinking types claim the university is encouraging alcohol consumpition
[/quote]
</p>
<p>that reminds me of people who say that providing sex education/condoms encourages sexual activity. </p>
<p>I think teen drinking would go down a lot if it wasn't so "forbidden," ie. if the drinking age was changed to 18.</p>
<p>I have to agree zantedeschia. Maybe if we relinquished some of our puritanical ways life would improve.</p>
<p>I think it's a great idea that's more likely to make a difference than the usual hypocritical (and ineffectual) hypocritical preaching to Just Say No. Forcing drinking underground doesn't make it any safer or less pervasive now than it did during Prohibition. </p>
<p>Good for Colby for putting the genuine welfare of the kids ahead of mere posturing about "values."</p>
<p>Zantedeschia, I'm unsure about that on whether it makes a difference or not. I live here in Göteborg Sweden and there are huge problems with underage overdrinking here and many other places in Europe. I routinely will come home from a club and see 14/15 year olds drunk on the trams and trains. Lots of them mind you. I'm 18, and I drink in moderation(never been drunk), yet perhaps by the time Swedes are 20 they drink more moderatetly than an American who just turned 21. I'm unsure. However I know that people my age on average here in Sweden drink A LOT. </p>
<p>I'm all for the idea of serving at dinner. </p>
<p>Another article <a href="http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/news/local/1360878.shtml%5B/url%5D">http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/news/local/1360878.shtml</a></p>
<p>It's hard to gauge the effective of the drinking age really. I think that it's difficult for the US to change it because the sudden change will get lots of oppositon and definitely wouldn't prevent kids from drinking. In the culture, the mentality that teens who drink and get plastered are cool is already there, and that's going to be hard to dispel. </p>
<p>My parents have never prohibited me really. Their mentality has been "drink at home" and I feel that because of their openness about it, I have never felt pressured to drink at parties or feel the need to get drunk to have fun. This probably has something to do with the fact that my parents are chinese and I don't even think there is a drinking age there, at least it's not enforced. I was sent to buy beer for my grandparents when I was nine; I get offered it a lot at dinners, etc. </p>
<p>At least for me, I feel like I want it less if it's just there. I recently vacationed somewhere where the drinking age was 18, and not enforced and for the first two days it was exciting but then it got really old really quickly. </p>
<p>I don't know how reliable this is, but my spanish teacher (who is from Spain) once told us that it wasn't cool in spain to be plastered/drunk/passed out. I think drinking is ok in moderation...probably not for 14 year olds... but that same argument returns...if you can be drafted and dying for your country, you still can't have a beer?</p>
<p>I like the idea. Obviously, it's not a miracle cure for anything, but I think it will teach students to appreciate wine/beer as a gastronomical art and not use it to get wasted. And like others have said before, moderation, not prohibition, is the key.</p>
<p>Although I was born in the USA I moved to England when I was only 8. There Kids start drinking at a much younger age, at a pub you only have to be 12 to have a drink with your parents. And although the legal age is 18, from experience I can tell you that 16 is really the age that kids there start going out drinking. This causes kids to have a much better appreciation of alcohol as they grow up. I once spent a summer in Spain (Drinking age is only 16 there!) when I was 17 with a bunch of American students from around the states. What I saw was kids that had no real previous experience with alcohol making big mistakes. It was literally a puke fest. </p>
<p>Alcohol is not the enemy, its ignorance of drinking. The real problem I see moving back to America is kids still drink; everyone knows at least one convenience store that turns a blind eye. But they can't drink at home, even if their parents would prefer them to drink at home they can't let them. Because if, god forbid, something does happen to one of their friends drinking at their house and people know that the parents let this drinking occur, they are now liable.</p>
<p>So what ends up happening is we buy booze, go drive somewhere, drink, and then drive back. This is exactly what should not be happening, but instead its the same story being told at American High Schools every Monday morning.</p>
<p>Drinking at a younger age teaches kids appreciation for alcohol and its dangers. At my High school in England we had a BAR in the Senior House that served beer. Which if you were a junior or a senior you could use after school. If you don't believe me check the link below! Ok yes, they do not advertise this fact on the website but e-mail the school they will tell you! </p>
<p>Can you even imagine a school in America selling beer to students!
