Dry by 2002?

[SparkliiQTMTSU]

My school is supposed to be a Dry campus but well its not....the campus police never do anything about the drinking b/c well I think they figure its safer to just have people drink and walk back to their dorms or apts on Campus than to have to drive somewhere but as long as the drink is inside a cup and not like a can or bottle or something they dont ever mind...I dont know though maybe enforcing a dry campus could be good but I think its safer to keep it the way it is.

Nichole

[Kevin]

My house is dry and always has been... We're on a dry campus. But what we do off the chapter property and our own time they can't control. People in college drink -- to think otherwise and not allow us to let them drink within a more controlled environment in my opinion is the pinnacle of stupidity.

LHT,
Kevin

[justamom]

I can see how this would be more difficult for the fraternities than the sororities. The TG's and mixers were always at the fraternity houses. It would be really hard to take if it wasn't a universal policy.

Still, there are SOME guys who are living in the house that would probably welcome this change even if they don't want to admit it.

Hubby and several of his brothers were BG TIME serious students. They had law school, med school, vet, dent etc on their minds. So many of them got sick of brothers crashing at the house, partying till all hours-vomit-drunk nameless girls passed out in their rooms... On any given day, their opinion might have flip flopped.

What no one is saying-
Maybe this would have a negative affect on rush.
I wonder what would be more "painful", no booze or no girls?
Or, since they kind of go hand in hand, could this be one of the reasons people are upset? Kind of breaks the flow don't ya know.

[Peaches-n-Cream]

Call me crazy, but wouldn't changing the drinking age back to 18 eliminate some of these problems? National prohibition didn't work eighty years ago. I think this limited prohibition for young adults has been just as unsuccessful and has caused many problems.

We didn't have houses so this wasn't a problem for GLO's on my campus.

[justamom]

Boy, Cream, I'm so torn on that. If there weren't 18 year olds in HS, who you KNOW would buy it for friends and see it trickle on down to even YOUNGER kids (I KNOW this happens already, it would just make it so easy...too easy) I would be 100% with you on this.

Old, trite argument, but if you're old enough to die for you country-damn it, you should be able to buy a beer.

[Kevin]

Call me crazy, but wouldn't changing the drinking age back to 18 eliminate some of these problems?

Hey, it worked in Europe! (well of course in Europe it just got set to 18 for hard liquor and 16 for beer)...

I dunno if this would work so well in the US because of our culture that says "alcohol = 1-way ticket to hell". It would have to be a gradual change to be successful.

In the US though we are going backwards from this. Are you aware that they just set the national DUI blood alcohol level at .008? So if you've had 2 glasses of wine you are considered two drunk to drive. If you're part of MADD (which will always have more influence over legislators for some reason than normal, sane people) .008 is great... but .005 is better! And why not .001?

The question is how far has our culture gone as far as making alcohol sinful? Taking it to the point where people think it's FUN to be in a drunken stupor? If we can turn that around and all act like the adults that we are (at least under the law) then I think that our problems would mostly be solved.

[meheron]

At Ball State University our campus went dry this year. I spent three years on this campus where we were not dry and now one year where were are dry. To tell you the truth I party just as much if not more then I did. I can actually find more parties then I could before we went dry.

I think my biggest concern is safety. When the Frat's had parties there was security, DD's, sober monitors, and when you walked in you had to show your college ID and sign in so that they knew who was in their house. Now I go to the same parties just at houses where random people can walk in and there is no control.

Just in general I felt a lot safer before and I have been to more parties this year where an emergency has happened where there was no one to take care of that individual then when I was at the Frat houses.

Last week I was at a (Frat) house party where a brother got a so drunk he stopped breathing. There were some student athletic trainers there who took care of the problem and he is fine but in the papers there was no mention of it because they just figured it was a house party but if only the paper would have known it was a Frat party they would have raised all hell in the newspapers.

[SAE1955]

My house drinks beer like its going out of style....chances of us going dry are very slim...its too bad we can't just be young and have fun like the good ole days.



"Fat, Drunk, and Stupid is no way to live your life" Dean Wormer

[LexiKD]

I might be asking a crazy question, but some fraternities are dry right, the whole organization?

