Final Paper

It is a large part of college life in America. Many college students participate in this activity at one time or another. It’s binge drinking, and most colleges cite it as one of their top problems. Yet on college campuses, especially one as large as Penn State, it’s almost impossible to control. Most people would agree that Penn State has a drinking problem. Almost all of the major problems that result from drinking at Penn State are caused by binge drinking. The problems have been especially bad during the past couple years. In State College, “there has been an increase in Wine and Spirit Shoppes sales from about $8 million in 1997 to about $16 million in 2004,” and also “the average blood-alcohol content of Penn State students visiting mount Nittany Medical Center has risen from 0.195 in 1999 to 0.226 in 2004.”(Stockton) This doesn’t necessarily mean that people are drinking more, but Bill Mahon, co-president and spokesman of the Campus and Community Partnership United Against Dangerous Drinking, says his organization would still like to see the numbers lowered. (Stockton) Something has to change in order for us to solve the drinking habits of the students here. I think that Penn State is taking the wrong path in efforts to curb binge drinking, and I have a few ideas that might possibly be more effective.

Excessive drinking can affect more than just the person participating in the activity. It can also greatly affect other people and the community. Binge drinking results in vandalism and distractions that divert the cops’ attention from more serious problems. It gives the University and State College a bad reputation when stories of drunken people starting riots and falling off balconies are in the news. We need to stop this problem in order to better our community and its reputation. To do this we have to find out what is causing the binge drinking problem. What has changed over the past couple of years to make drinking excessively so prevalent here? For one, Penn State is becoming more and more known as a “party school”, and that isn’t exactly something that alumni and benefactors want to hear.

Being ranked as a “party school” affects the type of students that attend that school. People that enjoy partying take into account schools that have that sort of reputation. When students are looking at schools like Penn State, they see that it is a good school, but most people also know its reputation as a party school. I know personally when I told people that I was attending Penn State University, I got these mixed reactions. People said that it was a really good school, but also that the students were wild here. Students that like to party would take this reputation into account, and it would probably weigh on their decision of whether or not they want to come here. Because of this, Penn State has been attracting a “party crowd” over the last couple of years fueling their drinking problems.

Penn State has always been a big school in a small town with its students heavily involved in Greek life and football. There has always been drinking and partying at Penn State. Only in the past couple of years has this partying got out of hand. The concern started with the big riot that occurred at Arts Fest on July 13, 1998. People drink in college and sometimes this drinking gets out of hand, but this was not a normal occurrence. Causing more than $150,000 in damages to your school for no reason other than drunken belligerence doesn’t make sense. As the drinking problems at Penn State were brought to light through the riot, Graham Spanier stated “I have called on the university to strengthen its programs dealing with the problem." (Parfitt) In response, the University did strengthen their police presence after the Arts Fest riots. Even that didn’t stop the second and third riots from happening in 2001. It didn’t stop the binge drinking problems that are still very prevalent among Penn State students. It also didn’t stop a girl celebrating her 21st birthday in State College in 1999 to record a BAC of 0.687, the highest ever on someone who lived. Some may argue that things have actually gotten worse since the police started cracking down after the Beaver Canyon Riot of 1998. Even with all the heightened police presence and Graham Spaniers’ dedication to eliminate binge drinking, the problem continues. Any given weekday afternoon, the Café downtown is packed with students drinking without a care in the world. Bars, fraternity houses, apartments, and downtown houses are sure to be packed with students drinking excessively every weekend. Tailgaters flood the fields outside Beaver Stadium hours before and after the game with plenty of food and drinks to last them all day. How do we change a school that revolves so heavily around drinking excessively? We have to look at where it all starts.

