The fact that ASU is a dry campus has been embedded in the minds of students since freshman orientation. Residence Halls on campus have strict rules banning alcohol.
In previous years, residents could not have alcohol in their rooms (hidden or visible) and no alcohol could be possessed or consumed by residents. Even students 21 and older living in all the residence halls were penalized with a monetary fee and required to take an alcohol awareness class.
However, this year Residential Life declared The Towers and Cholla Apartment Villages wet for residents ages 21 and older. The other 12 residence halls on the Tempe campus will remain dry.
This surprising change is due to a lack of upper classmen living in the residence halls. Finally, Residential Life is taking action to create age-diverse living communities that they endorse to students.
The only way to attract upperclassmen to live on campus is by giving them their freedom to drink in the residence halls.
Many students will agree, few 21-year-olds choose to live on campus. I lived in the Barrett Honors College residence hall last year and I did not encounter one resident who was 21 living on campus.
Who can blame them? The majority of students 21 and over move off campus so they can drink freely in their apartments and avoid the restrictions Residential Life imposes.
By law it is a 21-year-old's right to drink alcohol. Since most students 21 and over take advantage of this right, why would they live on campus where this new freedom is stripped away?
By allowing older students to drink in their own rooms, Residential Life will remove the greatest downside of living on campus and being over 21.
Few students 21 and over live in the current dry dorms, like Manzanita; however, by turning every dorm wet, this will mean more upperclassmen living in the dorms. This, in turn, means that new students will have easily accessible mentors and that the campus will be less divided by age.
Have you ever walked around campus and noticed the wine and beer festivals near Old Main or on Hayden lawn? You are not the only one walking by these events thinking, "Isn't ASU supposed to be a dry campus?" Although these booze fests are not geared towards students, it still sends a mixed message. ASU needs to decide; all dry or all wet. ASU can not be considered a completely dry campus with drinking festivals and some wet dorms.
If ASU goes wet, the campus can attract age-diverse living communities while still hosting drinking festivals. Why not turn wet? Wet dorms do not mean that under age drinking is allowed; it simply means that residents over 21 still have their rights to consume alcohol in their individual rooms on campus.
Wet dorms do not mean that it is acceptable or legal to provide alcohol to underage students, or to have underage residents present when alcohol is being consumed in a residence hall.
Regardless, there needs to be a universal policy for alcohol consumption at ASU. If some residence halls are wet, then they all need to be wet. If ASU wants to continue to uphold its alcohol-free policies, then it needs to ensure that all dorms and activities are alcohol-free. The wet dorms and beer fests on campus are hypocritical to ASU's non-alcohol policy.
Reach the reporter at: lauren.misak@asu.edu.
