UW-Stout Students Speak Out About Lowering The Drinking Age
Over 100 chancellors and presidents from around the nation have jumped on a new campaign to examine the effectiveness of the current drinking age. Two of those chancellors are from Wisconsin colleges. Ripon College President David Joyce and Jack Keating, former UW-Parkside Chancellor, were the only collegiate leaders to sign the petition at the time of this article.
UW-Madison has not looked at the issue yet. They stated it is not the right time with the transition of University leadership to new Chancellor Biddy Martin from Cornell University. However, Chancellor Martin is reportedly open to the idea of discussing the new initiative.
This campaign was launched in July by John McCardell, president emeritus of Middlebury College. The petition circulating college campuses has signatures from prestigious universities like: Dartmouth College, Tufts University, Duke University, and The Ohio State University.
Stout Media took a random sample of UW-Stout students asking for their opinion on the topic. Here is what UW-Stout students are saying…
However not all UW-Stout students agree on the issue. A male student who wished to remain unidentified stated that although bars would see a huge spike in sales, is more young adults packed into a small space filled with cigarette smoke a healthy solution for our student body?
Sarah Fischer, a sophomore with an undeclared major provided her thoughts with StoutMedia at Price Commons over a tray of food.
“It’s the way our country perceives drinking, other countries like Japan or Germany it’s part of their culture, they don’t look down upon it, it’s part of the way they live, they accept it.” said Fischer.
Students provided their feedback via Facebook as well, one of those students was Eric Lamal. Eric is a freshmen majoring in Construction Management.
“I would like to see some sort of an open container policy; such as it is legal to consume alcohol and buy it from a bar or restaurant at eighteen and buy closed containers such as bottles of liquor or cases of beer at twenty-one. This would allow eighteen to twenty-one year olds to socialize with alcohol in a controlled environment.” says Lamal.
Overall, most students at UW-Stout feel the issue should be examined. They feel their peers would cut down on binge drinking and be more responsible.
At the time of this article, UW-Stout Chancellor Charles Sorensen has chosen to not sign the Amethyst Initiave.
Speak your student voice now, comment on this article below!
Tags: amethyst, binge drinking, charles sorensen, drinking age, stout drinking, uw-stout, uw-stout drinking, wisconsin drinking, wisconsin drinking age
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September 22, 2008 at 12:05 pm
I agree with Sarah Fischer, we have to realize that our culture is different than those other countries who allow drinking at younger ages. I think the age should be lowered to 19, however, we also need a in-depth look at both the pros AND cons