Wednesday, August 30, 2006

A Culture of College or a Culture of Alcoholism?

I have spoken to some of you about the culture that this university puts forth. For those of you who have not heard, the University of Dayton is not a dry campus and therefore has many problems concerning underage drinking as well as over drinking. Although I have not been challenged in too many ways upon moving, this is indeed a major way I have been!

The very first night the freshmen were on campus there were three hospitalizations due to alcohol poisoning, one student ended up on a ventilator. I do not know the out come of that particular situation, unfortunately having students in the hospital is not that rare of a thing here.

My first weekend on campus threw me into culture shock. The student neighborhood was literally a scene from Hollywood! Seriously! I thought this stuff only happened in movies and maybe that shows my naivety but nonetheless it was a different world to me. My fellow graduate assistants have their ways of dealing with the situation. One young woman sits on the front porch of the duplex—this is where the none residence life campus ministers live, and as a general rule is our place to hang out—and exclaims, “We’re the modesty club, we’ve got you covered!” She wants to hand out t-shirts to poorly dressed girls. Another strikes up conversations ending in, “Well, you have a great night, enjoy yourself, MAKE GOOD CHOICES!!” To say the least I definitely fit in with my fellow GA’s!

It’s strange how accustom I have become in these past couple of weekends with the party atmosphere here. Thousands of students filling the streets on the weekend, police patrolling with a blind eye to the majority of stuff that goes on and walks to my room at night dodging drunken students.

The redeeming quality this university has over West Chester is the number of smokers! I felt like I was constantly inhaling second hand smoke everywhere I went on campus but here I rarely see it! It may be small but it is a redeemable quality for the university in my mind!
Plus, the campus ministry ROCKS!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Let me know if you hear anything about the girl on the respirator. I can't imagine her family, dropping her off for her first day of college and getting called back to say your daughter is on a respirator from getting drunk. What a legacy.