<p>I don't see much about the social houses on the Midd website- any information would be great- seems like there are 5 and they are co-ed, but how big, how influential, or elitist, etc. Thanks!</p>
<p>I’m just a parent, but my impression is that the parties are generally open to everyone and joining isn’t generally difficult. I don’t think it matters socially if you are in one or not. One house is more artsy, one more hipster----each has it’s focus. The college P…website has some info. about them.</p>
<p>I am resurrecting this thread… </p>
<p>Apparently there have been some rule changes this year (that haven’t really been announced exactly). But Public Safety has put the quite the kabosh on any kind of partying this year thus far. I refer people to read Midd’s online version of their paper to follow the creation of a task force on alcohol and student life, as well as some editorials about how the school is literally taking the practical application of the word social out of social houses.</p>
<p>Middlebury is an incredibly rigorous school. Public Safety should reserve their intrusions to actual public safety and not 15 kids hanging out in a suite or make the rules so intense that there is far more incentive to break the rules than to follow them. Lighten up Middlebury.</p>
<p>General link: [Middlebury</a> Campus](<a href=“http://middleburycampus.com/]Middlebury”>http://middleburycampus.com/)
Opinion: [Fight</a> for the right to party | Middlebury Campus](<a href=“http://middleburycampus.com/node/169]Fight”>http://middleburycampus.com/node/169)
[Swarthmore</a> alcohol and drug policy | Middlebury Campus](<a href=“http://middleburycampus.com/node/101]Swarthmore”>http://middleburycampus.com/node/101)</p>
<p>Middblog info on task force</p>
<p>[College</a> to create Task Force on Alcohol and Student Life | MiddBlog](<a href=“http://midd-blog.com/2011/09/27/college-to-create-task-force-on-alcohol-and-student-life/]College”>http://midd-blog.com/2011/09/27/college-to-create-task-force-on-alcohol-and-student-life/)</p>
<p>I agree. Middlebury is intense, and is in Vermont. Campus safety seems to be way too much for my law abiding student (cited $50.00 tonight for unpacking her car during pouring rain…hmmm I wish they had offered to help her rather than make her miserable!) and her suite was cited for a party while she was asleep. Lots of good up there, but administration and study abroad offices seem to be challenging.</p>
<p>In what way is the study abroad office challenging?</p>
<p>It seems that studying abroad at a non-Midd program, which includes all the English speaking programs, requires a bit more of a process for approval (unlike Amherst which has a ‘no petition required’ list.) Just seems to add more stress.</p>
<p>My S couldn’t believe how much was involved in applying. Most people manage to do it, but another drag.</p>
<p>Both my sons have been charged $$$ for the misdeeds of others. Hard to rat on who did something when you were behind a closed door asleep. They need to get some cameras and make the actual miscreants pay.Really annoying when you have to count your pennies to get bills for things you had no part of.Plus unfair.</p>
<p>My feeling about the Midd administration so far is that they are overly self-righteous and believe very strongly in group punishments.</p>
<p>At the welcome parents speech 2 years ago the President, Ron Liebiwitz, spoke for 15 minutes about Midd’s alcohol policy and how our children would be held responsible for violating those policies. It was both annoying and boring.
A) I had no intention of drinking on campus at Midd personally.