<a href="http://www.bethanyschool.org.uk/sixthform/accom.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.bethanyschool.org.uk/sixthform/accom.htm</a>
(Sixth Form in England means the Junior and Senior years of High School)</p>
<p>In summation, encouraging drinking is not what is really on issue here, its the encouragement of responsible drinking, something that American High School and new University students have to be taught. Were as in the rest of the western world they already know it.</p>
<p>At one time, one of the expectations of an elite college was that it might provide "socialization" and perhaps some degree of "finishing". That is, the grad would emerge as an individual able to conduct himself or herself appropriately in a variety of business and social settings.</p>
<p>That emphasis has been largely lost, but Colby's wine & beer tasting dinners seem like a nod in the direction of that tradition.</p>
<p>i think its a great idea as well.
much more effective than all those other stupid attempts/commercials/programs etc etc etc that we are bombarded with daily. basically, i'm going to drink if i wanna drink, and seeing a commercial or a poster about how its wrong wont change my mind, but learning to drink in moderation helps retain control over drinking habits.
also i agree that its a good idea to lower the drinking age. half the fun of drinking underage is the challenge and the thrill of breaking the rules.</p>
<p>clearly colby has figured out what most parents/administrators/authority figures just cant seem to understand (in general terms, not just with alcohol): the more strictly you enforce the rules and the more rules you make, the more defiant one will feel in breaking these rules.</p>
<p>agreed, that perspective that the more you prohibit something, the more peoples' curiousity is piqued, and the more inclination towards doing that prohibited thing they have is quite evident in the "Cultural Revolution" of China in the early 1900's, and also, if you've ever read it, "Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress"-- which is basically based on that.</p>
<p>I found drinking in London was really out of control when I worked there for a bit around 1990. Maybe it was just the banking industry (doubt it) but people really tended to drink excessively and get incredibly plastered. Going out with work folk almost every day of the week and getting hammered was just the everyday thing for 20 to 30 yo's. Sometimes I'd join people for a meal, like brunch, and we'd hit up several puts before 'closing' first. Really hard to stay sober when your dinner invite takes you on extended drinking rounds before you get any food in you. So I can't agree that training early in the teen years is a good thing in England. At work, some people would be so hungover they would fall asleep and others would shave off an eyebrow or sprinkle hot pepper flakes in the mouth for the amusement of their colleagues.</p>
<p>I think Colby's program is very nice and a basic knowledge of wines is a nice thing to have in one's repetoire. It also acknowledges that these students are, after all, 21.</p>
<p>I agree with bettina. Werd and Hilary... you seem to suggest that the more you enforce something that is prohbitited the more it will happen. Rudy Guiliani affectively decreased crime rate in New York substantially by more stritctly enforcing the rules. He put up street cameras and added thousands of police officers. While obviously as hilary says "The more strictly you enforce the rules and the more rules you make, the more defiant one will feel in breaking these rules", that doesn't mean that more people WILL indeed break the rules, and in most cases it means the opposite. Bettina's descriptiion of drinking problems in England is very applicable to Sweden(where I live) as well.</p>
<p>Nattak-</p>
<p>I don't think you can really liken underage drinking to the type of crime that Guiliani was trying to prevent. People who commit violent crimes are very different than slightly rebellious teenagers. While underage drinking is illegal, I don't really see it as immoral. It's far more a rebellion against the social institution that condemns underage drinking than a rebellion against the law itself. Violent crime is not rooted in a spirit of rebellion.</p>
<p>Elizabeth,
I understand your points, however I was arguing against hilary's/werd's apparent generalization that enforcing rules is determental and simply perpetuates problems. Perhaps this is true for a few things, but in "general"..i'd argue it's not.</p>
<p>I wish they offered this for parents who visit the campus on Friday nights! Some of my favorite meals have been wine-paired meals, such as those offered at No. 9 Park in Boston. I had my first of these meals just a couple of years ago. As in many things, our kids will be much better prepared than us. Since it is for students of legal drinking age, I am for these suppers.</p>
<p>lol, this chat is neat. I for one feel underage drinking to be immoral only in that it is against the law, and I feel it a decent law becasue many under-aged people are very immature and would abuse the privilege if they had it (though I'm not saying that of-age people don't and I'm not saying that some udner-aged kids wouldn't). However, I think drinking to the point of self-destruction, etc. is immoral fro everyone. (I'm a strong Christian who believes that even though it is one's "own" body, it is also the creation of God and the belonging of God and that he (not meaning male, but just the entity of God, lol) would not want anyone to destroy it.</p>
<p><strong>steps of soap-box</strong></p>
<p>:-)</p>
<p>Although, I still think that the more rules we make about this sort of stuff (not meaning murder,lol), the more people will want to break them. Conversely, I feel that more enforcement would help lower the drinking problem in the U.S.</p>
<p>yeah, like elizabeth said, when i was generalizing i wasnt talking about violent crimes, i was talking about things teenagers do that parents restrict. my dad is very strict, and i often find myself doing things i dont even really care about jsut to defy him.... not saying this is a mature thing to do...its just the truth.</p>
<p>you guys have made some interesting points</p>
<p>one misconception many people have is about teenagers in europe. they love getting drunk and get drunk very often, violently drunk. the only difference between american teens and european teens is that european teens enjoy their alcohol so much more and dont play drinking games (they sip, but they take big sips and sip all night). the biggie is that they don't drive and the parents arent afraid to "supervise" parties as much</p>