Beer and Circus (25 page)
Authors: Murray Sperber
Iowa undergraduates clarified this result: one woman commented that some of the non-alcoholic activities sponsored by Stepping Up were interesting but, “I have a lot of friends who won't go out with me if it doesn't involve alcohol.” Other UI students noted the proliferation of sports bars in the Iowa City area, and their popularity with female as well as male students.
Joel Eskovitz, the 1999 editor-in-chief of the
Indiana Daily Student,
explained part of the attraction of binge drinking for undergraduates at Big Ten schools like Indiana and Iowa, and how the pleasures sometimes rivaled those gained from sports:
Indiana Daily Student,
explained part of the attraction of binge drinking for undergraduates at Big Ten schools like Indiana and Iowa, and how the pleasures sometimes rivaled those gained from sports:
Binge drinking is often very competitive. Some students try to outdo each other in drinking games ⦠. There's also a large bragging element to it. Students constantly boast about their drinking feats: how much they drank and how fast, and how many crazy things they did while drunk, even how they passed out. They can't wait to see their friends the next day and tell them their stories. That is a huge part of the student drinking subculture.
Indeed, the depth of the collegiate subculture, its participants' sense of bingeing as a game and a rite of passage, and the media's frequent glorification of these customs create maximum undergraduate resistance to university officials attempting to stop bingeing.
An added impediment to changing the student drinking culture is the laissez-faire attitude of many residents in the communities surrounding a university, including numerous businesspeople who profit from student alcohol consumption. When the Stepping Up program began at UI, there were 94 establishments with liquor licenses within a mile radius of the campus, and 149 in the surrounding towns of Iowa City and Coralville. Three years later, more liquor license holders exist in these areas. In 1999 and 2000, during a number of visits to the campus and the town, this writer found a drinking scene very similar to those at other beer-and-circus schools, with crowded off-campus bars, as well as apartment complexes that, according to student residents, were the “new center of the party scene.” UI president Coleman acknowledged the flourishing off-campus drinking scene to the
New York Times
in March 2000.
New York Times
in March 2000.
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But University of Iowa administrators keep working on the binge drinking problem. A vice-president for student services explained that, among other measures, UI had instituted a plan “to reclaim Mondays and Fridays,” specifically, to persuade faculty to treat those days as regular school days and to end the tradition of “making fewer academc demands on students on those days because students are less alert after partying,” which, at Iowa and similar schools, gains full force on Thursday night and continues through Sunday evening.
In fact, many undergraduates are not even in class on Fridays and Mondays, particularly if the Hawkeyes are on the road that weekend. “Lots of students here,” explained a fraternity man, “consider road games as a reason to take off for the weekend and join in supporting the Hawks away from home. We do it for all football and basketball away games on weekends. But my friends at other Big Ten and Big 12 schools do the same thing.”
The “road trip” is an old fraternity tradition, not only prompted by sports events but by other reasons “to take off” for the weekend or even during the week; for example, every year, tens of thousands of students from many schools drive to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, often journeying thousands of miles. However, for away football and weekend basketball games, the road trip usually begins Friday morning and ends in the early hours of Monday morning. Friday and Monday classes are “washed out” for road trippers, as they are for many students on campus who begin their weekends Thursday afternoon and end them late Sunday night.
As indicated by the Iowa vice president, often faculty are complicit in the “lost weekend” tradition; indeed, many professors at research universities want to do all of their teaching on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The College of Arts & Sciences at Indiana University requests instructors in its departments to sign up for Monday-Wednesday-Friday classes to balance the excessive faculty demand for Tuesday-Thursday, and to use classroom space more efficiently, particularly the large lecture halls.
Iowa's attempt to reclaim Fridays and Mondays will encounter more obstacles than the designers of this initiative contemplated. Not the least of the problems are student contempt for undergraduate courses, particularly lecture classes, and faculty disdain in return. A professor at a championship beer-and-circus school, Florida State University, remarked:
The only time to teach a regular undergraduate class at this school is Wednesday early afternoon. Students here stretch the party weekend into Tuesdays, and begin again late Wednesday afternoon. Because they sleep late every day, the only “window of opportunity” to catch them alert is Wednesday early afternoon ⦠. That's when I schedule my main lectures ⦠. But many students still fall asleep in them, and some never do show up.
