ATF data should not be misinterpreted

Before discussing my feelings on Vassar College and exhibition of the "college effect," I wish to raise a few points about the rise in alcohol-related incidents. Certainly efforts should be taken to minimize and reduce such incidents, but I wonder whether this rise indicates that the Vassar drinking culture has actually become more dangerous. Of course, I remember the "Four Loko Craze" that dominated the fall semester of my freshman year. The drink clearly fostered a toxic environment where students felt they could drink more alcohol because of the stimulant effect produced by the alcoholic energy drink.

As the campus grappled with the increase in alcohol-related incidents, Four Loko was quickly identified as a source of the problem. Fortunately, the drink was banned in the state of New York by the time the spring semester commenced and a notorious component of a dangerous drinking culture was eliminated. Unfortunately, as demonstrated by the continued prevalence of alcohol-related incidents, there is still a dangerous element to the drinking culture at this school.

While I understand the administration's concern over these statistics and commend the creation of the ATF as an attempt to remedy the problem, I wonder if students should view these statistics in another light. Besides implying that the Vassar drinking culture has become more dangerous, couldn't the rise in reported alcohol-related incidents imply that the school has simply become more skilled at identifying risky behavior and intervening before potentially fatal consequences could occur? Couldn't it imply that students have become more vigilant about reporting their peers who are suffering from reckless behavior? Perhaps the rise in these reported incidents should not be looked at in a solely negative light.

As for Vassar College's relationship to the college effect outlined in Rearick's article, I must admit that I am a bit concerned by the data the Vassar administration used to come to their conclusions. As described in the article, the college effect refers to the phenomenon where college freshmen consume more alcohol after entering college than they had previously. The administration fears that incoming Vassar freshmen are more extreme in their increased alcohol consumption than those at peer institutions because of data collected using AlcoholEdu.

As someone who participated in the AlcoholEdu surveys, I warn against taking this data too seriously. The survey is self-reported and relies on students to simply be honest in their answers. There is no way that such information can be taken simply at face value because it is impossible for the program to detect participants that are providing false information.

Hopefully, the ATF will consider the many implications of the data that it collects before coming to any conclusions about Vassar College's drinking culture. I do not dispute that there is a dangerous element present in this college's drinking scene, but I do think the data might make the problem appear worse than it actually is. I also wonder what solutions the College can actually propose to solve these alcohol-related incidents.

As negative as it may seem, dangerous drinking habits on campuses are so engrained in the United States college drinking culture that I wonder what viable solutions would eliminate the associated problems short of making Vassar a dry campus.

—John Kenney '14 is a student at Vassar College.