By Sandra S. Bennett

“Faculty members lack powerful incentives to teach, students invest a minimum of time in their studies, and racial and other tensions undermine a sense of community in academic life.” (Edward B. Fiske, New York Times News Service, May 1990)

During the era of the Viet Nam War, the legal age was lowered to 18 in response to the powerful voices of the Baby Boomers, many of whom were being drafted, who argued that if they were old enough to be drafted they were old enough to have the right to vote and to consume alcohol.

It soon became apparent that most 18 year olds were not mature enough to drink responsibly and it was decided to split the legal age and make it 18 for voting and legal purposes, and 21 for alcohol consumption. Emancipation, however, extends to the university student in a highly selected manner. For example, until age 24 a university student is not eligible for some student loans if he or she has received any financial aid from parents or relatives during the previous two years. This could include a month long visit during the summer. It would seem then that the legal age for certain student loans is really 24.

This confusing “sometimes you are, sometimes you aren’t” status has created a bizarre situation where some high school students and most college students have many of the legal rights of adults but few of the responsibilities. University administrators claim all students 18 and over are legal adults and therefore the university has no responsibility to play “parent” to them This means, to quote a university administrator, that “students are supposed to be responsible and know how to act when they get here, and what they do once they’re here is their own affair - we’re not responsible for their private lives.”

You, as a parent or guardian of a student entering college this fall need to know what to expect.

 You need to know that unless the student signs a consent form (which can be revoked by the student at any time) grades will not be sent to the parent. Who pays the bills here is irrelevant.

 You need to know that if your 18-year-old child is drunk and falls off a ledge, gets assaulted, raped, overdoses on alcohol or other drugs (all common occurrences at college campuses) or suffers any other illness or injury, you will not be notified unless a “friend” or your child decide to call and let you know.

 At a recent White House Briefing in Washington, D.C., a presidential advisor grimly announced that less than 10% of campus crime and violence is being reported. In essence student criminals can do what they please with little risk of punishment.

 The aide went on to say that on average one out of four coeds will be raped on campus before she graduates. The problem is so severe at one northwest university that warnings are posted in the girl’s showers in coed dorms advising them to avoid use late in the evenings.

 It’s tragic but a fact that our colleges have had to resort to designating at least one dormitory and that students are afraid to live there for fear of being labeled a “nerd.” All our dorms should be substance-free. No student should have to make that choice any more than they should have to make a choice about whether they want to drive on the wrong side of the road.

In direct relation to the decline in values, student violence is escalating and school administrators acknowledge that it is directly related to the increased use of alcohol and illegal drugs. Yet, inherent to the problem are the lack of specific guidelines and what will and will not be tolerated by the university.

The schools do not want to be held accountable nor do they want the publicity - it’s bad for enrollment - so they have become willing accomplices in keeping the tragedy of campus crime and violence from the public. Their first priority, it seems, is not educating our children but keeping the schools full and their jobs secure.

By abdicating any responsibility for acceptable student behavior campus administrators see students primarily as economic assets. This lack of a “duty to care” places all our students at risk1 but in particular those leaving home for the first time, For instance, there is no adult supervision in most of the student housing. In the dorms a student Resident Assistant (RA) is all that stands between civility and mayhem and all too frequently mayhem wins out. The standards and values, and thus the “norms” of student life, have been left to the devices of the students. It is the revelers and bullies whose voices are the loudest (much as in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies) that end up making the rules of the student society.

The average number of years to graduate from the University of Oregon, says President Myles Brand, is six. Our children, school administrators say, are taking longer and learning “social skills.” Most of us believe we send our children to college to continue their education, not to learn how to “Party hearty.” It should escape no one’s notice that creating g milieu where matriculation takes six years instead of four means an increased enrollment of nearly 30%. A full time student paying full tuition may take from 12 to 21 units per semester. If that student takes 12 or fewer units it conceivably allows for another student. The income from tuition is doubled, but the class hours are nearly the same. It is economically in the best interest of the school to create an environment where the student fails to graduate in four years. Encouraging a “party” environment is one way to assure the five and six year student. Only 15% of the state’s undergraduates make it through the University of Oregon in four years and Oregon is not considered a particularly strenuous school.

While raising the legal age to 21 would give our children a few more years to have the benefit of some input and guidance from their families, colleges and universities can do a great deal right now to make the campuses a safe and healthy place for our young adults.

They can require all sororities and fraternities to have mature, non-student, live-in personnel. They can require that all recommended student housing meet basic fire, health1 and safety codes and be inspected on a quarterly basis. They can return to non-coed residence halls and provide some semblance of security for the students who live there. They can be explicit about allowing no use of illegal drugs and no illegal use of legal drugs in their quest for establishing a drug-free campus. They can refuse to allow campus events sponsored by the liquor or tobacco industry or which are, in any way, connected with drug use or drug users. With such standards set, colleges and universities can enforce a code of student behavior by expulsion, if necessary. This might return campus environments to ones where learning is fostered and anti-social behavior is not tolerated.

Author: Sandra S. Bennett