Another Iowa antidrinking proposal is university sponsorship of “more campus social activities that do not feature alcohol, such as movies, concerts, speakers, and street dances.” On paper, this seems like an excellent idea, easily implemented and potentially successful. However, it is a plan conceived by members of the academic subculture for large numbers of collegiates. The latter attend movies, but they want to see the latest hit feature at the mall, not reruns available on videotape or, least of all, serious domestic or foreign films, the kind that most schools show on campus and that mainly attract academic and some rebel students.
As for concerts, popular musicians generate large crowds, but many undergraduates want to consume alcohol or drugs while they listen to the
music. The
Princeton Review
received a large number of student comments about university-sponsored concerts, summing them up with: “Few students are interested in any campus-sponsored activity if they know security guards will be actively enforcing the no-drinking [and no-drugs] rules.” They veto campus “street dances” and other official “parties” for the same reason. “A UI-sponsored party is a contradiction in terms,” said an Iowa honors student. “Most of us define âa party' as meaning âto be free, to let go.' Whoever heard of a good party given by a school?”
music. The
Princeton Review
received a large number of student comments about university-sponsored concerts, summing them up with: “Few students are interested in any campus-sponsored activity if they know security guards will be actively enforcing the no-drinking [and no-drugs] rules.” They veto campus “street dances” and other official “parties” for the same reason. “A UI-sponsored party is a contradiction in terms,” said an Iowa honors student. “Most of us define âa party' as meaning âto be free, to let go.' Whoever heard of a good party given by a school?”
As for attending speeches, even those given by famous speakers: most undergraduates so despise their lecture courses that they have minimal interest in hearing a university-sponsored speaker. Again, administrators belonging to the academic subculture conceived of this diversion for collegiates, and as a result, these talks attract few regular students. An Iowa official disputed this point, indicating that, for example, Bob Knight, the Indiana University men's basketball coach, gives an annual public lecture at his school that attracts thousands of undergraduates. In fact, this is not an exception to the students-won't-attend-speeches rule: for Indiana undergraduates, Knight represents big-time college basketball, a major part of their collegiate subculture, and they revere him even more than they do the Budweiser Frogsâwhom they also would turn out to see.
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A
Los Angeles Times
health reporter visited Iowa City and investigated the effect of the school's Stepping Up program. She listened patiently to the official explanations but then did her own inquiries, concluding, in part:
Los Angeles Times
health reporter visited Iowa City and investigated the effect of the school's Stepping Up program. She listened patiently to the official explanations but then did her own inquiries, concluding, in part:
It's even hard to know whether studentsâmany of whom have moved their parties to residences off-campus-are paying attention to the efforts going on around them. Dormitory literature making students aware of their rights to a clean, quiet, alcohol-free dorm seems to have stirred little interest or opposition.
The comment about student life in the dorms connects to a phenomenon that this writer frequently encountered at Iowa and elsewhere: when administrators were asked how often they had been inside a student dormitory or a Greek housing unit in the last year, a majority admitted that they had not done so within that time frame or, in fact, in many years. (When faculty at research universities were asked the same question, most admitted that they had never visited a student housing unitâincluding professors who had taught at the same university for decades.) When administrators and faculty were asked whether they had ever been inside an off-campus
student apartment, almost all acknowledged that they had not. Finally, when asked how far their own homes were from their school's student dorms, Greek houses, and off-campus apartment complexes, most administrators and professors said that they resided in the “faculty ghetto,” an older residential area in the college town or, more often, in the new suburban tracts far from the university.
student apartment, almost all acknowledged that they had not. Finally, when asked how far their own homes were from their school's student dorms, Greek houses, and off-campus apartment complexes, most administrators and professors said that they resided in the “faculty ghetto,” an older residential area in the college town or, more often, in the new suburban tracts far from the university.
The conclusion is obvious: For all of their talk about transforming undergraduate culture, particularly the drinking aspects, most university officials and almost all faculty do not possess a clue about howâand sometimes even whereâtheir students live. When administrators establish policies intended to change student behavior, they imitate blind people attempting to describe and then lead the proverbial elephant.
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Signs outside Bobby Dodd Stadium at Georgia Tech say, “No alcohol.”
Inside, students drink Cokes spiked with smuggled liquor, and lustily sing the school's “Ramblin' Wreck” fight song [which includes] ⦠the words, “I drink my whiskey clear.”
When the band strikes up a favorite tune in the second half of Tech's homecoming football game ⦠they [the students] loudly join the chorus, “When you say Budweiser, you've said it all.”
The divide between stated policy and reality points out the mixed messages about alcohol at Tech and other college campuses. Even with the drinking age at 21, stricter school policies regulating consumption, and more attention on the issue, drinking is still a favorite college pastime.
