Student Affairs suggests plans to change the drinking culture at USC
USC Student Affairs released a letter Monday to the student body outlining the conclusions reached in a forum on alcohol consumption.
On Oct. 29, more than 200 students attended a town hall forum to discuss the campus culture around alcohol. On Nov. 2, 15 student leaders from student government, Greek life, resident life and student health assessed possible solutions for longer than six hours in conjunction with administrators.
“None of those ideas we drilled down deep enough into an evaluative process,” Vice Provost of Student Affairs Ainsley Carry said. “Our focus was to identity the issue. At this time, we do not have specifics.”
Student leaders and administrators presented some of these strategies for changing the drinking culture on campus in the letter. Alcohol education and social policy need to be changed, the letter said.
“We left [the letter] vague on purpose to make sure we weren’t making promises but we also wanted to let people know exactly what’s going on,” Interfraternity Council President Ofek Lavian said.
Lavian said a group of leaders and administrators will meet again within the next week to revisit the issue and come up with more pragmatic solutions.
Short-term and long-term strategies to reduce binge drinking were also discussed. Possible short-term changes included sending letters to parents before freshman year to discuss how best to approach the issue with their childhood. Solutions discussed included instituting a two-unit freshman course that focused on responsible drinking to build a new structure where students can socialize after 10 p.m.
Lavian and Panhellenic Council President Roxie Friberg agreed that the existing university social events policy, which has not been altered since 1992, needs to be revisited. Currently, weekday events on campus are prohibited after 10 p.m.
“We want to make sure that we’re consistent in allowing those non-alcoholic events to happen and removing barriers from that happening,” Carry said.
Lavian said he personally believes that by banning university-sanctioned social events during the week and limiting social events off campus, students will act out on Thursdays.
“Students bottle up all of this and [let it] out one night on Thursday,” Lavian said. “That’s an aggressive drinking environment.”
Friberg agreed that Thursday night partying is the crux of the issue.
“The drinking culture is established on Thursday night,” Friberg said. “I think the best way would be to re-examine the Thursday night policy rule. We want to make a policy where everything you’re doing is in line with university policy. We really want to see registration on Thursdays for any club on campus.”
Changing policy, however, could take weeks, if not months.
“I don’t think this is just going to go away. The language of the school addressing this issue as a whole needs to change,” Friberg said. “We need a non-abstinence approach to alcohol policy. A lot of administrators understand that, too. We need to find a way to say it’s illegal to drink under 21, but it’s going to happen and this is how to be safe.”
Carry agreed that the university needs to re-evaluate its stance while still following California law.
“We want to be consistent with the law but we know that students are drinking,” he said. “We will never be in a place that we will condone underage drinking.”
The binge drinking culture at the university also extends beyond the Greek system, Lavian pointed out.
“In general, USC has a pervasive drinking culture,” Lavian said. “It resulted in the death of a non-Greek student.”
The group of leaders plans to institute some policies immediately, but others will not be addressed for some time.
“Some of the strategies are easily achievable and have received consensus support by administrators and students, while others require more consideration, as well as time and effort to develop, before implementation in appropriate cases,” said the letter, signed by Carry.
Part of the problem is the type of students that USC attracts, namely heavily tutored wealthy students who (after massive coaching) score well on standardized tests but didn’t apply themselves in high school consistently enough to be in the top 10 percent if they attended a very competitive high school. These students love to party! Many of them develop a cocaine habit while attending USC. To prevent enrolling high numbers of students like this in the future, USC needs to require scores on two SAT subject tests as a condition of entry for all students other than those classified as economically disadvantaged. SAT subject tests require the kind of knowledge that can only be acquired through months of diligent study. Students cannot do well on these tests by using Daddy’s money to hire the finest tutors at the last minute and cram. SAT subject test scores will expose these high-partying students for what they are–vastly overprivileged kids who lack discipline and do not perform well on a sustained basis because they put partying first. Obviously there will be situations in which USC should admit students who did not score well on SAT subject tests, but those admissions should be limited to students who have excelled consistently for years in an area that shows they are serious about achievement. I’m not suggesting that SAT subject tests are a complete solution but it will definitely help.
Sorry for partying!