Wet campus would stimulate learning

The concept of alcohol in proximate coexistence with education
is certainly not a foreign concept to most college students.

Indeed, the most widespread and absolute saturation of our
society by alcohol occurs during the formative and liberating
experience of college.

This has been widely understood and accepted for a number of
years. It is therefore only natural to progress ideologically to a
fusion of these two institutions into a consummate body. Alcohol
should become a part of the classroom.

Recently, the forward-thinking proponents of this concept have
posited a plan for the incorporation of a bar on campus. The
consolidation of the traditionally disparate employments of
intoxication and education has met with resistance from the faculty
of our university. Professorial objections are largely on the
grounds that they do not want drunken rapscallions matriculating in
their courses.

Though these apprehensions are understandable, they are
misguided by common generalizations that relegate the state of
drunkenness as counterproductive and exclusive to educational
progress. After more thorough examination however, one will arrive
at the conclusion that alcohol is more likely to aid the
educational process than impede it.

In a Socratic system of education, the intrepid and unfettered
participation of the pupil is essential to the success of the
system as a whole.

However, all of us have encountered situations in which the
Socratic system degenerates into mere lectures by virtue of a lack
of student participation.

In contrast, student participation levels are extremely high at
local taverns where general posturing and filing of opinions occurs
not only at a prodigious rate, but at an exceptionally loud decibel
level. As many professors bemoan the lack of student involvement,
intoxication provides a ready curative.

Likewise, recent institutional emphasis on student initiative,
especially at large universities such as UCLA, would be greatly
fueled by the same degree of passionate self-motivation which
results in all manner of public urination, stealing of property,
and general hooliganism that would not occur without the benefit of
alcohol.

From this perspective, it comes as no surprise that the Socratic
teaching method, employed most effectively in our nations’
top law schools, also coincides with the existence of a Student Bar
Association at almost all major universities.

The Australian educational system serves as a flagship which
must not be disregarded. During a trial in 1967, alcohol was not
only allowed on university campuses around the commonwealth, but
was actually distributed to students regularly. Records from that
bold experiment in educational reform are spotty at best, but most
scholars agree that it was a positive step toward attaining a more
academic atmosphere in that grades and attendance showed marked
improvement.

While critics cite the simultaneous intoxication of the faculty
as unnaturally skewing these records, the pioneering experiment is
generally lauded. Although a trailblazing success, the Australian
government, upon sobering up for a brief period in 1968, terminated
the popular program.

But perhaps the most intriguing argument in favor of a bar on
campus is the general improvement in disposition of the student
body. Commonly, the same individuals who choose to study in
absentia from the classroom are also the fiercest advocates of
inebriation; so it is only natural that the incorporation of the
latter into the former will produce enjoyment of the classroom at
far greater levels than currently exist.

The social virtues of alcohol may also manifest in the
collaboration of students and faculty in pursuit of knowledge.

In the face of such powerful promises, trivial issues such as
underage drinking, reduced motor and reasoning skills, and a
general fading of morality must be deemed wholly inconsequential.
It is therefore our obligation as stewards of academia to bring
alcohol into the classroom.