By Allison Mudge
During Homecoming, students and alumni got together one evening to drink wine, and a week later to enjoy some beer before a hockey game. Northeastern supplied the booze.
This year’s Homecoming celebrations included a school-sponsored wine tasting in the Curry Student Center, and beer was also served outside Matthews Arena before a hockey game two weekends ago. Only students of age were allowed to participate.
The events mark the first time in years alcohol has been served on campus, although before the drinking age was 21, such events were frequent.
“The way most people think about it is the underage binge drinking, parties, stuff like that,” said Ed Klotzbier, vice president for student affairs. “There’s also another area: The 21-year-old students who are of a legal age to drink.”
The wine tasting was coordinated by the alumni association and the 2006 class council and open to alumni and students over 21.
“The wine tasting was a good event to have young alumni and students co-mingling and meeting one another, passing on experiences, where there was an educational component,” Klotzbier said.
He said behavior at the event was “totally appropriate.”
The Matthews Arena event lasted an hour and a half in daylight with mainly alumni attending, and there were no negative incidents, said James Ferrier, associate director of public safety.
Klotzbier said many students seem to consider binging the norm when it comes to drinking.
“You can have a cocktail, you can have a glass of wine, you don’t [need to] drink to an excess. That’s the reason for the wine tasting and some of the 21-plus events we’ve been talking about with students,” Klotzbier said.
However, some students doubt such events will change attitudes about drinking.
“I don’t think a couple of isolated events will promote responsible drinking,” said Dan Knudsen, a senior behavioral neuroscience major. “The wine tasting sounded like a fun idea … [but] the ideas about alcohol aren’t going to change overnight.”
Some freshmen did not like the idea that their money could go toward events they cannot attend.
“That’s not fair,” said Jen Porter, a freshman history major, who said it is uncertain whether such events will still be there when she is of age to attend them.
Although such events are a novelty now, they were once normal. In the 1970s, when the legal drinking age was 18, the university frequently sponsored alcohol-related events on campus.
“There was a time in the ’70s when university administrators were on a different wavelength than most of them are today,” Ferrier said. “Back then it was ‘Let’s be our students’ best friends, let’s party with them.'”
Freshman orientation was a week long, and at least two of the nights here would be “rock concert keg parties” for the students at Matthews Arena, Ferrier said.
“Alcohol was the central focus of social life on campus,” Ferrier said. “And it wasn’t just Northeastern, that was norm if you went to college in the ’70s.”
Although the drinking was openly permitted, Ferrier said this didn’t make students act responsibly.
“I can personally remember being at some of the orientation keg parties in the ’70s and ’80s,” Ferrier said. “It was normal for the arena to be littered with half-filled cups, the floor and stands were soaked because the things would get kicked over.”
An inadequate number of restrooms in the arena led to people routinely urinating in the stands. People passed out, required hospitalization, got into fights and were victimized by sexual assault, Ferrier said.
“That is why the drinking age went up. People who were under 21 were so irresponsible about their consumption of alcohol. It was a horrendous period of time on campus,” Ferrier said.
Robert Grier, director of operations for the student center, echoed Ferrier’s sentiments. He was a building manager at the Curry Student Center during the ’70s.
“Looking back, it was totally reckless,” he said.
What is now afterHOURS was once a bar called the Rat Skeller. The bar was not especially popular, since alcohol was already so accessible, Grier said. But there were instances when students behaved inappropriately, including a student who once tried to throw a toilet out the window, Grier said.
Despite Northeastern’s history of alcohol consumption on campus, the two recent events are not the beginning of a trend, Klotzbier said.
The events were put together by and geared toward alumni. It seems unclear whether any future events will be held without their assistance, though Grier said it is possible for student groups to serve alcohol at functions held in the student center. Only students of age can attend, and all alcohol must be provided by Chartwells, he said.
Ferrier said it is unlikely the school will consider having a bar on campus again, since there are plenty of places nearby for students of age to drink.
“When I hear young people propose to the university that we should have a bar on campus or we should serve alcohol on campus I just shake my head and say ‘Where are these people coming from,'” Ferrier said. “Where’s their common sense and their recognition of the most severe public risk facing college students today?”
