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Special Report on Alcohol - Survey Student Comments The following are comments taken from the comments section of the survey. They are in no particular order. Drinking is a destructive, life-effecting action that has the propensity to destroy families, grades, and all that people hold dear to them. I personally have seen the destructive power of alcohol through the death of an uncle and the imprisonment of another. Both of these men started drinking while underage. The reason for this story is to encourage this campus to crack down on drinking. Get it off the campus, and give strict regulations when it is found. As Christians, we have a responsibility to hold one another accountable and drunkenness is something to be accountable for. Perhaps community service should be an alternative to a fine [for drinking on-campus]. There should be a fine [for drinking on-campus]. There is a rule against it. If students want to break it, they need to be prepared to face the consequences. Drinking is fine, and I have experienced my fair share of it. However, Calvin is a dry campus where people should feel safe and confident enough that they will not run into another person "under the influence." Although it can sometimes be mildly humorous to watch people when they are drunk, it is (1) not respectful, and (2) not safe. Furthermore, there is a legal drinking age. Students who have not reached that age are not seen as "mature enough" yet. If they choose to drink irresponsibly because they believe that they are mature, that only intensifies the opinion that they have not reached that level of maturity. People who come to Calvin are made aware of the rules and expectations before they come. By accepting the chance to be a part of this environment, they are accepting the responsibility of complying with the "rules." Canadians should only have to be 19 on-campus [to be allowed to drink]. It's part of our heritage. Except if you are drunk, drinking within reason should be allowed on-campus if the person is of the legal age. It is the abuse, not use, of alcohol that should be fined. Drinking is illegal if underage. Question: Should we ban communion wine because teens under 21 drink it? It's illegal there, too. Any kind of alcohol drinking on campus should be severely punished in an effort to maintain a distraction-free, study-enhancing and Christian environment that all students pay $17,500 for. I believe there should be a team on campus, unknown to peers and each other to cut down on drinking -- catch them! I also believe Campus Safety officers should take their jobs seriously and not drink. I believe there should be more alcohol awareness among RA's and RD's. People who want to live off-campus should be inspected more. Freshmen should be told more of what's going on. Many of them don't know what a "party" is consisted of when they go. I drink socially, not to get drunk! This is obvious, but it's worth mentioning. If drinking were allowed on-campus, then there would be a lot less students going out and driving home drunk. Also, I see Calvin students all the time at several different bars. Having a dry campus doesn't prevent students from drinking, it just prevents students from drinking in a safe place. When you're a freshman and sophomore you are stupid and you want to drink every weekend, get to know people, have fun with all the other drunk freshmen. It was fun and also a learning experience. Junior and senior years you just drink to enjoy your friends, the taste of a good beer. You don't drink to get drunk, but to relax and enjoy a good day or a good song or a good friend. I don't see much point in drinking. Drinking responsibly is not wrong. Calvin should promote responsible drinking as opposed to saying it is wrong to drink. If responsible drinking is never taught or encouraged then there would not be an urge for underage drinking and to drink to drunkenness. Drinking is not a sin, abusing drink is. All things are good in moderation. Promoting responsible drinking is necessary. If Calvin continues to portray drinking as "terrible" and "sinful," college students will never learn that drinking, in the responsible sense, is not only okay, but is/can be the behavior of a Christian. I do believe that it is the responsibility of parents to teach this to their children (as mine did), but many parents fail to do so and we end up with irresponsible freshmen who think all alcohol is for getting drunk and vomiting on some off-campus front lawn. Please: teach our children to drink, to learn the enjoyment of alcohol and not the sickness of it. Drinking is not a sin. Let's not make it one! I dislike the tones of the questions. I do not drink in order to get drunk. I may have stumbled and continued when I should have stopped, yet my frequent drinking is a social occasion. It is very non-American-like drinking. It's sipping a glass of wine with a nice dinner with friends. It's the beer with a burger or steak. It's the one or two coke and rums chatting quietly with my friends. I detest the hypocrisy culture of Calvin. I fully agree that this campus has a tremendous drinking problem and harsh steps should be taken to curb the loud, noisy, abusive, obvious, party culture without actively searching out those who treat their alcohol with respect and like a beverage, not as a drug. Drink up! I drank more when I was under 21 and living in the dorms then I do now. I used to drink because I liked to "pah-tee." I hardly ever go out anymore. It's just a social thing now that I'm 22. I am leery of Calvin College. One of the major reasons is hypocrisy. Calvin is not relevant, it