Anne M. Weeks, an Advanced Placement English teacher, director of college guidance at the Oldfields School in Glencoe, Md., and reading consultant for the College Board, found colleges offer very few social situations that don't revolve around alcohol use. "I ask what entertainment the college is providing for those who choose to abstain, and the answer, more often than not, is that 'there are great programs with magicians, hypnotists, and comedians, even coffeehouses, but they all wind down around 10:00 p.m., and then what is there to do?'"

Weeks also discovered that students who joined others in the drinking ritual found the behavior directly affecting their academic performance. Yet when they chose to limit their involvement, they found they were socially bored.

"As a result, I see a growing trend of students who want to live off campus in their own apartments, where they can create a more adult lifestyle and avoid the immature behavior they perceive to be rampant in college dormitories," she said.

In her research, Weeks found that one particular college had a high transfer rate. Questioning some of the students about their dissatisfaction with the college, Weeks found it was related to alcohol abuse among their classmates. "What I found most striking, however, is that this college had instituted a very strict policy on alcohol use two years ago, and as far as I was able to ascertain, was following through on its stated guidelines with tenacious consistency," Weeks said.

To determine why students wanted to transfer anyway, Weeks talked with a representative from the college. "She told me that she felt the college was actually inheriting a problem when the students enrolled. Her observation was that students arrived at her college with an unhealthy attitude about drinking, well-established during their high-school years, and as a result, the college was put in the position of having to combat a pre-existing problem," Weeks said.

Through her research, which also included examining television programs geared towards young people, Weeks concluded, "In the recent atmosphere of blame leveled at colleges for not controlling abusive drinking habits, maybe we are focusing our concern and angst toward the wrong constituency. Maybe we should be looking more carefully at the attitudes of parents and the media when guiding and nurturing our children in their formative years. Maybe we should face the fact that colleges cannot effectively be in loco parentis, and should not be expected to be."

Weeks stressed that the alcohol problem should be addressed in the teenage years, with parents and educators determining how effectively they can raise responsible children with responsible attitudes. "Let us stop giving credence to peer pressure and face the fact that we, as adults, are not successfully creating an environment that frowns upon the abuse of alcohol," she wrote.

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