UI Has a Drinking Problem

November 18, 2009, 7:40 a.m.; November 19, 2009, 10:15 a.m.; November 20, 2009, 6:30 a.m.

Updates: UI VP Medical Jean Robillard says patient-donation-dunning plan "canceled a week ago"; spokesperson "clarifies," says "canceled" means "under review," B.A. Morelli, "Leaders Address Employee Concerns; UI Officials: No Decision on Job Issues," Iowa City Press-Citizen, November 20, 2009, p. A3; Ashley Oerman, "UI Cancels Asking Patients for Money," The Daily Iowan, November 20, 2009, p. A1; UI's Funded Retirement Insurance Committee asks President Mason to "abolish rather than just delay" UIHC's "patient donation plan," B.A. Morelli, "Group Wants UIHC Patient Donation Plan Nixed," Iowa City Press-Citizen, November 19, 2009, p. A1;

Two Spence break-in grand jury witnesses jailed for refusal to testify, one now indicted, "UI Spence Break-In: Gazette Scoop Illustrates Issues," October 27, 2009; Anonymous, "Davenport Grand Jury Subpoena for Scott DeMuth," Nov. 11, 2009; "Two jailed for refusing to testify before grand jury," Iowa City Press-Citizen, November 17, 2009; Carrie Feldman's Web site and the new "Support Carrie and Scott!"; "Activist indicted for alleged role in Spence Labs vandalism," Iowa City Press-Citizen, November 19, 2009 [in hard copy as "Man Indicted for Animal Terrorism," Iowa City Press-Citizen, November 20, 2009, p. A1]; Ann McGlynn, "Activist who refused grand jury testimony now charged with conspiracy," Quad City Times, November 19, 2009; Ann McGlynn and Diane Heldt, "Lab Break-in Charge Pleases UI Officials," The Gazette, November 20, 2009, p. A1; Regina Zilbermints, "Man Charged in Spence Action," The Daily Iowan, November 20, 2009, p. A1; Ann McGlynn, "Animal rights activist pleads not guilty in University of Iowa vandalism," Quad City Times, November 20, 2009;

Press-Citizen editorial: Hold off on VP for Strategic Communications: Editorial, "Stakes Have Risen for UI's Strategic Communication," Iowa City Press-Citizen, November 20, 2009, p. A7 ("it's wrong when UI seems to care more about finding the right way to spin its decisions than about making the right decisions in the first place. The best strategy for UI communication is for officials to be more forthright and to show more common sense.");

Press-Citizen editorializes for 21-only, Editorial, "21-Only Still an Option for Bars with PAULAs," Iowa City Press-Citizen, November 19, 2009, p. A7.

I'll Drink to That
(brought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
Iowa City's alcohol problem, sometimes in the media and always in its bars, is back in both this morning, . . .

. . . but first, here are links to earlier entries on some of the other hot topics from the past week or so that are now getting the most direct hits, among which may be the entries you are looking for:

UIHC, Regents and UI.
If UI has become a for-profit corporation . . .: "Corporatizing the University of Iowa; If We're Going to Do It, Let's Do It Right," November 17, 2009

Strategic Communications VP position: "Strategic Communications a Failed Strategy; Actions Speak Louder," November 13, 2009 [See "Updates," above]

Executives trip to Disney World: "Mickey Mouse Patient Satisfaction; UIHC's Troubles: Is Orlando the Answer?" November 8, 2009

"Contributions from patients" proposal: "UIHC: 'Sick Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?'; A Check-In and a Check," October 31, 2009, 7:00 a.m. (with numerous updates through November 4, links to additional, related material -- and now with over 30 of the Press-Citizen readers' comments on B.A. Morelli's stories) [see "Updates," above]

Board of Regents and State universities' budget cutting: "Cutting Slack, Cutting Budgets; Regents, University Presidents, Deserve Some Thanks and Credit," October 30, 2009, 8:30 a.m. (with links to prior, related blog entries)

