Universities work to battle culture of drinking

Every weekend, around 11 p.m., the pilgrimage begins.

Students at Vanderbilt University spill out of dorm rooms and apartments and make their way to a cluster of dimly lit watering holes a few minutes from campus.

They lean against bars and fill dance floors in Midtown and along Demonbreun Street. On a Friday night in February, the college students drank alongside older Nashvillians and tourists at Rebar, Tin Roof and South.

They balanced plastic cups filled to the brim and dodged broken beer bottles while squeezing through the densely packed crowd, rubbing against a sea of shoulders, backs and hips along the way.

It's a weekend ritual repeated at popular college nightspots across Tennessee.

On the same night in Knoxville, a student snagged a pitcher of beer just before last call at Cool Beans, a bar near the University of Tennessee. As he carried it, he wobbled, and most of the pitcher's contents wound up on the already sticky floor.

In another corner, two students, who were unsteady on their feet, kissed for about half an hour. A commotion broke out by the entrance as bouncers forcefully ejected a young customer who brandished a knife.

College students tend to out-drink their unenrolled peers and are more likely to report binge or heavy drinking than non-students, according to Aaron White, the program director for Underage and College Drinking Research at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

Many factors drive drinking among students — a newfound freedom from parental supervision, peer pressure and a cultural expectation that college is the place to drink.

"By the time students reach college, they have been exposed to all types of messages in the culture, that college is a place when you get there that everyone is drinking to excess," White said. "We're very focused here on that culture. We want to change the culture on campuses so more students arrive with a healthy expectation about what the culture can be like and more students graduate without those risky levels of drinking."

College students' troubling relationship with alcohol is nothing new, but a recent surge of high-profile sexual assaults and violence linked with alcohol abuse has triggered renewed focus — and frustration — for administrators and law enforcement across the country.

Police enforcement

Metro Nashville Police Sgt. John Pepper walks a beat of tough love on his graveyard patrol shift, which overlaps peak drinking time.

Pepper's Midtown Hills Precinct covers three universities and the bars in Midtown and on Demonbreun Street. Those worlds collide, especially on busy nights like Thursday and Friday, and Pepper makes a point to patrol the areas on foot.

"Especially near college campuses, you're going to have the tendency to have underage kids trying to get into bars," he said. "It's not new. It happens everywhere."

Arrests for underage drinking have declined about 13 percent in Nashville in the past five years, something Pepper attributes to bar owners' efforts to crack down on fake IDs and over-serving, as well as increased patrol efforts.

Story continues below photo

But still hundreds of minors, ages 13 to 20 and not only college students, are arrested citywide each year for possessing or consuming alcohol, according to data from the Metro Nashville Police Department. Even more face disciplinary actions on campus for alcohol related offenses.

At Vanderbilt, there were two alcohol-related arrests in 2013 and 13 in 2012, according to data compiled by the Department of Education. But 348 Vanderbilt students faced on-campus discipline in 2013 and 359 faced such campus discipline in 2012, the data show.

At the University of Tennessee Knoxville, there were 154 arrests for alcohol offenses and 457 students were referred for on-campus discipline the same year. At the University of Tennessee Chattanooga, there were nine campus arrests for alcohol and 282 students referred for discipline in 2013.

At Belmont, where there were no reported arrests for alcohol on campus, nevertheless, 114 students faced on campus discipline in 2013.

Like clockwork at the start of every semester, Pepper said, he and bar bouncers see an influx of fake identification.

On patrol that Friday night in February, Pepper told stories: Of a young man, naked, running down Demonbreun with an orange traffic cone as his only clothing. He'd been dropped off by fraternity members as a prank. Police helped find his clothes in a nearby trash bin, and Vanderbilt police gave him a ride back to campus.

Of a woman, her Halloween costume barely on, being followed by men offering a ride home. She could barely stand up, and could not tell police an address where to take her.

She went to jail — where she was safe, Pepper said.

Years ago, Pepper realized a couple of hours in a drunk tank was not curbing the problem.

Now, when he and his patrol officers arrest students from Vanderbilt, Belmont, Lipscomb, Tennessee State and Fisk universities, he makes a call to the school. The schools, he said, have more resources to provide treatment, if need be, to the students.

They also have the authority to dole out an extra layer of discipline. The notifications are not policy so much as practice, but Pepper believes they are working.

Pepper estimated he spends about 60 percent of his patrol time working with bar owners and patrolling nighttime hotspots. Once a year he organizes an event to get bar owners information about how to prevent problems. Many of the bar staff have his cellphone number.

On patrol, Pepper walks down dark sidewalks lit by neon shining from bar windows. Heads turn as Pepper, in uniform, walks through bars to check in with security staff.

