It’s time to dust off an old discussion. If we learn anything from the President’s Task Force on Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention, it’s that talk about alcohol on campus is nothing new. As Richard Ware, vice chair of the SMU Board of Trustees, has remarked on many occasions to many audiences, “If we didn’t have alcohol problems on campus, we wouldn’t have anything to talk about in the Trustees Student Affairs Committee!” And so it goes.
When I arrived on campus in 1980, Phillip J. Wise, then a student in the school of law, had begun his term as president of the SMU Student Association, winning his election the spring before with a major platform plank focused on alcohol. Phil had proposed, and some thought his proposal had won him the election, a pub (pizza, nuts [no disrespect intended] and beer on draught) for the Umphrey Lee Student Center. He won. The pub lost.
Phil and I had many, many conversations that year about official and unofficial campus kegs, he on one side and I on the other. Those discussions-some public, others private, drew us together. Today we’re close friends, have worked in Habitat together, constructed the ICE House together, and I officiated at his wedding. I’m not sure where Phil might stand on the idea of a campus pub today, given that now he’s the parent of teenagers,but my sentiments have changed completely.
In the intervening 27 years, I’ve broadened my experience and changed my perspective. To be certain, alcohol abuse across our nation is literally out of control among many in this generation of collegians. Over the years I have proposed a perspective that would prohibit public consumption and sale of alcohol on campus. When on-campus fraternity drinking became an embarrassment to the university and spilled out all over SMU Boulevard, I supported the current prohibition. In written presentations to Board of Trustee Committees, in verbal battles with former-Trustee Reverend Barry Baily, to President Pye’s Alcohol Task Force and to President Turner himself during his decision-making process that presaged the establishment of the Boulevard’s “progressive” campus alcohol-use policy, I have argued to keep alcohol away from campus.
Well, I’ve changed my mind. The tipping point was President Turner’s decision, and the progressive confidence it embodied, about the Boulevard. It works, albeit with some glitches, but it actually works! Now, let’s extend the logic.
Might it be possible that of-age students along with faculty and staff, after a long day of research, study, reflection, and writing, will gather informally around small tables in Hughes-Trigg’s Varsity Café or perhaps over in Carr-Collins or Fincher to munch beer nuts, eat a slice of pizza, sip some chablis, quaff a mug or share a pitcher of brew and actually communicate? Folks at Tulane have done that for decades, and at Loyola next door. But that’s New Orleans, isn’t it, and we know New Orleans. But what about those Vandy folks? They seem to survive without undue duress a few ounces of Bud on a Friday afternoon or a chilled chardonnay on Tuesday night in their student center. Then there’s Duke, my alma mater, where campus culture is a hot topic these days, but also where students and faculty alike can slake thirst for thoughts and beer in their Commons’ pub. Syracuse? That Methodist institution serves beer with its pizza on campus. And right across town, the University of Dallas’ Rathskeller is open daily from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. and until midnight on Thursdays.
In our quest to fashion social environments that bring students together, a pub is not a panacea, to be sure, but might its creation somewhere on campus be one piece of this complex puzzle here at SMU? Certainly one that trumps the social negatives of beer buses on Binkley? I think it’s worth considering and even worth a try.
What tipped my formerly unbalanced view was the combination of my “professional in residence” internship at The Hazelden Center in Minnesota and President Turner’s decision to bring alcohol out of the closet and onto the Boulevard at the center of our campus. No longer do we post signs noting “non-alcoholic areas” along Bishop down near Perkins Theology on game day. Those are now collectors’ items. Aside from a few over-exuberant underage law-breakers (remember the TABC raid), the Boulevard has proven a showcase of “responsible alcohol consumption.” Well, sorta.
Now I am fully aware that the United Methodist Church’s Social Principles wax long and clear about alcohol use, abuse, consumption and consequence and that church politics can be quite profound. Certainly without argument, abstinence is a highly commendable and beneficial personal and social practice. The impacts of irresponsible alcohol consumption fill volumes and destroy lives. But it’s a big jump from beer on the Boulevard or pizza and beer in the SMU pub to the excesses that lead folks to Betty Ford in Palm Springs, Solutions in University Park or Hazelden in the north country.
Caution, sure. Moderation, of course. Obey the law, without question. But beyond these understandable limitations, should not reason prevail in the academy to say nothing of consistency? If on the spirited and chaotic Boulevard under a hot Texas sun or during a torrential fall downpour for that matter, why not in the calm sanctity of Hughes-Trigg in the evening?
Let’s then explore with our solicitors and risk assessors the attendant issues of establishing a pub in the Hughes-Trigg Student Center where convivial conversation might yet temper our campus culture and bring us closer to the norm for on-campus social life that for decades has alluded our community? Commission an economic viability study to learn whether there are enough “of-age” folks on campus to warrant a “pilot pub.” Is it worth a try? I think it’s worth at least a discussion. What do you think?
About the writer:
William M. Finnin, Jr., Th. D. is the Chaplain and Minister to the university.
