The PACE (Policy, Alternatives, Community and Education)
Partnership Council held its quarterly meeting yesterday, gathering
decision makers from across the University community to discuss
high-risk drinking prevention efforts. Representatives from the
Dean of Students, the Madison and UW police departments, Madison
bar owners, ALRC, UW housing, the UW Chancellor’s office, UW
students and other organizations were in attendance.

House parties formed the crux of the discussion. Many principal
players expressed their confusion regarding PACE’s goals for the
upcoming year.

Aaron Brower, principal investigator for PACE, said the highly
touted “safe-house-party guide” recently sponsored by PACE is not
so much a guide for throwing a safe house party, but rather an
informational packet designed to tell students what will bring
police to their door. If this held true, police would be constantly
knocking down doors.

One student expressed concern over the mixed messages PACE may
be sending to students. After pressing for drink-special bans and
now focusing on house parties.

We suggest two words: laissez-faire

Apparently, the crux of PACE’s latest push will involve landlord
involvement when house parties on their property become an issue
with outside authorities. They also want to continue to pursue the
highly irrational goal of parental notification for detox
violations or other alcohol-related incidents.

When did PACE become a parental figure for students at this
University? One of the integral aspects of the college experience
is the challenge of adult responsibility and the maturity that must
result. PACE’s babying policies demonstrate with alarming clarity
just how much faith the organization lacks in students’ ability to
make decisions for themselves. That kind of hand-holding was for
high school. College demands maturity. PACE’s actions are entirely
counterproductive.

According to UW police, although many of the individuals
receiving drinking citations are in the 18-21 age range,
approximately half of all drinking citations issued are not to
UW-Madison students. PACE is also floating the equally irrational
notion of notifying other educational institutions when their
students are issued citations in Madison. The legwork required for
this project sounds as absurd as the idea itself.

There is clearly a drastic difference between realistic
student-drinking regulations and those that PACE is pursuing.
Students and those who partake in the activities PACE seeks to
regulate see these as entirely different realistic scenarios.

With the year-long voluntary drink-special ban nearly expired,
PACE may soon find itself at a crossroads. Nitty Gritty bar owner
Marsh Shapiro said he feels PACE needs to continue to collect data
on the results of the voluntary drink-special ban through this
fall. Shapiro continued that if there continues to be little change
in the number of alcohol violations and assault incidents, PACE may
“need to go in a different direction.”

Surprisingly, Dean of Students Luoluo Hong agrees. She said she
would rather see students in regulated bars than in unsafe house
parties. This seems to contradict the Dean of Students’ office
message last year. The definition of an “unsafe” house party is
also yet to be realistically determined.

The overarching theme of the meeting appeared to be “Where do we
go from here?” PACE staffers, along with other attendees, do not
seem to have an answer to this question, which leaves us wondering.
When out of innovative ideas, what do they regulate next? Weekend
drink specials were the first casualty. We have a suspicion that
house parties may, in some form or fashion, be next.