Daily Progress- University of Virginia leaders are pushing campus fraternities and sororities to curb drinking after a rash of alcohol-related emergency room visits during rush week, officials said Thursday. Two students who were put on life support and at least six more who were taken to the hospital last week all have recovered, said Allen Groves, university dean of students. Turner estimated that complications from drinking send 220 to 240 students to the emergency room each year. After speaking with one student who was hospitalized due to alcohol consumption related to Greek organizations, Groves summoned all fraternity and sorority leaders to his office for an early-morning meeting Jan. 24. Groves directed the organizations to create plans that would minimize the potential for alcohol-related incidents  ahead of bid night this Saturday, a Greek selection event that historically involves heavy drinking, he said. Groves said both groups demonstrated a commitment to put safety first. Sororities hosted a UVa Medical Center professional who presented information about the dangers of alcohol abuse. Fraternities agreed to ban hard liquor from houses during recruitment and self-police, with serious consequences for violators, Groves said.

 

After reading the story earlier this week about how how no freshman drinking anymore and then reading about this travesty in Charlottesville I’m honestly concerned for the American college culture as we know it. As far as I’m concerned, drinking yourself to the brink of death is a rite of passage. I’ve never found myself in the back of an ambulance while an EMT does his best to prove to me he knows nothing about anatomy by trying to shove a tube into my stomach via my nose, but everyone has had one or two nights where that probably should have been the outcome. And that’s the problem with UVA.

It’s not that more kids are suddenly deciding to get blackout drunk last weekend- it just so happened that their friends were responsible and coherent enough to let someone know about it instead of shoving them into a bathroom stall and hoping to find a pulse 6 hours later. Educate all you want; it’s not going to solve anything, but at least you’re trying. But banning hard liquor from frats has to be the shittiest solution to the unsolvable problem of underage drinking that I have ever seen . This is how it all starts. First they ban the hard stuff. Then kids still end up in the hospital because they’re in college and the administrators try to find another scapegoat. So there goes the boxed wine. But kids are still drinking!!!! That can only mean there still must be something (or someone) responsible for all these lawbreakers. Next thing you know there’s no more Jews on campus, a crazy night is crushing a six pack of O’ Douls with your friends while playing Monopoly, and UVA gets a cool new nickname: The BYU of the East. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.