To The Pleiad editors:

This letter is in response to the college’s new policy that students who commit first offense alcohol violations will be charged $250.00, and second offense alcohol violations will result in expulsion from school. This letter is not meant to inspire the school to encourage or accept underage drinking. The intent of this letter is to urge the school to allow students to take personal responsibility for their actions and make their own decisions. The new alcohol policy is one step closer to taking away students’ rights to make decisions because the college assumes students are not responsible enough to do it on their own.

This is just a short list of arguments against the new alcohol policy:

• This policy creates more anger and distrust toward Albion College and Campus Safety.

• There will be a greater danger of acquaintance rape. Women will be more willing to stay in the bedrooms of guys they hardly know because they are too afraid to walk through campus to go to their own rooms.

• Students will be more likely to take dangerous methods to get to parties. This includes driving drunk or walking off campus in order to avoid Campus Safety. It’s cheaper (literally and figuratively) to get a minor in possession (MIP) than to get caught drinking by the school. An MIP goes off your record; getting thrown out of school will haunt you for the rest of your life.

• What will Albion College tell potential recruits when they have to explain that the largest recruitment class in the school’s history is the smallest graduating class in 20 years because everyone got thrown out of school? (This is an exaggeration, I hope!)

• How many students who have attended (or currently attend) Albion College and have gone on or will go on to do great things and live successful lives would have been thrown out of school if this policy had been in place all four years they attended?

• Students will be more likely to drink excessive amounts of alcohol in short periods of time because there will be a greater fear of possessing and transporting alcohol. This is called binge drinking, and the last time I checked, that was a bad thing.

• I have always believed that the school should be more concerned with educating people about alcohol and protecting them when they do drink rather than being concerned about searching for people and punishing them. My suggestion is this: the First Year Experience class should have a greater emphasis on teaching students about college life, which includes teaching students about alcohol.

• It might just be me, but it seems like every time the school creates stiffer penalties for drinking, the incidence of drinking infractions goes up. Campus Safety statistics are not up to date, but drinking infractions were up from 44 in 2002-2003 to 69 in 2003-2004.

• Here is another way to look at rising alcohol violations. Maybe they are rising because students are actually becoming more responsible about reporting people who are dangerously intoxicated. What are the chances that a student will now report that someone is sick if they know that the person could get kicked out of school?

• College is not only a time to learn academically, it’s a time to learn about life, which includes learning about alcohol. Or we can be sheltered all the way up until our 21st birthday and then learn about alcohol after we have already taken 21 shots of liquor.

I understand that the new policy is in response to the number of alcohol-related incidents that have occurred on our campus and on college campuses around the country. However, the school’s response is not only inappropriate, it is a panicked overreaction. I’m glad to be graduating from this institution, and glad to know that I will never have to donate money to the school because they will be getting plenty of money from students when they go door to door in Wesley Hall every Saturday night.

No matter how hard you try, alcohol use cannot be stopped on college campuses. The harder you try to stop it, the harder students try to do it, and this usually leads to more dangerous situations. The bottom line is this: Coming to Albion College should not be the equivalent of stepping into a foster home. Let go of our hands and let us walk on our own, even if we aren’t walking in a straight line.

Eric Huff
Alma Senior