The Other Side of Swarthmore

Parent Cafe
81

<p>I am doing family research and uncovered so much drinking going on among the colonists! One relative when chastised by the local minister for using alcohol and gambling back in the day when wild beasts and other scary things lurked right around the corner between you and life and death. It really ****ed him off. He nailed the church door shut and got the minister fired. 1764. The poor minister was a Harvard graduate and by the time of his "letting go" about 30. The drinker an Ulster-Scot was older and wiser and tougher. He had to be. He also was responsible for building the church and chopping the annual allottment of firewood for the preacher. He probably had an idea about working and playing. And what about the "national guard" militia that met once a year to do marching routines and a check up of their gear about 1800 in small town Vermont and they were so poor that most didn't even have a weapon so they used pitchforks. The must have known how absurd it all was, but they did their duty anyway. And after the "parade" they got drunk on the parade ground and had a major party. One gallon of spirits was sipped by every man per month just to get by. This was in puritan New England. They drank before they went out in the fields to work! It gave them calories and warmed 'em up.</p>

<p>Fast forward. Drink is not bad. You got to know when you can and when you can't. Not a good idea any more to go to work after having a sip! We can't go by colonial rules. Not a good idea to end up at the hospital or puke in the shower stalls. Not a good idea to drive. If a bunch of kids want to sit in a dorm room and drink beer and laugh and do whatever else they need to, to get by, I say turn the other way. There aren't leopards and bears around anymore, but there are pressures that our early colonial fore-people had no idea about.</p>

<p>The problem is to know the difference. Be respectful of the students, hold them accountable for reasonable behavior....not rules that have never been respected by anyone ever. And if the legal age of drinking was 18, then the colleges could do a whole lot better job.</p>

82

<p>ID - I am not going tit for tat on this - was just pointing out some issues that do need attention - and hopefully will be attended to - at the fullest extent that they can be - ALL responsible parties included - especially since a REAL problem does exist on that campus.</p>

<p>As for W&L - at least they are attempting to do something!!! which is far and beyond what other schools are doing - somewhat out of the box stuff - and for that - I do admire them - sure - it may not work - but at least they are paying attention to a national problem on their campus and taking a proactive approach - whereas many other schools are either turning their backs/denying a problem exists. Few changes have occured over the past few years at any schools - so yes - I do applaud them for at least attempting to do what they are doing - and the information for ALL students/parents is certainly user friendly - not buried in a web site - impossible to find.</p>

83

<p>I am not aware of a single college adminstrator who doesn't pay close attention to drinking on campus and who does not view it as a real problem. Anyone who thinks otherwise is probably underestimating the nation's deans.</p>

<p>The Harvard School of Public Health has done the nation's schools a huge service with their nationwide binge drinking surveys, because it allows administrators to evaluate their own campus in an empirical fashion against a national baseline, which is useful to spot trends early and make informed decisions.</p>

<p>A school with a very high binge drinking rate and one with a low binge drinking rate face somewhat different challenges. Fundamentally, binge drinking rates are a function of campus culture. Thus, the school with a high rate is faced with the difficult challenge of changing the campus culture. A school with a low binge drinking rate needs to understand what elements of the campus culture contribute to the low rate and make sure they don't screw that up.</p>

<p>Administrators have to be careful to set realistic goals, it seems to me. For example, it would be difficult to set more drastic policies than those at Earlham -- a totally dry campus where alcohol is just plain prohibited in any shape or form for any student at any time, period. Earlham reports a 30% binge drinking rate. Administrators at similar schools with binge drinking rates may have to accept that it might be difficult to achieve signficant reductions, no matter how restrictive a policy is implemented. </p>

<p>Those administrators might be well-served to focus efforts on incoming freshmen -- such as dry Orientation Week, mixed dorms with upperclass students who don't drink excessively as role models, etc. This is actually the "social norms" marketing Mini refers to, but in a more integrated appoach than the typical posters with drinking stats stapled up around campus. The most effective "social norms" marketing occurs when campus student leaders make clear what is acceptable behavior and not, in a variety of means including newspaper editorials, RAs identifying problem groups in discussions with the deans, etc.</p>

<p>Those administrators might also be well-served to identify the groups and individuals who disrupt the campus with excessive drinking and focus their efforts accordingly. They especially need to be careful that these groups not achieve the critical mass sufficient to change the culture on campus.</p>

84

<p>If you want a somewhat accurate (and ugly) picture of drinking on campus, head on over to campusdirt.com. Read the quotes under "Social Life." </p>

<p>Now I know everyone will probably discredit campusdirt. But, of all those sites it's the only one where you know they actually talked with real students at these schools.</p>

<p>You'll be astonished at how many times the words "pre-game" and "pre-party" show up. The ultimate binge activitiy.</p>

<p>And yes, it was really bad for the one ivy I looked up too.</p>

85

<p>I know we keep saying this, but drinking is not a new thing. My sister said when she was at Penn (back in the day....1970s) all they did was drink! I, personally, wiped out my entire dorm floor at large state university mixing up our secret family recipe for Union League punch in a trashcan!<br>
S and I just finished a recruiting weekend at Williams. His impression is that there are a lot of small groups sitting around having a few beers than there are big, drunken parties. His roommate (being recruited in a different sport) was fed much alcohol on his Harvard recruiting visit. Since my son's sport is in season, he is not seeing as much alcohol as he might otherwise during the visits.</p>

86

<p>Sorry for the semi-hijack, but I couldn't bring myself to read all 5 pages, no doubt half of which are based on apocryphal stories of: "When I was in college" or "I hear about such and such place". </p>

<p>MomofWildChild- I can tell you, drinking is still a huge social activity for Penn students- but it's nowhere near the stories I get told about even as recently as the early nineties, though one can never guarantee stories of past years are completely true... I do know, however, that student groups on campuses are held accountable for the reputations their groups recieved in the 60s and 70s. </p>

<p>I think Penn has done an excellent job of focusing on student safety and responsibility rather than a strict no-tolerance policy which, IMHO, only serves to force student activities underground and thus more likely to consist of binge drinking and a desire to avoid trouble rather than protect their friends' best interests.</p>

<p>I am frustrated, however, by current changes. The school is sending mixed messages to the students versus groups. They tell students that it is more important to be safe than sober by advertising that the majority of Penn students drink 0-4 when they go out, and by promising immunity for students who bring drunk friends to the hospital for their own safety. </p>

<p>Conversely, the message to student groups is that there must be zero tolerance amongst their own administrations, effectively placing the honus for preventing drinking on 18-21 year olds. It's ridiculous to expect a 19 year old in charge of a student group to tell other 19-20 year olds, or even 21 year old members of the group not to drink. </p>

<p>Not to mention the actual "rules" being given to student groups are sketchy at best- it can be interpreted that a student group could lose funding if a 21 year old student sends an email to a listserv announcing they are going to a bar, and would any other 21 year olds like to join them. Not to sound conspiracy theorist, but how long can that last before a student is not allowed to send a private email from their .edu account to a friend asking if they want to go to a bar?</p>

<p>I can see both sides to the issue of drinking on college campuses, after all, in the day and age when no one is held personally responsible for their own actions (it's always the school's fault, parent's fault, hollywood's fault, etc), schools have to distance themselves from culpability. By creating a culture of safety rather than security and legality, they are opening themselves up to lawsuits. But I think it is ludicrious to place all blame, through hard to interpret rules, on students who have volunteered to take leadership roles in groups.</p>