John Beale/For the Post-Gazette John Hartman, 20, a Pitt-Johnstown sophomore from Ross, agrees that the school's old policy was dangerous but said the new rules, which, among other things, ban beer posters like the one on his wall, do not stop students, including those underage, from drinking in seclusion.

By Bill Schackner
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette JOHNSTOWN, Pa. -- University of Pittsburgh-Johnstown students who want to drink hard liquor while showing collegiate pride can buy shot glasses bearing their school's name on the branch campus here.

The bookstore sells them for $3.99. It stocks beer posters, too.

		Listen in Excerpts of comments about drinking on campus: Senior Travis Swank, 22, of Somerset Senior Carissa Cryan, 22, of Lilly, Cambria County Text of letter Read the text of an open letter from a Massachusetts district judge to students at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst about drinking. Previous article Death on campus (04/01/07)

The store even carries a poster of actor John Belushi, the word "COLLEGE" displayed over his chest, a nod to the 1978 Animal House movie that romanticized "party-till-you-drop" debauchery.

But all spring long, in a crackdown decried by some students as Big Brotherish, those same glasses and any poster advertising alcohol could mean a $50 fine if plainly visible in a dorm room from a window or hallway.

"The school can make money from them, but we can't display them where people can see them,'' said Tom Belli, 22, a junior from New Kensington. "It's a bit of a double standard."

And it's not the only student complaint as yet another college attempts to curb hard partying.

Under new rules, any student group at Johnstown throwing a weekend party with alcohol must submit a guest list by noon Thursday to an administrator who reviews it and places the guests' names on file indefinitely. Nothing stronger than beer can be brought to the parties, and no more than a six-pack per legal adult.

The school, which says it's had one too many close calls with alcohol poisoning, even takes a position on party snacks, saying non-salty food must be available all party long.

Campus officials make no apologies for the rules, hardly a prohibition but a stark change for the school's 3,100 students. Administrators point to early signs of success.

Johnstown, on paper anyway, used to have a policy that campus parties were alcohol-free, but it was rarely enforced, said Jerry Samples, vice president for academic and student affairs. So there was little control over consumption and underage drinking at rowdy parties that sometimes ballooned in size past fire code limits.

Now, with the first semester under the new policy complete, incident reports suggest that vandalism is down, as are cases in which male students "get their beer muscles on with all the altercations and fights," said Jonathan Wescott, director of housing and residence life.

Far from being the thought police, the school is entitled to curb alcohol-related displays, including beer posters, in dorms that it owns if the wrong message is being sent, Dr. Samples said.

"You can't be a freshman and have a window full of empty beer cans," he said. "That's kind of counter-intuitive to the law that says you can't drink unless you're 21 years old."

The policy is still evolving, Mr. Wescott said, and it may make sense to approach the bookstore about removing the shot glasses and other alcohol-related items. Nevertheless, say school officials, by adopting practices already used at some other schools, including Pitt's main campus, Pitt-Johnstown is keeping its students safer and reducing liability.

"It's been a shift in culture," Mr. Wescott said "But it's one that had to be made."

Some students, though, remain unhappy, especially with the party rules.

They say smaller turnouts this spring show students who are unable to get on a guest list are going home or elsewhere to party.

"The campus is turning into a suitcase school,' said sophomore Steve Goppman, 20, of Monroeville, shaking his head inside the ACACIA fraternity house as he bemoaned the changes.

John Hartman, 20, a sophomore from Ross Township, agrees that the old policy was dangerous but said the new rules do not stop students, including those underage, from drinking in seclusion.

"The drinking is the same only in smaller numbers, four or five people in a dorm room," Mr. Belli said.

If colleges nationwide have not stopped dangerous partying, it isn't for lack of initiatives.

They have tried everything from random police patrols inside fraternity houses to marketing campaigns that tell students most of their peers do not drink excessively.

Sometimes changes follow a major embarrassment, a booze-fueled street disturbance after a football game or, as was the case with Duke University last year, a national media frenzy stemming from a party with lacrosse players and a stripper's charge of sexual assault.

Other times, schools gradually conclude that something is wrong with the campus culture when ambulances are a regular sight on big party weekends.

The University of Colorado at Boulder has instituted what students dubbed a "two-strike" policy in which a second alcohol-related offense as minor as holding an open container of beer can bring a semester-long suspension with no refund for tuition or fees.

"One of our ad campaigns shows a student looking very depressed with a telephone in his hand saying, 'I don't know how I'm going to explain to my parents that this six-pack was worth $15,000,' " said Robert Maust, who chairs the school's standing committee on substance abuse.

