I still refuse to quote the Gustie Rouser as prose, though.

[mrissa]

This article made me proud to be a Gustie. The other college presidents quoted in it are treating their students, not just as children, but as stupid children. Their fears about the risk of misreading, for example. I will give you two sentences, and you see if you can spot any differences:

1) Perhaps we should discuss the legal drinking age and how it interacts with American culture and the subcultures of American colleges.

2) Do not worry about legalities, just PARRRRTAYYYYY -- WOOOOOOOO!

Was that hard? Do you think that college students, most of whom are of voting age and theoretically literate, ought to have difficulty parsing the differences? Earl Potter, president of St. Cloud State, said, "With there being so much tragedy in Minnesota around binge drinking and student deaths, I'm not going to take any step which deviates from my core message: We want our students to behave within the law, and we want the ones who are of age to drink responsibly." Think about that: he thinks that any discussion of the law is equivalent to encouragement to behave illegally. He thinks that if we do not lie to our college students and tell them that our laws are universal and eternal, they will not follow them. That we can buy student safety by repressing free discourse; that subtlety is impossible and will lead to irresponsibility, lawlessness, who knows what social ills.

This is not a fit attitude for someone who is educating citizens of a democracy -- though it's sadly not a surprising attitude for American authority figures at the moment. Discussing the laws we have, whether they are working towards or against the society we want, is one of our jobs, collectively. It's one of our big jobs. And 18-year-olds are not junior voters, who somehow count partially or are just so cuuuute when dey fink dey can make a diffwence! Awww! No. No. This is unacceptable. So go President Ohle.

Comments

[columbina.livejournal.com]

Interesting how these things converge; I was just musing about this yesterday due to this thread over on Flutterby. (http://www.flutterby.com/archives/comments/11412.html)

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

As I've told you but perhaps not all your readers, I was in college when the age of majority was lowered to 18 originally. Nothing dire happened. I saw no signs of any increase in destructive drinking behavior (it was not entirely absent before the change). Keggers happened more publicly, was about all (which means that people going too far risked bigger loss of reputation and had more chance of being challenged on it; it wasn't a secret rite conducted only with other serious drinkers).

A few years later, when they started bumping it back up again, I thought it was a stupid idea, and I still think it's a stupid idea. So I strongly support this attempt at changing things back to where they should have been all along.

There are basically four times people have a chance to learn how to deal with alcohol. At home, with their parents and siblings, at college with recent memories of home and some supervision, later when they're completely on their own, or *much* later (not as soon as they legally can).

I think the earlier the better. If parents model sane and non-damaging uses of alcohol, and do NOT model damaging and dangerous uses of alcohol, children learn from that. If kids get gently exposed to alcohol from early on, it's not as mysterious or as magically "adult" (I got a shotglass of wine with dinner when my parents were having wine for a LONG time before I was legal to drink on my own, and my English grandfather started offering me sherry when I was about 12). Hey, parents, in the end it's your responsibility (to the extent that anybody is ever responsible for somebody else).

If they have to give it up during college, and then start again 4 years later, there's considerable risk they'll forget what they've learned, or acquire new bad habits.

Also, during college they're living more closely with other people, and frequently observed by more older people, than most of them will be immediately after college, so there is somewhat more safety net for people who are really having trouble than there is later.

On the other hand, it's probably socially useful for young people to be taught to despise the law and authority figures. Wait, I'm not sure I mean that. I mean, I mostly mean it at the moment, but I don't think I really want the kind of society where that's what I want people to learn about it. I do actually favor the concept of the rule of law, if only law wouldn't be so dumb so much.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

And I don't think anybody is claiming that either a) college students will never do anything stupid again, or b) people learning how to deal with alcohol will never do anything stupid again. So that helps their position, not making those sweeping claims.

(I tend to be frustrated by the arguments that go, "People who have just started X behavior are more dangerous, so we should delay the start of X behavior." Sometimes this is a good solution. Sometimes not. As a default it leaves much to be desired; certainly it ought to be fair game for discussion, for heaven's sake.)

