Sun 9 Mar 2008
JA selections will be handed out next week. Has the JASC made its final decisions? If not, it ought to consider my suggestion: No drunkards. Basic idea is that, given that there are so many excellent JA candidates, why not exclude the drunkards? Anyone whose idea of a good time involves getting falling-down drunk is probably not the best of all possible role models for impressionable first years.
In general, I find the almost annual brew-ha-ha about drinking at Williams to be overblown. Ephs drink. Get used to it. They get drunk now. They got drunk 20 years ago. (Hi Brendon!) They got drunk in the 50’s at the Deke House. (Hi Dad!) Alcohol consumption is just not that serious a problem and, to the extent that it is, there isn’t much that the College can or should do about it. But my suggested no-drunkards policy is one small concrete way that those who disagree, who think that drinking is a real problem, might do something about it. That they don’t take this chance to act is another indication of their lack of seriousness.
And, again, let me suggest a senior thesis: Does JA drinking correlate with first year drinking? Do the drinking habits of first years affect other first years in their entry? Some smart junior could gather all sorts of data right now and then write an amazing senior thesis with the help of Professor David Zimmerman.
March 9th, 2008 at 9:33 am
One learns something every day from EphBlog! There was alcohol in the Deke house of the 50s? All them reprobate Dekes ought to surrender their sheepskins - including George Steinbrenner who additionally should be forced to regorge all them tainted gifts to the College.
March 9th, 2008 at 9:51 am
I am outraged that per your headline you would ban members of the Dunkard Brethern from being JAs!
These hard-working, honest German Baptists set an example of piety and a desire for immersion that might well be emulated by incoming freshmen.
While I am not sure how many Dunkards are currently on campus and have applied to be JAs, the rights of these sturdy people must be protected!
Seething with indignation in Hood River and so upset by finding myself an hour later that I am making a bowl of milk punch,
Swart
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkard_Brethren
March 9th, 2008 at 11:59 am
Dick: Where do I sign up?
March 9th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
The issue should not be whether JAs drink or not.
The issue should be the legal liability to the College of its Junior Advisor agents providing alcohol to underage students. This liability would become painfully obvious to the College and the JA’s should a first-year student die of alcohol poisoning.
Williams College would be nuts to not enforce a complete prohibition on JAs providing alcohol to underage students in their entries.
March 9th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
I absolutely CANNOT believe you wrote this in all seriousness. Have you been on campus during homecoming, queer bash or winter study? On average there are about ten students every Friday (and another ten on Saturday) going to the ER in North Adams due to alcohol poisoning. You are so off base it is frightening. There have been tens of thousands of dollars in property damage lost this year alone due to drunken destruction. Your attitude is precisely what is wrong with the campus when it comes to drinking– that since we all do it, it’s not a big deal. Going to the ER for alcohol poisoning is seen as a right of passage, and if no one’s concerned about that, then quite frankly I don’t even know where to begin.
I have four close friends who have gone to the ER, two of whom (girls) who blew over a .30 bac. Come on. I sincerely hope you were being sarcastic in the latter part of this column. There is a real drinking problem on this campus for some people, and yet there are people like you who keep on letting us put it under the rug. Lot of people drive drunk (yes, even on a one-street town) and it is been the sheer luck of the college that no one has died yet. Someone’s going to have to it seems before the campus wakes up to the problem.
March 9th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
A Concerned Junior–Ok, fine, so what solution do you propose?
March 9th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Where has current society gone wrong? Fifty years ago those Williams students, who drank to excess (and there were many), more often than not limited themselves to drinking beer, barfing, passing out and awaking the next morning with a big head - very few came close to poisoning themselves with alcohol. Nonetheless drunken driving was then a significant problem primarily because of extensive road tripping to woman’s colleges.
March 9th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
To Concerned Junior: no, you’re off base. Going to the ER for alcohol poisoning is not considered a right of passage, unless you’re an idiot. I guess a few of those somehow got let into Williams.
March 9th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Concerned Junior: your friends are idiots.
hwc: It’s already illegal and against Williams policy for anyone, including JAs, to provide alcohol to a minor. What more should the college do?
