DRINKING/Brinkman
The Truth About Underage Drinking at K
By Kara Brinkman
KALAMAZOO, Mich.—A freshman girl regurgitates into the plastic garbage bag. It is 2 a.m. at a student house on Monroe Street. The party is over—as the kegs are empty—and the last remaining partygoers stumble out the door. Their faces show exhaustion after a night of drinking and dancing in the dingy basement. A few of their shoulders and heads bump into the walls of the house, knocking more of the crumbly paint off the old walls, as their lingering drunken state does not allow them to walk in a straight line.
“I think drunk people are funny,” K College senior Joe Garvin said when asked about his views on drinking. Though now 21, the double computer science and English major admits to once drinking underage. He attributes his weekend drinking, which began his freshman year, to fun and socializing.
Senior Aaron Silverman, 21, also drank for fun as an under classman. Like Garvin, he did it for the social life. It’s a way “to be involved,” said Silverman.
Not every student agrees with Silverman and Garvin’s relaxed attitude towards drinking. 20-year-old K College junior Chelsea Rye rejects the idea of students who drink just to have an excuse to act stupid. “I don’t have a problem with drinking in moderation," she adds, and says there was one occasion where she did drink, but it is not something she seeks to do.
Other students have less extreme views on drinking than Garvin and Rye. Elliot Paquette looks at drinking as more of a cultural activity. The 20-year-old Math major who studied abroad in Hungary says that when he drinks it is mainly once every two weeks and then it is mostly wine. “Wine is one of the most interesting drinks,” Paquette said. “It is really nice to drink wine with dinner.”
Yet he dislikes that leads to activities you don’t intend to happen. “It leads to sex, even when you don’t intend it to,” said Paquette. He knows first hand the way alcohol can make you lose control. ‘It’s like having an iron grip and letting it go.”
Alcohol has other consequences as well. Freshman Courtney Carroll, 18, recalls a time earlier this year in her Hoben residence hall when a fellow resident took a prospective student to a party. The young prospective student go so drunk that she locked herself out of the room and could not figure out how to open the hallway doors. This prospective student then threw up in the hallway, at which point the RA was alerted of the situation. Carroll said it was scary to see.
RAs deal with drinking matters throughout the quarter. For the 2006-2007 academic year, 32 students were involved in alcohol incidents in the Fall quarter, 19 in the winter, and 22 in the spring, according to the Office of Residential Life. Those numbers are far smaller than what the staff of Residential Living estimates.
Marcquel Pickett, 21, a senior RA guesses that close to 80 percent of students underage drink in the dorms on the weekend. Pickett admits to drinking as a freshman and believes that those experiences help him today when dealing with his residents. He believed the fact that he can talk to his residents about drinking from a personal perspective gives his residents as sense of trust in him.
Zach Ebling, 21, another senior RA, also drank as a freshman. Though neither Ebling nor Pickett were ever in trouble for drinking underage, they both sympathize with the few students they have had to write up for drinking. Writing someone up makes them feel horrible, however “it’s my job,” said Pickett.
Senior RA Sarah Nicholus, 22, agrees. If she knows someone is in a room drinking, it is her job to go in and address it.
Nicholus also believes there is more going on than they catch. It is important for the safety of the residents to catch people who they label as high risk. People considered high risk is those who are throw up, binge drink, and fall over as they walk.
Pickett and Ebling agree. Drinking a beer quietly in your room won’t get you in trouble since the RAs can only come in if they suspect drinking is going on. Loud parties, throwing up, people in and out of a door room frequently, and falling into objects are the behavior clues that typically lead RAs to find drinking occurring in the dorms.
Dana Jansma, Associate Dean of Students, says that their main concern is safety. “We want people to be safe,” she said. One of the fears of students is that if they get in trouble for drinking, they will not be able to go on study abroad. Jansma clarified that. The Resident Life staff is not here to ruin abroad chances. The Center for International Programs controls abroad eligibility.
“It’s not our job to catch them all the time,” said Jansma, while discussing students drinking habits. Residential Life does not want to get you in big trouble. They just want students to drink responsibly.
Though Nicholus believes that most students do not drink responsibly, Jansma says that they get very few repeat offenders from underage drinking. Perhaps it students get smarter at how to conceal their drinking habits in the dorms, she said. Ebling notes how he’s noticed that sophomores appear to drink more, but freshman seem to get in trouble more often.
Dorm types may also have a lot to do with it. Suites in Crissey and Severn are a lot more closed off than hallway dorm rooms of Hoben, DeWaters, and Trowbridge. Loud drinking in the back rooms of the suites draws less attention than drinking in non-suites, according to Pickett and Ebling.
Still, the RAs and Residential Life are not out to get you. “RAs are not police officers,” Jansma said. Once students are written up, it is out of the RAs control. The RAs just document what happened during the write-up and hand it over to the area coordinators who determine what the possible violations might be.
Nicholus, Pickett, and Ebling emphasize that their main goal is community building. Writing people up just create tensions between them and their residents. Ebling said he feels horrible when discussing the sole incident he experienced where he had to write people up for underage drinking during his sophomore year as an RA in Hoben. Pickett agrees. He feels bad about doing and said, “it’s a hassle to write people up."
The drunken freshman girl regurgitating into a bag at someone's house she does not know will not get in trouble tonight. There are still some students sober enough to look out for her. But what about next time? Will she be able to make it all the way to the party house before getting caught drinking on campus. Or will something worse happen?
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