When Chris Konschak attended the University of Richmond in 1983, school policy allowed him to keep a keg in his room. Today, freshmen who roll kegs into Dennis Hall could face expulsion.
Until it was changed to 21 in 1984, the legal drinking age was 18. And Chris Konschak no longer does keg stands. He is now the executive director for Mothers Against Drunk Driving in Virginia and the District of Columbia.
Since the Amethyst Initiative started last July, Konschak has had to work extra hard to keep alcohol out of freshmen dorms.
The Amethyst Initiative is a nationwide petition to return the legal drinking age to 18. So far, 135 college and university presidents have signed.
Presidents of Virginia Tech, Randolph-Macon College and Washington & Lee University are among those who have signed the petition, but Richmond's President Edward Ayers, who was unavailable for comment, is not. Some students and faculty at Richmond are starting to wonder what he is waiting for.
Tracy Cassalia, the health educator at Richmond's Weinstein Center for Recreation and Wellness, said she had no idea why the president hadn't signed the petition.
She said lowering the drinking age on campus would definitely decrease binge drinking and pre-gaming.
"When students turn 21, it takes the mystique away from drinking," Cassalia said. "Once it becomes legal it loses something."
Dan Fabian, the chemical health coordinator at Richmond and associate dean of Richmond College, said lowering the drinking age would be a good idea. But, he didn't think there would be a change anytime soon.
"It doesn't matter if President Ayers signs the Amethyst Initiative or not," he said. "MADD is too strong a lobbying group - politicians won't stand up against them."
The debate between members of the Amethyst Initiative and MADD has reached national and individual campus levels. Konschak said the MADD chapter in the City of Richmond had worked to educate the leaders of Virginia colleges and universities in a history lesson.
"Look at the number of lives saved when the drinking age was changed to 21," he said.
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According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the increase in the minimum legal drinking age has saved 21,887 lives nationwide.
"Many school leaders today were legal to drink when they were in college," Konschak said. "They buy into the myth that lowering the drinking age will stop binge drinking, but they haven't done the research to see if any of the data is true."
Dawn Watkins, the vice president of student affairs at Washington & Lee University, said that laws and regulations for drunk driving had changed significantly since MADD first started.
Since the drinking age has been raised, increases in binge drinking had actually created a higher risk on college campuses, she said.
According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 18- to 20-year-olds had the steepest increase in binge drinking rates - 56 percent - between 1993 and 2001.
"Richmond is not that dissimilar to Washington & Lee," Watkins said. "I believe that 75 percent of students are already using alcohol before coming to a college campus - that in and of itself makes the drinking age disjointed with reality."
But at Richmond, students aren't drinking as much as we think they are, Cassalia said. "Here, there are 17 percent that don't."
Cassalia said a small portion of students at Richmond binge drank, which created problems for the rest of the people on campus.
Other Virginia schools see binge drinking as a greater problem. Larry Hincker, the associate vice president of university relations at Virginia Tech, said that President Charles W. Steger signed the Amethyst Initiative to show that he acknowledged there was a problem of underage drinking on college campuses.
"The national binge drinking rate for time and number of drinks for males and females is 42 percent," Hincker said. "In Virginia it is higher than the national average - 54 percent. And at Virginia Tech it is even higher than that - 58 percent."
Hincker said that Virginia Tech had suffered the consequences from underage drinking and welcomed dialogue on the law.
Richmond is starting to welcome it, too. Cassalia said that the university was sending her to the American College Health Association Conference at the end of May. She said that John McCardell, the Amethyst Initiative's founder, and Robert Saltz of the Prevention Research Center would lead a day-long debate on the pros and cons of lowering the drinking age.
Fabian said he still thought the Amethyst Initiative would just "fizzle out."
"But, hey, maybe I'll be wrong," Fabian said. He paused, taking a moment to laugh. "Maybe that would be a good thing."
Contact reporter Kaylin Politzer at kaylin.politzer@richmond.edu
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