From my experience, even people that don’t plan on partying a lot get thrown into the party scene freshman year. It’s obvious that freshman in college are in a new environment living on their own probably for the first time. They are thrown into a world far away from parental supervision. The first thing you want to do is go out and meet people in the new big place. What better way to go out and meet people than by going to a huge frat party or apartment party, and to let loose like everyone else. Nobody forces anyone to drink, but the fact that most people are doing it makes it intriguing. They decide to experience what is so great about getting drunk, so they try it. But first of all, you can’t just go to a big party sober. It’s no fun standing around watching drunk people when you are completely sober. Therefore you “pregame.” This means you take a couple shots before going out to loosen up a little. Then you go to a party and people are funneling beers or playing drinking games, and you want to try it. Before you know it you’re binge drinking and you’re caught in a vicious cycle of this activity every weekend. It’s not that people don’t know that binge drinking leads to problems. The fact is that either they think it’ll never happen to them, or they don’t care if it does.

The fraternity and sorority scene also promotes excessive drinking in a lot of their activities. Many of their initiations and socials revolve around drinking until you drop. Now I have nothing against Greek organizations or the people in them, but I feel that the large involvement in Greek life at Penn State definitely contributes to the drinking problems here. Despite the fact that we actually have very few members of Greek organizations compared to other schools, most students, especially, freshman, are involved in Greek life. Fraternity houses are packed every weekend with students from Penn State and other schools looking for a good time. They encourage binge drinking with drinking games and contests. From what I have seen and heard, the pledging period consists of the pledges drinking as much as possible at most fraternities. If this doesn’t teach young college freshman to drink irresponsibly, I don’t know what does.

Realistically the only way we can stop these activities from happening is by putting police in every single frat house and that will never happen. Some schools have responded to the drinking problem by postponing rushing until the spring semester of freshman year. Administrators believe this will give freshman time to adjust to the pressures of college life. This hasn’t been proven to work, and it has been met with much disapproval by national and local Greek chapters. It’s at least something that Penn State can research. We may not be able to ever change relationship between binge drinking and Greek life, but hopefully we can lessen its effects on the community.

Living in State College isn’t the same as living in a big booming city. Many students would say that people drink a lot here because there’s not much else to do. The school has done a lot to make sure that there are plenty of other alternative things for students to do on weekends. They have late night activities at the HUB and places like Life House where students who don’t like to drink can find friends with similar interests. It was a good effort by Penn State, but these aren’t exactly popular. Not enough students signed up for Life House so students were put in it randomly, and the students that I have encountered in Life House drink more than those that live elsewhere. If you’ve ever attended a Late Night activity at the HUB, you can tell that a very small proportion of the student body actually attends them. Students want to go places where they can meet people and these places are usually parties where alcohol is present. Being at a party, meeting people, and having a few drinks, isn’t really a problem. The problems arise when drinking is out of control. Students need to learn to set their limits and always stay in control. That is the key to solving the alcohol-related problems at Penn State.

College students are legal adults and they can make their own decisions, but they can’t be held completely responsible for the binge drinking problem. The media floods us with images in movies and magazines. Beer companies sponsor college football teams, and their commercials are shown during college games. Liquor and beer advertisements are everywhere we turn. It is natural for students to think that when they get to college it’s normal for them to act like John Belushi in “Animal House.” When you see these images of people drinking excessively glorified your whole entire life, you tend to believe its just customary behavior.

Studies also show that when alcohol is more expensive, it reduces the amount of heavy drinking. When places like Club Love are selling $10 all you can drink drafts, it’s no surprise people will drink excessively. People drink excessively because it’s available to them. Most students are low on cash and they buy the cheapest alcohol and beer that is available to them. The distributors and bars know this, and therefore they stock up on cheap alcohol in order to make a profit. Our society has conformed to the way things work at Penn State, and unfortunately they do what they have to do to make money. The society here is as much to blame as the students in it.

I am definitely not against drinking. I don’t think there is anything wrong with having a couple of drinks now and then. The problems arise when drinking gets out of hand. Many students, including myself, go into Penn State with teachers and parents telling them not to give into the temptations to drink in college. They see flyers with stupid statistics about how many people don’t drink a lot at Penn State. This is all ineffective. None of this prepares you for the first time you experience the night life at Penn State. It won’t prepare you for the first time you enter a large party surrounded by a bunch of people, most of whom you don’t know, offering you drinks. It doesn’t help you when everyone around you is telling you to drink fast so that you’ll get “buzzed.” How do you prepare freshmen for these types of pressures, the pressures to fit into what seems like the typical college world?

