College Alcohol and Drug Policies Outdated

By Isabella Dale

University of The Cumberlands’ alcohol and drug policy as well as the same-sex dorm policy understandably prevents young adults from making mistakes both religiously and ethically, although UC officials who create and enforce these particular school rules fail to understand how much morals have evolved within the past decade and how different the rules of society have become today. Discoveries and scientific evidence have made it much more lenient to side step around these long-lost beliefs, however, both the religious and "ethically correct" rules of these respected organisations are unbudging, making "new-aged” thinkers trapped in a downward spiral of being labelled “rule-breakers” and “rebels” when all they want to do is have a good time. 

Credits to: www.talk-dora.com

When signing in friends of the opposite sex for open house, Resident Assistants at UC forbid hosts from writing their guest’s name down on the piece of paper provided, claiming it has to be the guest’s own handwriting to count as a sign in. When checking into the Cumberland Inn for a family member, Inn staff turn students away, asserting that students aren’t allowed to reserve or book rooms, even though the Inn claims to be a public business that needs income to survive. When a 21 year-old student is “caught” with alcohol in their dorm room, a fine of $100 is charged as well as 10 hours of community service regardless of their legal age within the society. This mind set speaks loudly of the out-of-date attitude that not only UC possess but the majority of education systems in the country. These systems, although claiming to have the best intentions for their students’ education, hold on to what some might call irrelevant strictness in the desperate hopes of preventing mistakes as well as to preserve old traditional beliefs that no longer apply to the majority of the student body. 

Why must the guest’s handwriting be necessary for a signing during study hours? Why can’t students over the legal ages of either 18 or 21 (whom, by the way, make up the majority of a college population) not be able to provide their visitors with a place to stay days in advance of their arrival? Why must the regionally, nationally, and globally legal 21-year-old give up their hard earned $100 for a rule most likely set in place by an anti-alcohol system? 

What most people fail to understand is why these rules and regulations are in place at a college that preaches independence for the ability to have free will to think. Surely in this day and age something as peculiar as being fined for possession of alcohol at the age of 21 could be labelled ludicrous. 

 Colleges are becoming more and more hypocritical, desperately holding onto the things that are no longer a priority in everyday life. The most important element should debatably be the education that the individual receives from the organisation, not necessarily the intervention, critique, and opinion of the colleges in how the individual chooses to live life.