The Colby Echo

Issue date: 10/7/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Rob Kievit

In recent months, discourse on student life has focused primarily on drinking behavior on campus. This topic has become so entrenched in campus discussions that many have come to know it simply as "the alcohol issue." This is part four of a five part series designed to address the responses by the administrations, faculty, students, alumni, parents and the Waterville community to the abusive drinking crisis.

A key component of the plan to address drinking practices at the College is the incorporation of representatives from a variety of affected parties into the resolution process. Two such parties are College alumni and parents of current students. Currently, representatives from both of these groups serve on the College's Campus Culture and Senior Steps Working Groups, both of which are now well underway.

The challenge facing most parents and alumni alike is their level of removal from day-to-day life on campus. Much of the information they receive regarding the state of their alma mater or child's college comes secondhand or via limited experiences.
However, alumni and parents can offer unique perspectives through their ability to contextualize the current campus climate in the broader history of both the institution and higher education in general.

The alumni consulted for this article, whose class years range from 1956 to 2007, agreed that alcohol has always had a visible presence on campus. "I have to admit that drinking was very much a part of the social scene at Colby during the early 1950s," Hope Palmer Bramhall '56 said. As such, most alumni, such as David Epstein '86, believe that the fact "that drinking is currently an issue is not surprising."

What does appear to be different, however, is the way in which alcohol is now used. Notably, only the most recent alums can recall now commonplace happenings, like hospital visits for alcohol poisoning, ever occurring.

"There were a few [students], of course, who abused alcohol and 'got drunk' but I was never aware of anyone going to the hospital," said Bramhall. Christopher Sullivan '97, who served as an EMT on campus for three and a half years, cannot recall in his personal experience "sending more than two students to the ER for alcohol poisoning," though "several were taken to the health center to sleep things off."

Continued...

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