Spence break-in grand jury proceedings: "UI Spence Break-In: Gazette Scoop Illustrates Issues," October 27, 2009 [See "Updates," above]

School boundaries, school boards, and the ICCSD.
"School Board Election: Now Work Begins; It's Swisher, Dorau, Cooper; Old Board 'Starting Off Backing Up' With Consultant and Tough Decisions," September 9, 2009, 7:00 a.m. (with its links to 11 prior and related blog entries including, for example, "School Boundaries Consultant Folly; Tough Boundary Questions Are for Board, Not Consultants or Superintendent, Plus: What Consultant Could Do," and "Cluster Schools: Potential for IC District?")

Nicholas Johnson, "School Board Has Work to Do," Iowa City Press-Citizen, November 2, 2009 (and reproduced in blog)

"Boundaries: Only Board Can Do Board's Job; Drawing School Boundaries Made Easy," November 2, 2009

The City Council has voted to deny a liquor license to one of the town's worst offenders. Josh O'Leary, "Council Denies Summit Liquor License," Iowa City Press-Citizen, November 18, 2009, p. A1. Of course, that vote plus a fake ID will still get any underage UI student a beer at the Summit, since the bars "denied liquor licenses" continue to operate -- to the great profit of landlords and bar owners -- during the course of the bars' endless appeals. In this instance, bar owner Mike Porter has bought even more time by filing a lawsuit that asserts what he claims to be his constitutional right to violate the law. Lee Hermiston, "Bar Owner Sues Saying Criteria Unconstitutional," Iowa City Press-Citizen, November 18, 2009, p. A1. [In the spirit of the "Fairness Doctrine," notwithstanding its repeal by the FCC, here is Mike Porter's response, received Nov. 18 at 3:58 p.m.: "I respectfully ask you not to use false and potentially libelous statements such as the following: 'bar owner Mike Porter has bought even more time by filing a lawsuit that asserts what he claims to be his constitutional right to violate the law.' Thank you, Mike Porter." If he would like to say any more on the subject it will also be included either here, or in a comment to the blog entry.]

Meanwhile, UI Provost Wallace Loh and Student Services VP Tom Rocklin have jointly authored an op ed, published by virtually every local paper, outlining how serious the University is about curbing alcohol abuse. Wallace D. Loh and Tom Rocklin, "Helping to change the culture of high-risk drinking," Iowa City Press-Citizen, November 11, 2009.

But the efforts they describe are not found impressive by this morning's op ed author. Gary Sanders, "UI Slices Same Old Baloney," Iowa City Press-Citizen, November 18, 2009, p. A11.

Loh and Rocklin write that "Our students report incidents of physical injury, unwanted or unsafe sexual experiences, property damage, impaired memory of their actions and diminished academic performance as effects of high-risk drinking." I'm informed as much as one-third of UI's students report such experiences.

But student alcohol abuse can lash back, like a scorpion in a Texan's boot, to strike UI administrators as well.

The two football players accused of a rape on October 14, 2007, have confronted nothing from the court system except continuances during the two years since, while they've been off playing football elsewhere. See, Nicholas Johnson, "University of Iowa Sexual Assault Controversy -- 2007-08." But the local fallout for the University from that single incident has involved its being sued for a refusal to disclose public records, and now a suit against the University president by one of the vice presidents she peremptorily dismissed at the time (for wrongful termination and defamation). Lee Hermiston, "Attorneys argue over Mason's immunity in lawsuit," Iowa City Press-Citizen, November 14, 2009.

In Iowa, just a week ago today, the Register reported that a Drake student with a blood alcohol level of 0.5 (6 times the Iowa maximum for drunk driving) was hospitalized and "nearly died" from alcohol poisoning. Tom Alex, "Two at Drake charged in hazing incident," Des Moines Register, November 11, 2009.