March 9th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
1) I did write this in all seriousness. We have been kicking around this topic on EphBlog for 5 years. Here is an example from 2004. The quoted phrases are me and the responses are from Drew Newman ‘04.
See the whole thread for more back-and-forth. I mention this thread not because it shows that one side is right and the other wrong. It just proves that this issue — Williams students drink too much — has been around for at least the last 5 years. It was also a topic of debate in the 1980s.
2) Now, it could be that Williams students drink too much. But, to the extent that you are worried about this, there is zero evidence that the problem is any bigger today than it was 5 years ago, when it so bothered Drew, or 20 years ago, when it bothered me (a non-drinker) a little. If anyone has any evidence that the problem is worse or increasing, then share it with the rest of us.
3) Note also that the CUL claimed (pdf) in 2004 that (page 3) there was “no evidence” that drinking was more of a problem at Williams than at peer schools. Now, it could be that CUL was lying, but, again, evidence please.
4) So, there is no reason to think that drinking is worse at Williams than at other schools nor reason to think that the problem is worse today than it was 5 or 20 or 50 years ago. I would be all in favor of research that looked more closely at those claims, indeed, I inspired an anonymous student to post the hidden-by-the-college alcohol survey report on-line. (Can’t find the link just now.)
5) But, I realize that there are good-hearted Ephs who think that students drink too much. Fine. How do you propose to fix that without restricting student freedom? Hard to do! Having more sober JAs is one approach. Rewarding coaches who keep their teams on the alcohol straight-and-sober with more tips is another. Other suggestions welcome!
March 9th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
And here is another discussion from 2004.
The College knows exactly how many students have been sent to the Health Center and/or to the hospital for drunkenness, both for this year and for at least the last decade. Can’t the Record ask for that data? My prediction is that the numbers are largely constant.
March 9th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Rite of passage, people.
Also, there’s no way 20 kids are going to the ER every weekend. That’s an absurd exaggeration.
March 9th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
I’ll give you a ‘rite of passage (harrumphed the Old Guy).
I wanted to become an ‘Honorary Viking’. This entailed drinking a bottle of Aquavit during the course of a 5 course dinner at the Captain’s table on a cruise liner.
The Captain had, of course, stationed two giant mess boys with a stretcher behind me and had the ships’ doctor seated to my right. I did it and made it from the dining room under my own steam.The stupidity of this rite haunts me to this day and, I can still barely stand the taste of rye bread.
Oofda!
March 9th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
In the 50s there was a fraternity brother in the Deke house (also a native and citizen of Sweden) who would bet any available sucker $25 (a considerable sum in the 50s) that he, the Swede, could chug-a-lug a fifth of whatever hard liquor was handy. Upon completing the task he would immediately go to the toilet and unload the liquor. Although this action worked for him every time without apparent physical ill effect, I always thought it seemed mighty risky.
March 10th, 2008 at 1:30 am
Policy is one thing. Do JAs supply booze to underage first-year students.
March 10th, 2008 at 1:36 am
Dkane:
There is hard data on drinking at all of these schools. They all administer surveys that include alcohol questions.
Whether Williams has more drinking than peer schools depends on what you mean by “peer” schools. Williams is at the high end of the spectrum, but of course there are other schools with heavy drinking as well.
Williams is well above the national average for campus binge drinking, according to the College’s own survey data (published in the Diversity Report tables). Alcohol poisoning hospitalizations are also high.
March 10th, 2008 at 2:43 am
hwc:
of course JA’s supply booze to underage first-year students, all the time. However, I would argue that, first of all, there’s not much that the college can do about that without causing much greater harm, and secondly, JA-supplied alcohol is actually a good thing. I doubt anyone has concrete data on this, but based on personal observations my guess is that frosh drinking in their entries with their JAs are far *less* likely to end up in the hospital than frosh drinking under almost any other circumstances.
It’s been shown pretty convincingly over the past few decades that legal prohibitions on alcohol do not work; and I think that principle applies just as well to Williams as to the country as a whole. What we need is a cultural shift, not more ineffective and unenforceable rules. Tuning the JA system could perhaps be one route towards that kind of change, although I don’t know that a blanket ban on “drunkards” is a particularly good way of thinking about it.
March 10th, 2008 at 5:47 am
How will “drunkard” be defined, and who will interpret the definition against the facts?
