It was disappointing to learn that only 2 students showed up in the audience to listen to the debate about drinking on campus, but that you had the debate at all and are confronting the problem is a great credit to the school and the first step in finding solutions to a universal problem.

The Assoc. of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges publishes a magazine called Priorities. In its Winter, 2005 issue there is an article by Brandon Busteed of Outside The Classroom, Inc. (Outsidetheclassroom.com) which deals with college high-risk drinking which I recommend reading. It deals with the problem on a larger, national scale and shows how some other universities have found solutions. The article also contains some interesting statistics on drinking by people of college age. For example, over a three year period of analysis, Busteed discovered that high-risk drinking increases during the fall of the Freshman year by 100%. Furthermore, that among people who don’t go to college, rates of drinking are less than their college bound counterparts.