It’s 8 a.m. on a Saturday, and there is a large crowd of middle-aged people, all alumni, gathered at the University of Georgia, tailgating before a football game.

An undergraduate student, awakened by the sounds of the social gathering, is not amused.

He knows if he engaged in this behavior, he’d likely get kicked out under Georgia’s “no-strike” policy. Yet the university condones — even encourages — rowdy behavior and drinking by its alumni and others.

For Karin Fischer, the co-­author of an extensive article by The Chronicle of Higher Education about drinking on campus, that anecdote is telling.

Fischer, along with Eric Hoover, wrote “A River of Booze: Inside One College Town’s Uneasy Embrace of Drinking” in 2014. The article shined a spotlight on Athens, Georgia, a town where students jam into bars for $1 happy hours, and in the process, give life to what would otherwise be a small, sleepy town.

By examining the multiple personalities, or “players” as Fischer likes to call them, the reporters were able to get an inside look at the ecosystem that has for years solidified the drinking culture. The story zoomed in for a close look at the town’s police chief, a fake-ID peddler, a bar owner, an educator and others.

Fischer came to the conclusion that everyone plays a role, whether they are trying to curb drinking or are unconsciously doing things to create an environment that encourages it.

“We wanted to see people as players, as thinking about the actions that people in that ecosystem had, that they weren’t just passive, even if they in themselves wouldn’t have thought ‘OK, what I’m doing is facilitating drinking,’” Fischer said.

Tackling issues such as underage and binge drinking forced Fischer to make some tough editorial decisions, especially regarding anonymity.

“Although we knew the names of the students, we made the editorial decision that somebody who is being arrested or being close to being arrested for public intoxication is probably not in the position to give consent,” she said. “So, we decided for those people not to use their full names.”

When reporters and editors were first brainstorming the story in the Chronicle newsroom, they discussed what campus and town to examine.

“We wanted a place that seemed very representative of higher education in the United States that would seem readily identifiable,” Fischer said.

Although Fischer had reached out to another university, she and Hoover ultimately settled on the University of Georgia. The university had pursued education campaigns about alcohol addiction and was also very adamant about its no-­strike policy, a policy that often placed undergraduates behind bars.

Fischer explained that unlike the other university the editors had reached out to, UGA was very eager to join the conversation. Much of that enthusiasm was reinforced by the way in which the editors pitched the story to university officials.

“They were being very active. That was the best part of our pitch to the university. We said we’re not just going to write a story in which we say you’re terrible. One of the reasons that we’re attracted to you as a place is that you do have people on campus that are trying to do something about it,” Fischer said.

Throughout the article, there are debates not only concerning the origins of the epidemic but also the ways in which the problem can be resolved. Evidently, two sides were presented, mimicking a nature versus nurture debate.

“Not being an expert, I don’t feel I’m the best person to weigh in, but I do think that it is very complicated. It can be easy to say, well if you just raised your kid right, they’d stay away from alcohol, and on the other side, people will say, if there weren’t 45 bars downtown that let in underage drinkers, then my kid wouldn’t drink,” Fischer said.

After publishing the article, Fischer believes efforts were made to discover possible solutions rather than play the blame game, including changes in the enforcement policy at the school.

Fischer also said she believes the piece had very little impact regarding the socioeconomic system at play.

Some legislation passed after the article was published, such as Michael’s Law, which requires that bouncers be at least 21 years old. It was named for a student at another Georgia university who was killed in a bar fight.

But Nate Harris, the city news editor of The Red and Black, an independent student newspaper at the University of Georgia, said the drinking culture remains the same.

“When I first came here, I was wondering how could the police obviously not get this under control, and it was only after you actually got through walking downtown on a Saturday night, I realized there’s very little you can do to control this,” Harris said.

Daniel Funke, the editor in chief of The Red and Black, first read the Chronicle piece when it was sent to his work inbox.

“It’s a really, really accurate depiction of what it’s like to drink at the University of Georgia,” Funke said. “Literally everybody drinks underage in Athens. It’s not that hard. I’ve had friends that have shown Starbucks gift cards to bouncers and gotten in.”

Editor’s Note: Over the past month, The Daily Orange has collaborated with the Department of Newspaper and Online Journalism at Syracuse University on a series of stories relating to alcohol culture on the SU campus. Multiple stories will appear in The D.O. in the coming days.

Published on April 6, 2016 at 10:53 am