Why I Signed
“It is ludicrous that we can send young men and women to war, but they can't legally drink a beer. They can vote for our next president, but they can't legally drink a glass of wine. Realistically, we know that they do drink. Often they binge drink. Often they put themselves and others in great danger. As educators we are missing an opportunity to teach young people about responsible consumption of alcohol. All of us know the difficulty of managing a residential campus where roughly half of the students can consume alcoholic beverages and the other cannot.” ~David C. Joyce, Ripon College
"I am supporting the Amethyst Initiative for a very simple reason. I would like the Dickinson College community—students, parents, faculty and staff and alumni—to be part of a collective effort to reexamine—using all the intellectual and research capacities of higher education in the United States—an issue that truly maters for our society and that appears now to be compromising not only the health and welfare of many college-age students, but also, contributing to the ever increasing cost of an undergraduate degree through the student life, public safety and counseling resources that are applied to it without apparent success. That issue is the national drinking age and the extreme abuse of the use of alcohol associated with it. Our collective reexamination of this issue though public debate contributes directly to the role that American colleges and universities can play in serving the public interest." ~William Durden, Dickinson College
“I decided to sign not because I “know” the right answer to this frightening challenge, but because I agree with the call to have a national conversation. Having served as VP for Student Services before coming to Whittier, I worried incessantly about students’ binge drinking. I was too aware that the current approach to discouraging and monitoring student drinking did not work. I look forward to becoming better informed about the research evidence and to working with you the other presidents in the Amethyst Initiative to propose a sound policy.” ~Sharon Herzberger, Whittier College
“Almost everything we do in higher education assumes a belief in developmental teaching and learning: that real education--the kind that endures--depends on maturity, growth over time, new learning building on old and revised learning. Little of what we do is based on an "on/off" switch. In fact, working with young adults involves helping them move beyond dualism or the belief that life is a series of "yes or no" decisions. But, as most of us know almost everything is in between. I support a national and objective dialogue about the drinking age because we have not had one yet. I believe that young adults need to learn responsibility for alcohol consumption as they are learning about constructing mature relationships, choosing partners and friends, exploring their life's work, and living in community” ~Barbara E. Murphy,
“I have been fortunate to have served as a college President for seven years, following a K-12 education career of 27 years that included work as a teacher, high school guidance counselor, elementary and high school principal, school superintendent and Vermont Commissioner of Education. So I have the perspective of looking at the "Choosing Responsibility" issue from the vantage point of knowing and working with both high school and college students. I support the 18 year old drinking age, as well as the related responsibilities as articulated by the Amethyst Initiative inherent with the age change. I believe that 18 year old adults in our culture are capable of voting, signing contracts, marrying, paying taxes, serving in the military, and assuming other adult endeavors including the right to drink responsibly. Other cultures have demystified alcohol consumption among young people. In the interest of improving safety, encouraging responsible maturation, and completing the aforementioned list of adult rights and responsibilities, I encourage you to join a growing number of educators who have joined the Amethyst Initiative.” ~David Wolk, Castleton State College
Possessing and consuming alcoholic beverages is against the law under the age of 21, and we are all obliged to uphold the law. The current law has not prevented alcohol from being available, and drinking is widespread at all American colleges, and at younger ages as well. But at colleges and universities, the law does have other effects: it pushes drinking into hiding, heightening its risks, including risks from drunken driving; and it prevents us from addressing drinking with students as an issue of responsible choice.
I have admired your efforts to open a dialogue on this subject and promote more educational alternatives to the current policy….
This is not a simple question. But the current answer is also not an effective solution to the problem. I applaud you for challenging us to engage the issue more thoughtfully.”
“Setting the legal age at which people may purchase and consume alcohol at age eighteen simply makes good sense. If arguments are needed, these seem to me the most compelling.
1) Young people old enough to fight and vote are old enough to consume alcohol responsibly. Does anyone actually believe that none of our soldiers is drinking alcohol during military service until she or he reaches 21?
2) When our students study abroad, they discover not only that their host countries ordinarily have no law restricting consumption of alcohol to those over 21 but also that drinking is treated as part of a broader range of socializing, not as an end in itself. Because it is a forbidden pleasure, underage drinking in the United States has a seductive mystique that it would lack if responsible consumption of alcohol were simply accepted as part of ordinary behavior.
3) How often has a family with children between 18 and 21 found itself in a restaurant where wine or beer is served with dinner? The awkwardness of asking those children to drink sparkling water while the others share alcohol -- in effect creating an artificial boundary between them and the adults, or conversely of pretending that the underage children are actually 21 and of legal age to drink -- emphasizes the unnaturalness of our present laws.
4) Whether we like it or not, alcohol is part of student socializing. A large majority of our underage students drink, drink often, and believe they have a right to drink. To them the law is hypocritical, and its existence undermines the respect that all citizens ought to have for any law.
5) The 21-year old drinking age has created a dangerous student culture of clandestine drinking. Because they will be disciplined if they are caught consuming alcohol, students drink heavily in private at the beginning of the evening rather than gradually in public throughout the evening. Drinking too many "shots" at the beginning of the evening can cause alcohol poisoning; it can also cause the drinker not to be aware of how the alcohol is gradually infiltrating his or her system and impairing his or her judgment.
6) The 21-year old drinking age prevents us from modeling responsible drinking. Because the majority of students at liberal arts colleges are under 21, we cannot sponsor social events that involve alcohol without taking all sorts of invasive measures -- armbands, frequent ID checks, and the like -- which serve to separate students into haves and have-nots; so for the most part there are few campus events where students can observe how consumption of alcohol becomes subordinate to, not determinate of, the kind of social intercourse we would like them to grow into.” ~L. Baird Tipson, Washington College
College and university presidents are not given to diving into such controversial waters. We know this issue is fraught with pain and frustration. But we also know that 21 simply isn't working. Colleges work hard to combat the culture of underage drinking, and particularly binge drinking. But we often feel like the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dyke. At my college, more than 70 percent of our students are under age, but we find ourselves unable to educate them effectively about drinking. We can only preach abstinence, which we know is unrealistic, or urge responsible behavior when imbibing – which acknowledges they will be breaking the law. Both postures seem hypocritical. There must be a better way, and the Amethyst Initiative is a clarion call to seek solutions.” ~Elisabeth Muhlenfeld, Sweet Briar College