It is said that the only thing we know for sure about the hard drives in our computers is that they will, someday, crash. We just don't know when.

Student alcohol abuse is like that. Students will die -- whether in hospitals from alcohol poisoning, falls from buildings, choking on their own vomit, fights with or without guns, or freezing in an Iowa winter snow drift after passing out. We just don't know who or when. Students will be raped -- or as Loh and Rocklin prefer to call it, suffer an "unwanted sexual experience." We just don't know who, or when, or whether it will ever be reported. UI administrators will continue to suffer -- although by comparison with the students, in far less dramatic ways -- as a result. We just don't know who and when.

In the 725 entries in this blog over the past three years alcohol has often been a topic. See, e.g., "Alcohol's Impact on Iowa City," July 24, 2009 (praising Loh's "metrics"); "Some Solutions to College Binge Drinking," July 2, 2009 (with links to 6 more). Sometimes they've simply itemized the reasons alcohol is, by any measure -- economic, crime, medical consequences -- the nation's "number one hard drug." Others have dealt with alcohol and . . . the political power of the alcohol industry and local bar owners, athletes, crime and physical violence. Clearly it is, at least for Iowa City, a recurring theme -- a problem for which there has been, and continues to be, virtually no meaningful leadership.

As Gary Sanders points out, in today's op ed, linked above, "[the university] did absolutely nothing in support of the 21 bar entry referendum in 2007." In case you weren't following that issue, here are some basics. Iowa law forbids anyone under the age of 21 to buy or consume alcohol. This referendum did not propose to keep those under the age of 21 out of bars. Not at all -- although that is the way it was characterized by its bar owner-funded student opponents. It just would have provided that those under the age of 21 would have to binge drink even faster -- get the job done by 10:00 p.m., rather than leisurely drinking until 2:00 a.m. Supporters could not even get the UI leadership to support that proposal!

I'm not going to repeat here all the ideas I've put forward over the past three years. But I will mention one.

Mason Williams -- composer and performer of "Classical Gas," Emmy award-winning head writer of the "Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" -- is, among other things, a master of the one-liner. One of his is, "Here's a ball; don't bounce it."

That is to say, if you hand someone a compelling opportunity they will probably seize it; it's kind of silly to expect otherwise.

Communities and colleges that care realize that any meaningful, serious attempts to reduce the consequences of students' alcohol abuse, in states that set the drinking age at 21, must keep underage students out of bars. It's kind of a no-brainer; a sort of "duh?"

These are for-profit businesses that make their profit from one operation only: the sale of alcohol. The reason customers enter their bars is to buy and consume alcohol. That being the case, why anyone would seriously propose that meaningful improvements in student behavior could be achieved by handing underage students a glass of beer and saying, "Here's a beer; don't drink it," is beyond me.

We may not need a Carrie Nation swinging her hatchet at bars and barrels of whiskey, but we do need someone with an equivalent focus, will and political courage if we're ever going to do anything meaningful about these problems.

The answers are out there on the Internet. We don't need more studies. We could even look to one of our sister Regents' institutions, Iowa State, for leadership -- since, though far from perfect, their numbers are much better than ours.

But so far, as of this morning, I don't see that leader anywhere around Iowa City; not in the City Council and not in Jessup -- nor I might note, in fairness to them, in a public groundswell demanding action.

Like the fellow who saw a billboard that said, "Drink Canada Dry," and went up there to try to do it, Iowa's students are going to continue to binge drink and they, and all the rest of us, will continue to pay the heavy, heavy consequences.
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* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source, even if I have to embed it myself. -- Nicholas Johnson
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Alcohol's Impact on Iowa City

July 24, 2009, 10:00 a.m., 10:00 p.m.

