<p>If it’s like that many schools should be having this rule. I’m pretty sure a lot of colleges have had students who died due to excessive intoxication at fraternity houses. For example, Purdue had a student who was completely intoxicated and died when he stepped into an unlocked utility room and touched a transformer. Penn State as you said also had a student who died of drinking excessively. Clemson also had a death of a student due to excessive drinking at a fraternity house. I’m pretty sure the list can go on and on. I’m not saying that the death of these students are a good thing, but no matter what even though it’s bad universities shouldn’t crack down on stuff like this. It hurts the school’s Greek Life rep also in terms of partying and I’m not sure about you guys but a good amount of students apply to schools due to their partying reputation. Imagine if UofArizona hired a big security firm to look for underage drinking and the police was in a joint program with them. Imagine how much it would hurt their admissions in the future if students were getting arrested,etc.</p>
<p>@Jimgotkp: In saying “even though it’s bad”, you concede there is a problem. Yet in the very same sentence, you say that “…universities shouldn’t crack down on stuff like this.”</p>
<p>“Bad” is an understatement. Someone died at Penn State because of alcohol poisoning. More generally, out-of-control partying causes the alcohol poisoning and vandalism noted by 1moremom. Out-of-control partying also leads to violence, such as people getting beat up because someone got too drunk.</p>
<p>It’s not OK for students to die or be hospitalized so other students can party.</p>
<p>In fact, the idea that it would be OK is preposterous.</p>
<p>I’m also not convinced that tolerating out-of-control partying actually improves “admissions”. Some students might choose a school because it offers out-of-control partying. But others might actively avoid such schools. And parents also have a great deal of influence in where students attend if the parents are paying the bill.</p>
<p>But in the end it’s the students decision to go out and start drinking and partying, ultimately they know the risks of going out and face the consequences, as harsh as they may be, they bring it upon themselves.</p>
<p>@shogunzek: Even in the case of alcohol poisoning, someone enabled the behavior by serving the person in question. So they have some responsibility too.</p>
<p>Also, people who have had too much to drink also can have negative effects on others. They sometimes cause violence or property damage. In these cases, the victims didn’t necessarily do anything wrong. In fact, they’re likely not to have been at the party at all. Drunks have to go home eventually, and they often cause problems on the way there.</p>
<p>Good luck with that one PSU! I think it comes under the heading of “Far Too Little; Far Too Late.” It’s not just the Greek life at PSU - it’s the entire campus! I can’t tell you how many times we popped in to visit friends on a Friday or Saturday night and the vomit in the dorm hallways is ubiquitous. </p>
<p>I feel badly for parents who send their children to Penn State to get an education. So many of them are learning alcoholism (and little else).</p>
<p>^fencersmother, I think you can say the same at any big time sports school and large schools in general. Many people that I know at large public schools are becoming alcoholics and are doing the bare minimum just to get by in school.</p>
<p>fencersmother, If you have the solution I’m sure Graham Spanier would be delighted to hear it. Regarding parents who send their children to PSU, if the children are “learning alcoholism (and little else)” that seems to me to be a choice the children are making. I have a S at PSU and he has made different choices.</p>
<p>I am glad to hear that your son is making different choices than his peers at PSU, 1moremom. So many of those kids there are just there to party - and oh, yeah, I guess I’ll show up for class. Of course, in an institution that large, there are significant numbers of people who do not drink, who do not take drugs, who are not having sex with multiple partners. It’s just that there are SO many who do those things, it gives the others a bad rap. </p>
<p>Does your child live in the chemical free dorm? That does seem to curb the problem somewhat, but I understand there are not enough rooms for the kids who want into those defined living spaces.</p>
<p>His true peers are making the same choices he is. He lived in a Special Living Option with others from his college for two years; his major does not allow a lot of time for “irresponsible behavior”. He does drink, but the group he hangs with has other interests and drinking is not the main focus of their social life. With all the club activities (hundreds), Late Night at the HUB, etc., there are a myriad of things to do on campus that do not involve drinking. (<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/penn-state-university-park/650887-some-things-do-psu-non-party-animal-those-tired-being-one.html?highlight=HUB[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/penn-state-university-park/650887-some-things-do-psu-non-party-animal-those-tired-being-one.html?highlight=HUB</a>) Sadly, many students do not choose to take advantage of them. And, of course, those are the students we end up reading about in the papers.</p>
<p>I have not heard that there is a shortage of substance-free housing; adding more floors to those programs seems like it would be an easy way to help the situation. I will inquire.</p>
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<p>The partying at most of the “big time sports schools” is far worse than most parents can imagine.</p>
<p>Even so, some of these schools are noticeably worse than others.</p>
