I hope all of you college and university presidents out there are paying attention and have added a new tool to your conflict resolution toolkit. The next time two or more students are embroiled in conflict, it appears that the best way to solve it might be to invite all parties over to the presidential mansion to have a cold beer. Even really smart people seem now to recognize that in small quantities, alcohol might make calmer or more reasonable people out of all of us, that somehow it could enhance the value of the conversation, or at least the ease with which it flows. Just chug that mug and let the good times roll.
Oh, but that’s right. You have been charged with being the moral leaders of young people in the U.S. and the deliverers of the message that alcohol won’t solve problems but will instead exacerbate them. You are the mandated keepers of dry campuses in order to protect even those of legal drinking age from the evil influence of … a cold one. You are the ones who are charged to lead the crusade against the negative messages sent by the media, television, movies, musicians … and now our Commander in Chief … that all is good when you can sit down over a frosty mug.
The White House has drawn attention to the fact that in this country, the responsible use of alcohol is legal, generally acceptable, and sometimes even helpful in bringing people together for a good purpose. Too bad college and university presidents are forced to live by such a separate, different and ridiculous set of standards regarding the availability of alcohol on campus, even when most of the faculty, staff, graduate students, and these days even undergraduate students are of legal drinking age.
September is coming, and students are soon returning to campus. How will you justify your dry campus in light of the fact that even the White House is now open for happy hour?
One Response to Note to College Presidents: New Technique for Conflict Resolution
dank48 - August 7, 2009 at 9:11 am
A week and no comments on this? Wow. Forty years ago, when I was an undergrad, the university felt it was responsible for my behavior to the extent my parents were. If I wasn’t embarrassing or otherwise inconveniencing the university by how I acted, nobody gave a damn what I drank, or smoked, for that matter.
I think Diane Auer Jones has made some good points about the responsible use of alcohol and the idiotically hypocritical attitudes today’s nanny-college assumes and imposes. It might be too much to expect, but one thing that was in the air in the sixties that seems strikingly absent today is tolerance. This of course means my tolerance of your behavior that doesn’t excessively limit my behavior, and vice versa, regardless of whether either of us respects, likes, admires, or considers sane what the other thinks, says, or does.
Anybody can tolerant behavior they like.