'PARTY SCHOOL' GRAPPLES WITH ITS DRINKING CULTURE

SOCIAL ISSUES: The University of Wisconsin,Madison,killed a sting operation
because of student animosity. Now it's trying education.

MADISON,Wis. Just a few blocks separate the wild extremes of night life
at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

On a recent Friday, five students played Monopoly at a dormitory priding
itself on intellectual pursuits. No smoke, just the sounds of an accordion,
were in the air at Chadbourne Hall.

A couple of blocks away, a latenight bus dubbed the "drunk bus" deposited
two guys with glassy eyes and no coats outside Memorial Union. They had a
bottle of booze to keep them warm alcohol is never too far away at the
nation's "No. 2 party school."

The partyschool designation, courtesy of the Princeton Review, is a
dubious honor in city leaders' minds, but Madison's drinking culture is so
entrenched as to make traditional rules and enforcement strategies seem
irrelevant.

A sting operation targeting underage drinkers at parties was killed
recently because it fueled student animosity toward police.

"Some of these tactics forced students to flee like roaches," said Alderman
Mike Verveer, who saw partygoers climb atop roofs and leap off
secondfloor balconies to avoid $148 citations.

"(The dangers) are just not worth it," he said.

The latenight bus rides, provided free by the university, are punctuated
by chants and howls of "drunk bus." But, Mayor Sue Bauman said, "I'd rather
have them on the bus than out and about in another fashion."

Early this month, Eric Schwanke, 18 a freshman from White Bear Lake, Minn.,
plunged down a trash chute at Witte Hall dorm. Circumstances surrounding
his fall are unknown, but police say he'd been drinking and was seriously
injured.

The incident shone a light on a university initiative to curb highrisk
drinking, but students were still pushing the limits of closing time on
State Street on a recent weekend. People crowded bar entrances after 2 a.m.
Saturday and Sunday. Fights were reported.

The crackdown on underage parties was funded with $10,000 a year in federal
highway funds administered by the state Department of Transportation.
Undercover police infiltrated parties in September, setting the stage for
busts by the 10member squads.

Kira Winter, a junior from Hastings, Minn., who is a features editor at one
of the university newspapers, said students seethed at the use of funds
that were supposed to help fight drunken driving. She said one student told
her that the undercover tactics were ridiculous.

"He said that (the officers) looked 30 and dressed like it was the '80s,"
she said. "They just totally stood out."

Verveer was more upset by what he saw when police moved in. Kids would
twist like contortionists to crawl under kitchen and bathroom sinks. One
student hid in a refrigerator for an hour, he said, holding the door shut
from the inside while clutching the keg tap. Lose it to police and he could
kiss away a $70 deposit.

Bauman announced this month that she would not support any new grant
applications for the new grant applications for the Party Patrol. Such
money is best used to educate students about drinking, she said. The Badger
Herald trumpeted the news with the banner headline, "Op Sting drops dead."

Carolyn Herb, a junior living in Chadbourne Hall, said she's tired of
partyschool talk: "This is one of the strongest academic schools in the
country it's hard to get in here."

But a survey conducted by Dr. Henry Wechsler of the Harvard School of
Public Health found that 66 percent of UWMadison students engaged in binge
drinking, which he defined as consuming five or more drinks in one sitting
in a twoweek period.

That's compared with the national average of 44 percent.

But Wisconsin now has the opportunity to be a national model in the alcohol
wars, thanks to a fiveyear grant totaling $707,000 from the Robert Wood
Johnson Foundation.

"Our overall goal is to change the environment and the culture around
highrisk drinking," said Rob Adsit, coordinator of the Coalition for
Campus and Community Change, which is linked to the grant.

The coalition of students, faculty and community members is not taking a
prohibitionist stance, he said, but is teaching students to consume
responsibly.