Stanford Chooses Responsibility

For some reason, I forgot to blog about this while covering college drinking, so I thought I would harken back to that now. In July 2008, 100 college presidents came together to promote awareness on the dangers of reckless drinking by underage college students. In their eyes, the minimum drinking age in America was not working, and so they advocate for lowering the drinking age to 18. Choose responsibility works to open the debate on lowering the drinking age though calling on the responsibility of both government officials and students to change the underage drinking culture in America. Through my own research, I hope to engrain myself within the Stanford alcohol policy to show the affects of an "open campus" and a "lower" drinking age. Stanford's Fundamental Standard gives students the responsibility to decide their own policy in hopes that they will learn how to handle drinking on their own. With this policy, the university is able to provide a safety net for students who are drinking, and can educate their undergrads rather than punish them. In my eyes, the policy has been very effective, and I believe it can be used as a case study in an effort to prove that a lower drinking age (such as 19) would allow for more education and drastic change to the unsafe binge drinking culture which exists on many college campuses around the country.