A brave president cracks down on drinking

A lot of my mail is from readers of this blog who complain that I have nothing good to say about college administrators, especially presidents. While only a minority of them get arrested for stealing money and drunken driving or get their photos taken on party boats with students, most of them are guilty of sitting on their hands and ignoring the serious problems on their campuses that I have pointed out here.

 

Today, however, I want to sing the praises of a college president who not only understands what is going on at subprime college campuses, but is actually taking a stand and doing something about it. His name is Jonathan C. Gibralter, president of Frostburg State University in Maryland, and he is the winner of the first annual Party Schools Exposed Administrator of the Year Award. You can read all about him in articles by the Associated Press and the Chronicle of Higher Education.

When he arrived at Frostburg two years ago, Gibralter became aware of its party school reputation and declared war on illegal student drinking. He cracked down on parties, worked with the local police and wrote letters to the parents of students caught up in the anti-alcohol stings.

“I’m not a vigilante against alcohol,” he told the Chronicle of Higher Education, “I just don’t want a student to die.”

 

And that, of course, is the best reason of all. The Associated Press added up all the deaths caused by intoxicated students and came up with the figure of 1,700. I have chronicled some of this year’s campus death toll in this blog. You can read about the sad case of Johnny Smith at Wabash College in the  New York Times and from the college itself.

 

When I interviewed the parents of students who died as the result of binge drinking they told me they were angry at colleges for knowing about the problem and doing nothing about it. They had to find out the hard way that as long as students pay their tuition they can pretty much do whatever they want on college campuses. Administrators are too busy building landmark buildings and adding new layers of bureaucracy to deal with all those bothersome and out of control students. The fact that binge drinking causes the high number of assaults, sexual abuse and rape on campuses is carefully covered up. Deaths, however, are difficult to shove under the rug.

 

Of course the party clowns at Frostburg are not happy about the new policy and one of the students at the meeting where Gibralter announced the changes had this to say: “I came to Frostburg State because I knew it was okay to drink here, and if you are going to crack down on that, I’m going to leave and tell my friends not to come here.”

 

That is nearly word for word what my students at Keene State College told me. Students choose to attend party schools BECAUSE of their reputations for debauchery. Students are so empowered that they think they can pressure the administration into turning a blind eye towards the abuses that go on every evening.

 

Gibralter said his first reaction was to respond “There’s the door,” to the mouthy student at the meeting. Unfortunately he held his tongue, but if more presidents spoke out about this it would go a long way towards reversing students’ belief that drinking themselves into unconsciousness is “just a part of college life.”

The Chronicle quoted many beer-soaked Frostburg students saying that the party goes on, despite the crack down, and that the only impact has been to reduce the size of the parties and move them indoors. That is probably true, but every crusade begins with courageous leaders willing to speak out when the emperor is riding around naked. Even if he can’t solve the problem all by himself, Gibralter's example has focused the nation’s attention on the problem, and that’s an excellent first step.