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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 9, 1979)
pre 5 tfng rules itpvcmbcr 0,1979 .Jstfcom dent union, said Joe Johnson, . director of student infor mition and activities. The OU union is privately owned, In addition, the university recently has given permis sion for students to have 32 beer at certain outdoor, on campus functions, Johnson said the school has an alcohol abuse task force, comprised of faculty, staff and students. The task force is charged with a constant" review of policy and development of alcohol education. At the University of Missouri, where alcohol is not allowed on campus, an education program is in its formative stages, UiiWt Scott, a research assistant in the alcohol edu. calion program, said the effort will be to involve stu dents in tne program. STUDENTS NEED to bes involved, because they know what other students want out of a program," Scott sad. The idea for such an education program "was mulled ofer for a couple years," but is just getting off the ground, ha said. The possibility of allowing 21 -year-olds to drink in tHeir dorm rooms is also being studied at MU, Scott said. Bill Porter, the chairman of a committee on alcohol education at Oklahoma State University, said although 32 b er and alcohol are not allowed on campus, it was dicided this summer that student organizations can have alcohol at of f-campus functions. However, it is unclear whether money generated by .siident organizations can go for the purchase of alcohol, hfe said. He explained that all sty dent organizations must k ep their money in a university account, which makes tie funds state money, and under state law, those funds c nnot be used to purchase alcohol. Establishing accounts aparate from the university is a possibility being studied, Pirter said, THE OKLAHOMA STATE campus is just starting an .? ,f -P ) v : A II education program, which Porter said is very important, regardless of policies. ; Krafft, of Iowa State, said he is amazed at the attitude he finds at some schools that do not allow alcohol on campus, "They say they can't have alcohol education because that would be like admitting that students violate the policy, 'That's like saying we won't teach contraception be cause we won't admit that students have sex," Krafft said. NU alcohol policy is in the hands of the NU Board of Regents. Nebraska law prohibits consumption of alcohol on state property, "unless authorized by the governing body having jurisdiction over such property," Magazine editor: Mary Fastenau. Managing editor: Gail .Stork. Editor in chief: Amy Lenzen. Advertising manager: Denise Jordan. Production manager: Kitty Policky. Bus iness manager: Anne Shank. Fathom is a magazine published by the Daily Nebras kan. Unless covered by another copyright, material may be reprinted without permission if attributed to Fathom, magazine of the Daily Nebraskan. Cover photo by Tom Gessner. UNL history dotted with alcohol stories By Michelle Carr Student enrollment may change, but student concerns remain much the same, Daily Nebraskan headlines announce such student concerns as tuition rises, shorter library hours and fees used for speakers. Another issue that claims its share of headlines is student effort to allow alcohol consumption on campus, From 1970 to present, UNL history has been dotted with futile efforts to get alcohol on campus. The attempts have ranged from legislative bills to a lawsuit. Several alcohol surveys also fill the pages of history, as do the alcohol consumption proposals of many student organizations, 1973 and 1975 claimed the most di verse activities related to the alcohol issue. On October 25, 1973, the Residence Hall Association and ASUN filed a complaint in Federal District Court seeking to end en. forcement of regulations governing visita tion and alcohol in university housing. Later,, in March of 1974, Sen, Steve Fowler of Lincoln and Sen. John Cavanaugh of Omaha proposed a bill to allow selling and drinking alcohol on campus, Also during this time, RHA made a pro posal to allow consumption in residence hall rooms on the provision that they had approval of 85 percent of the residents and permission of the residence hall director. According to the memory of Rick Mockler, current RHA vice president, the lawsuit never entered the court room. There was , however, talk of a mass violat ion of the visitation hours and other policies, he said. The bill, LB 78 3, which would have allowed alcohol, was defeated. Mary Voborfl seemed to predict the future in her Jan. 21, 1974, Dally Nebraskan editorial, when she wrote, a turndown (of the bCl) is likely to put a cork on the issue for some time-probably until most of today's collegiates are no longer students." The issue was again revived in Decem ber, 1975, when ASUN and RHA released the results of a survey conducted by Select ion Research, Inc. The poll indicated that 84 percent of 2,083 students questioned favored legalizing alcohol on campus. The survey also showed 83 percent of the resi dence hall students said they used alcohol. Concerning studying habits, the poll indicated that 63 percent of the students polled said sale and consumption of liquor would "definitely not" hurt their study habits; 24 percent said it would "probably not" hurt studies; eight percent said it would "probably" hurt their studies, and two percent said it would "definitely" hurt, .' One argument that keeps reappearing in the alcohol issue is the fact that other schools allow alcohol and have few prob lems. This was documented in a 1975 ASUN study. . . Another point raised was that students were being deprived of their rights as citi zens. This argument appeared in a 1973 RHA proposal for on-campus consumption. " . , the legislature previously determined the minimum age of alcohol consumption, why then should UNL students 19 and older be deprived of this right because their home is on campus." . This argument was repeated in an article which appeared in the Daily Nebraskan, Jan. 17, 1974. The story gave Sen. Fowl er's proposed rationale for the drinking bill which included his ideas that, "students should not lose the rights of a person 19 or older because they decide to live in univer sity or college housing." One ASUN senator blamed the unsuc cessful attempts of bringing alcohol on campus on parents, 'fast attempts to legal ize alcohol at UNL have failed due to opposition by parents of students. The senator urged RHA representatives to speak to their parents about the matter," a Dec. 11, 1974 Daily Nebraskan story, Members of the NU Board of Regents also have been reported as objecting to the various student alcohol proposals. According to one Daily Nebraskan article, the regents "dismissed an alcohol consumption proposal in 10 minutes" in the spring of 1973, In a Jan. 17, 1974, Daily Nebraskan article, Regent Ed Schwartzkopf of Lincoln denounced student attempts to bring alcohol to campus. He was quoted as saying, "Why do you persist in wanting this on campus? I can't understan4 why you want it when you see all the problems it brings. Why don't you crusade to get rid of it?" V Schwartzkopf went on to say, "You students insist on arguing about things for which you can't do anything, like the bombing of Cambodia. More people die by auto accidents related to alcohol than in all wars." . During the last several years, students have abandoned the issue of legalized alcohol on campus in order to object to the issue of raising the drinking age. Such groups as RHA, ASUN and the Govern ment Liaison Committee have promoted efforts to stop bills that deal with raising the drinking age. An example is last year's LB221, introduced by Sen. Ralph Kelly of Grand Island, which proposed to raise the 'drinking age to 21 . ' According to Nancy Kenyon, current secretary of RHA, the organization dis banded efforts for legalizing alcohol on campus to fight against higher drinking age proposals. Legalizing alcohol, on campus was "big in the past, but we (RHA) have put it in the background," she said.
