by Anonymous
Centre’s administration has become substantially more aggressive in their efforts to crack down on parties and drinking. Last fall, they changed rules to ban closed cups, and this year, DPS has started consistently shutting down parties and pre-games at students’ places of residence. In this article, I hope to be a voice of the people by validating some student complaints about the rules and disproving the assumption that their frustration is born out of immaturity or a desire to drink heavily on a regular basis. I will also be examining why Centre’s unique campus does not lend itself to the current rules.
I want to start by first talking about the idea of partying in college. College is known as a place where parties happen so what I want to know is: why is it important? In many ways, students have an innate desire to act against structures in place. A student I spoke with expanded on this idea, saying, “College is a place where kids can explore what they think it means to be an adult with fewer immediate consequences.” I think the important part of that quote is the last two words. Immediate consequences used to entail a slap on the wrist at worst, and a bad hangover at best. Now, with DPS being stricter on drinking and members of administration’s looming presence, the consequences of independence for the first time could be more long-term. It could involve being denied from a graduate program due to an alcohol citation.
In addition to this risk, safe drinking habits on campus are absolutely not helped by the restrictions. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism states that alcohol is linked to declining grades, memory loss, and lethargy. These are long-term effects that can be learned through experience and maturity. As students progress through their undergraduate years, their priorities shift. While they may find themselves drinking more than they intended from time to time, overall their goal is no longer to get plastered every weekend. I think many upperclassmen can attest to the fact that being hungover every weekend starts to grow tiring as they get older. There is no rule or curriculum that can teach this lesson better than trial and error. With this in mind, I think the most important priority should be to make Centre a safe space to do so.
When I began writing this article, I started doing some outside research about the policies at other colleges about drinking and partying. Every source I found talked about the benefits of stricter alcohol policies and how they greatly decreased binge drinking and property damage. As I conducted my research, I struggled to find relevant articles. Everything I read was about big state schools and public universities. I tried refining my searches by adding key terms like “small” and “liberal arts,” but I had no luck. The problem with this, of course, is the fact that the partying that students engage in at Centre College is vastly different from partying that students engage in at a school like UK or Clemson. Even with my unsubstantial research, I visited the websites of some of the schools mentioned and read their alcohol policies which surprisingly, did not differ too much from Centre’s. I was confused because you do not need to be a professional researcher to find that students at other universities do not drink significantly less than Centre students; in fact, I would argue that many students who go to bigger schools would find Centre’s party scene relatively tame. In light of this standstill, I turned my attention to the ways in which parties differ from school to school.
The biggest and most distinct difference that I found is that most students at bigger schools do not party on campus. In fact, many students do not even spend time on their campus when they are not in class. Most college towns have a reliable group of local bars that can only stay in business by turning a blind eye to an obviously fake ID and letting eighteen year olds blow their college savings on vodka cranberries. With Danville’s options being limited to Bricks and Morley’s, there is significantly more on-campus drinking and partying compared to the majority of schools in the US. It is this which causes Centre students to feel the rules more than the average college student attending a big state school would. I spoke to a student at the University of Georgia and asked her how she was affected by the alcohol policies there. “I never have to worry about it since I’m only on campus for classes,” was her only response. I changed my question to try and compare her experience to that of a Centre student by asking if she felt the rules more during her freshman year when she was required to live on campus. “They don’t really care at all.” I spoke to her for a few more minutes while she told me about various themed parties she has had at her apartment in the past and that she has attended. She and her peers have a safe place to consume alcohol around people they trust which is not subject to being shut down by the UGA campus police and in which they do not have to worry about an alcohol citation, which could significantly affect their future. The fact of the matter is that Centre is in the minority of schools which offer on-campus housing all four years, so if DPS has made it their mission to shut down any parties they hear, this is something that could potentially affect students for as many as four years. With the majority of students being at the age when most other college students would be living in an apartment free of campus rules, they are understandably frustrated at having their agency taken away.
All of this being said, I am going to switch gears entirely and address some of the reasoning behind the strict drinking rules and do my best to offer up solutions that I think would benefit students as well as the health and safety of the campus as a whole. I am going to say something which might surprise some readers, and that is that I understand why Centre wants to limit heavy drinking and partying as much as possible. Everything that I have mentioned heretofore could be turned right back around as an argument for the policies. The fact that students party on campus so frequently increases the risk of property damage and could make Centre liable for accidents that occur. I remember a time when you could see two or three fallen light poles during your walk to brunch on a Saturday morning. Last year, there was one injury that I knew about and likely more that I didn’t. Additionally, alcohol greatly increases the chances of sexual misconduct, which was a big issue in 2022 when there was not a Title IX coordinator on campus. Reducing the amount of alcohol consumed on campus is an obvious course of action in response to these issues.
I do not have a solution to unhealthy alcohol habits and dangerous repercussions. However, I do have some ideas of how to use Centre’s small campus to benefit students and make the campus safer. Students at Centre are comparatively in a good position to party for the first time as they are always within five to ten minutes of their residence hall. Additionally, Centre’s small size makes it more likely that someone who is inebriated and feels unsafe will run into someone that they know and trust. Students are going to drink and make mistakes during their time at Centre, so I think that DPS’s time would be better spent handing out water and offering rides without consequences, rather than using fear-based tactics to control students. I believe that with a more supportive administration, students will feel more comfortable assessing how they feel and getting help when they need it. Additionally, if they see the administration’s willingness to help students without judgment, they will be better equipped to offer this same help to others in the future.
I hope this adequately articulated students’ concerns and presented them in a way that makes sense, even if there are points of disagreement. Centre is a unique place making it difficult at times to find things that suit its needs, however I think the school’s uniqueness is also its biggest strength. I hope that by embracing what makes Centre stand out, we can come together as a community, and the campus can become a safer place.