MARCHING AWAY FROM ALCOHOL

Robert E. Manley, Manley & Burke

Alcohol is in the news everywhere. At the Louisiana State University, Benjamin Wynne apparently celebrated his acceptance into the LSU chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon with some of his new brothers at a local bar, ultimately drinking himself to death.

A Kentucky jury ordered two University of Kentucky fraternities to pay 20% of a 1.2 million dollar verdict after a student got drunk at a fraternity party and was killed in an auto accident.

David Reynolds, 24, a civil engineering student at the University of Akron, was lucky. He was merely hospitalized after volunteering to participate in the demonstration of the hazards of overdoing alcohol. Ironically, it was a part of an alcohol awareness week educational program.

The above events may accelerate the march of fraternity chapters away from alcohol that began picking up momentum this past summer.

Thirty-two national fraternities have pledged to cooperate with the National Interfraternity Conference Select 2000 Program. This is a value-centered program designed to promote academics and leadership among fraternity chapters, an element of which is the removal of alcohol from chapter houses.

The program promoted by the NIC is adopted on a campus-wide basis. The first four campuses to participate are Villanova University, University of Northern Colorado, Southern Illinois University, and Florida Southern College with additional campuses joining during the academic year of 1997-98.

The momentum is building. Serious personal injuries, death by alcohol, and renewed emphasis on academics and leadership are all pushing the Greek movement away from alcohol. Within the next two to three years, fraternity houses across the country will not be alcohol-dominated the way they have been in the last 25 to 30 years.