"We'll never eliminate it altogether," he said of underage drinking. "But we can help keep people from getting hurt."

Colleges play role in response

Colleges don't create problem drinkers, but they can play a pivotal role in how students respond to drinking. Colleges that have clear and firm rules that are enforced have fewer problems, White said.

But he cautioned that the problem is a tricky one for campuses to address.

"We want our schools to give our young adults, which is what they are legally when they hit campus, opportunities to use their emerging frontal lobes to make decisions for themselves," White said. "We also want them to keep students safe. But it's a delicate balance and it's difficult to achieve."

Universities have taken a range of approaches to try to curb underage and excessive drinking, including education in freshmen orientation, campuswide marketing campaigns and crackdowns as strict as Dartmouth College, which announced in January a prohibition on hard alcohol on campuses.

Vanderbilt administrators have established rules on campus they hope will combat binge drinking, but the university's proximity to so many bars presents an added challenge.

"We know that simply doing policy changes is not enough," said Katherine Drotos Cuthbert, Vanderbilt's coordinator for alcohol education.

Drotos Cuthbert said her office spends a lot of its time on programming that aims to educate students on the dangers of binge drinking, on or off campus.

All students are required to complete a brief alcohol training course. Drotos Cuthbert and her staff also target specific groups for added training, including student athletes and international students.

Noting the inescapable link between alcohol and sexual violence, Drotos Cuthbert teams with Vanderbilt's Project Safe Center to educate students about the changing nature of consent when alcohol is in the picture. They meet with students in dorms and host trivia nights to encourage participation.

A panel of administrators, staff and students meet monthly to suggest improvements to the university's policy and approach. The panel's suggestions have triggered new efforts on campus, including training to help professors spot students who are struggling with alcohol abuse or sexual assault.

The panel also ventures off campus to forge relationships with nearby bar owners and police.

At Lipscomb University, officials encourage students to approach alcohol with a "counter-cultural" outlook, according to Josh Roberts, dean of student development. Traditional undergraduate students are prohibited from drinking alcohol on or off campus.

Despite the strict rules, students are encouraged to discuss alcohol, and the ramifications of addiction. Last semester, a fraternity worked to bring Metro police to campus with drunk driving simulators. And on Wednesday, the university is hosting a former NCAA athlete who was kicked out of law school due to alcohol abuse.

Although violations can and do happen, with a wide array of outcomes that depend on the specific student and situation, Roberts said he believes Lipscomb's policy encourages students to keep academics as their top priority at school.

Meanwhile, students continue to make drinking a part of their college life.

Around midnight last Friday, a group at Rebar, a couple blocks from the Vanderbilt campus, gathered in a circle to take shots, little Dixie cups in one hand and larger plastic cups in the other. "Blurred Lines" played as the group cheered.

The singer's voice rose above theirs: "You know you want it, you know you want it."

Reporters Matt Slovin, Jill Cowan and Anita Wadhwani contributed to this report.

By the numbers: Underage drinking in Nashville

2010

324 charged with underage consumption

154 minors charged for possession of alcohol

2 arrests for fake IDs

2011

382 charged with underage consumption

152 minors charged with possession of alcohol

4 arrests for fake IDs

2012

384 charged with underage consumption

136 minors charged with possession of alcohol

8 arrests for fake IDs

2013

297 charged with underage consumption

113 minors charged with possession of alcohol

4 arrests for fake IDs

2014

280 charged with underage consumption

128 minors charged with possession of alcohol

1 arrest for fake ID

Source: Metro Nashville Police Department data

Liquor law violations on Tennessee campuses

Vanderbilt University

Arrests:

2013: 2

2012: 13

2011: 2

Campus disciplinary actions:

2013: 349

2012: 359

2011: 218

Tennessee State University

Arrests:

2013: 7

2012: 10

2011: 27

Referrals for campus discipline:

2013: 3

2012: 2

2011: 10

Middle Tennessee State University

Arrests:

2013: 41

2012: 72

2011: 27

Referrals for campus discipline:

2013: 18

2012: 74

2011: 10

University of Tennessee, Knoxville – Main campus

Arrests:

2013: 154

2012: 150

2011: 46

Referrals for campus discipline

2013: 457

2012: 659

2011: 714

University of Tennessee, Chattanooga

Arrests:

2013: 9

2012: 19

2011: 66

Referrals for campus discipline

2013: 282

2012: 235

2011: 377

Belmont University

Arrests:

2013: 0

2012: 0

2011: 0

Referrals for campus discipline:

2013: 114

2012: 194

2011: 76

Lipscomb University

Arrests

2013: 1

2012: 0

2011: 0

Referrals for campus discipline:

2013: 3

2012: 7

2011: 3

Source: U.S. Department of Education