March 10th, 2008 at 7:32 am
“How do you change the culture?”
March 10th, 2008 at 7:39 am
Ask the folks at Brigham Young University.
March 10th, 2008 at 8:16 am
“How do you change the culture?”
By getting rid of the hypocrisy and the double standards.
This country especially, has a disgustingly ‘mixed message’ about alcohol. Our kids can vote before they can legally drink. We worry, we lecture, we nag and we forbid. We wag the fingers of one hand at them, while holding a toddy in the other.
We then wonder why they go off to college and have no idea ‘how’ to drink?
Give me a break.
March 10th, 2008 at 8:28 am
And if it is high at W,( as our resident ‘expert on all things negative about Williams’, *hwc*, claims) then perhaps it has something to do with the relative isolation of the campus. At least these kids aren’t dying out on the highway.
BTW, hwc, I don’t buy that nonsense of yours anyway. It has become more evident to me, that your goal is to ’spin’ your facts to paint the ugliest picture possible of Williams, all the while pretending to ‘enlighten’.
Why it is tolerated, I don’t know.
March 10th, 2008 at 11:14 am
“Binge Drinking” is defined as having five or more drinks in a row for men and four or more drinks in a row for women at least once every two weeks. However, the surveys that typically assess this at Williams ask how many drinks students have per night , which is not exactly the same thing (having two beers with dinner at 5:30pm and three more at a party at 11pm is not binge drinking, but will be reported by Williams surveys as if it were).
Additionally, stats that reflect this sort of drinking on campus do not reflect the wide (and incredibly important) variation between students who drink 6 drinks in one night every other week, and students who drink 6 drinks a night four times a week.
Furthermore, this statistic does not reflect the (also important) distinction between a student who is going out and having 5-6 drinks on a weekend and a student who is going out and having 11-12 drinks on a weekend. The fact is, 6 drinks in a row does not approach a dangerous amount for most males, assuming they are not driving (and few at Williams drive on a frequent basis, either drunk or sober). 11 drinks, on the other hand, likely will be a dangerous limit.
Honestly, it doesn’t bother me that compared to its peers, a higher percentage of Williams students have at least 5 drinks in a night at least once every two weeks. Drinking five drinks over the course of the night is in the vast majority of cases, not irresponsible in any way, shape, or form. Students who fall into this category should not be considered to be part of any problem at Williams.
After four years at Williams I am fairly confident in my belief that the majority of drinkers at Williams do not drink significantly more than this amount on a significantly more frequent basis–the vast majority of students who drink at Williams limit their drinking to weekends and pursue whatever drinking they undertake responsibly (whether that is 2, 6, or 8 drinks in a night). Sure, there are some who drink dangerous amounts far too frequently–there are more of these students than we’d like to see at Williams. However, I do not believe that there are more of these students at Williams than at its peer schools.
Bringing this all back to the topic at hand, I think JAs are almost exclusively a good influence on their frosh when it comes to drinking responsibly. Those JAs that will buy alcohol for their frosh typically will only by beer (which is fairly difficult to hurt yourself drinking), and will then drink with their frosh or keep an eye on their frosh’s drinking behavior. Obviously there is legal liability involved, but the much more important issue here is safety. The alternative–frosh getting alcohol from upperclassmen friends or teammates–is surely a less ideal situation.
March 10th, 2008 at 11:18 am
FROSHmom and the double standard:
How much less hypocrisy about drinking in the olden days!
The legal age was 21 and yet drinking flourished on campus under the eye if not the direct aegis of an ‘in loco parentis’ college
Indeed, I think that college was where we learned to drink and behave in a socialized manner because this was a part of the civilized life-style we’d lead. ‘Gracious Living’ was the catch-phrase of the day and indeed would seem to be much-needed now.
The importance of the cocktail party as a social experience and battleground for personal interplay is well-used by Eliot and Albee.
I got my first job in the training program at BBDO through a phone call from the bar at the Williams Club, the three-martini lunch was more than just an expression, and I worked for Time Inc. in the Williamsy Auer-Linen era when you placed orders for booze through the company to be delivered to your office bar.
None of this is to minimize the tragedy of alcoholism, but isn’t it rather an individual’s problem?
