The numbers, reported through the Office of Student Conduct, show close to a 60 percent drop in the number of underage possession and consumption violations, from 1,030 violations during the 2007-2008 academic year to 418 violations in 2008-2009.
These numbers follow 971 violations in 2005-2006 and 1,068 violations in 2006-2007.
"This is a vastly different year from the last three or four," said Frances Keene, director of the Office of Student Conduct.
Steven Clarke, director of the Alcohol Abuse Prevention Center, was unsure of how violations fell so rapidly during one school year.
"It does kind of mystify me that the number of violations would drop that much," Clarke said.
Clarke pointed out a substantial drop in the number of violations taking place during the fall, from 626 in 2007-2008 to 243 in 2008-2009, many of which are connected to home football games.
Clarke speculated that the drop in the number of football-related alcohol violations may have resulted from a lackluster home schedule. Tech only played one top 25-ranked opponent in Blacksburg during the 2008-2009 football season.
"We didn't have any really powerful opponents," Clarke said. "That sucked the life (of) out of some of the heavier drinking."
Keene suggested alcohol education also could have spurred the decrease in violations.
"We do a lot of orientation," Keene said. "Perhaps some of our outreach is being successful."
Incoming freshmen are required to complete an alcohol education class before arriving for classes.
"They do have more knowledge about alcohol and how to avoid negative outcomes," Clarke said.
Ed Spencer, vice president for Student Affairs, said he would wait for additional data before making any conclusions on student drinking tendencies.
"We've seen increases on both ends of the spectrum," Spencer said.
While the numbers of underage possession and consumption violations dropped, the number of major violations, including cases involving medical transports, increased from 100 in 2007-2008 to 121 in 2008-2009.
"We still seem to have a high proportion of students who are pretty heavy drinkers," Clarke said.
Clarke hoped that an upcoming survey, opening in October, would result in a better understanding of student drinking patterns.
"If there are some significant drops in drinking to correspond with these numbers, maybe students are saying, 'We're not drinking anymore,'" Clarke said.
Sgt. Nathan O'Dell of the Blacksburg Police Department said there were not any changes in enforcing current alcohol rules, adding that more policeman have been on patrol in recent years.
"We've been looking for those particular type of violations," O'Dell said. "We haven't gotten more lax on our enforcement."
Leon McClinton, director of Resident Life, noted that student residential staff are trained to report violations.
"We put our student staff through training that emphasizes enforcing all policies," McClinton said.
Despite the drop in the number of violations, a price increase was instituted for the alcohol education course required for students cited for the possession or consumption of alcohol, resulting in increased revenue.
During the 2008-2009 school year, alcohol violations generated $101,920, an increase from $91,465 brought in during the 2007-2008 school year. Clarke noted that providing enough classes to fit students' schedules kept costs high.
Despite a lack of answers in how the decline in violations occurred, Keene was happy with the results.
"I'd be pleased if students are making healthier decisions," Keene said. "I think a drop in violations is a good thing."
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I think the body of this article should only say: EPIC WIN
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I'm sure that this doesn't have anything to do with pressure from the administration after Tech received such bad publicity for its drinking numbers last year...
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Violation numbers are wholly contingent upon how many violations are actually spotted and reported. A just-as-plausible conclusion might be that students and locals ave found new ways to evade detection - as a consequence, violation numbers are down (because the police can't find the violators) even though alcohol usage may well be at an all-time high. This is why nobody should ever trust statisticians.
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A better stat would be Alcohol-related hospital admissions, if that's legally obtainable. A drop in violations, as other have pointed out, probably just means people are drinking more in private. This culture historically has led to binge drinking etc. And the fact that binge drinking is awesome contributes to binge drinking.
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as long as drunk driving accidents go down that is all that matters to me. they can binge drink themselves to death as long as they keep it off the roads
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@Kyle: I hope you meant statistics, not statisticians. Also, the article is not conclusive about why numbers are down, just that they are down. Nowhere was anyone quoted stating drinking is down; in fact, many were quoted as saying they weren't sure of the cause of the decline in violations. Don't be so mistrusting of statistics you miss what's actually being said.
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There is less underage possession because they grew up and are not underage anymore!
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Better alcohol education? A weak home football schedule? Are you serious? Why not just come out and say that the numbers of violations are down because the powers that be chose to look the other way in an effort to keep the numbers down. Cities do this crap all the time with crime statistics. Got too many drug violations? Just conveniently trash a few and no one will be the wiser.
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It is embarrassing the school and especially the Virginia Tech Police don't realize Blacksburg is a college town. Underage kids will drink and there is no way to stop it. The city and school waste tax payers dollars as well as tuition money to go well out of their way to get the thrill of catching a couple underage kids drinking in their dorm room, or walking back to their dorm a little drunk. In no way do I feel safer by having as many cops at Tech there are and the only purpose many of them serve is sitting outside a dorm late on a weekend night issuing drinking tickets or driving around searching for a party for them to bust.
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It's not exactly a big mystery... words gotten out that the townhouse developments don't care how hard we party, so now we just all get blitzed off campus!
