Trading Hard Liquor for Hard Questions

Middlebury College likes to drink. Not all of us, certainly, but it is no secret that the collective BAC of this campus rises substantially when Friday night rolls around. We are not unique in this regard – drinking is an endemic part of college culture nationwide. But in the interest of community safety, alcohol must be controlled and policies must be enforced. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that a number of students are recommended for disciplinary action every year for alcohol-related incidents as booze and trouble have always gone hand-in-hand. What is surprising, however, is the rate at which these incidents are increasing.

According to the College’s Annual Security Report and Crime Statistics, liquor law violations at this school have increased 500 percent from 30 incidents reported in 2010 to 150 reported in 2012. Whether this surge in violations indicates a change in drinking behavior, a change in enforcement strategy or both, the results are alarming and merit an immediate response.

The administration has done just this. In a recent email released by Dean of the College Shirley Collado and Dean of Students Katy Smith Abbott, the two deans describe how the College has streamlined party registration and taken a nebulously tough stance on hard alcohol in what it believes to be the right steps towards an alcohol policy that makes it safer and easier for students 21 and older to enjoy their libations.

However, the of-age students are not the ones going to the hospital. The 2012 report from the College’s Task Force on Alcohol and Social Life states that first-year students have a disproportionately high likelihood of needing professional or amateur assistance as a result of overconsumption. Of the 50 students mandated a sober friend -— a policy that mandates a public safety officer to place an intoxicated student in the care of a fellow, sober student — between September 2010 and January 2011, 39 were underclassmen. 22 of the 25 sent to the emergency room during the same time period were also underclassmen. The updated Alcohol Policy outline by Dean Collado and Dean Smith Abbott is a good start, but we need to continue bolstering support for the gravest of alcohol-related problems that the College faces: chronic alcohol abuse, particularly among underage students.

The focus of the College’s drinking policies is placed largely on acute, physical symptoms of alcohol abuse instead of treating the underlying psychological conditions that lead students to adopt these destructive drinking habits in the first place. In other words, the administration is essentially passing legislation that is concentrated on making bigger buckets instead of patching the leak.

Therefore, we suggest that the College adapt an additional strategy in its defense against alcohol abuse whereby certain underage students identified as “at-risk” are paired with an upperclassman, who will have gone through extensive prior training, to talk with them about the realities of drinking, the culture surrounding the act and the extent of his or her participation in it. Students may be considered “at-risk” if they have contributed to the statistics mentioned above — transfers to sober friend and emergency room visits — or if they have received multiple citations in which the citing officer has made a special note of the student’s level of intoxication.

The program is based on an anti-violence initiative started by American epidemiologist, Dr. Gary Slutkin, to combat gang violence in South Chicago. Though the social pressures in Chicago are much different than those at the College, we believe Dr. Slutkin’s message applies nonetheless: that alcohol abuse is a public health issue which can be thwarted through the reshaping of societal norms. We would assemble a dedicated team of highly trained upperclassmen students and pair each one with an underclassman with whom they will remain as an informal mentor. Instead of random pairings, we would assign each at-risk student to a mentor of similar background, geographic region or interests. The school should furthermore incentivize groups in which drinking is likely to occur to have a member of their organization go through this training. Sports teams, social houses and the like are a good place to start.

This addition to the College’s Alcohol Policy that we are recommending is not and should not be perceived as a substitute for the support system already in place. One meeting or a series of meetings with even the most qualified upperclassman cannot replace a session with a licensed counselor. The intended effect of this program is to attack the issue from another angle: giving help to the students who need it from a voice that they can identify with more than any dean or counselor, forging a support network from within the beating heart of our community because we believe it to be more effective than any top-down mandate. To allow alcohol abuse’s germination on our campus is a repudiation of everything it means to be a member of the College community. We must help out our own.