I can’t picture the Volsted Act on campus.
Stirred, not shaken, in Hood River.
March 10th, 2008 at 11:33 am
As someone who has often made the same argument as current eph, I’ll add two cautions to his/her (I can’t remember. sorry!!!) point.
1. 6 drinks may not be enough to make most williams men throw up or be in physical danger, but it does definitely lower that person’s ability to always act in a proper manner for the rest of that night. Wherever you draw the arbitrary line between binge and non-binge drinking, there it is. 5 seems like a reasonable enough line–people are getting impaired by 5 drinks.
2. Though JAs may only buy the beer, that doesn’t mean the frosh doesn’t have lots of access to other drinks. If the JA buys the beer that is (was? maybe this has changed, but i doubt it) used to “keep the buzz” after the frosh takes four shots, it’s very possible to hurt oneself. Plus, from my own experience, I got the most dangerously drunk while in college and after while playing drinking games with beer. a drink is a drink.
In short, though my points seem to be incongruous with current eph’s, I don’t see any reason to expect williams’ drinking culture to end, nor is it a radical departure from other schools. It might be high, it might be low, but its pretty intractable. the most important thing is to figure out how to manage the negatives that come from such a culture (the occasional racist vandal, alcohol poisoning, the higher likelihood of sexual assault and unclear guilt in such situations, etc.) than to perfectly define it, attempt to eliminate it, or defend it.
March 10th, 2008 at 11:57 am
Dick,
I agree. Alcoholism is a separate and ‘individual’ issue, and one that unfortunately seems to affects every family in some way.
Precisely why it should warrant open discussion early on, so that kids know how to recognize the dangers, and what constitutes a problem.
I think college drinking is a reality, and the excessiveness; to be expected ( at least to a degree). But I think it stands a better chance of being a constructive part of the learning process, if it isn’t secretive and forbidden.
March 10th, 2008 at 11:58 am
No mention of pot. Is this because it is perfectly acceptable for JAs to be potheads? Pot does not send you to the emergency room.
March 10th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
The campus characteristics correlating with high binge drinking rates are well-established by the national survey data.
Location is one of those factors. Rural colleges tend to have higher binge drinking rates than urban campuses. Northeastern colleges tend to have high binge drinking rates; lower in the West and South.
March 10th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
The legal liability of that to the College is off the charts.
The College has to be nuts to not put an immediate stop to that practice.
March 10th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
The College has to be nuts not to do what’s in its students’ best interest, hwc, especially when the stakes are this high.
March 10th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
By what stretch of the imagination is having Junior Advisors buy alcohol in students’ best interest?
I understand that students probably like it if their JA’s make booze runs for them, but let’s not twist that into a “students’ best interest” argument from the College’s perspective. There is no stretch of the imagination (from the College’s perspective) that JAs supplying booze to underage first-years is a good thing. It’s a legal liability time bomb.
March 10th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
hwc,
everything is a legal liability time bomb, because no matter how the frosh get booze, they got it and they shouldn’t have it legally. whether JAs get the alcohol or the frosh find it themselves, the college will still be screwed. In fact, considering the JA is an unpaid fellow student who has no disciplinary roles, perhaps that’s better than traditional RAs in terms of liability? Do you know?
As long as there’s an underage drinker and it happens on campus, the college is potentially liable. Having a JA supply it probably isn’t the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
March 10th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
The JA is an agent of the College, which could very well be a back-breaker from a liability standpoint.
I agree that the College is going to take a financial beating if an underage student dies from alcohol poisoning, regardless of who supplied the alcohol, but a JA supplier will compound the problem.
March 10th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Who supplies the alcohol (not to mention the multitude of drugs) to all the underage drinkers at Swarthmore?
March 10th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
First-year students there all live in dorms with upper-class students, so finding someone to make a booze run is not difficult.
I don’t know if it’s universal, but RAs apparently honor the requirement that they not buy booze for underage students. I know that my offspring’s RA told her first year students during orientation, “I’m not allowed to buy you guys booze. I’m not going to buy you guys booze. So don’t ask.”
March 10th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
And, in reality, alcohol is available at all-campus parties and pub night every week, so access to alcohol is no big deal for first-year students.
March 10th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Are Swarthmore’s RAs paid by the college?
