Impaired judgement

The drinking death of an MIT student stirred a nationwide debate about college alcohol abuse. Everyone wants to prevent future tragedies. But a crackdown is no solution.

by Jason Gay

It's a splendid Saturday morning in October, and the Boston College campus is buzzing. The school's football team is hosting one of its most dreaded rivals, the University of Miami, and though the kickoff isn't scheduled for another couple of hours, the area surrounding Alumni Stadium, in Chestnut Hill, is packed with people. The scent of burning charcoal fills the air. Men dressed head-to-toe in BC maroon and gold scarf down breakfasts of spicy Italian sausage. Pushcart vendors hawk cheap baseball caps and pennants. A parade of four-wheel-drive vehicles enters the parking lot, overflowing with supplies for a day of tailgate partying.

In the stadium's shadow, another pregame celebration is well under way. These are "mod parties," named for the famously raucous hamlet of scruffy, ranch-style modular houses that are home to many of BC's upperclassmen. Hundreds of barely awake students mill about the mod back yards. Music pumps from stereo speakers perched in windows: Notorious B.I.G., the Dave Matthews Band, Green Day. A bewildering strain of Toto.

Despite the hour, alcohol is everywhere. The students -- some of legal drinking age, some not -- are in full party mode. It's difficult to find someone without a beer can or plastic cup of spirits in hand. Bottles of whiskey and vodka make the rounds through the baseball-capped crowd. Coffee is spiked, orange juice is screwdriven. Piles of empties collect on picnic tables.

Lisa, an education major with brown eyes and auburn hair, plunks herself on her mod's back porch. Dressed in a sweatshirt and jeans, she looks slightly rumpled and tired. The previous night, Lisa explains, she partied hard, tossing back eight or nine drinks over the course of the evening. She didn't get to bed until 5 a.m.

But here she is, less than six hours later, ready to party again -- and working on her third beer since waking up.

"I live for this," Lisa says. "I work all week, and I can't wait for the weekends."

Watching Lisa and her friends, it's hard to believe that Boston is in the midst of an unprecedented furor over college drinking. The September 29 drinking death of an MIT freshman, Scott Krueger, thrust the issue of college alcohol abuse into the local and national spotlight. The public was angry. Parents demanded answers. Newspaper articles screeched about "wasted lives." Even Dan Rather lamented a crisis of "binge drinking" on college campuses.

Calls for crackdowns came swiftly. College presidents pledged to stiffen their anti-drinking rules and harshly penalize offenders. Acting Governor Paul Cellucci urged the state's 29 public colleges and universities to adopt a "zero tolerance" policy toward underage drinking. Office of Consumer Affairs director Michael Duffy called a press conference to announce the bust of an underage MIT fraternity member for purchasing a single keg of beer. Even curmudgeonly Boston city councilor Albert (Dapper) O'Neil joined the mass condemnation.

"[Students] are here for an education," O'Neil barked. "Not for booze parties!"

More than a month after Krueger's death, the alarm over college drinking lingers. MIT is still wrestling with the tragedy. State higher education officials continue to endorse campuswide bans. Other colleges and universities around the city are reassessing their alcohol policies. Police are stepping up patrols in student-dominated neighborhoods.

But it's hardly stopped the booze partying. Whether at BC's mods, Boston University's dormitories, Harvard's final clubs, Emerson's off-campus apartments, or even MIT parties, alcohol continues to flow liberally through the social scenery of the metro area's 68 colleges and universities.

Why?

Because Boston's outcry over college drinking, though well-intentioned, has been misguided and unrealistic. It has virtually ignored the fact that many students drink responsibly, and a growing number don't drink at all. Worse, critics have been too reliant on strong-arm tactics that are both ineffective and dangerous.

It's time for a dose of reality. School administrators, journalists, and politicians -- and the public at large -- have to accept that alcohol won't disappear from college life. Stricter codes of conduct aren't enough to change ingrained behavior, no matter how many tragedies occur. Students are masters at defying rules. (Memo to BC: your keg ban doesn't work. Students hide kegs in hollowed-out plaster walls.)

Rather than tough talk and hyperbole, what's needed is a candid, cooperative conversation about the impact and dangers of college drinking. It must involve the city's community of students, university officials, law enforcement officers, and surrounding neighborhoods. And it should push for an education-based, peer-driven approach to changing the college drinking culture. The goal: stopping student alcohol abuse, not banning booze altogether.

After all, college students are going to drink. But they shouldn't drink so much that they harm themselves or others.

And they shouldn't ever die.

On to part 2

Jason Gay can be reached at jgay[a]phx.com.