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The Chronicle of Higher Education: Colloquy

COLLOQUY
THE QUESTION
RESPONSES
BACKGROUND


While an appealing case can be made for assigning responsibility to any number of parties, including in this case a university, a barkeep, or a fraternity, absent a guiding ethic of personal responsibility, the finger-pointing, blame game that someone else is accountable for one's own stupidity and recklessness is almost endless. Put an end to it.

Support campus wellness, which not only advocates the attractions of healthy lifestyles and the payoffs and rewards near term and long term of such a positive philosophy, but also celebrates/reinforces and insists upon absolute and unmitigated personal responsibility for one's actions. In this case, if you are smart enough to go to college (or tie your shoes, for that matter), you are responsible for having enough sense not to drink alcohol to excess. Others may say it's cool, make it easy, fail to stop you, or otherwise be complicit, but you and you alone are responsible for your choices. In this case, wellness is tough love, before, during, and after the fact.

-- Donald B. Ardell, Publisher, The Ardell Wellness Report (posted 11/2, 12:30 p.m., E.S.T.)
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