Posted on 12/01/2004 5:42:02 PM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
Drinking will be banned at University of Oklahoma fraternities and residence halls under new policies announced Wednesday, two months after a 19-year-old student died of alcohol poisoning.
University of Oklahoma President David Boren said the rules will go into effect Jan. 18 at the start of the new semester. Three violations will end in a student's suspension for one semester.
The university also will set up a hot line for students to report violations, and will expand alcohol education programs.
Drinking is already prohibited at sororities.
Boren will present the policies to the Board of Regents Monday for approval. Regents have been involved in creating the plan and support it.
"These policies send a strong signal that alcohol abuse will not be tolerated at the University of Oklahoma," Boren said.
Citing studies from the National Institutes of Health and the Harvard School of Public Health, Boren said limiting access to alcohol on campus should lessen binge drinking by at least 75 percent.
"I feel that it is my responsibility to do everything I can to protect the health and safety of students," he said. "I could not turn my back on the statistics."
Student Blake Hammontree died Sept. 30 after a Sigma Chi fraternity party. He had a blood-alcohol content more than five times the legal limit. The frat has since been shut down.
Police are still investigating the death and several fraternity members have been subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury. One student, a sophomore, has been charged with furnishing alcohol to another minor at the party.
"The investigation continues and other charges are anticipated," said Cleveland County District Attorney Tim Kuykendall.
Similar recent incidents have been reported at campuses, including Colorado State, where student Samantha Spady had consumed as many as 40 drinks when she was found dead at a fraternity house in September.
Also this fall, Lynn Gordon Bailey Jr. died after he was taken to the mountains near the University of Colorado with fellow Chi Psi fraternity pledges and told not to leave until several bottles of whiskey were finished. Bradley Kemp of the University of Arkansas died after downing a dozen beers and, friends said, possibly other drugs.
As part of the University of Oklahoma's crackdown, Boren said staffers will make unannounced inspections and fraternity leadership and alumni will be asked to make sure the drinking ban is being followed.
Freshman Angel Rivera was skeptical of the administration's plan. "I don't think it's going to stop it," Rivera said. "If you want to drink you'll find a way."
thoughts?
I think there will be a whole lot of one term suspensions. Just wondering what will happen when a football or basketball player get caught?
Oh yea this will work...not
heeheee like "banning" will stop the kids from drinking, what a bunch of buffoons, why not look at WHY the kids are drinking, too much free time, stress, ???? Someone here in Boston died at a frat party from drinking and the school "banned" drinking, lmao, now the kids go off campus, drink themselves into oblivion, still party, still get into trouble, nothing changed except oh yeah, they weren't drinking on campus lmao
Right. They won't drink while they're not having sex.
No drinking at Fraternities? That's like no meat on a hamburger.
They should enforce the laws already on the books, but instead, they make new laws.
Once again, all the kids are kept after class because of the actions of one. This juvenile policy is central to how we live as a nation today.
<<
Right. They won't drink while they're not having sex.
>>
Think of all the time they will have to study, unless they are masturbating.
My college was also a dry campus.
Did that stop me? Not on your life.
In other news: the UO administration decided to suspend the change of seasons and abolish gravity.
True, but this new law also makes it against the law to commit a crime. :^)
Exactly. The idiocy of one juvenile college student punishes the whole student body.
The nanny state.
What do you expect out of leftist college administrators? Won't stop it. People will find other ways to get alcohol. They can do what they did during Prohibition.
Youngsters, suddenly unshackled from their parents, are being told by Liberal Academia that they are totally free to be or do whatever they want. And the Institutions will not only allow, encourage, and facilitate any and all perversions and/or lifestyle, but will quash any attempt by those who respect values who want to also be heard.
As long as there has been colleges, there has been college-age drinking. Teach your kids some friggin' sense!
Gracie Allen: My brother Willie ... the psychiatrist worked and worked to get to the bottom of his drinking, and finally he found out my Willie's problem.
George Burns: What was it?
Gracie: He likes to drink.
LOL! good one!
Too bad for the ugly chicks.
If they aren't careful them kids will start smoking that loco weed.
When I attended OU in the 1970's drinking was banned in the dorms. It worked! (I know. I'm waiting for all the guys to pile in to inform me that "that was last century".) I do not recall a single instance where there was open drinking in the dorms. I do know of people who drank in the privacy of their rooms.
I remember only one case where I was confronted by someone who had been drinking too much. He tried to break my metal door down. He didn't make it, so I was never sure he was drinking even then. [Fred, are you out there? :]
When we had dorm parties, we would go to the lake and bring a keg. Even there I do not recall anyone getting sotted. Some people would play drunk, but it was a game.
