Students OUTRAGED By Crackdown On Campus Drinking

In Wisconsin, attitudes toward underage drinking are typically relaxed -- Especially in the aptly named town Stout, which is home to a branch of the University of Wisconsin.

But the school's chancellor, Charles Sorenson, wants to change that. The University of Wisconsin-Stout has seen six alcohol-related deaths in two years, and Sorenson is taking drastic steps to stymie alcohol abuse on campus. In a March 30 letter to students, Sorenson outlined plans to more strongly prosecute underage drinking, coordinate with local police to enforce laws off-campus and even add more Friday classes to thwart Thursday night partying.

Stout students are not happy. Inside Higher Ed reports:

Some students embarked on binges explicitly aimed at defying Sorensen's hardened stance. Others took to Facebook: One group, called "Who Is the chancelor [sic] trying to kid? This is Stout!!!" has attracted more than 1,460 members. On the group's wall, a student senate presidential candidate called the decision "rash" and proposed to "take back the campus."

Other students are going to more extreme measures:

Paul Feine, a former Stout student who produced -- shortly before the latest alcohol-related death (and Sorensen's subsequent memo) -- a documentary short on the "police state" attitude the university and the town take toward underage drinking, said he believes the best way to combat alcohol abuse is to take a more permissive tack with minors, allowing moderate alcohol use and punishing excess. In his piece, Feine sympathizes with the Amethyst Initiative, a coalition of college and university presidents that advocates reducing the legal drinking age to 18 in order to bring drinking above ground, where it would be easier to monitor.

Some think the restrictions may be counterproductive, encouraging students to drink more.

What do you think?
"Kids don't learn how to drink," Feine says. "They don't learn how to drink with parents, with their professors. There's a culture that teaches you how to behave yourself you do run into a lot more problems when young people learn how to drink on their own."

Comments

[sieben13]

08:04 PM on 05/03/2010

What part of ILLEGAL don't you understand

[Ellen in Hawaii]

06:27 PM on 05/03/2010

I think that we must ask "What is a meaningful college experience?" The colleges and universities have abdicated their responsibility to provide a quality education for their clients. Immature adolescents are suddenly thrown into an environment where there are virtually no rules. The "experience" no more mirrors real life than reality TV shows. Paying clients are often "sexiled" to the library because promiscuous roomies need a place to act out. (The term "sexiled" is commonly used among students since it is such a common phenomenon.) No attendance is taken to monitor serious absenteeism.(I had to notify the dean of a college to get some action on a coed who was experiencing a schizophrenic episode. She had not been to class for 6 weeks, and no one at the college could have cared.) Binge drinking is extremely risky behavior, and can result in death. These are real experiences that have touched the lives of people I know. I do not blame the commenter who plans to keep his daughter close to home while she is in college. Our society is so driven by the goal of a college education that we have sacrificed our children to the negligence and greed of lazy, arrogant college administrators and boards of regents. A college education at any price is something we all need to evaluate.

[Clevelandinwi]

03:28 PM on 04/21/2010

Ohhh, MY GAWD! They are OUTRAGED! Do you hear? OUTRAGED! Why, in our society today, are college students some of the DUMBEST people in our country?

[jmebertv]

01:34 PM on 04/19/2010

I attend UW-Stout. The outrage is coming from the restrictions the university is proposing to combat drinking of those OF AGE. There were proposed restrictions and penalties that effect everyone as well, not just drinkers. That is where the rage is coming from

[ceegy13]

07:43 AM on 04/19/2010

"Especially in the aptly named town Stout"

The town is Menomonie, WI. UW-Stout is named after James H. Stout, not a town like most of the other UW campuses.
At least get that part right..geez.

[sngfx]

01:13 PM on 04/16/2010

Obviously, being in college doesn't make one an adult inclined to behave with reason and maturity.

To try to argue from a position of lawlessness, though, is flatly stupid.

[larry278]

06:41 PM on 04/15/2010

Chancellor Sorensen resembles Pope Benny; both of them speak with authority but nobody listens to them. That is a mark of contempt for them & their flatulent words.

[ShoreSage]

08:27 AM on 04/15/2010

If these "kids" are old enough to die for their country at 18, drinking should be legal too. Sign me: Vietnam Vet at 19!

[sisyphus93]

10:15 AM on 04/15/2010

If they demand the privileges of a soldier, they should sign up first. Soldiers get to drink at 18. Whiny college kids don't. Them's the breaks.

[drob20]

02:04 PM on 04/15/2010

Uh, no. Soliders can't drink until 21 either.

[GraceNotes]

05:51 PM on 04/15/2010

Imagine if the government suddenly decided that members of the military could not drink at age 18. How much whining would you hear then?

[izmeister]

08:13 AM on 04/15/2010

Went back to school in the mid-90s at Ball State's School of Architecture. Twenty-nine students in my studio, all of them quite bright. Thirteen of them binge drinkers, which made for a very difficult learning environment and unfulfilling university experience.

