by Susan Resneck Pierce

About the author: Susan Resneck Pierce, president of the University of Puget Sound, serves on the National Advisory Council Subcommittee on College Drinking of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

Shortly after returning home from a National Institute on Alcohol and Alcohol Abuse (NIAAA) meeting on college drinking, I learned that a student from my own campus had been cited for creating a public disturbance. He argued that he and his friends were simply being college students.

Irresponsible drinking on the part of young people has been a problem literally for centuries. For example, Homer describes its devastating effects in “The Odyssey.” What is different today is that many students drink to get drunk and many young women join their male classmates in drinking...