is a bastion for hedonism and its students run wild. Want to stop drinking and drugs? Get a Dean with a back bone. Allow searches by Campus Safety with reasonable suspicion. Stop trying to preserve the image of a Christian college if you plan on making no changes. I've been to Calvin parties and I've seen the drinking that goes on while both on- and off-campus. I don't believe for most people drinking is a problem. Most people do it to have fun and enjoy the college experience; however, for some it is a problem. I suppose those students who drink heavily and have a problem must learn how to drink responsibly. When I fill out this scale I refer honestly to my past. I've grown a lot and strongly disapprove of any alcohol use on-campus. Also any alcohol use by minors is inappropriate. If we're allowed to vote or go into the army, I think we are old enough to drink. Getting drunk is not that big of a deal for most people. There's only a small amount who have problems when drunk. The rest of us get drunk, have fun, go to sleep, wake up the next day and go to church. I'd say 20 percent of the students at Calvin like to party often and at least 40 percent do it occasionally or at least once. Our body is a temple. To whom and how we use it is our decision. Not our parents and certainly not Calvin. I drank more heavily and often when I was a freshman and sophomore. Presently I drink less amounts and less often. I drank more my freshman and sophomore years with a fake I.D. then I do now that I'm legal. There wasn't ever a threat of getting caught. Our RA's were clueless, so we never worried. I just want to say that I regret having gotten drunk on a couple of occasions. It was stupid and I know it was wrong. Lately so many of my friends have been justifying it in their own minds, arguing that it is no different than excessive consumption of anything else. I can't agree with this. If we are to be Christ's ambassadors and our body is His temple, allowing something other than Him like alcohol to take control of our bodies is very serious. How is Christ glorified when you're passed out and puking, or worse, saying and doing thins that contradict our Christian identity? It is in Calvin's best interests to maintain the dry-campus policy. If the rules and regulations continue to relax, then it will someday be permissible to even smoke marijuana on-campus. As consumers, we vote with our money. Every time you purchase a beer, for example, you are saying to the alcohol industry, "Yes, I support the fact that you make billions upon billions of dollars every year off the bones of others. I support the fact that you destroy families. I support the fact that your products are used by men to get women drunk so that they can take advantage of their bodies." For this reason alone, I do not drink. This is not even beginning to get into the moral issues and the issues of health that lead me to abhor alcohol. If you choose to destroy your body and simultaneously support greedy corporate bastards, then I can't change that. As for me, I will do all I can to educate people against the poison known as alcohol. I'll end with a funny quote: "I knew I'd never follow a man with a bottle, cuz a bottle makes a man a baby not a role model." Good Clean Fun, D.C. Straight Edge band. Drinking small amounts at meals should be encouraged as young as middle-school ages. Putting drinking in a mature context will make binge drinking/abuse less of a party. Lighten up. Jesus turned H2O into wine for a reason. There is nothing wrong with having a beer on a hot day if you are of age. AMEN. If you drink before 21-years-old, you are disobeying authority, so you are disobeying God. That's a no-no. If you get drunk or carouse, you disobey God. And that's another no-no. I use alcohol for cooking, that's why it's in my room. I go off-campus to drink. I don't feel guilty about having alcohol in my apartment because I'm over 21 and I don't drink to get drunk. Canadians can drink any American under the damn table. Perhaps you can provide answers for those of us who never (or almost never) drink from those who do drink. What about drinking is fun? How can one enjoy not being able to remember the evening spent with friends (because they were drunk)? To me, having fun includes spending time with friends and then reminiscing about it later. Not waking up with a headache, struggling to remember what I did and hoping I didn't do anything stupid the night before. Not to mention honoring our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit. Drinking should be allowed on-campus for those who are 21. Instead of a fine it might be more appropriate to assign community service for drinking violations. Maybe it's safer for people of age to drink on-campus (who live on-campus) because then they won't drive under the influence. It's always safer to drink at a place where you won't be driving. I think punishment through fines is not the best means of discipline. Make people risk their valuable time and work by bending the drinking rules. I don't drink; never have, never will. It appears to me that the purpose mainly seems to be social for off-campus, and rebellious ("I'm getting away with something") on-campus. I wish everyone could just find better ways to socialize … instead of using alcohol as an excuse of lower-inhibitions for having "fun" of various sorts. Drinking is not bad. Drinking for the sole purpose of getting drunk is bad. I do not think that on-campus consumption should be allowed at any age. In the metropolis of G.R., there aren't many places to go to get away from the worries of college. |
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