Unfortunately, BSU isn't the only school that has such a problem.

My nine-year-old will attend locally when she starts college, and she'll live at home. With the over-the-top drinking at most campuses, her going away is just too compromising and dangerous a proposition.

[JStading]

10:16 PM on 04/15/2010

"My nine-year-old will attend locally when she starts college, and she'll live at home. With the over-the-top drinking at most campuses, her going away is just too compromising and dangerous a proposition."

Cute proposition, but realistically impossible. That stance would not only stunt her development, but it would also rob her of any meaningful college experience. Good luck getting her to sign off on it.

[IUAlumna]

01:23 AM on 04/15/2010

I managed to graduate from Indiana University, a Big 10 school with parties that would put this school to shame, without ever getting wasted. I had fun, but I drank moderately. I also funded 100% of my own education. I bet there is a big correlation between kids who feel they have a right to destroy their brain cells with binge drinking and kids whose parents are paying their way to school.

Now I live in another college town, and I have zero sympathy with the Police State crap. Alcohol poisoning, DUIs, rapes, and the gentle perfume of parking garages used as urinals -- it's hard to see the up side of binge drinking. I expect the police to enforce the law and prevent harm, and I believe that universities have the responsibility to do what they can to safeguard the student body. It seems to me that the crackdown meets all these objectives.

[zeppelingirl89]

01:56 AM on 04/15/2010

I'm currently in college at an SEC school. My only problem with enforcement of the rules is that certain groups are always amazingly exempt from them. for instance, police turn a blind eye to sorority girls stumbling across campus and sometimes even guard the frathouses during parties to make sure everything is okay, knowing that half the kids in there are underage. But what happens when the non-greeks party off campus somewhere? Cops show up if there are more than 25 people. Not to mention I got a fine and have to attend a stupid alcohol class for having a single bottle of sutter home white zinfadel in my fridge during a surprise room-check. How is that fair when I see frat boys/sorority girls carrying their red plastic cups from the dorms into their SUVs and driving off to frat row every Thursday night? The cops and RAs see them, but nobody says a word. In order to project an image that they are "enforcing" the rules they pick on all teh other kids drinking habits, however miniscule.

[websUMN]

05:16 AM on 04/15/2010

Cops show up to non greek houses because non greek houses generally have neighbors who call in complaints about the parties and the noise. Fraternity Houses are all generally grouped together so when they have parties there neighbors (other greeks) aren't going to call in a noise complaint.

[sisyphus93]

10:18 AM on 04/15/2010

It's not fair. The answer is not to let all students get away with illegal drinking, but to stop exempting the frat boys and sorority girls from the rules. It's the same thing at my school--they'll stagger around campus drunk, fall down stairs, vomit in the bushes. No one cares until, o tragedy, one of them wraps a car around a telephone pole.

[uhavenoface]

08:15 AM on 04/15/2010

"I bet there is a big correlation between kids who feel they have a right to destroy their brain cells with binge drinking and kids whose parents are paying their way to school."

you'd lose your money. working students get hammered as much as anyone else. they just don't pay 7 bucks a shot for it; they pay 10 bucks for a 12 pack.

[Old Ed inVN]

12:44 AM on 04/15/2010

Campus drinking is dangerous, stick to alcohol.

[reggieb]

11:51 PM on 04/14/2010

a study showing the incidence of stds and pregnancy occurring as a result of excess alcohol would be interesting.

[JStading]

10:18 PM on 04/15/2010

It would also be an impossible survey to produce. You would need to prove that alcohol was a significant factor while ruling out the possibility that the person was just irresponsible to begin with. Because people who binge drink tend to be irresponsible, I'm guessing this task is easier said than done.

[reggieb]

12:28 AM on 04/16/2010

I agree - I can't imagine how such a study could be conducted. The reason I brought it up though, is that it seemed to me that the article mainly focused on death. That is not the only life changing event that can occur.

[KenMoore]

11:07 PM on 04/14/2010

Actually, Wisconsin is the ONLY state where it is legal for someone under the age of 21 to drink. Publicly. In a bar. With their parent or guardian. So this concept of teaching kids to drink is in fact, a total charade.
Also, Europe, East and West, has a much higher rate of alcoholism than does the US. If you are walking around with a continuous BAC of .10, or higher in some cases, you are strictly a maintenance drinker who will go into withdrawl if you stop drinking. Hence we have statements from people like Oksana Baiul(SP?), who when arrested for DUI with a .163 BAC said " I am from Russia, and we know how to handle our drinking there!". That was after she wrecked her car.
So much for handling her booze.

[Shannon Tanski]

09:40 PM on 04/14/2010

The Europeans have it right yet again. Damnit! We'll never learn...

[tr88]

08:37 PM on 04/14/2010

6 alcohol related deaths in 2 years is the real outrage.

[sisyphus93]

10:18 AM on 04/15/2010

Darwinism in action.