Party could be over for excessive drinkers at BU

Boston University officials are already concerned about the direction student drinking has taken this semester, and it’s only two weeks into the academic year.

Peter Fiedler, BU’s vice president of Administrative Services, said the school is participating in a program called the Learning Collaborative on High-Risk Drinking, which works with 31 area schools to combat binge drinking on campuses by sharing tactics.

Fiedler said so far, he doesn’t like what he has seen.

“We are all concerned about the frequency and seriousness of drinking in the college environment,” said Fiedler. “It’s not starting out great this year.”

After the first weekend on campus, BU officials reported 10 hospital transports related to alcohol use and 12 summonses for underage drinking.

Releasing the statistics is part of the working group’s motive to tackle binge boozing on college campuses.

Fiedler said the collaborative is trying to “understand what the root causes of excess drinking [are] on campuses” and manage them through education and increased police enforcement.

They then study results of those management techniques and share them.

“It’s a serious problem that seems to be getting worse,” Fiedler added. “The numbers are uncomfortably high for the first two weekends, even though they have ramped up enforcement.”

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