My proposal is to educate freshman during their first semester. There should be a mandatory seminar freshman year dealing mostly with alcohol and drugs on campus. It would be a seminar preparing students for their first time in a school on their own. It wouldn’t be one of those classes that tell you drinking is bad and you shouldn’t do it. Students going into college do receive information about high-risk drinking. The students that receive the most of this information, athletes and fraternity members, have the highest binge-drinking rates. I believe that the problem is that we are using the wrong methods to relay information. Having people speak that have been personally affected in a negative way by binge drinking and letting students discuss drinking with each other might be more effective. The course would teach students how to be safe at parties and how to drink responsibly. They would not just be fed information, but they would be informed in a manner that would change the way that they view drinking. There are definitely people that would get nothing out of the seminar and continue to drink dangerously, but I believe that if just a few students learn something, it will really make a difference. Change is something that is gradual and takes time. It will take a couple people at a time to change the way the Penn State students as a whole view drinking. The time will be worth all the benefits the Penn State students and community will receive from such a change.

Parents should also be involved in educating and talking to their children about drinking. Parents who simply tell their children not to drink are being unrealistic. Their children will still drink, and they will be afraid to talk to their parents about it which is worse. (Marklein) Experts say parents should “be specific about expectations.” (Marklein) They should talk to them about the dangers of drinking too much, driving under the influence, and sexual activity under the influence. They can tell them how to stay safe at parties. Parents can relate to their children that they have been in their position before and felt some of the same pressures, but they shouldn’t “glorify college drinking exploits.” (Marklein) It gives children the impression that if their parents did it, it must be okay. Parents should also listen to their children and not lecture them. (Marklein) Children will be more willing to talk to their parents if they know they will be willing to listen. Parents can’t just ignore the fact the drinking is a part of college life. It will make the parents feel much more comfortable if they know that their child is being responsible. Sometimes it helps to talk to someone who cares about you and has been in your position.

There will always be drinking at Penn State. Drinking will always be a part of college life. We need to find a way to stop the number of injuries and fatalities that happen as a result of drinking. The only way we can do this is by teaching students the best that we can as soon as they begin their college career. Parents need to get involved in their students lives and open up the doors of communication before it’s too late. Penn State is an excellent school with a beautiful campus and great students and faculty. The only thing bringing us down is our reputation as a “party school” and we all know something needs to be done. We can still be a fun, spirited school, but we just need to create an atmosphere here that will bring students to view dangerous drinking in a different light. It will be beneficial to our school and to us. We don’t need to drink heavily in order to have a good time. In fact, I would argue that people have a much better time when they aren’t getting hurt, getting in trouble with the police, making a fool of themselves, and if they actually remember what they did. As much as people think they are having a good time when they’re drunk, in reality they probably look very stupid. I’ve never heard of any solid friendship or relationship resulting from a drunken meeting. People make mistakes and make bad decisions. We just need to help students learn from these mistakes and make better decisions in the future. If we can accomplish this, our university will be an all around better place. It will help us to rise above our “party school” status, and become recognized as the amazing school that we are……. Penn State.

Bibliography

*Marklein, Mary Beth. "Parents Tune in to Realities." USA Today. 17 Nov. 2005.
ProQuest Direct. 6 Apr. 2006<http://proquest.umi.com>.
*Parfitt, Mark. "Officials Decide Courses of Action." The Daily Collegian. 14 July 1998. The Digital Collegian. 27 Apr. 2006<http://www.collegian.psu.edu>.
*Stockton, Halle. "Alcohol Activity Decreases." The Daily Collegian. 7 Oct 2005. Daily Collegian Online. 27 Apr. 2006<http://www.collegian.psu.edu>.

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