Prentice Hall Student Success SuperSite

One Student's Journey

Shaken Not Stirred

It's another Tequila Sunrise...

It's also Homecoming weekend. And my birthday. And we won - yes, you read that right - we WON another football game this weekend. So obviously, the nectar has been free-flowing around campus as of late.

As to my own personal habits, I'll plead the fifth (and I don't mean a fifth of rum, or vodka, or anything else.) Please - my parents read this column. But let me just say that if Duke has supposedly calmed down in the past few years, I can't imagine what it must have been like before. Nan, our president, probably wouldn't like me saying that, but the chances of her reading this column are pretty slim. Okay, they're nonexistent. So here comes the truth.

Duke is still a party school, and there's no way of denying it. But you have to go to the right places (pretty much anywhere on West Campus.) That's why you'll often see herds of freshmen piling onto buses on the weekends and singing "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" all the way to West. They also end up calling SafeRide a lot so they can make it back to East, which is dry. Or its supposed to be.

The way I see it is, services like SafeRide are catering to students who drink, so why is the administration complaining about our drinking problems? Its been a huge controversy in recent years. There have even been rumors that Nan wants the entire campus to be completely dry (yeah, that's really gonna happen.) But it doesn't seem to me that the administration has done very much to combat drinking, other than putting all the freshmen on East. I hate to tell them, but all that does is encourage drunk driving.

Granted, the 37-kegger at Pika last night did get shut down. Thankfully, I wasn't there at the time, but I'm told that the deans showed up. One more warning, and the frat will be thrown off campus. This is the first time I've heard about parties dying like that.

The Countdown 8/25
Moving in 9/1
Going to Class 9/8
Rated PG 9/15
Athletes Foot in Mouth 9/22
Shaken Not Stirred 9/29
Sleeping with the Enemy 10/6
Withdrawal Symptoms 10/13
Why Duke? 10/20
Par-ants Weekend 10/27
Halloween 11/3
Who Am I? 11/10
Travel Guide 11/17
Give Me a Break 11/24
Thank You 12/1
Campus Camp-out 12/8
Apply Yourself 12/15
Rushing Back to School 1/26
Chi-Omega Land 2/2
Apply Yourself #2 2/9
Three Month Itch 2/16
School Daze 2/23
Politics and Popularity 3/2
They Came They Saw, They Choked 3/9
Dating at Duke 3/16
Weekly Update 3/30
Beep Beep 4/6
Extra,Extra 4/13
Room to Move 4/20
End of the Innocense 4/27
Help Me 5/1
The Last Hurrah 5/8

It seems to me that the Interfraternity Council has done more than anyone to decrease drinking on campus. The issue of the week has been the IFC's decision on banning open distribution. The results won't come out until the 29th. But it's pretty much already assumed that they've voted to ban. After all, these are the same people who voted to ban kegs.

Sounds horrible, doesn't it? But there's a catch. Duke has a different housing system than most colleges. Sororities don't live in houses, and while fraternities are big here, they have counterparts in selective houses like Mirecourt and Maxwell House who don't defer to the IFC. Frankly, the entire thing seems stupid to me. This administration isn't acting on the fact that college students are resourceful enough to get around the rules.

Yes, that's correct, college students are smart. They're also under a lot of pressure here at Duke. If Nan thinks she can up the stress while taking away one of its outlets, she's out of her mind. Pass the beer.