<p>I don’t think the RAs can do much when a person is intoxicated, but doesn’t have alcohol with him. </p>
<p>One time, an RA saw that a kid drunk in the halls. The RA went in the room to see if there was alcohol (there wasn’t) and that was all the RA can do. The kid was left to sober up in bed. If a kid gets drunk elsewhere and comes home to his dorm room, at that point, the RA can’t really do much…unless the kid is so drunk that alcohol poisoning is likely and medical attention is needed.</p>
<p>This is why college presidents are so unhappy with the 21 year old drinking age; it makes them police and, according to college data, has made drinking a much more dangerous event. When the drinking was 18 kids would go to parties and bars and drink openly but more slowly, talking and dancing between drinks. Now that it often has to be hidden the drinking is more “down and dirty” or binge-like where the kids drink a lot quickly and then go to the party or out for the evening.</p>
<p>It also means that most kids have broken the law while in college and some get caught, some don’t. It is unrealistic to think that the majority of college kids in this country aren’t drinking just because they’re not 21. </p>
<p>My personal opinion is that one of the safest places to drink is a college campus - it’s usually around friends and there is rarely a car involved. Over the course of 4 years a kid will learn how much he/she can handle. If they can’t drink legally until the end of college or even after they graduate then they might have more difficulty once in the business world knowing how to handle their drinking and not lose their job or drive drunk.</p>
<p>The drinking age of 21 has been in place for at least 20 years! This is one of those things you have to look for when visiting campus. If the colleges your kid is considering has mandatory dorms, you have to look for dry dorms or honors dorms. Yes some schools have completely dry dorms even for those over 21. But more important is are the rule obeyed and do those who choose to get drunk cause probems for those who don’t? Be on campus over night during the week and on a weekend. I personally don’t have a problem with weekend parties, but if the students are out to 5 am on a Monday that school would be off my list. No point in even wasting your money! Nobody can be serious about getting an education in an environment like that. At some point peer pressure has to take over and the students have to shun the problem drinkers. If this was a first time incident with the boy in the dorm that is one thing, but at some point your daughter has to let this kid know that he did this to himself and why the heck is he even there. Weekday/night drunkeness wasn’t tolerated where I went to school. The phrase “Hey Dude do you actually intend to graduate” comes to mind.</p>
<p>“My daughter did not go to BG to be a “babysitter” for irresponsible people.”</p>
<p>Bean60, you should suggest to your daughter that she needs to be strong and to refuse to babysit for the other adults living in her dorm. I can’t stand listening to people who allow themselves to be taken advantage of and then complain about their situation. I don’t mean to sound cruel, but I think you’re enabling your daughter.</p>
<p>Going back to the origins of the university in medieval Europe, people have been complaining that students drink too much and that it interfered with their education and civil peace. Students drank too much in the 12th Century, they drank too much in the 17th Century, they drank too much in the 19th and, Lord knows, the 20th Centuries, and so far the 21st Century does not seem much different. The only thing that really seems to vary is that intoxicants other than alcohol wax and wane in popularity.</p>
<p>Somehow all that drinking did not completely disrupt the educational process of western universities, or render them valueless from a social perspective.</p>
<p>It takes a fair amount of hubris to believe that a few RAs and some fines, or even jail sentences, is going to stem the tide of history. The fact that it IS the tide of history makes one wonder whether stemming it would be possible at all, or whether the benefits of stemming it would be worth the enormous, enormous social costs a serious effort would entail.</p>
<p>By the way, my observed experience is that, notwithstanding whatever they tell their parents, few students want to attend a college that meaningfully prevents them from drinking, and fewer still want to attend a college that only teetotalers would care to attend (even if they are teetotalers themselves). There are a number of colleges out there that attempt to cater to that limited market, and they await your children’s applications.</p>
<p>^^^^applause!</p>
<p>Lots of interesting points. Just because the drinking has been 21 for 20 years doesn’t mean that it was good change in law. To be blunt, I’d rather have kids drinking in the safe environment of a college campus then waiting to figure out their limits post-college. In terms of week-night drinking, it is all about figuring out the balance. During my college career I had to figure out that going to quarter taps and $2 dollar pitchers was not always a wise choice.</p>