B) It didn’t seem the proper venue or audience for a harangue.</p>
<p>Anyway, right now it seems they are on the upswing of an enforcement pendulum.</p>
<p>Self-righteous? Well I suppose if you had a first-year student disappear for four months and then found in the Otter Creek (2008), you might try to address concerns by parents who, perhaps unlike yourself, asked (and still ask) repeatedly about alcohol policy on campus due to that tragedy. Responses on this thread highlight the problem: public safety is seen as too strict, but then others complain that there is not enough policing and cameras are needed. So which is it? Severe crackdown to reduce dorm damage and get the “miscreants” or let up to reduce all that self-righteousness?</p>
<p>Look panther, there’s a time and a place for a talk like that. The convocation speech isn’t one of them.</p>
<p>I think it best to crack down on serious offenders and people actually doing something wrong, instead of zero tolerance for every social gathering that hasn’t pulled a permit.</p>
<p>The world unfortunately contains alcohol and a variety of other substances which in the wrong hands can be toxic. It’s terrible that a student left a party alone in the middle of winter drunk and died for his mistake. Unfortunately this happens periodically at most colleges. More policing doesn’t always lead to fewer problems.</p>
<p>In fact, zero tolerance alcohol policies have lead to MORE severe intoxication incidents, because people are afraid they’ll get in trouble so they hide from the light.</p>
<p>I am of the age that we could all drink legally at 18. I don’t see that raising the drinking age has decreased collegiate drunkeness.</p>
<p>I really abhor property damage as sport. And it bugs me to no end when entitled folk think as long as you can get away with things, it’s all good. There’s absolutely no integrity on that one. But I don’t know how you hold people responsible when no one accepts responsibility or acts responsibly. I don’t think cameras are the answer… more policing and more things, expensive things, to be damaged on that one. But when kids break new trees cuz they can? There is something wrong here that happened long before they got to college. </p>
<p>But I also know kids who before they went to Midd would take ownership etc, but when threatened with expulsion because other people are partying in your suite? I can understand the desire to run whenever you hear public safety is around. </p>
<p>But here’s the thing… you shouldn’t have to pull a party permit to have 15 people gather in one place and just because it sometimes happen that parties are ORGANIC in nature shouldn’t automatically mean you’re irresponsible or that you’ve willfully broken some rule. Public safety should concern themselves with public safety… ticketing someone for unloading their car in the rain leads me to believe there had to be SOMETHING else going on here, but the truth is… on the very last day of finals last year with kids packing up to go home, public safety thought the middle of an afternoon celebratory beer between four guys was reason enough to give out citations. Where is the flippin humanity in this? They were all 20 and 21 years of age. Obviously, the 21 year olds were not ticketed, but still… it seems woefully mean spirited after a week of finals.</p>
<p>And I understand the concern for disappearing kids… truly I do. But things have changed radically since then and not in a concerned way, but in a “we’re going to shut down the party every single chance we get” kind of way. And as a parent that also was able to drink at 18, this zealousness mostly just leads kids to go dangerously underground. And frankly… it is exactly that kind of “hide it” mentality that causes most kids to over-drink. When I was in school as a freshman, we’d go to parties and of course, the upper classmen would be there and offered a perfectly good example of learning to drink (or not) from your more experienced peers. I never even heard of a kid with alcohol poisoning in my young adult life… ever. That’s not to say it didn’t happen, but now it’s almost some rite of passage to get carted off to the ER for the stupid freshman. But that’s not just at Midd, but a problem nationwide.</p>
<p>I don’t promote underage drinking or drug use. Not at all. But I would like to see that the rules be such that kids can actually SOCIALIZE without getting into huge trouble at the smallest thing. It bothers me that kids are being encouraged to run instead of encouraged to create a partnership between the school and these adult students. Hard to believe they can die in a war and yet not have a reasonable party. And the thing is… this “no party” mentality extends to the 21 and over set, which is ridiculous.</p>
<p>Of course I agree with you, Moda. There should be a way to avoid the “Us vs them” state that currently exists.</p>
<p>So who are we angry at, those who are hired to enforce the rules, those who make the rules, those who break/abuse the rules, or those who relaxed the rules?</p>
<p>I am upset with public safety acting like their role is gestapo. There are no “relaxed” rules - quite the opposite, in fact and getting tighter every year, even for those 21! Parents of prospective freshman might like this, but Midd is no slacker school. It is no where NEAR a party school, nor would I want it to be. But these kids work incredibly hard and being in a very remote and small town, they have few options that doesn’t put them in a car, which I really don’t want. I just think they should be allowed to have some autonomy in their social lives and tightening the noose around the necks of the social houses make for very limited outlets.</p>
<p>What’s equally ironic, when some have inquired to be on this Alcohol task force or at least involved, the time commitment put forth is so considerable that it makes it impossible for the busy upper classman. So basically they’re looking for people who have nothing else on their plates? Not sure that would ever represent the Midd majority. </p>
<p>And I am not “angry” at anyone. Frustrated perhaps. But it seems to me that if there is property damage going on… you’d be far more likely to get cooperation if you actually worked to develop a mutually respectful relationship with these adults vs showing up every time a group of 20 year olds got a 12 pack just to “bust” them. And truth is… busting would be one thing… confiscating their beer would be another… but when the end result could go on your permanent record adversely affecting (or is it effecting - I never get this one right) admissions to grad school etc. Heck, I’d run too!</p>
<p>OldbatesieDoc: I may be misremembering the specifics, but I thought that Ron Leibiwitz was one of the few College presidents who was trying to rally support for lowering the drinking age, citing that there is more binge drinking now than there was when the legal age was 18? There were some other prominent schools also supporting the idea. Maybe it was another admin person at Midd, but I am sure it was someone at Midd spearheading it. It came up in the last three years or so and my alum husband made a point of telling me about it. Maybe it came out after the lovely Midd Kids video?!</p>
<p>(not to jump on the question to Oldbatesie) But </p>
<p>John McCardell, President Emeritus of Middlebury College and Founder of Choose Responsibility was the engine behind the Amethyst Initiative and Liebowitz has signed the President statement, along with 135 other college presidents including Dartmouth, Duke and Pomona. Not sure how active the organization is now that McCardell is President of Swanee, especially since it’s not on the signatory list. </p>
<p>I appreciate Liebowitz’s willingness to have “open” conversation, but yet it seems there’s more talking than walking the walk perhaps? Not sure.
