Spring Break
URI president opposes lowering drinking age
Lindsay Lorenz
Issue date: 9/11/08 Section: News
09/11/08 - Although some universities are embracing the idea of a lower national drinking age, University of Rhode Island President Robert L. Carothers said URI will not be among them.
This summer, more than 100 university presidents signed an initiative in favor of lowering the legal drinking age from 21 to 18 years of age. The Amethyst Initiative, a campaign launched by a faculty member at Vermont's Middlebury College, garners support from them to promote alcohol use in moderation as opposed to the "clandestine" binge drinking usually responsible for campus tragedies.
As of now, the initiative has acquired the support of 130 college presidents, including Dartmouth, Duke and nearby Johnson and Wales University.
Carothers, who transformed URI into a dry campus in the mid-1990s, said lowering the drinking age would not curb the irresponsible actions of 18 to 21 year olds.
He defends his decision with an armory of research-based facts, including statistics that show a decrease in drunk driving fatalities after the legal age was upped decades ago, and the knowledge that more than 90 percent of sexual assaults are alcohol-related.
In addition, research points out that the younger people start drinking, the more likely an alcohol addiction will develop. Studies at URI's Cancer Research Center can predict the alcohol abuse rate on any given day.
But the real knowledge, he said, lies in his experience.
"When you've been in this business as long as I have, and listened to as many men and women crying about what happened to them when they were drunk, it's not a small problem," he said. "When you talk to as many parents and tell them their kids are dead, you don't forget that, and that happens every year."
However, according to their testaments on Amethyst's Web site, many of the Presidents who signed have similar sentiments to those of Carothers.
"Every day, we see the tragic costs of that culture first hand," wrote President Elisabeth Muhlenfeld of Sweet Briar College in Virginia. "It is the lucky college president who has not had to telephone parents to report that their child has been the victim of date rape exacerbated by alcohol abuse, or killed in an automobile accident coming back from an alcohol fueled all-night party."
This summer, more than 100 university presidents signed an initiative in favor of lowering the legal drinking age from 21 to 18 years of age. The Amethyst Initiative, a campaign launched by a faculty member at Vermont's Middlebury College, garners support from them to promote alcohol use in moderation as opposed to the "clandestine" binge drinking usually responsible for campus tragedies.
As of now, the initiative has acquired the support of 130 college presidents, including Dartmouth, Duke and nearby Johnson and Wales University.
Carothers, who transformed URI into a dry campus in the mid-1990s, said lowering the drinking age would not curb the irresponsible actions of 18 to 21 year olds.
He defends his decision with an armory of research-based facts, including statistics that show a decrease in drunk driving fatalities after the legal age was upped decades ago, and the knowledge that more than 90 percent of sexual assaults are alcohol-related.
In addition, research points out that the younger people start drinking, the more likely an alcohol addiction will develop. Studies at URI's Cancer Research Center can predict the alcohol abuse rate on any given day.
But the real knowledge, he said, lies in his experience.
"When you've been in this business as long as I have, and listened to as many men and women crying about what happened to them when they were drunk, it's not a small problem," he said. "When you talk to as many parents and tell them their kids are dead, you don't forget that, and that happens every year."
However, according to their testaments on Amethyst's Web site, many of the Presidents who signed have similar sentiments to those of Carothers.
"Every day, we see the tragic costs of that culture first hand," wrote President Elisabeth Muhlenfeld of Sweet Briar College in Virginia. "It is the lucky college president who has not had to telephone parents to report that their child has been the victim of date rape exacerbated by alcohol abuse, or killed in an automobile accident coming back from an alcohol fueled all-night party."