The university banning liquor in the dorms is NOT a nanny state issue. The university is housing underage minors. They have a responsibility to the parents to maintain a safe environment for those kids who are away from home.
The colleges absolutely must ban alcohol on campus---there is no reason for the college to be a partner in the death of a student. Underage drinking is our #1 disgrace--and if it takes a nanny to get through to these kids, then so be it. All of us have had our pitcher beer on campus, but we knew when to stop--these kids of today push the envelope to their ultimate death. Too many of the colleges have been hit hard with lawsuits and hopefully they are starting to realize that they better take a stand. More power to them==and hopefully the kids will get the message that a drink or two is much more mature than trying to see how much they can drink.
No. The policies send a strong signal that alcohol USE will not be tolerated at the University of Oklahoma. There is no reason for him not to be honest.
Until some kid does something illegal and dies, at which point the adults, who've know about this all along, suddenly become "shocked" and "appalled" at such behavior. Then it's Code Red, everybody into CYA mode. Time to show the parents that we're responsible and please-send-your-kid-to-our-college-we're-really-not-that-bad.
How difficult is it to send the campus police (or city police, for that matter) around to the frats on Friday and Saturday nights? Guaranteed you're going to find drunk kids, and a couple of busts, fines and expulsions will stop the problem in no time. Sure, the kids will find a way to drink, but at least they aren't drinking at a university-sanctioned organization and you don't have to spend your time and money mopping up the mess.
It won't stop students from drinking, but it will make them more circumspect about how they do it, and consequently, cut down on the excesses.
I'm an OU grad and fraternity man. When I attended OU in the mid to late sixties, it was state law that banned all drinking in all university housing including the fraternity and sororities. (Oklahoma had passed a law requiring all students under the age of 21 to live in university housing. Many of the fraternities and sororities owned their own houses so the university simply declared them to be university housing but that meant that the state law prohibiiting alcohol on state property applied.)
Almost all fraternities totally ignored the law. (Only one fraternity strictly enforced the ban against alcohol in their houses. At their parties, they kept the liquor in their cars which was a convienient excuse to take your date to the car, btw.) All the sororities enforced the ban.
The Interfraternity council, nice guys that they were, volunteered to enforce the ban at all fraternity parties. You had to notify the IFC one week prior to the party so they could send a couple of guys around to inspect. (They were usually accompanied by their dates and were already drunk when they arrived.) The rules were these. If it was in a glass, they would check for alcohol. If it was in a paper cup, it was obviously a soft drink and they would not check. Therefore, only paper cups were allowed on the ground floor. (There was no check upstairs. btw, this was before women were allowed upstairs.)
Two other notes:
first, the paper cup rule applied in all the bars. For example, suppose two guys took their under-21 dates to a bar. You would ask for a pitcher, two mugs, and two papercups. You would have to produce ID for the two mugs but not for the cups. If a cop checked ID, he would ask to see the number of IDs corresponding to the number of mugs.)
If you've ever seen a football game at OU, you might have noticed the oranges thrown onto the field at the end. Many think this is to celebrate another trip to the orange bowl, it has another origin. Due to the state law, alcohol was prohibited in the stadium (state property) so people would inject vodka into oranges which could be carried into the stadium. Kinda like eating your screwdriver.
Bottom line, drinking was prohibited in fraternities in the sixties and we still got "knee-crawling, commode huggin" drunk on a regular basis.
"I feel that it is my responsibility to do everything I can to protect the health and safety of students," he [Boren] said.
Right . . . Needs to require compulsory phys-ed classes, out-law all smoking by students on and off campus, and require all of them to drive SUV's if he is going to do EVERYthing he can to protect the little darlings' health and safety.
Tyson
I am at a dry Christian college, and I see beer cans all over the parking lot. If they think this is going to work in Norman when it can't even work here, they are seriously mentally deranged.
Don't assume it is that they have too much free time. Most classes will have a decent amount of homework. It is just that folks normally won't do it and will party instead.
It makes me angry when the homework increases even more for folks like myself who actually work to get the assignments and readings completed just to try to put the pressure on the slackers.
That'll work. And I didn't drink till I was 21.......
Very good.
Why do so many view athletes as liberals do the wealthy?
Notice how the problem got worse when the drinking age was raised from 18 to 21?
"When we had dorm parties, we would go to the lake and bring a keg. Even there I do not recall anyone getting sotted. Some people would play drunk, but it was a game.'
The lake? What about the river bottom? Back in the sixites, any weekend night in September or late spring you could see several bon fires on the south canadian river bottom. Get closer and you'd see entire fraternities and their dates gathered around the fire (and the keg).
I was the official keg transporter. I drove this '59 Ford. You could get two kegs and the ice and 55 gallon drums to ice it down in the trunk. Still had room for several couples to ride up front. Another nice thing about that ford, it was all steel, you could knock down small trees on the way to the river bottom.
