How severe is the drinking and drug culture at Rice, which is a “wet campus”? Does Rice’s “Night of Decadence” (NOD) still go on and if so, what happens during such events? I have heard comments about debauchery and decadence at Rice and want to know how common, what context, and what is Rice’s administration’s attitude to such.
If you can provide specifics beyond comments such as “similar to what goes on in other colleges”, that would be most appreciated.
Rice being a wet campus is done mostly for safety reasons. Our campus police department knows that they can have more control of situations and respond better in an emergency if parties are concentrated to campus; they would have less control if parties were at off-campus locations.
The majority of my friends drink at least occasionally. Parties are usually on weekends and people generally put class first. Our “crazy partiers” still tend to be good students. There is a lot of drinking of hard alcohol and lots of drinking games at these events, so I suppose there’s always potential to go overboard. But I really do believe in our Culture of Care; Rice students look out for each other. It is a relatively small community and so we take that Culture of Care seriously. I always feel like people help out those who are drinking too much. Also, I’ve never felt peer pressure to drink here. People respect non-drinkers, and non-drinkers still participate in party culture and have just as much fun.
Drugs aren’t a huge deal here. A specific subset of people smoke weed. I’ve only rarely heard about harder drugs.
NOD still happens. It is a big part of campus culture, but there are lots of tamer alternative events that night. NOD itself is a big party where people wear underwear or something similar and dance and drink and such. It is very sexualized and seen as an opportunity to find a hookup, but it is possible to go with friends and just have fun. Again, there isn’t pressure to enjoy things in a certain way.
As mentioned, there are alternate activities during Night of Decadence. The school has about 4,000 students, and I think NOD holds 1,000, so obviously not everyone goes. My daughter has been to the alternative NOD at the Recreation Center every year so far (or at least that’s what I’ve been told!).
My only other observance as a parent is that some students who are 21+ bring in a case of beer during move-in without any reason to hide it. I’m sure there is harder alcohol coming in; you just don’t notice it the way you notice a case of beer.
The first answer is really solid so I don’t have much else to say. The drinking culture is unashamed but safe and not toxic. Drugs are pretty niche and I can’t name anyone who does hard drugs, and really don’t know many people who even smoke weed regularly. Smoking cigarettes is really uncommon. Lots of different ways to enjoy yourself and no single social activity or personality dominates the school!