It's Not a Drinking Problem, It's a Drinking Solution
By Coty Meibeyer
Opinions Editor

By now, the class of 2007 has already made a decision that will drastically affect their freshmen years, and they haven't even graduated from high school yet. Housing forms are streaming into the admissions office now, and if all prognostications are correct, over a third of the class will request to live in substance-free housing next year. More incoming freshmen request to live in substance-free than there are spots available, but all together there will be seven sub-free halls next year, dispersed between the second floor of Blaisdell, the first floor of Harwood, and the second floor of Wig. That's an increase of one from this year, and it doesn't look like substance-free is going to end fairly soon, especially if there's still demand.

This year's housing forms have been designed in order to better help the head sponsors decide who should be placed in sub-free out of the people who requested it and who should not by requiring a brief statement explaining why the student wants to live there. This is a crucial first step for better placement of the incoming freshmen. Many freshmen may not understand the role that substance-free housing plays at Pomona and the divisions between it and non-substance-free housing.

I signed up for substance-free housing when I came to Pomona largely because I was afraid. In my crazy, neurotic head I decided that if I didn't sign up for it, I would be stuck in a hall filled with burgeoning alcoholics, who would drink through the night every night and pound against my wall. In my delusion, my roommate would offer me a drink on Monday afternoons and, if I refused, would mock me and tell everyone about how lame I was. I would be ostracized, all because I signed up for what in my mind was "alcoholic housing". Substance-free housing would be filled with nice, quiet people who occasionally drank but didn't let it rule their lives.

While my reaction was a bit extreme, I think that my lack of information and understanding about sub-free housing wasn't unique. For some reason, non-substance-free housing has been equated with "heavy drinking" housing by the administration, if not through official policy then through the way that substance-free housing is portrayed. "Come live in safe, fun housing!" the subtext says. "There's no stigma! Really!"

Anyone who says that there isn't a stigma about sub-free is either incredibly naïve or ignoring the obvious signs. Even discounting the problems that result when sponsor groups are determined first on whether the members checked a box or not, there are issues with it. For one thing, it's hard to convince people to visit when your dorm has been labelled "creepy." Preconceptions might be alleviated a bit for the kids in Harwood 1 next year, but from experience, both personal and observed, over the last two years, as a general rule, if people don't have to walk through substance-free housing, they won't.

That doesn't mean that there aren't exceptions. And I'm certainly not saying that sub-free kids aren't cool. But how many times do people from Lyon 2 go to sub-free? At the beginning of freshman year, you often make friends just by going to random halls and talking to people, and that already puts kids that live in sub-free at a disadvantage. Whether or not the administration want to admit it, there are people who disparage sub-free precisely because it is sub-free.

My problems with sub-free do not mean that I think that people who do not drink should. My point is that it is possible to not drink and have friends who do, something that I think sub-free housing deters. This year, I'm a sponsor in a hall where a good-sized portion of the hall doesn't drink, but those who don't drink hang out all the time with those who do. Friendship lines aren't formed based on whether someone drinks or not but on mutual interests. If sub-free housing was eliminated, there would be more halls like my current one. Alcohol should be one of the determining factors for forming sponsor groups, but not the only one.

There are people who don't want to live around any drinking at all, and that's fully their prerogative. But there are lots of freshmen who sign up for sub-free for whatever reason, get to school, and realize that they've made a mistake. While the new sub-free guidelines talk about people being able to move in and out of sub-free housing at the semester, in order for a bed to open in non-sub-free housing, someone will need to elect to move into sub-free housing, and that doesn't seem nearly as likely as the reverse.

College is on a completely different scale than high school is, and peoples' alcohol usage can change even over the summer between high school and Pomona. The more information the incoming class has, the better. Ideally, students should be able to talk to people who currently live in sub-free housing, both ones that are happy with their decision to live here and ones who aren't. I can't ever imagine the administration allowing high school seniors to (gasp!) find out about problems at Pomona, but it's possible to love this school while still acknowledging its shortcomings.

Because of the emphasis placed on the sponsor program here at Pomona, where someone lives during his/her freshmen year will heavily color his/her impressions of here, both initial and long-lasting. If people hear about what sub-free housing is like and still decide to live in it, great. If they don't, that's great too. What's most important is making sure that the incoming freshmen, right now consumed with AP tests and prom plans, aren't unhappy based on a decision they made before they even got here.