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"Why not just come out and say that the numbers of violations are down because the powers that be chose to look the other way in an effort to keep the numbers down." Actually Mr. Anon, I wouldnt be surprised if that is EXACTLY what's happening
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less disposable income to throw in on for a keg so less drinking? im going with that. that's why I dont drink as much
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No, I meant statisticians. Statistics are numbers which any clown with a calculator can compute. Statisticians are the people who are paid to interpret the results - and unless they are funding themselves, then they are serving some other master. That's not to say that statisticians are inherently dishonest people - I work with a bunch of them, and they all seem pretty swell to me. But you have to take anything reported by a statistician with a grain of salt. I don't buy for a second that underage consumption is down - I find it much more believable that the police have reduced their patrols. You can't report what you aren't looking for. . .
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Sure the university has not been getting more lax on it's enforcement: students are simply smarter about not getting caught. The fact is that strict prohibition / enforcement policies don't work, because people always find ways around them. I doubt the university's alcohol education policy was the main cause, but if the university was smart they would stop trying to waste money on enforcing alcohol / drug policies that punish, and better concentrate them on policies that treat those who ABUSE it. Underage drinkers who can drink RESPONSIBLY should not have to pay the price for those who don't.
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Last weekend I was out and around Blacksburg and it sure looked like there were plenty of huge drinking parties around. Kyle is probably right, truth be told the parties bring money to Blacksburg and Tech has been pretty much "dont ask, don't tell." Whether the Campus Alcohol Abuse Prevention Center is going to be more then a feel good measure remains to be seen.
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"Underage drinkers who can drink RESPONSIBLY..." Uhh hello.... #1, if you're underage it's illegal to drink, so therefore you're being irresponsible out of the starting gate. Period. Do not pass go, do not collect $100 dollars. Until/if that law changes, there is no such thing as "underage drinkers drinking responsibly." #2. Steger may bs some of you, but he's not fooling me. He wants the drinking age lowered so that binge drinking becomes more of a high school issue, and less a college issue... thereby causing less of a problem for him so he can remain fat, happy, and bored while he collects his 450k per year and does zilch.
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The drinking age is actually rather arbitrarily set, and the reason a drinking age even exists is situated firmly on the grounds of the Constitutionally dubious. Essentially, a couple decades ago a few groups joined together a few different statistics and attempted (successfully) to show that an increase in the drinking age (which, to that point, had been a state issue and not a federal issue) nationally would lead to a corresponding decrease in the number of traffic fatalities with intoxication as a cause. That may well have been a noble goal, but the manner by which it became state law is a little more troubling - the federal government effectively mandated that, in order to receive federal highway funding (which, incidentally, is actually a responsibility of the federal government made explicit in the Constitution), states had to raise the drinking age to 21. Bottom line: if you didn't play by the fed's rules, you didn't get the cash. It's a ridiculous law from a Constitutional standpoint because it flies directly in the face of Amendments 9 and 10.
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But more to the point, 'responsible drinking' and 'responsible citizenship' may well be two different qualities. Drinking responsibly means, generally, not intoxicating oneself beyond the point of danger to oneself or to others. Responsible citizenship entails following the laws set forth by the Commonwealth and by the Federal government. It's certainly possible for an 18 year old to have two beers and not be irresponsibly drunk, though he may well be accused of being an irresponsible citizen. Case in point - I was cited this past weekend for kayaking without a life jacket in my kayak. It's a law designed to protect me from myself. Was I boating irresponsibly? I think not - I was on a flat lake, never more than 50 yards from land, a distance which I could swim in under 30 seconds if I found it necessary to do so, and I was not intoxicated or under the influence of any controlled substance. However, I may well have been an irresponsible citizen in failing to look up the appropriate laws governing kayaking on lakes. Incidentally, I think the Amethyst initiative's goal is not to displace binge drinking to HS level, but rather to de-stigmatize it at the collegiate level so people don't go wild when they show up at college and think they need to booze it up while underage to show everyone how awesome they are. From that standpoint, it'd be better to eliminate the drinking age entirely. . . .
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Thank you, Kyle, for pointing out the often overlooked hijacking of states' rights in this issue. Also, I second the importance of the distinction about responsible citizenship. Calling someone irresponsible because they don't follow the letter of a law that is perhaps ill-conceived, while harming no one, isn't fair. Was Rosa Parks being irresponsible when she refused to accept segregation? Certainly drinking is a minor issue in comparison to civil rights, but the theme of standing up for oneself against dubious laws and policies is admirable, although one must certainly recognize the potential consequences of doing so.
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The reason the number of underage tickets being issued very well may be that a blind eye is being turned...on some. My son, recently returning from a concert in Salem, VA was riding in the backseat. The driver, over 21, was stopped at a sobriety checkpoint on North Main Street. The VT officer working with Blacksburg police that evening spotted a flask in the backseat. My son, attempted to hide it. After breathalizers were given to all, a possession of alcohol was written to my son. All three under 21 had been drinking, the flask belonged to the young lady, who I pesonally know, also sitting in the back. A verbal warning was given to the other two as, "I am not writting you two an underage drinking ticket, but let this be a lesson". So, three underage tickets should have been written not one possession of alcohol. That certainly kept the numbers from being higher, and the only lesson they learned is WHAT?
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