The city of Boston decided in October that it had enough of the raucous MIT fraternity parties after a student fell through a skylight, crashing down four stories. The city’s ban on these parties represents widespread concern that parties, fueled in part by alcohol, are not just noisy and distracting for nearby residents, but unsafe for attendees.
As we continue to ponder what it means to be “as good as we are great,” we must also consider the ramifications of Harvard’s alcohol-ridden culture and strive to live above the influence. Alcohol is a major distraction from our true roles as students. Instead, we must focus on being the best we can be.
The university can point to efforts which allegedly help combat the drinking problem. Our Drug and Alcohol Peer Advisors, or DAPAs, aim to reduce the negative externalities associated with alcoholic parties. DAPA President Margaret Crane ’14, summed it up: “Since DAPA’s creation, the drinking rates at Harvard have not increased, but the students’ use of protective behaviors … has. This data suggests that DAPA’s presence on campus has encouraged students who choose to drink to practice safe drinking behaviors.” But if this is the case, then DAPA’s role is simply to minimize the effects of the damage Harvard students inherently create themselves by voluntarily participating in alcohol culture.
These efforts are false flags. Leaving alcohol policy to DAPA is akin to using a band-aid to patch a hole in a sinking-ship: it will not fix the underlying problem that is Harvard’s obsession with alcohol.
Alcohol culture brings with it many problems. The less serious include lost productivity due to loss of sleep and hangovers; the more alarming include emergency room visits and multiple accounts of sexual harassment, assault, and rape.
But doesn’t reducing these consequences itself justify sobriety? While an average partygoer may not contribute to this, they indirectly endorse it by seeking the “greatest parties” or aspiring to enter a final club (the scarier confluence of elitism, privilege, and alcohol). If through our actions, we can create fewer spaces for dehumanizing acts, we ought to do so.
A sizeable number of Harvard undergraduates retain the legal right to drink. But sobriety for on campus events is not a legal issue, but a moral one. A 21 year-old drinker contributes equally to creating an alcoholic environment as does an 18 year-old, equally endangering those who suffer the consequences.
Harvard’s solution is not to be found in “Harvard Proof” or even stricter execution of prohibitionist efforts. Instead, we as students must aspire to greatness without the crutch of alcohol.
One Harvard freshman, who requested anonymity, agreed: “Harvard implicitly encourages drinking. [Harvard Proof] doesn’t discourage it and the legal implications are absent. DAPAs advocate for safe drinking, but no one advocates for not drinking.”
You may dismiss me as a Puritanical prohibitionist, but what I argue immediately against is not the physical presence of alcohol on campus. More importantly, it is the absence of legitimate reason to partake in drinking. Why drink?
Among the most popular excuses: being part of “the quintessential college experience” and a desiring to find social acceptance.
What Harvard needs to do is to promote safety and wellness in the student body. In essence, it ought to endorse sobriety. If the DAPA approach is to put on a helmet when you jump off of a bridge, Harvard needs to remind us why we shouldn’t do it anyway.
Garret Condon, in The Hartford Courant, wrote about substance-free housing experiments in numerous universities, including the University of Connecticut and Connecticut College. “Those who direct and live in substance-free housing say that students there learn how to socialize without being drunk, and that this bond creates close communities. ‘You don’t have to be a beer buddy to have friends,’ says J.R. Curley, 21, a UConn senior and top-of-Brock resident.
“‘This is a place they can feel real safe,’ says David Brailey, college health educator at Connecticut College in New London, where 55 students in Freeman Dormitory live lives of voluntary sobriety. ‘They don’t have to deal with somebody who’s had too much to drink.’”
While some would argue that endorsing substance-free housing would imply that Harvard tolerates or accepts substance use elsewhere, it is a necessary step. Realistically, some students will participate in that culture despite being underage, despite the College’s ban, and despite the wellness implications of alcohol use.
Carnegie Mellon University is among the institutions employing some form of wellness housing. Jemmin Chang, a freshman at CMU, shares his insights on living in a substance free dorm, encouraging others to live in a “community of people with shared values, where there is no stigma against those who choose not to drink.”
Would such a stigma exist at Harvard? I accept that my opinion on the matter of alcohol use will be inherently unpopular, which is itself proof that the stigma exists. At the same time, Chang suggests that colleges must therefore carefully implement such solutions. He compliments CMU, noting that “colleges need to phrase it well. At CMU, it’s ‘wellness’ and not ‘substance-free’ focused, so as not to encourage, condone, or accept the use of drugs and alcohol in other dorms.”
As we search for a new Dean of the College, it is important to reevaluate Harvard’s alcohol policy. Realistically, action that Harvard College undertakes will be very limited in effect. Instead, students must reflect upon their own behavior to determine what motivates Harvard’s alcohol-dependent culture.
Harvard students are above average in the classroom. Why does that end when class is dismissed?
Including more options for students is always a welcome proposition. Accommodating the wishes of those who seek to experience Harvard with more responsible students is the first step, and would bring Harvard on par with more progressive institutions, at least in this regard. Having a house and dorm reserved for those who voluntarily lead sober lives would ensure that Harvard is committed to providing a safe and comfortable environment for those who can overcome the pressure to drink.