I always hate it when vacations end. You come back and discover that the world you left behind is much as it was when you departed. Even if things change they remain the same. So, for example, while I was taking a break the question of the appropriate drinking age reemerged.

John M. McCardell Jr., president emeritus of Middlebury College and William G. Durden, president of Dickinson College, have recently persuaded 100 or more of their colleagues to sign a petition, the Amethyst Initiative, to begin a conversation about lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18 (the age it was when I myself went off to college).

Obviously, the debate about the legal drinking age is far broader than the boundaries of any particular college campus. Beyond the age question itself are the actions — at times illegal and often inappropriate — by people who drink beyond their ability to maintain personal responsibility for their behavior. Driving while intoxicated (DUI) is most often talked about. Domestic and sexual violence and workplace productivity (missed days at the job) can also be traced to substance issues.

In 1984, a stream of automobile accidents inspired raising the drinking age from 18 to 21. In great measure, that campaign was championed by MADD — Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Today they remain a formidable group, with an active membership and a data-base of research that demonstrates the number of lives saved in the years since 18-, 19-, and 20-year-olds have been restricted from legally drinking and then driving illegally under the influence.

For college campuses (and college presidents), under-age drinking has a special set of concerns, in great measure because of the concentration of undergraduates, almost all of who are under 21 until their senior year. And young people being what young people often are — risk takers, full of hormones, bravado and a sense of invincibility — often do silly and stupid things. Residential colleges have come to signify the place where rites of passage occur: first time away from home for an extended period of time leads to the first drink, first love, first sexual encounter, first trial of illegal substances, and the first foray into many other untried or untested actions.

If automobile driving was the only behavior in question, then we might logically consider the raising of the drinking age (or the driving age) to 25, not lowering it to 18 — thereby saving even more lives from automobile accidents. But driving and drinking is not the only issue. And, I recall that we tried that once before: We called it Prohibition and it didn’t work. People found ways to get around the ban on booze and whole illegal industries flourished. Many people drank clandestinely (frequently very, very bad quality whiskey). Too many became cynical watching people break the law and bootleggers thrive: The Volstead Act of 1919 became history in 1933 with the passage of the 21st Amendment.

If raising the drinking age isn’t the best idea, what are we to make of the idea of lowering it? I hear arguments that people are allowed to vote, drive, and go to war at 18. They can enter into legally binding contracts, younger than they can order a glass of beer. How wise is that? How did we decide that 21 is to be the age of alcohol consent?

If we’re relying on our intuition, I personally think 18 seems a little too young and 21 a little too old. This seems to be an argument ripe for compromise and somewhere in-between would “buy” some time to further discuss the cultural and social implications of the questions under consideration. But whatever the age that is ultimately decided upon, drinking under that age will be illegal. And driving a car after consuming too much alcohol will also remain illegal, an act that calls for continued vigilance on the part of law enforcement. Drunk drivers must suffer the consequences of their deeds.

For the issue isn’t only drinking, or rather, the issue is more exactly responsibility. How do parents and teachers create a culture of self-respect and recognition of a duty to others and ourselves in our classrooms, starting from kindergarten and working all the way through to the baccalaureate degree? How do we get undergraduates to value themselves and protect their classmates when the temptations presented to the young who feeling invulnerable are at their most susceptible? It is about finding a golden mean, isn’t it? Don’t drink too much, eat too much, or drive too fast. And of course the argument between drinking on campus and off campus opens itself up to a Marxist analysis; it is a class issue. Should we let college students drink at a younger age than working class peers? Will universities look after their own if they drink in the campus pub? Do universities even have the ability to do that?

Consuming alcohol has social, scientific and religious parameters — not to mention the issues of social policy — in other words, who gets to do what when? It was in 1971 that the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18; and in 1984 the drinking age was raised from 18 to 21. When we had a military draft, as we did in 1971, one could be sent to war at age 18 and that was part of the argument used to lower the voting age: If a president can decide who to send to fight for their country (at that time women were not part of the combat forces), then those young men should be able to decide who to send to the White House. Today, on some level, with our country again at war, it seems strange that youngsters — men and women — who are deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places in harm’s way cannot legally buy a beer when they are back home for R&R. But things are never simple, are they? Choice is not between good and bad. Being right is the enemy of united action.

In the end, like so many, I’m of two minds on this matter. I’ve had the unfortunate duty as a university administrator of speaking with parents whose child died after an evening of binge drinking; or fell out of a window after taking drugs; or lost a limb in a car accident with a roommate who drank to excess and tried to drive back to campus. For a dean, these are terrible telephone calls to make. And if lowering the drinking age were the silver bullet to stop all that from happening, I’d be in favor of it. But life on campus is as complex as life in the rest of world. And the arguments, although persuasive in some areas, are not compelling in others.

Personal responsibility starts at home, continues in elementary and high school, and isn’t over when students get to campus. Institutions of higher education increasingly fill in gaps that no longer are completed in earlier stages of life, offering programs to promote tolerance towards diverse ethnic, religious, and gender groups; consulting about alcohol, substance abuse, sexual behavior, nutrition, and health issues, and many other things. With humility we advise about academics and about life. It takes a community of action similar to the spirit of going green — peer pressure — to not only “save the world” but inform and/or moderate personal behavior, as well.

There are many constituencies with a perspective on this issue, on and off campus: deans of students and other university personnel; student-run associations including member of the Greek-life community; religious organizations; medical and science researchers; the distilled spirits, wine, and beer industry; restaurant, beverage, and tourism associations; local and state police; and, of course, the general citizenry. There is room for lots of input and a need for consensus building.

But beware of the distinctions between in-loco parentis developing a social conscience, and the hand of big brother overhead — for all this is a line thin enough to become a blur. The example we ought to set, all of us — educators, parents, politicians, readers of The Chronicle of Higher Education postings — is one of moderation and open-mindedness rather than certainty, where absolute right and wrong is not apparent. We need to commit to seeking a compromise we can share and that protects our children rather than a need to prevail on our own.