Dry Campuses: Pros and Cons
With dismaying regularity, news reports detail the excesses, and the deaths, of vibrant college students, their promise and their talent compromised or extinguished. For university “caretakers”- from the president to the student affairs office, to the faculty- alcohol abuse by students prompts sadness, anger, sometimes defeat, and often frustration(Issues pg. 1). Some 83% of the students in the most recent, Core Alcohol and Drug Survey said they drank, and 43% reported some form of violence (arguments, threats, fights, thefts, ethnic and sexual harassment, or unwanted sexual encounters) related to alcohol(Issues pg.1). How to best deal with the complex issues, responsibilities, and liabilities, how to be an instrument for change in the college environment, is a challenge facing all colleges and universities around the country(Issues pg. 1).
For years, universities have been grappling with collegiate alcohol abuse in a variety of ways. The dilemma, respecting the adult sensibilities and independence of young people while honoring the law and an institution’s “duty to care”, has become even more difficult to solve(Issues pg. 2). Some 15 million students now attend more than 3,500 institutions. Nationally, raising the legal age for buying alcohol to 21 has meant the mingling on campuses of underage and legal age students(Issues pg. 2). It is a known truth that something needs to be done with drinking at all colleges and universities around the United States. What needs to be done is something that needs to be researched and tested to see what will work. One idea that is being tested on many college and university campuses is making the campus completely alcohol free, or “dry”.
Dry campuses, what exactly is a dry campus? Well my opinion of a dry campus is a campus where alcohol is not allowed in any way, shape, or form. It can not even be brought on the campus, in the dorms, or at functions or parties put on by the university on the campus. There are many pros for a dry campus, but with the pros of course there are always cons. I plan on discussing both the pros and the cons of dry campuses...