Police Toss Bar Closing Recommendation to Council;
Loh Talking Tough
(brought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
July 29 Update: The Princeton Review has recently provided America's binge drinking high school graduates some guidance with regard to America's top "party schools." The University of Iowa came in 12th. It's too fuzzy a number to qualify as one of Provost Loh's alcohol metrics but, if it were, my recollection is that we were 9th last year. So, aside from the potential loss of tuition from those UI applicants more interested in alcohol and athletics than in academics, it can be chalked up as modest progress of sorts. (The UI's 2002-03 Parent Times Online indicates parents are notified when their kids are ticketed for alcohol violations. Is that still the case?) And see, Chris Rhatigan, "Council denies license renewal for 2 bars; PAULA rates at Etc., Fieldhouse triggered recommendation," Iowa City Press-Citizen, July 29, 2009 (As I wrote in this blog entry July 24, below, "It will be a real test for the City Council next Tuesday evening. Are they willing to really stand up to the politically and economically powerful Iowa City alcohol industry?" Well, apparently they were, and in fairness I want to give them credit for doing so.)

Evening update, July 24, 10:00 p.m.: "And the beat(ing up) goes on": more alcohol-related violence and killing, before the day is even out. "Stabbing, Shooting Reported in Iowa City," The Gazette Online, July 24, 2009, 10:00 p.m. ("According to witnesses, a long-time patron of the Hawkeye Hideaway bar . . . heard a man believed to be a transient drop two bags full of empty pop cans and bottles. The transient then stabbed the bar patron. Kevin Grimm of the Hawkeye Hideaway said the incident was witnessed by an off-duty Iowa City police officer, who then pulled a gun and shot the transient.")
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10:00 a.m. (original blog entry): Iowa City Police Chief Sam Hargadine has made a radical proposal to the City Council: don't continue to grant liquor licenses to bars that consistently flout the law. What a concept!

It will be a real test for the City Council next Tuesday evening. Are they willing to really stand up to the politically and economically powerful Iowa City alcohol industry? Rob Daniel, "Police: No liquor license for 2 bars; Council to vote Tuesday on The Fieldhouse and Etc.," Iowa City Press-Citizen, July 24, 2009.

Meanwhile, UI's Provost Wallace Loh is also talking a little tougher.

He [Loh] wants action.

“It’s trial and error, experiment,” he said. “Let’s do things — let’s stop studying it.” “This problem has been studied to death,” he said. “There are hundreds and hundreds of articles with recommendations. What there is very little of is people taking action.”

So the partnership focuses its energies on specific, concrete ideas for gradually changing the culture, he said.

The UI is stepping up with police overtime on downtown patrol, beefing up alcohol safety education training for freshmen and offering even more intensive training to at risk groups.

They plan better communication with parents and cooperation with bar owners. They’ll schedule more Friday classes and fund more alternative activities, he said.

Loh’s goal: fewer alcohol-related emergency room admissions. A drop in blood alcohol levels, reduced incidents of alcohol-related assaults, fewer dropouts and more.

Jennifer Hemmingsen, "Attitude Change on UI Drinking on Horizon?" The Gazette, July 18, 2009, p. A4.

Although the test is "what happens next"? there's some reassurance in Hemmingsen's story and quotes. Perhaps most impressive to me is Provost Loh's reference to some metrics for measuring "success": alcohol-related dropouts and emergency room admissions, and blood alcohol levels in students arrested and tested.

There's really no substitute for the business adage "you get what you measure."

Speaking of which, what are we to make of the statistics regarding student arrests?

The Gazette recently headlined, "Athletes Not Most-Arrested Group." (Fraternity boys are.)

Might it have been more relevant/meaningful to look at some of the sports (and, presumably, fraternities) separately? Is it possible that the percentage of football players who get in trouble exceeds the percentages for members of the UI's teams in, say, cross country, golf, rowing, swimming, tennis, track and volleyball? Is it possible that some fraternities contribute a disproportionate number of fraternity members' arrests?

Here's how the Gazette presented the numbers:

Male student-athletes at the University of Iowa have had lower rates of arrest and citation than members of UI fraternities every year for the past five years, according to UI figures. . . .

