Community Magazine December 2013

“The College Experience” Worse, however, is the increasing scorn against religious values, disguised in the rubric of “progressivism.” Many universities now have public bathrooms that can be used by both men and women, for example. Within that “anything goes” attitude, prophylactics are readily available at student union offices, and in most universities, there are special clubs for people of various “orientations.” Andrew Lawton, television and radio pundit, and editor of the online news site LandMarkReport.com , graduated from the University of Western Ontario several years ago recalls his impressions of his first days at the campus. “All of a sudden, there’s promiscuousness, drugs, alcohol, all these different things. So they’re getting this extremely liberal ‘education,’ but even outside of the classroom, they’re getting kind of swept up into this cycle, otherwise you’re ‘not really experiencing college’ like it’s supposed to be.” The students are not the only ones to blame. Donna Frietas, Professor of Religious Studies at Boston University, writes that the students’ promiscuity is tacitly accepted by university boards, student unions, faculty and maybe even parents. Columns in the student newspaper are now encouraging casual intimate relationships, same-gender experimentation, forays to adult night clubs for university credit, and immoral acts for art finals. “I was always kind of disturbed that the groups that the university student council had designated as receiving student money to operate were always the groups that were promoting an agenda,” added Lawton. “The environmental group was given money, the…‘pride’ club was given funds from a levy that was applied to students, and so on. It didn’t matter whether or not we supported these causes; all of a sudden we had to pay for their operation through our student fees.” Alcohol in the Classroom A study conducted by Columbia University found that behavior on campus can be just as physically threatening as spiritually threatening. The study, called Wasting the Best and the Brightest: Alcohol and Drug Abuse on College Campuses , was conducted by Joseph A. Califano Jr., President and Chairman of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University, who examined the extreme levels of alcohol and drug misuse at universities. “I remember it was not uncommon, even in some classes that were 9 in the morning, students would actually be drinking alcohol in the classroom,” recalled Lawton. “And what struck me more than what the students were doing so brazenly, was how little the professors seemed to care, because it was just ‘oh, this is just how it’s done now; this is just students letting loose and unwinding from stress’.” The Columbia University report called it an “alarming public health crisis on college campuses across this nation.” CASA assessed the drinking habits on the nation’s campuses between 1993 and 2005, noting that just under three quarters of students admit to drinking, half indulge in “binge drinking,” half abuse prescription or illegal drugs, and “the intensity of excessive drinking and other drug use has risen sharply.” So much so, that nearly one in four students at universities across the country meet the medical criteria for substance abuse. That’s two-and-a-half times more prevalence than the regular population. The study also found that the average student drinks once every three days, and gets drunk at least once a week. Alcohol isn’t the only issue. Daily marijuana use by students has doubled since the early 1990s. Other drugs, such as cocaine, heroin, opiods, prescription painkillers, stimulants, sedatives and tranquilizers have sharply increased in use in recent years – in some cases almost quadrupling in proportion over the past 20 years. The spike in drug and alcohol abuse among the university generation has resulted in serious consequences. According to the report, more than 1,700 college students die from alcohol poisoning and alcohol-related injuries annually; 700,000 students are assaulted by classmates who were drinking; and nearly 100,000 students are victims of alcohol-related forced relationships. The CASA study was touted as the “most exhaustive examination ever undertaken of the substance abuse situation among the nation’s 7.8 million full-time college students (age 18 to 22).” They surveyed about 400 college administrators and experts in the field, who have noted that everyone from college presidents to alumni understood binge drinking to be simply a college “activity” – tolerated, tacitly approved, and ignored. “College presidents are reluctant to take on issues they feel they cannot change,” said Edward Malloy, President Emeritus of the University of Notre Dame, and chair of the CASA advisory commission that supervised the study. “This growing public health crisis reflects today’s society where students are socialized to consider substance abuse a harmless rite of passage and to medicate every ill.” Between the parties, drugs, alcohol, promiscuity, and laissez faire attitudes among faculty and students, these dark influences pose a threat even to students from religious homes and yeshivot, who aren’t necessarily immune to the effects of this kind of environment. 40 COMMUNITY MAGAZINE