Considering both sides of the alcohol issue

The open dialogue introduced by administrative leaders at Tuesday’s alcohol forum made it clear that a “dry campus” is not the only answer (let alone any). But no matter its intended interpretation, it’s troubling to initiate a conversation about collaborative action and personal accountability through shock-value. Though as a result hundreds of students filled McCullough and continue to debate beyond its doors, it evokes a larger stigma of how we address social change: the administration contemplates legitimate issues of concern; students must be aggravated to action. But beyond Old Chapel, this campus is characterized by a culture in which a glass bottle can shatter our code of community.

Alcohol has increasingly become something solely attributed to as a source of abuse. This is apparent not only in the subtitle of the forum invitation sent out last week, or the powerpoint of poignant statistics of “high risk” drinking and damage, but also the lack of communication carried throughout weekend events.
In the event of mere noise complaints, regardless of levels of intoxification or degrees of debauchery, officers stand in doorways long before midnight vacating social spaces. It is crucial to respect the wider community and adhere to state laws, but such action inflates the ranks of soon-to-be-shut-down parties and encourages under-age students to congregate behind closed doors “pre-loading” (gaming is so over) to dangerous extremes.

Rather than collaborate with party hosts to subdue their gatherings, flashlights are waved, voices are raised and that free spirit in the corner is sternly told to put on more clothes. An aspect of shameful chastisement saturates organized social events on this campus. When a hundred students are evicted from their chosen gathering, joining still hundreds more congregating in parking lots due to limited capacity (oh Modapoolaza!), the response is exacerbated still. The dissolution of respect between students and College officials has become our weekly werewolf; by Friday social spaces are governed by more distrust than Children of the Corn.

In a response to 98 percent of surveyed students that reported a negative experience due to another’s drinking, a student solicited laughter when he estimated 100 percent might have had a negative experience in any interaction with another. The laugher is disconcerting when we so readily accept disrespect within our selective community. Despite my gripes with administrative agenda, we are responsible for socializing each other into the assumption that unconscientious behavior is inevitable. Whether or not the community bears the burden of drunk disregard and dorm damage, we are the ones who emerge from this place without any deliberate confrontation of inadequate social codes or personal sense of responsibility to do so.

I look forward to seeing how the solutions proposed at the forum are incorporated. It is already clear that Public Safety needs to reform their policies. We need to amend the process to register parties; incentify social houses to create events prioritizing responsible drinking in communal spaces; include education on dorm damage and subsequent tuition hikes in first year orientation. The effect of academic intensity on drinking habits must be taken into account. This institution is accelerating in its scholastic achievements and the social scene changes radically with each first-year class. Surely the rising rates of first-year drinking correlates to the decreasing percentage of applicants we accept. Required courses could be offered earlier in the week and later in the day to alleviate the pressure of a two-day weekend. Those who commit violence or damage under the influence should be punished for committing violence and damage, not for drinking.

The forum was a crucial step to collective action, but community cannot be boiled down to top-down reform nor bottled up in student malaise.