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Fall prompts SOU to check alcohol policy By DAVID PRESZLER ASHLAND -- For some students, it's the occasional beer while watching TV in their dorm rooms. For others, it's small clusters of friends quietly drinking behind closed doors on the weekends. And sometimes, it's underage drink-till-you-drop parties -- binges held against school rules. Alcohol use on the Southern Oregon University campus is widespread and takes many forms. But the role it plays was thrust into the spotlight after Travis Koshinsky, an 18-year-old freshman who had been drinking, fell three stories from a dorm ledge on Oct. 14. Koshinsky, who is from Hillsboro, suffered head injuries and was listed in good condition Thursday at Providence Rehabilitation Center in Medford. School officials say he is showing slow but steady improvement. The accident sparked a predictable reaction from the university's administration. A committee formed to examine alcohol policies begins meeting next week. Students who are 21 or older are allowed to drink on campus -- but only in the privacy of their dorm rooms. Other state universities have similar policies -- except for Western Oregon University in Monmouth, where the town prohibits alcohol sales and the school prohibits use by students. Joan Jackson, the associate dean of students heading the SOU committee, says it will look at whether the school should adopt stricter rules, although she says current policies are "very good." Students and school officials alike wonder how effective any policy can be in stemming the nationwide problem of alcohol abuse on college campuses -- especially when drinking has become such a standard rite of passage. "Alcohol is generally the drug of choice for college students," says Jackson. "There's almost an expectation that if you are a college student, you are drinking. Spoken or unspoken, there is that image of a college student -- that's what they live up to." The last alcohol study at SOU, done in 1993, showed that 77 percent of the 668 students surveyed had used alcohol in the past 30 days. Forty-two percent were "binge" drinkers -- those who had consumed five or more drinks in one sitting during the two weeks before the survey. The biggest on-campus problem centers on underage drinking, because about 90 percent of the 916 students living in the residence halls this year are under 21. The 1993 survey found that 73 percent of underage students drank and that they made up more than half of the binge drinkers. Jackson says the school has tried to combat underage drinking by more strictly enforcing alcohol rules and working with Ashland police to cite those who violate them. In 1997, there were 48 alcohol violations -- mostly minor-in-possession citations -- handed down, up from 12 the year before and 13 in 1996. The university has also offered alcohol education programs to promote responsible drinking -- even to younger students. "There's always been a dilemma about underage drinking," she says. "People are reluctant to talk to underage students about drinking responsibly. We have tended to want them to just say no. That doesn't seem to be working." Younger students say that although many of them drink, not all of them abuse alcohol. "It's a problem," says one 19-year-old who admits drinking in her Greensprings dorm room. "I also know a lot of students who don't drink to the point of alcohol poisoning and don't drink to the point of doing something stupid." "If you want to, you can go out and get plastered any night of the week," says one 18-year-old who lives in Suzanne Hall. "It's there but I haven't been witness to anything out of control." Some students say they are against binge drinking, but they say experience led them to that position. "I don't know if anything can be done," the Susanne Homes dorm resident says. "It's personal. I did most of my drinking in high school. There's no mystique around it now." "I've done it, my friends do it," says an 18-year-old who lives in Greensprings, on the same floor Koshinsky fell from. "I don't think there's a lot they can do to stiffen the policy. "It's a lot of kids' first time being without their parents. As time goes by, they are going to mature and will learn to control themselves." Older students who drink legally and, they say, responsibly on campus, agree that time is the best cure for underage drinking. "I don't think they are drinking to drink," says Brian Nordahl, a junior who is the head RA at freshman-heavy Greensprings. "They are drinking to get drunk. It's hard to get them to drink responsibly. That's one of those nice little things that comes with age." Fellow Greensprings RA Anthony Miller says a stricter alcohol policy isn't the answer and education efforts can only do so much. "You can give facts and figures only so much before they just tune out," he says. "There are two different things that cause change when you are talking about things like alcohol: tragedy and personal experience." Nordahl and Miller say Greensprings has been calmer since Koshinsky's accident but they know the drinking hasn't ended. "It hasn't stopped and I wouldn't expect it to," Miller says. "It woke up a lot of students. It showed them that there are consequences for their actions. I think you will see a lot more responsible drinking." "They've gotten smarter," Nordahl says. "They are watching out for each other more." Nordahl and Miller say they are committed to enforcing the no-alcohol rules but say it's not easy to do -- especially when students are drinking quietly in their rooms without their knowledge. "Students have the right to privacy, it's not a prison," Miller says. "We don't have the right to shake down their rooms." That's an important thing to understand about the policy, Jackson says. "They don't shake down rooms unless there's an incident that draws attention to them," she says, adding that there had been no reports of a party before Koshinsky fell. "They aren't going to go knock on every door. It's not a prison, it's a residence hall." That sentiment may steer the committee away from recommending dramatic changes in the policy -- like banning all alcohol on campus. Nordahl for one, says that would be a mistake. The 21-year-old RA says he has the occasional microbrew while watching pro wrestling on TV and doesn't intend to give up that right. "I would consider moving off campus," he says. "I don't want to live in prison." "I don't think it would go over well," agrees 22-year-old Karren Selthan, who lives in Baker Hall, a dorm for students 21 and older. But at least one other Baker resident says it might be a good idea -- especially since most older students would rather drink off campus. "A lot of it is more socializing in bars and restaurants," says Anna Nauman, who's 28. "It's no fun to be hiding in your room.'' Jackson won't speculate on how seriously the administration may consider banning alcohol. "We have to make sure our policies are sound and enforceable," she says. "If they aren't enforceable, they aren't worth the paper they are written on." She says the key is to remember that no one policy, no one program is going to solve the problem. "It takes all approaches," she says. "Sometimes there's a tendency to want to rely on only one of those: just enforcement, just treatment or just education. Realistically, it takes all of them." Mail Tribune Copyright � interRogue & The Mail Tribune 1998, Medford, Oregon USA