Ah, the memories.
Memories of the early 90s... hiccup!I'm under the alfluence of incohol. hiccup!
And, I didn't even mention the times we were run out of town by the Oklahoma City police department. They'd do that back then, just give you 15 minutes to get out of town instead of arresting you. Once, they even gave us a police escort to the city limits.
But that was OKC. Don't try it in Bethany, a suburb of OKC that is owned and operated by the Bethany Church of the Nazarine. We were almost arrested for illegal possession of cigarettes there once.
Yes, many good memories, it's a wonder I'm not still under the "alfluence of incohol."
I still wonder how I made it thru my freshman year without being arrested. That's an even bigger wonder than my finally graduating. (I think they finally figured out that was the only way to get rid of me. Either that or Dad figured it was cheaper to bribe the administration than to keep paying tuition.)
Typical over-reaction.
If you're over 18, you are an adult and should be allowed to drink and get drunk.
Adults make mistakes, let them grow-up. They may be college students, but they are not little kids in need of mommy.
I am a veteran of OU Frat/Sorority paries because I made my living from them: I had an organized rock band and all we did was Frat & Sorority parties between 1964-1968.
So many good memories.
Probably did. I was at OU from 64 to 70. I was a KA.
Heh! Good one!
Song of the South fraternity, no?
My band was called the Victor Parke Review, and I seem to remember doing a few KA parties.
Let's see, underage drinking is already against the law, so most of the under-21 students could already be punished if there was a will to do so, right? The frats and RAs that looked the other way could have been punished, too, under existing laws.
I disagree that kids will drink to excess, no matter what. At least some RAs and older frats might think twice about buying the liquor for binge drinkers, and this might preserve a few brain cells lower down in the food chain.
That was us and I think I remember your band. I'll post some more on the cannon later. Got to run.
I used to play there a lot, as well.
Yep, I remember the Canadian Club. Had to bring your own bottle but you could get in under 21.
How about Ma Foster's (think that was the name). Out in the same area. She'd check ID but as long as you were male and over 18, you got served. Her motto: "Any body old enough to get drafted, is old enough to buy a draft."
About the cannon. We really didn't shoot it off just for any old reasons. You probably never saw one of our seranades. If a brother got engaged, we'd march at midnight to her residence under torch light and pulling the cannon. We'd sing fraternity songs ending with "slow dixie" and then we'd fire the cannon. Then the pleges would grab the engaged brother and drag him to the old duck pond for a dip. Never got engaged there myself but I fell in once and had to throw my jeans away because of all the duck feces.
Then there was the time the fraternity across the parking lot choose to harass us on the day of our Dixie Dance. Hung up a big banner proclaiming their house to be Fort Sumter. We normally only fired black powder but that cannon's bore was a perfect fit for a 'baby coors'. Put one right thru their 3rd floor window. Took 'em over two hours to put the banner up and less than two minutes to take it down.
The KA chapter in OKC used to loft beer cans over the library across the street. Had a hangfire one afternoon. They lowered the barrel to dislodge the beer can. The load cooked off right as a car went past. Didn't penetrate the side of the car but bunged up the fender pretty bad. Of course, they expected the cops to show up but by the time they got their they'd put a concrete cap in the barrel and had it cured by sunlamp. "no officers, not our cannon, see this concrete plug." Worked every time.
I'm sure that old cannon is plugged solid these days. Can you imagine any university allowing a group of undergrads to own their own cannon today?
BTW, speaking of the library, you remember the pub called the "Library"? Best graffitti in town.
Yeah, you guys were the best. If I was rushed I woulda joined, except problem#1: I am a NJ yankee; no good.
The Library was cool, right on Campus Corner...I used to play there as well. Actually a great friend of mine named Ed McConnell (law student) who sang like Ray Charles used to do a lot of gigs there and that's where I first met him, circa 1965.We wound up playing together for quite a few years.
Never knew about Ma Foster's. Out towards Chickasha or was it in the same riverbottom area as the Canadian Club?
Priceless memories. I used to take my date on stormy nights in the Spring out to the riverbottom just to watch the lightshow, courtesy of Mother Nature. It was the first time this ole Yankee ever saw ball lightning. Springtime around Norman was the best.
Sorry I missed your duckpond serenades. Who were the wimps across the parking lot? Sig Alphs?
The house across the parking lot was Delta Upsilon.
Ma Foster's was one of those old gas station/country stores on a dirt road. It was a couple of miles further west and south of the canadian club as I remember.
BTW, we had several yankees in the fraternity. After we taught 'em how to talk, it worked out pretty well.
Yeah, those springtime storms could be a lot of fun. We used to go tornado hunting whenever the conditions were right.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.