The way I see it, Bowdoin's alcohol policy does just what the school wants it to do, and what it should. It keeps students out of the hospital. Compare the number of alcohol-related hospital transports at Bowdoin to say, Bates. Sometime earlier this year, Bates had a weekend with 21 transports. One weekend! Bowdoin will barely have that many in a decade at this rate. We've all heard how we have the lowest transport rate in NESCAC.
I would credit Randy Nichols, the director of safety and security, directly with this success. His policies work. I see calmer drinking of hard alcohol on campus than I believe we would if it were allowed. People understand the risks they put themselves in when they bring it out, so it stays low key.
Say hard alcohol was allowed on campus, just as beer is now. That means that at social house parties, it would be fair game for someone to wander around with a shot glass and a handle, giving out drinks. It happens at many a "state school" party. That seems far, far more dangerous than the current policy. It also puts more responsibility on the alcohol host to watch out for overly inebriated students.
The suggestion that we use college, aka tuition, money to pay for boozing is ridiculous. With the current economic downturn many families are already having trouble affording the huge tuition bills. How anyone can suggest that we put some of that money towards drinking is beyond me.
If you're saying, "We don't have to spend more money, we'll just use the existing College House budget," then you haven't done the math.
As it is now, alcohol money comes from house and affiliate dues. The average house member pays around $150-$200 in dues for a year. For a house with 20-25 members, that is $3000-$5000. Add in the roughly $1000 from affiliates, and you're spending between $4000 and $5000 dollars on alcohol. Considering each house only receives $6500 each year, that's roughly between half and three-quarters of the budget. Without an increase in the House budgets, intellectual programming would suffer greatly.
This is not to say the system is not without its inconsistencies. Making Houses drop nearly $100 on food per party that just gets dumped on the floor or gobbled by drunken party goers seems unnecessary. Six Oreos are not going to slow down someone's drinking, though a full dinner might. Does it encourage chem-free students to come to parties? Not unless they have a love for crappy tortilla chips and Wal-Mart brand soda. They'll come if they enjoy the party, not for the food.
Saying that Residential Life is being hypocritical by registering or encouraging parties that involve underage drinking is just biting the hand that keeps you out jail. Imagine if the college publicly encouraged or condoned underage drinking. Students may think that the school can't stop them from drinking, but the Brunswick Police sure can.
We would have BPD watching campus consistently if it weren't for our administrators. As it stands, alcohol hosts can get in trouble for a number of things involving campus security, but these only really go as far as social probation. With the BPD, College Houses would be in for a much greater level of punishment.
Jack Morrison is a member of the Class of 2011.