Male athletes’ arrest and citation rates in Iowa City during the 2008-09 academic year — 10.5 percent — were nearly the same as those for male students living in residence halls — 10.1 percent. Fraternity members tallied the highest charge rate, at 15.1 percent. . . .

That compares with . . . 4 percent of the total UI student body. . . .
Of the 1,504 charges in the categories that were tracked, 75 percent were alcohol related . . ..

Diane Heldt, "Athletes not most-arrested UI group; Fraternity members’ rates higher, though athletes get attention," The Gazette, July 11, 2009, p. A1. And see, Editorial, "Hook students on positive activities," The Gazette, July 16, 2009, p. A4 ("Of the 1,504 criminal charges . . . 75 percent were alcohol related. . . . Yet another reminder of the UI’s struggles with alcohol. . . . [A] 2006 survey . . ., 'Research on Iowa Student Experiences,' found that binge drinking was lower among students who participated in . . . student organizations, honors programs and research projects with faculty. . . . Only students can choose to engage in positive, educationally purposeful activities. But the easier the UI can make that choice, the better.")

Some of the comments on papers' stories in their online editions emphasize individuals' "right" to drink alcohol (a right possessed, apparently, even by those who are legally precluded from exercising it) and the contribution to Iowa City's downtown businesses (i.e., bars) and "vibrancy."

But there are costs associated with our present policies -- economic, medical, social, and moral/ethical.

Universities may no longer have the responsibilities of parents for their students' every action (though they once did), but they do still have some obligation to contribute more to students' lives than freedom, football, and the rote learning and regurgitation of bits of information.

And consider the Gazette's report this morning regarding the Los Cocos bar:

Los Cocos . . . has been a popular hip-hop club since it opened a little more than a year ago, but in that time, the bar has had almost 210 calls to police that consumed more than 200 officer hours and ended in nearly 90 arrests. . . . Los Cocos has alcohol-related arrests, but unlike many other bars, it also has seen a stabbing, numerous assaults and shots fired.

Ashton Shurson, "Tough Crowd: Police Say Los Cocos Bar in I.C. Plagued with Violence; Owner Says It's Unfairly Targeted," The Gazette, July 24, 2009, p. A1.

And see, "Man assaulted in ped mall," Iowa City Press-Citizen, July 23, 2009 ("Police say a man was assaulted early Wednesday in downtown Iowa City. Police said a man had fallen down and was knocked unconscious in the 100 block of East College Street about 1:46 a.m. Wednesday. He was intoxicated and had a large cut on his head, police said. Officers determined he had an altercation with someone and that he was tripped by the suspect, who had fled on foot eastbound through the pedestrian mall.").

Taxpayers are subsidizing much of the "externalities" from Iowa City's bar culture. We pay the overtime for the diversion of the police to the violence that is the aftermath of drunk patrons. We pay the City employees who clean up the vomit outside the bars on Sunday morning. We pay for the streets and sidewalks, and their maintenance, that are given (free, so far as I know) to bar owners who'd like to claim the territory for more patrons. We pay, either as taxpayers or in excess health insurance premiums, for the alcohol-related emergency room treatments. We pay for the property damage for whom no perpetrator can be found. We are left with the obligation to clean up our yards after the drunken hoards of bumblebees depart Kinnick. We pay for the prisons. And we pay in having our freedom restrained by needing to avoid some areas of town at some times of the week and day because of risks of alcohol-related violence and just all-round unpleasantness. We pay the "opportunity cost" of what our downtown might have been had the City Council not been so willing to give in to bar owners' drive for ever-increasing profits.

There's much more involved here than the libertarian ideology that individuals ought to be left free to destroy their careers and lives by whatever means they choose, free to reject the opportunities offered them. Even in its purest form, that assumes they are doing no harm to others.

In this case, they are.
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* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source, even if I have to embed it myself. -- Nicholas Johnson

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