The
Atlanta Constitution
investigated the late-1990s drinking scene at Georgia Tech and confirmed what the national studies had reported about similar schools: at this university, massive student alcohol consumption connected to a strong Greek system and big-time college sports. Moreover, at Tech, drinking was so deeply embedded within the collegiate subculture that it was essentially immovable. Students described how they snuck liquor into gamesâtying a flask to a shoestring and hanging it inside a pants leg was especially popularâand they bragged that their fraternities served all drinkers, including underage ones. Furthermore, the off-campus bar scene was huge and vastâit included hundreds of establishments all over Atlanta and neighboring Buckhead.
Atlanta Constitution
investigated the late-1990s drinking scene at Georgia Tech and confirmed what the national studies had reported about similar schools: at this university, massive student alcohol consumption connected to a strong Greek system and big-time college sports. Moreover, at Tech, drinking was so deeply embedded within the collegiate subculture that it was essentially immovable. Students described how they snuck liquor into gamesâtying a flask to a shoestring and hanging it inside a pants leg was especially popularâand they bragged that their fraternities served all drinkers, including underage ones. Furthermore, the off-campus bar scene was huge and vastâit included hundreds of establishments all over Atlanta and neighboring Buckhead.
In the 1990s, Georgia Tech put a substantial amount of money into its
intercollegiate athletics program, upgrading its facilities and also paying its football and men's basketball coaches enormous sums to turn out championship teams (on occasion, they succeeded or came close). And successful college teams produced large crowds, including students with flasks and other drinking devices. Yet the school officially banned alcohol in undergraduate housing units, and sometimes campus police enforced the prohibition. But student drinking at Georgia Tech, including bingeing, did not diminish.
intercollegiate athletics program, upgrading its facilities and also paying its football and men's basketball coaches enormous sums to turn out championship teams (on occasion, they succeeded or came close). And successful college teams produced large crowds, including students with flasks and other drinking devices. Yet the school officially banned alcohol in undergraduate housing units, and sometimes campus police enforced the prohibition. But student drinking at Georgia Tech, including bingeing, did not diminish.
The
Princeton Review
edition of 2000 commented on this phenomenon nationally:
Princeton Review
edition of 2000 commented on this phenomenon nationally:
We'd like to add an editorial comment based on numerous essays from angry students: CAMPUS WIDE DRINKING PROHIBITIONS DON'T WORK!
The bottom line is clear: many Big-time U administrators want to have it all waysâbig-time college sports and no beerâbut that is an oxymoron. University officials welcome the circus, but now they wish to keep the beer wagons away; however, the collegiate subculture, aided and abetted by the alcohol beverage industry and the people who run college sports, demands beer. Whether college presidents and their hordes of assistants like it or not, beer-and-circus is a done deal, as permanent a part of their campuses as their Collegiate Gothic-style buildings. Whatever policies they conceive to combat alcohol consumption will only work in the most limited manner; indeed, more often they will trigger the law of unintended consequences. For example, if administrators force the drinking far enough off-campus, the number of drunk-driving accidents, even deaths, involving their students will increase.
One of the arguments that the
Princeton Review
offers against the new campus-wide drinking prohibitions is that “students resent what they consider the school's intrusion into their personal lives.” As noted, college administrators rarely speak to undergraduates about this problem; instead, they talk to so-called “student leaders,” but often these leaders have no followers, and generally they try to please administrators, not inform them of unpleasant, often brutal truths. The isolation of administrators is not only culturalâoften they come from the academic subculture, and they have to deal with their natural antagonists, the collegiatesâbut also self-imposed. They refuse to closely examine the collegians on their campuses.
Princeton Review
offers against the new campus-wide drinking prohibitions is that “students resent what they consider the school's intrusion into their personal lives.” As noted, college administrators rarely speak to undergraduates about this problem; instead, they talk to so-called “student leaders,” but often these leaders have no followers, and generally they try to please administrators, not inform them of unpleasant, often brutal truths. The isolation of administrators is not only culturalâoften they come from the academic subculture, and they have to deal with their natural antagonists, the collegiatesâbut also self-imposed. They refuse to closely examine the collegians on their campuses.
At this point in this chapter, it seems best to listen at length to students themselves, particularly their comments in interviews, and their responses to the questionnaire for this book.
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Everything this school [Purdue University] does socially revolves around football and basketball games. To tell you the truth, I know very little about the rules and regulations of those games. They are purely an outlet for social functions with friends for me ⦠. I guess that I have been taught and socialized to use college athletics as an excuse to party with friends.
âA Purdue University senior female
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