<p>I asked my son about the drinking and drug use and he confirmed that he can’t do anything unless he sees it. He said usually the campus or housing is notified because of a resident complaint, and mostly when roommates don’t get along. They start spilling the other’s secrets. He said they do dorm inspections and if they find anything they report it. As he said though, he’s just an RA, if he witnesses illegal activity he is instructed to call the police and not take matters into his own hands. He goes to a public university in Florida that has their own on-campus police department. He is of the opinion illegal activity is phoned directly into the on-campus police department or reported directly to housing and student affairs by students or their parents. He’s a senior and been an RA every semester except his first and he said they average maybe 1 housing expulsions per year in the upper-level (Jr., Sr. and married) dorms where he lives for drugs or drinking. In Freshman dorms, he said you could see 1-2 a month.</p>
<p>The University of Nebraska (according to most experts in the field) has provided the template for developing the programs, education, and policies in an attempt to reduce binge drinking on campus. The U Iowa is currently using their template to attempt a change at our local culture. We are starting to see signs that it is working after about 2 years. It is not easy and is a costly and lengthy process…10 years.</p>
<p>Use of policy, education, and enforcement to reduce binge drinking among university students:
The NU Directions project
<a href=“http://■■■■■■■.com/7tpkkxf[/url]”>http://■■■■■■■.com/7tpkkxf</a></p>
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<p>I think many college administrators look at it much the same way: they quietly tolerate on-campus drinking because cracking down on it wouldn’t prevent students from drinking, it would only force more of it off-campus, creating more conflicts with the surrounding community, more kids in trouble with local law enforcement, and more safety issues (not only for students but for community residents) with more intoxicated students driving automobiles. At some schools, intoxicated students might also be more likely crime victims if they’re roaming out in the community than if they remain on-campus. Better, then, to keep it on-campus by looking the other way when it occurs, while trying to encourage a culture of moderation. </p>
<p>Keeping it on-campus is the easy part; it’s the culture of moderation that many colleges have trouble with. Students at some schools are genuinely proud of their “top 10 party school” reputations, and even at some very elite academic institutions there’s a prevailing ethos of “work hard, play hard,” usually just a thinly disguised euphemism for binge drinking (and perhaps recreational drug use) on the weekends.</p>
<p>Does anyone (besides me) ever wonder why drinking alcohol is so deeply important to so many people? I don’t mean just to undergrads; I mean to the general population.</p>
<p>Seriously, the law doesn’t and never has said (outside Prohibition) that a person may never, ever drink. It just requires that you reach a certain age before you are allowed to do it legally. One must be a particular age to legally drive a car, to vote and to marry legally and in general there is not much dissent with the idea that the government is entitled to set some minimum age for each of these activities.</p>
<p>Why do so many adults feel it’s completely unrealistic and unreasonable for kids to wait until they are 21 to drink? Is it considered a civil right or a pleasure so great that it’s cruel to make a teenager wait until their brains are somewhat (but not fully) mature before they start to kill off cells? What’s the big deal with waiting?</p>
<p>Full disclosure: I do drink socially from time to time; I enjoy it and don’t have any moral objections to anyone moderately and responsibly drinking. I did drink in college (not always moderately and responsibly, lol) but only after I reached the legal age. That’s right; I NEVER drank in high school, mostly because I didn’t really want to but also because my parents would have killed me. In turn, I made sure that my kids knew that any underage drinking they did would have dire consequences. I had no idea I was such a freak.</p>
<p>Does anyone (besides me) ever wonder why drinking alcohol is so deeply important to so many people?</p>
<p>Because it makes them feel good.</p>
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<p>[Study</a> Offers Clue As to Why Alcohol is Addicting | Neuroscience News](<a href=“Neuroscience News Science Magazine - Research Articles - Psychology Neurology Brains AI”>Study Offers Clue As to Why Alcohol is Addicting - Neuroscience News)</p>
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<p>I think*** part of it ***is that there are mixed signals sent to “kids” about when they are adults. On the one hand, they are adults at 18, so they can vote, sign contracts, protect their medical privacy and make all decisions about such care, go to war, etc. Then, on the other hand, they are told they are still “kids” and are not mature enough to drink responsibly. I think this leads to rebellion of sorts.</p>
<p>Secondly, I believe that the fact that roughly half of the college population is of legal age and able to drink alcohol makes it wildly attractive to the younger set who are not allowed to partake. It’s the “forbidden fruit.”</p>
<p>When I was in college, the legal drinking age was 18. I never saw the kind of binge drinking that is taking place now. Because most of us in college were legal to drink, it didn’t seem like all that big of a deal; you usually would partake of it at a restaurant, or at least at a bar happy hour where food was served and there was accountability for behavior. Now that it takes place underground, college students are drinking before their events (“pre-gaming”), often on empty stomachs, and in a hurried, urgent manner. While I did see drunk students from time to time, it was largely met with disdain, and I never ever knew of anyone dying from alcohol poisoning. Maybe my experience was not the norm, but while drinking was certainly part of the social scene, it was not the exercise in excess that I hear about now.</p>
