Brown’s Drinking Problem

I don’t drink. Anyone who meets me knows this fact within our first fifteen minutes of conversation. The closest I’ve come to over-consumption of alcohol is during Communion at Mass – and I’m pretty sure it’s both impossible and sacrilegious to get drunk off the blood of Jesus Christ. I choose to surround myself with people who have made the same decision, and I do not consider myself immature for not consuming alcohol. However, neither the university nor its students support these decisions, as seen by the disastrous events of this year’s upperclassman substance-free housing assignments. This set of events is only the most recent chapter in a history that clearly shows it is difficult, if not impossible, to abstain from drinking on this campus without being ostracized.

For my freshman year, I requested to live in a substance-free environment. Freshmen who requested substance-free housing this year were placed in Perkins Hall on the second floor, and in a few random rooms in Champlin. It is unclear as to why fewer than ten students were placed in Champlin, when Perkins clearly has additional floors, especially since ResLife and ResCouncil have repeatedly stated that keeping communities together was the main priority for upperclassman specialty housing. Apparently freshman communities are unimportant.

Past the official declarations of the residential administration, the the process of choosing the location substance-free freshmen seems suspicious. It is relatively common knowledge on campus among older students that Perkins has been a complete disaster in recent years. In terms of EMS calls, property damage done under the influence, and other similar events, Perkins had far more than its fair share. Consequently, it seems as if more than random selection led the administration to pick the second floor of a four-floor building (essentially cutting the building in half) to house the substance-free unit. We’re being used to divide the debauchery.

It is not only the administrative aspects of freshman substance-free housing that makes it difficult to live as a substance-free community; other freshmen have made it unpleasant as well. Since Orientation of this school year, the second floor of Perkins has had many students from other floors (and even other buildings) walk up and down its hallways, trying to catch a glimpse of a substance-free student. Maybe they are looking for extra limbs, or perhaps simply evidence of a crippling social disorder, but I cannot be sure. Many of those in our unit (myself included) have reported awkward conversations – another student will ask us where we live; we tell him; and he comments, “Isn’t that where the substance-free unit is? Are those kids weird?” Students on the other floors label us as sanctimonious and freakish on several Perkins-themed Facebook groups.

As bad as the freshman housing has been, many of this year’s substance-free students, myself included, chose to reapply, since upperclassman substance-free housing was mostly located in the Barbour Hall doubles this past year (with a few students placed in Champlin). To apply for this specialty housing, you essentially forfeit your right to choose housing; ResLife chooses the building for you. Many of us made this logical choice after realizing that, as sophomores, there was no chance we could do better in the housing lottery than Barbour. Many others who did not do freshman substance-free housing chose to request it as well, hoping to be in Barbour. There were a total of 61 requests this year (including those who are not rising sophomores, as several students who are rising juniors and seniors also applied for this housing). The Barbour singles and doubles house a total of 37 students, not 61. This is how the remaining rising sophomores ended up in New Pembroke 1 and 2, with the older students in Metcalf.

I was originally furious at the fact that we had been assigned some of the worst dorms on campus, and I’m still a little skeptical about the reasons for the decision (there was NO other place to put the sophomores?), but I chose to reapply mainly because I actually do love the community we’ve built. I can deal with the dorms. Logically, based on past results, there should have been an excellent chance that I would have ended up in New Pembroke as a sophomore in the housing lottery. So I stayed, with only 14 other sophomores. The remainder dropped out, and wrote a joint complaint to ResLife.

This was the deepest cut for me. While I do not like the attitude students have towards anyone who does not drink alcohol, this is not something I can easily fix. Many will see me as a holier-than-thou loser with no social life regardless of what I do. That is their right, though I pray they change their minds. Further, I do not like university administrators’ attitude towards drinking. Its seeming disregard for substance-free students, combined with weak efforts to punish property destruction at Jo’s, make for a disappointing policy at best. Yes, these are extremes, and I am far from expecting a personal thank-you from Ruth Simmons for our exemplary behavior, but they are still true. Again, I will have to learn to deal with this attitude, and try to change it in any way I can. However, neither of these views hurts as much as peers – who actually share my view on drinking – who hurt their friends because their assigned housing was not good enough. Many of those who chose to leave did not choose substance-free housing as freshmen, and joined because they heard they would be able to get housing in Barbour. These people, in addition to the residents of my floor this year, swelled the numbers, and then dropped out the instant the e-mail came. They did not care about the “community”; they cared about good rooms. The e-mail they wrote was not endorsed by the entire substance-free group, but because of it, even those who chose to remain in New Pembroke 2 were then seen as rude and ungrateful by ResLife. They were out for themselves, and clearly cared so little about this community we’ve built that they were willing to leave simply because they would have been housed in sub-par rooms.

We who don’t drink had originally been cut down by the administration, which should be supporting us, and a majority of students on campus, who should at least be respectful, based on Brown’s PC standards. We’ve now been isolated in New Pembroke by members of our own community.