ALCOHOL A BIG CAUSE OF CAMPUS MISERY

Deaths,injuries and academic problems result as drinking reaches 'crisis
proportions.'

What happened to Eric Schwanke and Melinda Somers on the same night at
nearly the same time and in much the same waybut 600 miles apartis as
frightening as any Halloween story.

There is some doubt that events leading up to their fates are precisely the
same. Yet the similarities are enough to give chills to anyone who knows of
both incidents.

Their stories may give nightmares, too, to parents who send their children
off to college in the belief that they will be in a safe environment where
they can have fun and learn and mature into responsible adults.

Both Schwanke and Somers were 18. Both were undergraduates. Both
plungedafter midnight on Halloweenfrom great heights.

And both had been drinking.

Somers, of Arlington, Va., a sophomore at Virginia Polytechnic Institute
and State University in Blacksburg, fell eight stories out of her dormitory
window. She had been to two parties that night. She apparently rolled over
in bed, on a mattress about two inches below her open window, and went
right through. She died.

Schwanke, of White Bear Lake, Minn., a freshman at the University of
WisaconsinMadison, was seriously injured when he fell between two and 10
stories down a trash chute at his residence hall. No one has explained how
that happened.

Just how much each one had to drink is unclear. She wasn't found until 6:45
a.m. Alcohol dissipates with time. Police in Blacksburg do say Somers was
inebriated. Authorities in Madison are not certain about Schwanke. Yet in
both cases they said alcohol appeared to be at least a contributing factor.

Alcohol contributes to more miseries on campuses across the nation than
most parents of college kids might believe.

Surveys show a majority of undergraduates believe campus cultures encourage
heavy drinking. Surveys show more undergraduates will ultimately die of
alcoholic causesthan will ever go on to receive master's and doctoral
degrees. Surveys show the percentage of students who binge drink has been
soaring.

The fallout from the alcoholic haze that researchers have documented on and
around most college campuses today is bannered in headlines again and again:

Three other Virginia Tech students died the same night as Somers as a
result of drinking. Police said Matthew West, 19, a freshman from Richmond
who had been drinking, drove a speeding car headon into the car of
Margaret Ann Moore, 46, of Redford, a doctoral student. It killed both of
them and another student riding with West, Jonathan Levy, 20, of Alexandria.

At Louisiana State University in September, Benjamin Wynne, 20, drank
himself to death at an offcampus bacchanalia with his Sigma Alpha Epsilon
fraternity brothers. They reportedly were "funneling"squirtin beer through
a rubber hose down each others' gullets. Wynne was said to have followed
that by downing "Three Wise Men," concoctions of 151proof rum, whisky and
liqueur.

At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, also in September, Scott
Krueger, 18, died after a drinking contest at his Phi Gamma Delta
fraternity house.

At Frostburg State University in Maryland last March, eight students were
charged with manslaughter in the alcoholpoisoning death of freshman John
Stinner, 20, of Glassport, Pa., who downed up to 8 cups of beer and 14
shots of vodka at an offcampus party of an unsanctioned fraternity.

At the University of New Haphshire last year, the Acacia fraternity was
permanently kicked off campus after Todd Cruikshank, 19, of Londonderry,
N.H., climbed onto the frathouse roof after binge drinking and tumbled to
his death on the pavement below.

Such deaths reflect only a small part of what researchers find is really
going on.

A survey completed in 1995 by the Core Institute at Southern Illinois
University, based on responses from almost 30,000 students on 73 campuses,
determined that 51 percent feel their campus atmosphere promotes hard
drinking.

About 39 percent reported they binged on alcohol in the two weeks prior to
the survey. It was far higher for fraternity members (89 percent) and
sorotity members (59 percent).

Specifically, the study found frathouse residents guzzled an average of 20
drinks a week while other college men downed an average of eight.
Sororityhouse residents frank twice as much booze (six drinks) than other
college women.

"Many problems develop because students think of alcohol as a social
lubricant," said Philip Meilman of the College of William and Mary in
Williamsburg, Va., the project codirector.

Another survey, in 1994, by the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse
(CASA) at Columbia University, found that over the previous 15 years the
percentage of college women who drank with the intention of getting drunk
more than tripled, to 35 percent.

"One in three college students most of them underagenow drink primarily
to get drunk, and nearly onehalf has engaged in binge drinking," the
report said.

CASA's study found alcohol at fault in 41 percent of all academic problems
and 28 percent of all dropouts. It said 95 percent of all crime and 53
percent of all injuries on campuses are alcoholrelated. It reported that
up to 360,000 of the nation's 12 million current undergraduates will
ultimately die from alcoholrelated causes. That's more than the number who
will get M.A.s and Ph. D.s combined.

One more sobering fact: Every year students are spending more than $5.5
billion on alcoholic beverages, mostly beer.

That is more money than college students spend annually on soda, tea,
coffee, milk, orange juiceand their bookscombined.

"Alcohol abuse on campus has now reached crisis proportions," reported the
Rev. Edward Malloy, president of the University of Notre Dame and chairman
of the commission that headed the CASA study. "Alcohol on college campuses
is inhibiting the intellectual, social and spiritual development of our
students."