Since I came to Tufts last year, I have noticed that students here have the tendency to complain about the lack of "social" opportunities on campus. Social, in this case, serves as a euphemism for drinking. Countless articles and editorials are written constantly criticizing the president and calling for a party scene that will ignore underage drinking laws and allow college to be a haven for uncontrolled alcoholic fun.
I am not going to decry the use of alcohol on an occasional basis, nor am I going to agree with the validity of a legal drinking age as high as 21. I am, however, going to strongly disagree with the views of several of my quite vocal fellow classmates.
I find that at college, there is way too much of a premium placed on the use of alcohol. As far as I am concerned, a social life should not rest solely on getting drunk. Student social life at college is becoming one-dimensional, since it is now the case that many people find that they can only have fun at a party if they are both getting drunk and hooking up.
This mentality feeds into a vicious cycle for college students. Obviously, not everyone who lives on campus is getting drunk every single Thursday, Friday and Saturday night. However, there is a fairly implicit understanding that if you don't like to drink, there is not much to do on campus during the weekend nights. This lack of non-alcoholic activity leads more people to drink to merely evade boredom. When non-alcoholic options are proposed, however, they are immediately shrugged off because people assume that everyone is getting drunk on the weekends.
Even when activities are planned as an alternative to the usual frat parties, they are often overcome with students who have taken the liberty to pregame and thus arrive fully drunk. This not only ruins the events for the people who take them seriously, it also discourages event planners from creating sober weekend activities.
As far as activities for the drinking population (by this, I am referring to those who see alcohol as their primary means for release), they are both easily accessible and plentiful. Even if the frat party scene doesn't mimic that of "Animal House," activities for drinkers are much more pervasive than they are for non-drinkers.
President Bacow is not to blame for limiting the party scene on campus. His sole objective, contrary to popular belief, is not to "suppress all fun at Tufts," but rather to advance the University and enforce the law. Bacow himself believes that the drinking age should be lowered to 18. When he takes disciplinary action against a fraternity, he is simply doing his job in enforcing the rules. Perhaps a better way to change drinking ordinances is to petition the federal government.
The largest problem I see on campus is not with the drinking population, but with the students who choose to stay sober for most weekends. We assume that since the most vocal campus voices are pro-drinking, we are nearly alone in our views. This causes many would-be spokespersons to keep quiet amongst most conversations about weekend activities.
I propose a Yahoo! Group, located at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SoberSocialGroup/. This should be used to promote social activities that do not involve alcohol or drug use. Please feel free to register and post events or suggestions.
While speaking to some of my friends at dinner, I realized that we are greater in number than we seem. Perhaps if more of us would be vocal in our dissatisfaction with the non-alcoholic social life at Tufts, changes could be made and weekends on campus could be livelier.
Marc Sittenreich is a sophomore majoring in economics.