<p>You can get a sense for the campus culture at a university by spending time in the student areas late at night. It’s not obvious how much partying happens at a university from a daytime visit or even an evening visit. But after midnight or so is when the party scene shows its true colors. You can see the extent to which people are stumbling around drunk, making excessive noise or generally causing problems. You can observe how people are behaving in locations such as bars and even parties which are occurring outdoors. You might even see intoxicated students being taken away in ambulances.</p>
<p>Why not just implement a curfew and have that third party check everyone’s room to make sure everyone’s nice and tucked in!</p>
<p>Let the free market handle this. Those fraternities that engage in unlawful conduct will over time be shut down by the cost of the ensuing lawsuits and law enforcement. This just adds a layer of inefficiency and bureaucracy to the system. Yet another step in America on the slippery slope toward Socialism…</p>
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<p>First, “market” would need to involve multiple schools - this is multiple fraternities and sororities at one school thus not a market. Secondly, socialism has nothing to do with this. Thirdly, a college that just let lawsuits and law enforcement handle these things ignores the reality of the whopper lawsuits that that approach would bring on the university. </p>
<p>Some may be absolutely correct in that this ‘sign-up and check-in’ approach will not work. If so, it’s just another foot in the grave for these groups at Penn State.</p>
<p>Just let people drink. The reason why its so widely accepted by teenagers is because they’re “rebelling.” Its “cool” to drink. When you stop stigmatizing it, the drinking will come down. Some people will have to go down a really bad path and you can try to help them but you can’t force them to do anything.</p>
<p>The drinking culture at PSU continues to be a problem…and although the Greeks are part of it, they are not completely at fault (although they do make a nice target). The poor student who died was found to be drinking (rather heavily) in his dorm before going out to visit the fraternities. The girl who gave him a bottle of vodka is going to trial on furnishing charges. You’'ll know that this is called pre-gaming and is common on lots of campuses these days. </p>
<p>PSU has been very tough on furnishing charges in the past and it has had NO impact. I think they need to try different approaches to get at this problem. Who knows if these changes to the greek system will work…but you have to try. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, my friend’s son is an EMT at a very popular urban university that is not known for drinking. He gets numerous “drunk” rescue calls every night. The kids are not on campus all the time (they pregame in the dorms and then go to bars) so it’s less visible. But they’re out there…big time. This is a college problem…not just a PSU problem.</p>
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<p>Sounds good, even logical but I don’t know that it’s true. For example, the drinking age is 18 in Canada and binge drinking is still a big problem on campuses. </p>
<p>Kids are quite observant. They watch their parents and friends staring with interest at this brand of beer or that brand of vodka and then have those same parents tell them about drinking and what they should or shouldn’t do.</p>
<p>does this apply to sororities too? I just realized it only talks about fraternities…if not, that’s a little unfair, no?</p>
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16, actually.</p>
<p>I worked as a waiter most of my time at PSU, and one day I had a table of PLCB (Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board) staff and took some care to listen in on their discussion. They were up for a conference or some such, and were discussing the state liquor laws. One of the men chimed in that their own internal research (whatever it was) said that 21 was a bad idea, and the best thing in the long run would be 16 - underage drinking would be significantly reduced, and over-doing it would be tempered by the necessity of “going home to mom” at the end of the night. The table was in agreement that this was a good idea, but noted that it would never happen - not only would it appear “pro-youth-drinking”, but it would almost certainly lead into a few years of significantly increased alcohol-related deaths as the drinking age stepped down. So the long term would be better, but the short term made it impossible.</p>
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Not an issue - sororities cannot have their own houses in PA - legally, 3 or more unrelated women sharing a house in PA constitutes a “house of ill-repute”. Sororities have floors in the dorms, and operate under inevitably strict rules about parties which make these rules meaningless for them.</p>
<p>Myth: There are no sorority houses at Penn State because of an old Pennsylvania law that defined a dwelling that housed a certain number of unrelated women as a brothel.</p>
<p>Fact: Sorority houses did exist on the University Park campus, and there is no such state law nor any University prohibition against sorority houses per se. The first sorority house on campus was Stone House (a former faculty residence), which in 1928 became home to a womens social club, Nita-Nee, which became Kappa Alpha Theta in 1930 and occupied the house until 1949. Other sororities also had campus houses but, like KAT, moved out of these aging structures soon after World War II and into newly available suites in residence halls. The sororities rented the suites from the Universityas they continue to do today. The advantages of residence hall suites and the high cost of private housing in the post-war era discouraged off-campus sorority houses, although the borough of State College, in its zoning laws, makes no distinction between sorority and fraternity houses.</p>
<p>[Pennsylvania</a> State University - History and Traditions](<a href=“http://www.psu.edu/ur/about/myths.html]Pennsylvania”>Penn State Facts | University Rankings | Best Universities in the World | Penn State)</p>