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately there may actually be something to the argument "You shouldn't play with the interesting chemicals until your brain is done growing." Possibly including alcohol, but possibly not; we seem to have rather acclimated to it by now. Or maybe it's just overly conservative to begin with.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think, "Have a thimbleful of the good stuff but try not to mess up your synapses too soon," is a lot more likely to work than, "Oh noes! Oh noes! If we don't convince our children that magical maturity descends upon them on the stroke of midnight that marks their 21st birthdays, the world will come to an end!"

[rosefox]

One of the commenters on that article noted that in some places it's illegal for parents to give alcohol to children under a certain age, which kind of undermines your excellent suggestion.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

I've heard that there are places like that, and that's truly disgusting. Though I doubt you're likely to get in trouble offering kids an ounce of wine at home, even where it is illegal.

[intrepida.livejournal.com]

Of the many things I loved about Gustavus, the Rouser was not one of them.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

And you are one of the few people reading this who has any idea how VERY VERY ANNOYING it was after the tornado, to have the Gustie rouser quoted at us as prose OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

I for one refused to shine several successive nights.

[seagrit.livejournal.com]

Fortunately for us, most college presidents are not the ones actually doing the education and teaching students how to make critical decisions. They are more likely to be the ones who pacify the donors when some crazy faculty members (and staff) sign something "controversial" like this. Granted, they do have some sway over college policy, but I think what it taught in the classroom has a much bigger impact.

[reveritas.livejournal.com]

unrelated, but i'm up to chapter 13 of thermionic night. :)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Good deal.

[numinicious.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, until America gets over its phobia surrounding alcohol, no amount of logical discussion will change alcohol abuse in colleges.


Also - Was that hard?
Yes, it was. You forget that my generation is, regrettably, not nearly as smart as your generation.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Here's the problem: I don't believe that your generation is not nearly as smart as mine. (Have you met Xers? Uff da.) But I do believe that your generation has been kept a great deal more sheltered and ignorant than mine -- on the average, of course. So you find a third of college students who think it's very important for professors not to say anything that challenges their beliefs, for example, because people have gone so far out of their way not to do it in the past that it's new and scary, and the idea that you might have to filter information for conflicting perspectives is not as familiar as it should be.

But the only way to get past that is to do it. It's just like the only way to become a really good driver in heavy traffic is to drive in heavy traffic enough to get practiced at it. Sure, you have to start in parking lots and on empty back streets, but that's not enough. As a society, we're keeping a generation of people driving in intellectual figure eights around the high school parking lot well into their twenties, with the idea that it will magically make them able to drive in traffic totally safely someday. And it just won't.

[numinicious.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, I agree. As far as availability of education goes, my generation has certainly had the advantage over your generation. But unfortunately you're right in saying that we are sheltered and, worse, spoiled. We (and future generations) have grown up with technology to the point where I know a lot of my peers won't bother to learn anything because it's "right there on the internet". It's... stupidity. Not book-smarts stupidity, but "damnit, the world is at your fingertips, why won't you take advantage of it?!" stupidity. I just wish my generation would be more grateful for what we have, instead of being more demanding. GenY has such an entitlement complex.

I agree here as well. But unfortunately America is a mix of ultra conservative and ultra liberal, and I don't think it's going to be easy to find any common ground. However, I think a good idea would be to let each state define its own drinking age, similar to how each state defines its own age of consent. (Because IIRC, the drinking age being 21 is national, right? I don't know, I've never paid attention to it.)

Ideally, America would lower the drinking age and raise the age requirement for driving. But of course, Americans are so in love with their cars that this would never happen. Back to square one.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

IIRC, drinking age is determined by the states, technically. However, if the state has it lower than 21, the Federal government holds back some of the highway funds that they distribute to the states. So, in practice, it's the Federal government, although legally, it's within the states purview.

[numinicious.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see. Thank you for clearing that up. :)