However, I also feel the goal of university education is to expand academic, cultural and social experience of the student. This can be accomplished effectively without drinking. Binge and underage drinking have unfortunately become synonymous with college life. Nationwide only 17 percent of students said they abstained from alcohol, according to an annual survey by Professor Lloyd Johnston of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. The study cited the number of binge drinkers at around 38 percent.
College life brings the first taste freedom and responsibility for some.
Students must acknowledge this new freedom and practice responsible drinking. Chancellor William Jenkins of LSU suggested in early August, that administrators, faculty members, and advisers aren't with students 24 hours a day. Unnecessary death and injury from binge drinking on campus will not disappear without students taking action and responsibility as individuals and within smaller communities and groups like fraternities and sororities. Although individual responsibility plays a role in reducing alcohol abuse, as a legislator I feel we should focus on the underage drinking at a policy level. I agree that alcohol is entirely too available to minors.