<p>Nrdsb4, that’s how I remember it too.</p>
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<p>Well, mileage certainly does vary because when I was in college at a large, flagship state school with a major football culture, I saw lots of serious drinking from Thursday afternoon through the weekend, including “pre-gaming” before football games. The fact that nearly all the participants were of legal age didn’t seem to inhibit many students from drinking until they were incoherent. I’m amazed that I can’t recall anyone being taken to the hospital after passing out because it seemed to happen every weekend. I assure you that at the fraternity parties I attended, no one was enjoying a glass or two of cabernet while discussing current affairs.</p>
<p>I’ve also lived in the UK where it’s legal for 16 year olds to drink wine or beer and every weekend the streets of Winchester were full of drunken teens, vomiting in the gutters. So many Americans seem to think Europe has this wonderfully sophisticated culture where young drinkers exercise moderation but it just wasn’t what I saw. Fortunately, they did have very strict driving laws where the legal driving age was 18 and the test was very difficult to pass (not to mention expensive). American parents would really be outraged if those requirements were suddenly the norm here, I imagine.</p>
<p>Nrdsb4,
I had a pretty similar experience with the 18-yr-old drinking age in my undergrad days; you’d have a drink or two on a weekend evening, but I really don’t recall encountering much binge drinking or public drunkenness. Alcohol just really wasn’t that big a deal. On the other hand there was a lot of pot around in those days, and that was probably the intoxicant of choice for most people, so maybe the partying just took a different form. A handful of people went in for, shall we say, more extreme drugs.</p>
<p>I’ve often thought, though, that one of the most enjoyable parts of my undergrad days was the lively local music scene. Even as an underclassman you could spend a few hours in a downtown bar on a Saturday night, nursing a couple of long slow beers (about all we could afford) and listening to some really high quality local musicians, some of whom went on to fame and fortune on the national scene. It’s probably a lot tougher for those businesses–both the musicians and the music venues—in college towns these days, and in a way unfortunate for the undergrads who are now legally prohibited from drinking but ironically probably drink more, and drink for the sake of drinking rather than as part of an evening’s live entertainment. I don’t think they’re better off for it. On the other hand, college towns aren’t everything, and the statistics on reduced highway fatalities are pretty compelling, so I’m not advocating a return to the 18-yr-old drinking age. Unless maybe we raise the driving age to 21!</p>
<p>I was a camp counselor in the Northwoods during my college summers…the night/day off binge drinking was epic. Most of us were from ‘elite’ schools…Northwestern, Dartmouth, Kenyon, Denison, Trinity, etc. For many, it continued into the school year. The drinking age was 19 at the time. I think it might be a little worse now but I’m not convinced it is because of the age restriction.</p>
<p>Totally agree that the binge drinking pre-gaming culture is a relatively new problem, and a sad one IMO. It IS just what I worry about- how can these kids be learning how to drink moderately in this type of culture? And the alcohol poisoning, the risky behaviors…</p>
<p>Looking back, the college-mates who got super-drunk and publicly drunk regularly are now alcoholics YMMV.</p>
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<p>Not the next morning (voice of experience, here)</p>
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<p>I’m sorry but this just isn’t true. Drinking to excess was MUCH more socially acceptable in the 1920’s though the 1980’s, along with cigarette smoking and driving while doing both. It wasn’t until the emergence of MADD that people started to seriously question what pretty much everyone had been doing for years (ie, driving after having had several drinks at parties or restaurants). Office parties, often IN offices (see Mad Men) were notorious for encouraging heavy drinking and the resulting bad behavior which made for such interesting gossip for weeks after the event.</p>
<p>Am I really the only one who remembers this? It wasn’t THAT long ago.</p>
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<p>It’s not that we can’t “remember”, just that some of our experiences were NOT the same as yours. Drinking yourself to oblivion just wasn’t done in my circles as a rule, though from time to time you would see someone who’d had too many. But binge drinking was NOT the norm by a long stretch. I never once knew of anyone suffering from alcohol poisoning, though I did know 2 individuals who were killed in alcohol related car accidents (both were 22 years old at the time). I lived in an all girls dorm where you would have been ostracized for frequent episodes of binge drinking. My roommates rarely ever drank alcohol, much less partied all week to excess. I was not in a Greek organization, so that may explain in part how my experiences might differ from someone else’s. </p>
<p>I didn’t have the money to drink often, and I certainly didn’t have the extra money to buy drugs. I was a serious student largely putting myself through school, as were many of my friends; binge drinking wouldn’t have been compatible with that mind set and personal circumstances.</p>