I Drink Alone (Working Title)

As a staff writer for the Navigator this past spring, one of the things I heard a lot about was the paper's policy of putting mugshots on the front page. Some of the comments were derogatory, some were amusing, and some were flat-out ecstatic. Seeing other students' arrest reports on the front page certainly stirred up the Piedmont community. For better or worse, we have yet to know.

Most of the arrests were for the same crime over and over again - drinking on campus. Since Piedmont has a dry campus, not even students who are over 21 are allowed to consume alcohol while on the school's property. The kicker was that most of the students who were arrested weren't of age yet: not only were they breaking Piedmont's rules, they were also breaking the law.

Yet after weeks and weeks of seeing their friends and colleagues arrested and their mugshots printed on the front page, nobody seemed to care about the school's policy or about the actual law. So this year, Piedmont's rules changed. Now, instead of getting arrested and sent to jail, offenders are taken to a "holding cell" in GB to sober up.

Why would Piedmont choose to not punish students who break the rules? Not only do they break Piedmont's own policies, but they're also breaking the law! That's kind of a big deal! I sort of understand where the older students are coming from - they're of age, after all - but there is no excuse for younger students, freshmen especially, to be drinking on campus.

The most common theory about this new rule change is that all of last year's arrests were making Piedmont look bad to prospective students. But really, there were so many arrests last year, and several of those arrested were repeat offenders, so was the punishment even severe enough to have any effect?

Those who have broken the dry-campus rule in the past are sure to be happy about the change, while others merely sit and scratch their heads wondering why.

What do you think? Should Piedmont have changed its policy of arresting students who drink on campus? Why or why not?