Being 700 miles from campus, I'll admit that it is difficult to follow the everyday ins and outs of Duke. In addition, it's hard to follow what passes for logic in the current alcohol debate.
I went to a few Duke football games during my four years, and unless that one win against East Carolina changed a lot, I've got to ask: What is the big deal with kegs and tailgating?
Duke has five or six home football games a year. The few times I've been to a tailgate, there were more people from (insert opponent's team name here) tailgating than there were Duke students tailgating, standing around, praying for a win.
The kegs issue is being framed as the latest power grab by an administration desperate to create a culture of behind-closed-door drinking that will lead to hundreds of students in the emergency room, as part of an even larger conspiracy to eliminate fraternities, sterilize student life and send Duke into a Prohibition-era level of dryness.
Ever since the University community lost a student to alcohol poisoning, brought about by a closed-door binge, there has been a quixotic effort by the administration to tighten the taps. At first there existed the double-vision alcohol task force--half of which reminisced about the 18th Amendment the other half hoped to fit the University with alcohol blinders.
After numerous failed attempts at alternative programming, the University decided on a "let boys be boys with their mother around" policy and began the current "party monitor" system. Is it working? The sky-high number of trips to the Emergency Room that came with the half-Gestapo/half-blinders system went down under the party monitor system.
It's far from a grand conspiracy, quite the opposite really. Duke students whine that the social scene was also a casualty of the party policy, but that was dying long before. What is killing Duke's social scene and exaggerating the obstacle posed by Duke's alcohol policy is college life lesson number one: Personal Responsibility--something that Duke students largely learn by accident.
The University does not need a first-year writing course; they need a first-year thinking course. The Duke student attitude toward most affairs is "someone else will do it for me." I am not referencing the "personal responsibility" that your father will nag you about until you are raising your own children (at that point, he will then try to undermine your efforts to teach your own children about personal responsibility by being the favorite grandparent--he does this out of revenge, not love).
I'm talking about taking charge of situations--both juvenile and adult--and dealing with them in a mature, if not clever, fashion.
The recent keg whine exemplifies the problem. Starting with the undergraduate motto when it comes to tightening of alcohol policy: "College students will drink no matter what policies you implement," it is easy to see the logical hole of complaining about kegs.
The motto is a true statement, but students are not doing their part. Why complain about how someone else is ruining your fun by taking away your tap when you can: (a) bring other containers of alcohol besides a keg to an event or (b) drink before you go? That's Problem Solving 101.
That's also a tacit endorsement of closed-door drinking--which when done with an ounce of personal responsibility does not result in death or trips to the hospital. Duke students have created a culture of irresponsibility when it comes to alcohol. The coddling and "it's not our fault" approach is leading to the decline of social life faster than any sneaky effort to eliminate fraternities.
Speaking of fraternities, there's another example of personal responsibility. A friend of mine who is in the greek system and I used to joke that if Duke wanted to eliminate fraternities, their best bet was to just throw all of the fraternities into Edens Quad-creating an "Animal Quad" and allowing Darwinism to work its way through the system.
But there is no reason that Duke cannot have a greek system and also have a vibrant social life under the current policy. Will it take creativity? Yes. Will it take responsibility? Yes. Does that mean that smashing your restroom, watching three freshmen leave a party for the ER and trying to fight with Duke police officers are bad ideas? Yes.
Students seem to prefer to run from responsibility when they need to take it by the horns. At all college campuses, there is an unrefined whine about how the system forces students into situations where they must behave immaturely.
Young adults outside America's college campuses do not have the ability to blame rules that force them to act irresponsibly--let alone do they have a chance to escape the consequences of their actions. Why should Americas best and brightest be held to a lower standard?
And another question: If Duke students do act responsibly, will the administration focus their attention on the changed student body? Or will a continued policy of making excuses raise some legitimate questions about the University's motives?
As it always is, the students are responsible for what happens next.
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