Like other schools, the Boulder campus employs a variety of education, intervention and enforcement. "There is no one thing I know of where you can say, 'Implement this and I'll show you a 25 percent decrease in excessive drinking,' " Mr. Maust said.

At Providence College, in the midst of its own alcohol discussion, school president the Rev. Brian J. Shanley took a bold step. He not only commissioned a study of the problem, identifying 51 alcohol-related ambulance runs from Sept. 1 through mid-February, he posted the report on the school's web site.

A spirited discussion ensued on the 3,900-student campus. Various recommendations are now being considered.

"Making this report available for all to read will lead to some negative publicity for the college," Father Shanley wrote in releasing the findings. "But I firmly believe that the first step to real change is radical honesty as a community."

The report cited research suggesting Providence fits the type of school prone to alcohol trouble: a heavily residential Northeast campus where athletic programs are prominent, adult and underage students are housed together, and racial or ethnic diversity is limited.

Its urban setting means plenty of nearby bars.

The University of Massachusetts at Amherst sees itself as an institution on the rise academically. So street disturbances and other party woes that cemented its "ZooMass" nickname clearly are out of sync with current goals.

Its efforts range from stepped-up municipal and campus police enforcement to letting landlords check if a student had disciplinary problems while living in a dorm, meaning an alcohol infraction could make it harder to rent off-campus.

But national data show the problem is hard to overcome, and even a school with elaborate plans can't necessarily stop a student on a weekend night from drinking himself into the hospital or worse.

"You can't give into those thoughts of futility," said UMass director of community relations Martha Nelson Patrick. "Where would we be if we weren't doing anything? I think it would be pretty grim."

Uphill battle

At Pitt-Johnstown, Dr. Samples harbors no illusion that his rural campus has found a magic solution.

"It's not solvable as long as there are enablers, and enablers include parents," he said. "When we came up with the policy, I had parents call me up saying 'I'm not going to send my child there. When I was there alcohol was not a problem.' "

About eight Johnstown students a semester are transported from campus to the hospital ill from alcohol. "It's not a huge number, but then again, we're not a big campus," Dr. Samples said.

More troubling, he said, was an upward trend in the blood-alcohol levels of those transported toward 0.30, nearly four times the legal limit for an adult. "I wasn't willing to wait," he said.

Even as the policy was introduced this winter, the ambulance runs continued. According to Campus Police Chief Kevin Grady, they included:

A 19-year-old male sophomore, too incapacitated for a blood alcohol test, found Jan. 6 unconscious and bleeding in a grassy patch after falling and hitting his head on a rock.

A male freshman found unconscious on the campus dining hall floor at breakfast about 8:40 a.m. March 1 after drinking overnight in his room.

An 18-year-old female freshman who was carried by others into a residence hall about 2:10 a.m. March 17, saying she was going to be sick.

Mr. Grady said Pitt-Johnstown offers alcohol awareness programs, counseling and has beefed up its police force and residence life staff over the years. But the efforts compete with a pervasive message delivered at an early age by everything from sports advertising to movies.

"I get tired of people blaming the colleges," he said.

How much is too much?

It's nearly 11 p.m. on a recent Friday, and the crowd attending a Hinder concert at Pitt Johnstown already is streaming back toward a cluster of campus residence halls. Music pulsates from a few rooms, but on the last big party weekend before final exams, there is little hint of the trouble that prompted the school to clamp down.

Party-goers able to show they are of legal age surrender their beer at the door for a wristband or hand stamp enabling them to get a beer from a server. A limited number of people not on the original guest list can be signed in, provided the school is notified of the additions the following Monday.

Even if fraternities and other groups are unhappy with the new rules, they are taking more responsibility for their parties, said Brad Webb, a residence life employee whose job this night is to shuttle between residence halls helping dorm staff deal with any emergencies.

"I think it's been a positive," he said.

Don't tell that to Rugby House residents, who a few hours earlier complained about the rules over dinner in the student union. They shook their heads while retelling how a resident assistant, 30 minutes after the policy took effect, ordered them to remove a shot glass from atop a refrigerator in their room.

Then there was the time that campus police responding to a false alarm in their lobby spotted beer cans in the trash.

"They confiscated our garbage bag and I guess they're going to fine us for the beer cans," said Travis Swank, 22, a senior from Somerset, with a look of utter disbelief. "It was pretty ridiculous. It was quite a sight to see."