U.S. Campus Life Better safe than sorry By Masako Yamada	フレームで見る  英文をプリントする  脚注をプリントする
万一に備えて 雅子さんは、大学院で作る学生団体のある委員会で、代表を務めています。その委員会で今度、大学院生が気軽に交流できるパーティーを企画しました。お酒も出す予定なのですが、実はアメリカの大学はアルコールに対する規制が厳しく、雅子さんも、後でトラブルにならないよう予防線を張る必要があるようです。

I'm part of an organization at Boston University called the Graduate Student Organization. The organization was founded several years ago in order to negotiate graduate student requests with the university administration in an official manner. This is more effective than having individuals from different departments lodge separate complaints, and it's more effective than staging rowdy demos.

However, the fact is that not too many students actually want to be involved in these kinds of "political" activities. Most of them really don't want to spend their precious time attending meetings in order to try to improve the quality of graduate student life. The GSO recognizes that now that some of the immediate concerns of the students have been addressed with the administration, it must shift its focus to remain valuable to the students. It has increasingly become more of a social group. This is where I come in: I'm the chair of the new social committee of the GSO.

The social committee has decided to plan two parties a semester for the graduate students. These are not cocktail parties where people discuss things like the environment or the works of Hegel. The sole aim is to provide a casual environment where students from different departments can mingle and have fun. To my knowledge, there have never been any such parties at BU for all of the graduate students.

For our spring party, we've decided to go all-out and hire a professional DJ. We're also ordering alcohol. This has been the most touchy issue in planning for the party. It's not as easy as buying a case of wine at the liquor store and bringing it to the party. Many universities are wary of allowing students to serve alcohol at parties.

For instance, some highly publicized alcohol-related deaths at MIT have pushed that university to adopt a rather stringent alcohol code. BU doesn't have explicit alcohol policies for graduate student parties, and as the social committe chair, I have learned that a lot of the guidelines are extremely gray. It's one thing to allow underaged, undergraduate teenagers to overdrink, but it's a very different thing to serve alcohol to graduate students (many who are over 30) at a social function.

The GSO doesn't have the funds to pay off plaintiffs if we were to get sued for some alcohol-related accident and the university itself could get into deep trouble. Therefore, the GSO must take reasonable precautions. We are hiring a licensed bartender who is obligated to make sure that all students buying drinks are above the legal drinking age. The bartender also has the power (and obligation) to refuse serving alcohol to anybody who is overtly drunk.

The bartender is insured for alcohol-related accidents. However, the bartender is not responsible for, say, conflicts that may erupt at the party. We are expecting hundreds of students to attend, including many from other universities. There's no telling what might happen at such a party, so the GSO is hiring a police officer to monitor the premises during the party. Some students have complained that it will ruin the mood, but it's a small price to pay for security, and the university has agreed to pay for the service.

Finally, I have had to apply for a one-day liquor license from the city of Boston. This is because the GSO is charging $1 (¥121) per drink at the party. Apparently, the city does not want civilians making a profit off selling alcoholic drinks (or selling anything, really) without its knowledge. The GSO will not be making any kind of profit off selling drinks, since we are selling below what it costs us to buy them, but that doesn't prevent us from being labelled an "alcohol vendor."

After all of this work, all I can say is that I hope a lot of people will come to the party. It would be terrible if only a handful of people show up with the DJ's music pumping loudly in the background . . . but, of course, that would still be much better than seeing somebody get hurt.

Shukan ST: May 4, 2001

(C) All rights reserved