March 10th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
I don’t know if they get paid or not. The selection process is pretty much the same as at Williams. In this case, a selection committee consisting of 2nd year RAs, College Council appointed students, and Housing Office Deans.
The responsibilities are largely the same, although RAs are in every dorm and have a bit of a “student life” (or “Baxter Fellows”) function with budgets for “snacks” and other other dorm floor social events.
March 10th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
hwc– Having JAs buy the alcohol is in everyone’s best interest because frosh will get it elsewhere if not from the JA. I know that I personally had little trouble getting alcohol from other students while a frosh. Enough frosh have older siblings, older friends, older teammates, a fake ID, or know another frosh who knows/has one of these things, that buying alcohol is rarely a huge challenge, especially not for those who drink the most (and thus already have several go-to people).
Given that frosh will get alcohol in one way or another (and I doubt that even you are naive enough to deny that), it’s clearly in under-aged students’ best interest to get the alcohol from someone who is not only very personally invested in their well-being, but someone who lives with them and is thus ideally positioned to keep an eye out for their well-being. There is no doubt in my mind that this is no hypothetical situation, that frosh drinking JA-bought alcohol typically do so under significantly safer circumstances than those who do not.
To finish off, I want to respond to one of rory’s points. It’s true that beer can be as dangerous as vodka if it comes after one’s thirteenth shot , but all things being equal, it is not nearly as dangerous. The fact is, beer is diluted enough that it far far more difficult to drink a dangerous quantity in a dangerous time than hard alcohol is. Additionally, we can’t forget that pretty much everyone (especially frosh) will take the easiest route presented, when it comes to these sorts of things. Even frosh preferring hard alcohol will usually “settle” for beer, if it is easily accessible, either because a JA is buying or because a party is serving. Consequently, the easier we allow less dangerous forms of alcohol, the less common the more dangerous forms will become. If, however, we make it extremely difficult for JAs to buy for frosh or for frosh to drink at neighborhood events (and this is the direction things have been trending for 5 or more years), than all of those underage students who are drinking beer out of convenience rather than preference, will start trending towards pregaming with shots behind a locked door…and that is when drinking becomes most dangerous.
March 10th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Of course, underage students will get booze. Duh! They are college students.
So, why put the JA’s (and massive College liability) in the middle of it? There’s no need for that. It’s all risk for the College and the JAs.
March 10th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
“I don’t know if they get paid or not.”
How conveniently (and typically) “ignorant” of you — a simple google search of the Swarthmore site located these specifics on the SALARY and COMPENSATION of Swarthmore RAs ($5,280 last academic year, most likely more in the present academic year):
“Some students worry that they cannot afford to be a resident assistant, that there are financial disadvantages for RAs who receive College aid. In fact, there are financial advantages for many students, which will be described below. No student should become an RA just for the money but no student should choose not to become a RA because of perceived financial disadvantages. (Please note: We are using 2006-07 figures throughout because 2007-08 figures will not be known until our board of managers make that announcement in March.)
“How will you be compensated for your work as an RA?
“For all students, aided or not, the compensation for work as an RA for the 2006-2007 academic year is $5,280. Of this amount, $4,280 will be subtracted from your College bill ($2140 each semester); the remaining $1,000 will be paid to you directly through the student payroll ($500 each semester) to use at your discretion.”
March 10th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
hwc– “why put the JA’s in the middle of it?”
…Did you read any of my previous post?
March 10th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
current eph:
Yeah. I’ve read all of your posts. I simply disagree with idea that College agents should provide alcohol to underage students and be “responsible” for teaching them to drink.
Without going back and reading it, I seem to recall that the College’s Alcohol Report highlighted the problem of JA’s providing booze.
apparent:
$5200 a year sounds like a pretty good deal for RA’s.
March 10th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
Current eph:
Again, thanks for an honest, practical, and up-to-date, analysis. You add so much ’sense’ to EphBlog.
March 11th, 2008 at 12:52 am
The Dean changed the alcohol policy for JAs, which involved taking away JA-dom, though I don’t think that has happened.
The JA’s were NOT happy.
