Daily Campus

I wanted to praise the members of the Task Force for their hard work and thoughtful, practical suggestions. Drinking and the use of illegal subtances have always been a part of college life, but I think both students and faculty know that it can tend to get really out of hand--and become too deeply engrained into the everyday life of students here. I think a pub is a great idea. When I was an undergrad, we had a campus pub that served wine, beer and pizza. Sometimes we would even meet our professors or TA;'s there to talk about ideas! What a concept. One problem is that I would guess that most people who live in the dorms are under 21. I don't imagine we could return the drinking age to 18, which would all a lot of our students not to break the law! But we should think about it! Old enough to die for your country; old enough to have a beer!

I hope that those in charge understand how unrealistic these proposals are. Not only would rules this stringent be unprecendented among american universities, but they will never be followed. Underage college students consume alcohol, and this can not really be avoided. The Southern Methodist Community needs to work out practical solutions that acknowledge this fact and work to create a safer environment. An enforcement policy that says Judicial Affairs would still reserve the right in certain cases to monitor students does absolutely nothing to alleviate the situation. Also, the part on Greek Life that states that fraternities and sorrorities should stop holding parties on school nights is just unrealistic. Do they honestly expect this to happen? The ludicrous proposals made by The Drug Task Force and Officer Mark Norris are more than absurd. Southern Methodist needs to look at other elite colleges such as Vanderbuilt, Stanford, and USC and understand that our college in Dallas will never be considered an elite university until it can become realistic about many of their policies. The school pumps so much money into a Alcohol task force yet the funding for the health center hasn't increased since 1988. I was deeply troubled by this article and I would like to let the school know that in my opinion implementing such policies will hurt future applicant's desire to go to this school.

I read in last week's Inquirer that a similar team of Boston Police Dept. was involved in a multi-million dollar case of corruption, with a Bolivian druglord. This is what worries me more than the drugs on the streets: the corruption in our system.