I didn’t think it was possible to enjoy college without alcohol until I went to grad school on a dry campus. Are undergrads learning that the only way to have fun is when we're drunk?

Source: Tkaick, Christina. "I Didn’t Think It Was Possible to Enjoy College without Alcohol until I Went to Grad School on a Dry Campus." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 22 May 2015. Web. 18 Nov. 2015.

Summary: Originally going to school at University of Virginia, Christina was used to seeing and living the party life. When she finished though, she realized she had a serious alcohol problem. After getting cleaned up she moved to Beirut to begin her masters at the American University of Beirut. What she didn’t realize at the time was that this University has a dry campus. She says she was happily surprised “...that there’s also plenty of people here who don’t drink much, or at all.” (Tkacik). After getting herself sober she says that she was once out with friends and “ suddenly realized, it was the first time since high school I’d had this much fun without being drunk or high. I didn’t even remember it was possible.”

Being a social person she attends school events and says she braced herself "for chaos, pushing, shoving, the general tomfoolery I’ve always associated with outdoor university events. Instead, I saw people eating and having fun, listening attentively to comedy routines and live music — all, apparently, without the influence of alcohol. There were no drunken frat guys whooping. Not one coed could be seen vomiting in the bushes, her mascara smeared down to her chin. No one was defacing school property, or using the recycling bin as a urinal. What was happening?" (Tkacik). This was a scene she had not seen before at previous events she had attended.

Quality: This article was written by someone who was a former binge drinker that has cleaned themselves up and is now sober. In her article she states her opinion on how nice a dry campus is. She is a social person and attends events around and outside of the school therefore seeing the difference between events she was used to attending and the sober events on her new campus.

Issues: This article puts most of its weight on a dry campus she lived on in another country that may be very different from a dry campus in the US. Christina even states "A few restaurants in my West Beirut neighborhood don’t even serve alcohol — some of them no doubt out of respect to their Muslim clientele, who are generally less likely to drink. " (Tkacik) showing a big cultural difference in the two areas she has been. One where there is probably at least one bar in the area and most restaurants sell alcohol on a regular basis and the other where part of the clientele doesn't normally drink. Also she only had the experience of living on one campus that did allow drinking. Who's to say that other "wet" campuses are the same. Some may not be as bad as the University of VA was or it may have just been that particular class of students at the University.

Keywords:

Drinking

Dry Campus

Graduate Student

Binge-Drinking

How to Curb Binge Drinking at U.S. Colleges: Sell Alcohol on Campus.

Source: Shavin, Naomi. "How to Curb Binge Drinking at U.S. Colleges: Sell Alcohol on Campus." New Republic. N.p., 16 Dec. 2014. Web. 18 Nov. 2015.

Summary: This article was written in response to The New York Times’ article, “Why Colleges Haven’t Stopped Drinking,” due to the fact that the article missed something that could help fix the drinking problem, having a bar on campus.

The article provides several examples as to why having a bar on campus could work and how it could prevent drinking related accidents. These include DUIs and DUI-related student deaths could decrease dramatically,  drinks being less susceptible to spiking and drugging, which could reduce incidents of sexual assault on campus, keeping students closer to a hospital if medical care is needed, bartender hired by the school would be incentivized to cut off students who are too intoxicated, Student groups could hold events at campus bars rather than off campus, Schools with campus bars could monitor students’ drinking habits and create more effective alcohol education programming.

Quality: This article addresses many of the problems related to alcohol related accidents and backs up its data with reputable sources such as from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). The NIAAA is a branch of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Resources which is sponsored by the United States Government. This leads us to believe that the article's statistics are valid and reputable.

Issues: This article bases some of its reasons off of personal experiences they had at a school in London where the author states "the drinking age is 18". Therefor separating it from the US. Also the author says that they had to wait in a line to even get in the door of this off campus bar, saying "the wait to get into one of the campus bars—Guy’s Bar—was almost always over an hour." (Shavin). Many students are not going to want to wait in a line to get into the bar when they could get into a party and get a drink almost immediately.    

Key Words:

binge drinking

on-campus bar

DUI

drinking related accidents

controlled environment
incentivized

What We Have Learned From the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study: Focusing Attention on College Student Alcohol Consumption and the Environmental Conditions That Promote It.

Source: Wechsler, Henry, and Toben F. Nelson. "What We Have Learned From the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study: Focusing Attention on College Student Alcohol Consumption and the Environmental Conditions That Promote It." Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs J. Stud. Alcohol Drugs 69.4 (2008): 481-90. Harvard School of Public Health. Web.

Summary: This paper by Henry Wechsler, PH.D. and Toben F. Nelson, SC.D. summarizes years of alcohol research done by the Harvard School of Public Health College on binge drinking and what influences it. This study addresses the relationship between student drinking and campus policy, what has been done to reduce the alcohol problem, and what should be done to reduce the alcohol problem.

Quality: This study was done by Harvard University, which is a very reputable college and uses references backed by reputable sources such as The American Psychological Association and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Furthermore, this study covers four years of research and 120 schools across the United States.

Issues: The last study done on this was back in 2001, so this is a bit dated. The method used for this study was also a survey, which not all students that were selected for the survey responded to. In this paper, the authors include the issues of this survey. They said, "The sample was limited in at least three important ways. First, not all students who were selected to participate in the study responded to the survey... Second, we sampled a relatively small number of students within each college, thus limiting the precision of estimates for a single college. Third, we relied on self-reported responses to a questionnaire. No attempt was made to obtain measures of consumption other than self-reports." (White et al., 2005).

Key Words:

Binge Drinking

A Matter of Degree

College-level Variation

College Alcohol Study (CAS)

College alcohol-control policies and students' alcohol consumption: A matter of exposure?

Source: DEMERS, ANDRÉE, NANCY BEAUREGARD, and LOUIS GLIKSMAN. "College Alcohol-Control Policies And Students' Alcohol Consumption: A Matter Of Exposure?." Contemporary Drug Problems 40.2 (2013): 191-214. Academic Search Complete. Web. 3 Nov. 2015.

Summary: This Canadian scientific study examines college students’ drinking patterns and how their environment motivates them to binge drink. It also covers the concept of how the student’s area of residency and the college’s alcohol policy influence their behaviors. The article also talks of a difference between on-campus and off-campus residents and how their drinking patterns differ. “...significant differences were observed among campus and noncampus residents, with the former displaying increased levels of usual alcohol quantity drank and tending to consume alcohol on campus in greater proportions.” This shows that living on a campus puts the student at a higher risk of drinking than those living off-campus.

Quality: This article is backed by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. This institute is a federal agency funded by the Canadian government. This leads us to believe that it's a reputable source. Additionally, the results of this survey resemble a survey done by the Harvard School of Public Health which relates these results to American Universities. Thus, showing it's relevance to our post. Also this study covers a broad range of schools, and has specific requirements (for example: (a) presence of a Registrar; b) membership exceeding 1000 full-time degree undergraduates; c) physical attendance of classes; d) non-military or religious mission; e) public-based funding) (198) for each university in order to prevent an outlier.

Issues: This study deals with Canadian students, which have lower minimum drinking age in most areas. The methods of acquiring data from students could have some areas for inaccuracy due to the survey being self-responding. Due to this method there is room for dishonesty in the subjects’ answers. While there are sources from 2012 backing this study’s data up, the original study is 11 years old as of the year of 2015. Due to changes of behavior and culture throughout the years this study may now be irrelevant.

Key Words:

Alcohol consumption

Place of residence

Alcohol-control policies

Canada

Drinking

College Drinking