March 11th, 2008 at 8:42 am
Ok, so my browser crashed (I hate using a PC at work) and I lost the comment I just wrote. This one will (luckily for you all) be shorter and less frustrated.
hwc,
There are some glaring factual problems with some of the statements you have made about RAs/JAs that evince your complete lack of familiarity with the way things work at Williams.
(1) JA duties are not “largely the same” as RAs at Swarthmore or anywhere else. They are not paid. They have no responsibility to enforce school policy. A quick glance at the website easily confirms that this is as true now as it was when I was a JA (when Rory was a frosh, hi Rory!). JAs are VOLUNTEER mentors, friends, and guides. The website actually frames it very well in the terms of President Garfield’s original intent for the program. The JA system is one of the most unique and special parts of the first year at Williams. I have yet to hear of another school that does it the same way (please someone correct me if I’m wrong).
(2) Based on the above and the following, it is a debatable legal point whether or not JAs are actually “agents” of the college (sorry to put on my lawyer hat here, but it is necessary). The Deans carefully distance themselves from control over the program or any indication that they are responsible for JA actions (again, see the website talking about “collaboration” between the programs and mutal support and communication between JAs and the Deans as if they are (and indeed they are) separate entities. The selection process further enforces this distinction. Any ability of a Dean to take away JA-dom (such as by violation of the alochol policy as mentioned above) comes from an overall ability to restrict student activities, not from special control of JAs.
(3) The selection proeess for JAs does not involve the deans at all. I know the Willipedia entry dkane linked about says that they “work closely with the deans” but I served on the selection committee, and honestly cannot recall any influence, commentary, or veto power by the administration. I supppose perhaps if someone had a true black mark on their record for some reason, the person might e disqualified, but it would likely also disqualify such person for all student activities. Indeed, the choices in my JA class and some others indicate to me that the Deans did not get their wishes for JAs, because some were surely on the edge in terms of past disciplinary problems or other things (although not serious enough that the students on the committee were not comfortable with the selection). IMHO, some of those individuals made the best JAs based on their ability to relate to the struggles of new college students. Anyway, the lack of involvement in selection bolsters the idea that JAs are not college agents any more than you could claim that the leader of the gospel choir, president of the Gargoyles, captain of WUFO, or someone like that is an agent. I don’t know, maybe you could make an argument about that but I just wanted to point out that it is arguable.
Finally, more related to the actual substance of this argument, hwc I find your naivete about Swarthmore RAs abiding by the “no buying alcohol” policy adorable. Especially considering your cynicism about all things Eph, your trust is quite refreshing. I’m sure those things said in the very first week to frosh are never altered? I remember my JAs starting off with a similar pronouncement, although it noticeably changed after getting to know the personalities and responsibility of each of us. Oh, and I’m 100% positive your offspring would surely have told you if the Swarthmore RA ever went back on that policy? Yeah, sure. I have friends that went to Swarthmore whose RAs bought them alcohol. I have fellow JAs at Williams that refused to buy alcohol for their frosh. And the so-called “drunkard” JAs were MUCH more responsibile when buying booze than the non-drinkers. The non-drinkers or infrequent drinkers quite often bought too much or willingly supplied hard alochol not knowing the effects. I am not advocating for all hard-drinking JAs or banning sober ones. I am simply saying that whether a person drinks or not doesn’t necessarily determine their attitude or actions related to alcohol for their first-years….
/steps off soapbox. I guess it didn’t end up being much shorter after all.
March 11th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
Took me like 30 minutes to catch up!
Yes, my friends are idiots. No, I don’t think there’s a solution. I, for one, definitely do not think drinking should be banned etc on campus. (what would we do???) I do think that alcohol education and discussion is something that our campus does not do a good job on. Race, professor’s tenure, and sports gets so much more coverage than alcohol. I do think that for those 15/100 kids (I feel that’s approx. fair? maybe?) who do abuse alcohol regularly, not just by 6 drinks/nights, but rather as seen through the judgment fo their peers, the college should have a more open discussion on alcohol. the typical discussion is:
college- no booze for (insert group here)
us- no! you can’t do that!
i think the health center could do a bit more, as well as just general education. i do think this merits a more in-depth research, as me, spouting my friends’ stats hardly is an unbiased set of numbers.
March 27th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
If not drunkards, what about swingers? We’d like to attend.