[Amethyst</a> Initiative » Welcome to the Amethyst Initiative](<a href=“www.amethystinitiative.org is Expired or Suspended.”>http://www.amethystinitiative.org/)</p>
<p>In my experience, it is not the hard core party-ers who get caught, rather it is those not well practiced in hiding from authorities. Driving social life underground will only encourage binge drinking and driving to secret destinations. The patrols would not have prevented two people from drinking excessive shots in private which, from what I read, was the alcohol involved in that very sad case in 2008. I’d rather the kids felt they could go to campus safety for help, not feel a need to hide. I found the Swarthmore policy described in the poster’s link above very enlightening. Socializing is a very important part of college life, and I hope to hear of some great, inclusive parties at the social houses soon.</p>
<p>I’ve written 4 different responses to the comments, and really have decided I can’t post them. I can assure you, I have data that I base these opinions on.</p>
<p>I don’t like the Midd administration. They really aren’t a conciliatory or inviting group of people.</p>
<p>Saying that, it wouldn’t keep me from applying or attending. It’s still a great school. The professors and the other students really have a bigger impact on the overall college experience than the administration. The phenomenal choice of classes, facilities, alumni network etc are top of the line.</p>
<p>But I remember fondly the late James Carignan, the Dean of Students at Bates when I was there, eating dinner at his house, and feeling like he really cared about my college experience and oddball opinions. Somehow I doubt this is happening at Midd.</p>
<p>They don’t have to be the enemy. Their excuse is that this is necessary and the ends justify the means. I think if college students are adults, different tactics are more desirable, and more effective. And this crack down will result, as abcd suggests, in more serious problems, not fewer.</p>
<p>^Agree with both the above posts in their entirety.</p>
<p>Parents should become accustomed to Vermont state law on alcohol and serving minors before they pontificate on and on as to how it used to be in the grand old days when they were in college why it just can’t be that way today.</p>
<p>Quite seriously, Vermont laws are the toughest in the state when it comes to possession and serving those under 21. Those are the realities within which the Middlebury admin, public safety, the police, and liquor inspectors operate. Unlike neighboring states, the state liquor inspector can (and has all too often) appear on campus, which is private property, with simply “probable cause” for serving minors as the legal bar. In most states, the bar is higher, the impact of which is the inspector comes on campus and has the authority to end parties (and does), press charges, and hold students liable for serving under-21 year olds. Fines are not uncommon, and that is why fewer and fewer students want the responsibility of hosting parties in Vermont. The College becomes liable directly and indirectly. The University of Vermont went dry a few years back because it was impossible to police their residence halls with this bar of accountability and did not want the liability. One can only get alcohol legally in limited parts of the student center at UVM.</p>
<p>Look at the charges coming out of the tragedy at Norwich University this past weekend — where a first-year student died and two others are in ICU as a result of drinking and driving at 1 a.m. Both the driver and the 20-year old who hosted the party (and was therefore responsible for the underage drinking) were charged with multiple felonies.</p>
<p>The administration and public safety might appear self-righteous as claimed, and they might appear to not want “kids to have fun,” but things are very different from when today’s parents went to college. Laws have changed (like it or not), and those are constraints under which those responsible for students today must operate. All the more policed and prosecuted in Vermont than elsewhere. Surely you are not suggesting the college teach its students to shun the law, are you? So suggest solutions rather than taking easy potshots; it is clear this is a national problem, made somewhat harder on student social life in Vermont with its laws and Middlebury’s isolation.</p>