An American university trips and stumbles into the obvious:
Here is one simple step colleges can take to reduce both binge drinking and hooking up: Go back to single-sex residences.
I know it's countercultural. More than 90% of college housing is now co-ed. But Christopher Kaczor at Loyola Marymount points to a surprising number of studies showing that students in co-ed dorms (41.5%) report weekly binge drinking more than twice as often as students in single-sex housing (17.6%). Similarly, students in co-ed housing are more likely (55.7%) than students in single-sex dorms (36.8%) to have had a sexual partner in the last year—and more than twice as likely to have had three or more.
The point about sex is no surprise. The point about drinking is. I would have thought that young women would have a civilizing influence on young men. Yet the causal arrow seems to run the other way. Young women are trying to keep up—and young men are encouraging them (maybe because it facilitates hooking up).
Next year all freshmen at The Catholic University of America will be assigned to single-sex residence halls. The year after, we will extend the change to the sophomore halls. It will take a few years to complete the transformation.
Young people on the verge of adulthood but still lacking experience or judgment, when thrown together with little or no supervision, will make irresponsible choices? Who knew?
In the early stories about the disappearance of IU student Lauren Spierer, it was barely mention in passing that just prior to going missing, she was drinking with friends at "one of Bloomington's most popular bars" and, oh, she's only 20. But the campus's problem with alcohol is starting to get more discussion now:
As police and volunteers continue their search for Spierer, questions have swirled about how a young woman who isn't even 5 feet tall got into a bar and served alcohol in a city that Indiana excise police patrol more regularly than any other place in the state.
Indiana University's nearly 2,000-acre campus about 50 miles south of Indianapolis is a picturesque mix of tree-lined paths and limestone buildings dating to the late 19th century. The school touts top-notch academic programs, but it's also consistently ranked as a top party school by the Princeton Review, earning the top spot in 2005 and consistently making the top 15 since then.
