Party all the time: thoughts on Iowa's #2 party school ranking
I finally have a little downtime and plan to write a couple serious posts — or at least ones unrelated to football and beer.
Hypocritically, though, I have wanted to write about something that probably has a lot to do with football and beer: The University of Iowa’s number two ranking in the Princeton Review’s most recent “party school” poll.
A couple weeks ago in its Homers and Gomers editorial, the CRG wondered if Iowa’s number two ranking was the result of a student conspiracy to make it numero uno. Apparently, the rankings reflect the results of student surveys so I suppose a student conspiracy could be a possible explanation. But, as a UI alum, I think it misses the mark — badly. From my experience, the UI’s number two ranking is well earned.
I do not know what it is like now, but the drinking and partying culture must be worse now than when I was a student if it has the attention of the Princeton Review. Surprisingly, I do not think Iowa was ever ranked when I was a student. It is amazing, really, because I thought it was pretty crazy then. That was long before 21-only, and even before the city enacted laws restricting the number of drinks one could buy at a time. The megabars like The Fieldhouse, Union, Brothers, The Sports Column, 808, and Jake’s were all open. The downtown core became a drunken, sloppy mess every weekend night. On Friday mornings, I needed to sidestep piles of vomit on my way to classes. All day, everybody talked about the drunken debauchery that happened the night before on Thirsty Thursday and their plans that weekend. People hit the bars after their last classes (FAC: Friday After Class), got drunk, went home to nap for a couple hours, then changed and went back downtown again that night. When the bars closed at 2 am, thousands of drunken revelers spilled out onto the streets. Some walked home and went to bed while others continued drinking at late-night after-parties. On Sunday the city was dead; everyone was recovering. On Monday, people recounted the weekend craziness. On Tuesday they started asking, “Are you going out tonight?”
“Going out.” It seemed like the UI should have given honorary degrees in “going out” because that is what us Hawkeyes did best. I didn’t, though. I was too poor to pay a $5 cover charge and four or five bucks for a pint of water at a crowded bar. Unless we played pool at The Que (RIP) or chilled at Dave’s Foxhead with a couple pints of PBR, I preferred to drink at home where I did not need to deal with all the drunken craziness and machismo. Basically, education took a backseat for many of my classmates.
As Bobblehead once said: college students drink; they have always drank. Frankly, I think college students should drink. Drinking and partying is part of college life and it should be something every college student experiences, if they choose to. However, excessive partying is uncool, especially when it interferes with academics. Obviously, that seems to be a huge problem at Iowa. It’s number two ranking is a testament to that.
What now? Does the UI climb to number one next year? For years the university has advocated responsible drinking and promoted nonalcoholic alternatives to no avail. The city has enacted regulations to curb excessive drinking, restricted the number of bars downtown, and finally resorted to the coup de grâce — 21-only — in 2010. Nothing has worked. Hawkeyes are still, apparently, drinking and partying as hard as ever. The university can refute its party school ranking all it wants, and the CRG can concoct all the conspiracies it wants, but the fact is that the UI’s drinking problem remains no matter where it ranks on the party school list. Frankly, I think the university and city need to start working with the students and not against them. Officials need to wake up and smell the coffee stout. What should they do? I have no clue and wish them well. Perhaps they should discuss solutions over a couple beers.
