By Alyssa Boyd

You can feel the level of excitement rise on Georgetown University’s campus as the last class of the day gets out on a Friday afternoon. Students rush back to their rooms to talk to their friends and start planning their nights. Weekend after weekend, many students choose to unwind from their stressful week of work, tests and papers, with partying, which among a lot of students includes drinking. The problem? Many of these students are under the age of 21.
Although it is nearly impossible to control underage drinking on any college campus, many universities around the country have implemented strict alcohol policies in an attempt to stop it from getting out of hand. Georgetown has done its part in the past to create a policy that would help manage the problem of partying and drinking in excess, with particular regard to underage students. Yet, as time went on and the partying situation continued to rise out of control, Georgetown faculty decided it was time for a change.
In Fall 2006, all students received an email explaining that the idea of banning kegs on campus was under consideration. The administration thought that the party scene at Georgetown was getting out of hand, and banning kegs would help this problem. In general, students seemed to disagree with this proposal. “The idea of banning kegs comes with the intention of reducing the amount of alcohol that is consumed on campus,” said junior Jenny Jurvich. “However, without kegs, more students will turn to hard alcohol and become less social since they will have to drink in small groups instead of at a party. Kegs create a social environment.” After a lot of discussion between students and faculty, the university decided not to ban kegs and all the students went home for the summer happy.
That is until they came back to school this fall with an entirely new alcohol policy in place.
Over summer 2007 the Georgetown faculty created a new alcohol policy and a new set of guidelines for students. Effective on October 1, all students who planned on having a party on Georgetown’s campus and were going to be the host responsible for that party had to attend a one hour informational session before they could register a party. The party on any given weekend had to be registered by 10 on Thursday mornings, instead of a few hours before the party, which the old policy stated. Each party had to have at least two hosts age 21 or older, and with a limit of one keg per party. Faculty set regulations on how many people were allowed to attend the parties, and the sanctions for repeated alcohol policy violations were made stricter.
With change, came complaints.
Many students were outraged by this new policy. “The new alcohol policy is a product of the inability to address real issues on campus. The administration couldn’t target the individuals and groups who were actually responsible for last year’s mayhem so they decided to punish us all,” said Anoni Muhajid, a junior at Georgetown.
Eden Schiffmann, a senior, said, “We didn’t think that the social scene at Georgetown was at a particularly high risk, unsafe or unhealthy, and so the university’s reaction made no sense.” Many students agreed that the new alcohol policy was inhibiting their ability to have fun, and was more of a punishment then anything else. 
“The loudest initial response was rather negative,” said Dennis Williams, the Director and Associate Dean of Students in the Center for Minority Education Affairs. “I find that response reasonable only from the point of view that no one likes change, and it is more inconvenient now for some people to do some of the things they want to do. I think the policy is a fair and reasonable compromise that gives students wide latitude and holds them accountable for their behavior.”
Not all of the student response was negative. “I’ve been in more than one situation in which a person is barely responding due to alcohol consumption, and it’s not a pleasant experience,” said senior Brittany Suprenard. “Going through the host training isn’t going to take weeks or days out of your life – only a few hours.”
Yet, despite the authority’s strict implementing of the rules, many Georgetown students were not ready to settle with this new policy.
Representatives of the student body met with the numerous officials who decided on the new alcohol policy. Dr. Tom Olson, the president of Student Affairs, and Jeanne Lord, the associate vice president of Student Affairs, even toured around campus with a few students one weekend to see how the policy had affected the social scene.
“They saw how on campus had become a ghost town, and they understood that the policies had had a much greater effect than they had anticipated or desired,” said Schiffmann.
Shortly after this, the student body received an email discussing changes to the alcohol policy; the biggest one being that only one host of the party had to be over 21, which was a great relief to the students. 
“We’re always talking about alcohol,” said Jim Welsh, the Assistant Vice President of Student Affairs. “A lot of work has been done with the students to talk about this.”
“We are not trying to stop all alcohol on campus,” said Stephanie Lynch, Director of Residence Life. “It is realistic to learn how to be a responsible host.” Everyone who was a part of the alcohol policy decision is making an effort to talk through any more problems the students have with this policy in hopes that they can come to a conclusion that everyone agrees with.
Talk around the alcohol policy has since died down. “We have to remember that Georgetown is an academic institution,” said Suprenard. “Of course we are going to party, and oftentimes that involves alcohol, but we can’t expect our school to overlook the blatantly obvious underage drinking. I don’t see a problem with a university attempting to keep its students safe.”