Apparently, some confusion exists concerning the duties of house fellows in UW Housing. Contrary to what some believe, house fellows do not serve as house mommies or house daddies. They neither ground misbehaving hellians nor govern the homestead with threats of revoking television rights. Rather, house fellows represent professional colleagues devoted to creating fellowship and community in the dormitories. As such, they foster proactive and reactive measures to curb alcohol consumption in UW Housing, but ultimately possess neither the power nor the responsibility to completely regulate resident's behavior.
In an unfortunate blow to the academic reputation of the university, Princeton Review's No. 1 party school ranking encouraged the student body to drink in the 2005 fall semester. So far this semester, detox has treated 30 students who 'lived up' to this reputation by imbibing to a point of near death. This spike in detox cases allowed the university to claim the crown as the nation's No. 1 center for detoxification commitments. If the university hopes to detoxify its reputation, the student body needs to admit it has a problem and not scapegoat house fellows as the instigators.
On the same day the university's new claim to shame made the press, a front-page article in The Daily Cardinal, 'House fellows lax in enforcing no-alcohol policy, students say' (Oct. 20) targeted house fellows as possible facilitators of excessive drinking in University Housing. Based primarily on testimonials of students living in housing, the article theorized that house fellows' lackadaisical enforcement of housing drinking policies contributes to the spike in detox cases. This intimation reflects ignorance of the university's detox history and the role of house fellows.
Madison's consumption of alcohol literally ebbs and flows yearly'at this point last year, with more home games, only 14 students went to detox. But as recently as 2003, 26 students received detox treatment with the same number of home games as fall 2005.
Thus, this year's statistic does not represent an alarming outlier from past fall semesters, even considering the average age of students sent to detox. Statistically, the current attack on house fellows proves misdirected.
In a letter to the editor regarding The Daily Cardinal article, 'House fellows build community' (Oct. 21), 30 house fellows stated, '...we feel it is better not to ignore the fact that some residents will drink. Rather, we try to equip residents with the resources to help them drink safely, should they choose to do so.' Since housing policy includes no 'thou shalt honor thy house fellow' clause, this realistic approach to underage drinking in housing grants residents the autonomy to determine their limits and accept responsibility for the repercussions of their decisions.
To preempt life-threatening inebriation, house fellows offer ample alternatives to drinking. All 112 house fellows also received three weeks of rigorous training on how to respond to drinking situations prior to the fall semester. Still, with only one house fellow per floor in the dormitories, constant supervision of residents remains out of the question.
Kay Reuter-Krohn, assistant director of UW Housing stated, 'Ultimately, all things said, it's not the house fellows' job to stop the drinking; it's not the house fellows' job to be holding students' hands and treating them like a child.' Although some students in housing still require a parent to regulate their bottle usage, house fellows do not function for this purpose. The recent attempt to scapegoat house fellows as facilitators of underage drinking in the dormitories proves utterly misguided.
