Dear Chancellor Thorp:

University alcohol policies, according to a Harvard University study, either reduce or enable drinking among collegians and the general population.

As a member of the UNC Campus-Community Alcohol Policy Task Force, I learned much about the difficult student alcohol-related challenges confronting the university. It's certain that alcohol use threatens both health and university mission.

The Student Alcohol Advisory Committee noted its concerns about university response as an institutional integrity issue. It expressed its belief that student buy-in to university efforts to reduce destructive student drinking depended upon university consistency. Hypocrisy or inconsistency, it noted, would undermine acceptance of student-aimed initiatives.

Defining university intent, a longstanding policy prohibits sale of alcohol at university-sponsored events, including sports activity. This is sound and responsible policy.

Regardless of spectator age, sports events are student activities. Not intended to subsidize the economic good fortunes of the alcohol industry, it's reasonable to believe that it is the activity, not the alcohol, that has produced years of loyal fan support.

Recent reports declare that the university, as a money-making venture, is considering allowing alcohol sales during football games. Not to the general population or students, but to 3,000 select spectators attending games in newly constructed Kenan Stadium private suites and club boxes. Though the present policy seems not to have interfered with fan support in the past, athletic department officials express the dubious notion that fans may be less inclined to partake in luxury accommodations unless alcohol is present.

With binge drinking, alcohol-related poisonings and student deaths at their highest level, UNC is making a concerted effort to address campus alcohol problems. Altering policy, making economic considerations paramount, is inconsistent with those efforts. It's certain that the solution for university economic woes won't be found in allowing more alcohol on campus.

With an existing serious alcohol abuse problem, what message does this send to students when university officials declare that adults cannot even sit through a sports event without drinking alcohol?

While declaring to students that responsible adult life is not defined by alcohol consumption, this contradictory proposal goes in the wrong direction. Worse, it potentially undermines efforts to win student support for, or confidence in, other university prevention efforts.

Athletic Director Dick Baddour defends this proposal as consistent with other collegiate sports venues. This reminds one of the parental admonition, "If your friends asked you to join them in jumping off of a cliff, would you follow?" Bad decisions by other universities are not examples worth following, and most universities embrace our current policy.

Allowing alcohol sales at sporting events, even if only in exclusive accommodations, is inconsistent with university policy and its ongoing efforts to confront this critical student alcohol threat. We must not be seduced by short-term economic reward, that, in the long-term, could cost far more.

I support UNC leadership in its continuing efforts to prevent student alcohol abuse, and, to that end, urge rejection of this alcohol policy change. University actions must match its talk. Students are watching, and we can't have it both ways.

Respectfully,

Ronald E. Bogle

The writer is a retired Superior Court judge and works with the Coalition for Alcohol and Drug Free Teenagers.