To reduce underage drinking in university communities, Harvard's Dr. Henry Wechsler, one of the nation's preeminent experts on college drinking behaviors, said, "Better town-gown cooperation is needed. Colleges cannot do it alone."

While progress has been made, this is not the case among university students. To the contrary, while binge drinking among 18- to 20-year-old non-students has declined, binge drinking and alcohol-related deaths among collegians has increased.

Underage drinking is nothing new to university culture. A long-standing problem, abusive drinking is uniquely associated with this particular culture.

No one denies that destructive drinking on the nation's campuses is a complicated issue, but there seems to be a consensus that university leaders have not done enough to address this problem, which compromises their institutional mission, while jeopardizing the health and future of drinking students.

In our community, abusive student drinking is rampant. Walk along Franklin Street or near any fraternity house on a weekend. Visit UNC Hospitals to observe the emergency alcohol transports. Accompany emergency personnel responding to unconscious students found on campus. Accompany law enforcement attempting to manage situations involving intoxicated students. Talk to town residents who are frequent victims of student behaviors.

UNC Vice Chancellor Winston Crisp recently said, "We don't have a weekend that goes by without a report of alcohol and drug and sexual abuse." He added: "The tolerance of the community has reached its endpoint. The tolerance of the university of cleaning up disasters on a weekly basis is over."

But on another front, college administrators across the nation are wondering when, described by the Yale Daily News as the "ticking bomb," the explosion of civil and/or criminal liability actions against them will begin. The nation is rapidly moving in a direction in which they will be confronted with increasing liability.

Law professor Peter Luke, director of the Stetson University Center for Excellence in Higher Education Law and Policy, believes that the stage is already set for major lawsuits against them.

"A lot of heads are going to roll over this," he said. "I think you're going to see college presidents fired and lawyers losing their jobs."

But this university problem is also a town problem, and we must be part of the solution. The resources devoted by Chapel Hill and Carrboro to manage issues related to student drinking abuses are extraordinary. Most of those expenses, like all efforts related to alcohol-related issues, are borne by taxpayers.

It's time for town leaders of Chapel Hill and Carrboro to join university leaders in adopting a community environmental strategy to change the culture of abusive drinking that exists here.

In 2007, for the first time in our history, the U.S. Surgeon General issued a national "Call to Action" to prevent underage drinking, declaring it a major public health threat. At that time, he said simply, "We can no longer ignore what alcohol is doing to our children."

Silence from town and university leaders is no longer an option. How many more students must be lost to alcohol by premature death, injury, damaged health or dependency, before we make a community effort to find a solution?

Ronald E. Bogle is a retired Superior Court judge and works with the Coalition for Alcohol and Drug Free Teenagers.