There is a difference b/w campus and chapters...I thought many groups were on an incentive plan.....

Anyone?

[Optimist Prime]

I want my chapter house to be dry that way when people come to visit they can say its the best house ever. However, I also want to get a party house with a huge basement so we can go nuts. But only in the basement.

Love,
Billy

[DeltAlum]

I have to giggle a little at SAE'55's comment about the "Good ole days."

Let's see, as I recall those days, the drinking age for beer was 18. Of course the women had hours and had to be in by 10:30 PM on weekdays and 12:30 AM on Friday and Saturday.

Let's see what else I can recall. Oh yes. You could be drafted at 18, but couldn't vote until you were 21.

I didn't realize way back then how great we had it. (?)

Oh, and by the way, dry housing, dry campuses, sober sis, designated drivers and all of that have little or nothing to do with whether college students drink or not. They have nothing to do with parties.

What they have to do with is liability. Everyone knows that lots of college kids (OK, JAM, you're right, in my case, even high school students way back then - fake ID's aren't a new invention) are going to drink. Of course when Freddy Freshman or Susie Sophomore get drunk and get hurt (or die), the university, the chapter, the alumni, the national and anyone who was in a three county area are going to get sued by the parents.

Oh, and it might also be instructional to consider how much less insurance costs for sororities than a comparable fraternity. Or, thought about another way, how much of those insurance costs may be trimmed if a house/fraternity is dry. Then, there's the damage caused to our chapter houses by drinkers. (Over 90% of all insurance damage claims to fraternity houses are realted to alcohol consumption.)

Of course, we who have been around for a while have argued and debated the fairness and/or logic of this ad-nausium. It really doesn't matter in the long run, because that's the way it is. We live in a highly litigious society. Oh, and as a side note, people keep killing themselves and each other. At least five this year alone.

Personally, I think the drinking age for beer should be eighteen. But it isn't.

Maybe it would be if we could be (or had been in some of our cases) responsible in our consumption. But we're not.

Someday, this argument will be forgotten. Someday, all of the universities are going to say, ENOUGH! (Have you noticed that some already are?) Someday, assuming that the Greek System survives that long (it is possible to bleed to death by shooting yourself in the foot over and over again), someday when all the campuses are dry and all of the houses are either dry or closed, we can all debate...whatever.

Or, maybe we can just talk about the "Good ole days" when we had Greek Letter Organizations on campuses. Before they killed themselves from stupidity.

In the end, this isn't an argument about rights -- it's about responsibility. Or lack thereof.


(Editor's Note: DeltAlum, who has done his share of drinking and partying in his lifetime did not intend to go on this rant. He was just going to make a fun comment about the "Good ole days." But, as an alumni volunteer and division officer who gets a sick feeling in his stomach when he reads about another hospitalization or death or chapter closing is getting more and more frustrated and wonders how long he can continue to watch his brothers and sisters destroy the system he holds so dear.)

[justamom]

eltAlum-Very good post with excellent points! I think you're right-One day, this point will be moot.

[33girl]

Originally posted by LexiKD
I might be asking a crazy question, but some fraternities are dry right, the whole organization?

There is a difference b/w campus and chapters...I thought many groups were on an incentive plan.....

Anyone?

I think right now there are about 10-12 fraternities that are "dry" nationally. Sigma Nu is the one I know for sure is incentive based - like if your GPA is above a certain point, you have a clean history, etc, you can have alcohol. I thought they were the only ones doing it that way but I could be wrong.

Now how much these are being enforced from org to org, that's another kettle of worms...

[Kevin]

I think right now there are about 10-12 fraternities that are "dry" nationally. Sigma Nu is the one I know for sure is incentive based

Yup, this policy came down at our last Grand Chapter.

The specifics can be found here:

http://www.sigmanu.com/chapterservic...oholpolicy.asp

As far as actual enforcement goes -- you generally do what HQ says because your charter can be revoked if you do otherwise.

[Corbin Dallas]

I know FIJI and Delta Sigma Phi are also "dry". I think they also have incentives though.