Anthropology professor Hoyt Alverson is challenging the notion of a "drinking culture" at the College with his research.
According to Alverson, solving the perceived campus drinking problem would require a complete reform of student culture, necessitating extreme measures that would redefine the Dartmouth experience.
The study is the culmination of three years of research on social life at the College and was conducted by Alverson's anthropology students.
Drawing from this research, Alverson came to the unorthodox conclusion that binge drinking is not a "problem behavior" that can be isolated from the rest of social interaction, but is instead inextricably tied to culture itself.
The study suggests that changing students' drinking behavior is to change culture, a finding that stands apart from most research on the subject.
"One cannot pull such an arbitrarily defined bit of behavior from a complex field of activity and seek to change that behavior alone," Alverson writes.
Alverson added that if the College succeeded in curbing underage alcohol use and alcohol abuse entirely, it would require "overwhelming force" that would change the characteristic of the College and its students.
Alverson said he is unconcerned that such an outcome would be realized, because alcohol is intertwined with social interaction in American universities.
The research project took shape shortly after the inception of the Student Life Initiative in 1999. In 2002, with the SLI still a polarizing campus issue, Alverson began assigning his students research projects on student social life that would later contribute to his analysis and conclusions.
Alverson said that he wanted his students to "study the larger context of student social life and then locate the issue of drinking within that context, as opposed to College administration, which tends to concentrate on the issue of drinking and to ignore the context."
For his report, Alverson compiled selections from his students work that most effectively characterized overall patterns at the College.
The student comments range from detailed descriptions of observed social scenarios to anecdotes with recorded dialogue. They covered subjects beginning with the transition from high school through the increased pressures on Dartmouth seniors.
Alverson writes that "for many first-year students the most numerous, obvious and pleasurable channels to groups and 'comfort zones' run with alcohol."
Beyond students' first year at the College, the Dartmouth Plan produces constant shifts in social groups, intensifying the briefer time periods students spend on campus and facilitating short-term relationships influenced by alcohol, Alverson concluded.
Alverson's researchers found that students reveal alcohol as a ritual accessory to group behavior. Exclusive brother- or sister-only Greek house meetings accompanied by alcohol help members shed tension before the cross-gender interactions of post-meeting parties, they noted. Beer pong and similar drinking games are not played solely to achieve inebriation, Alverson finds, but instead serve as a competitive outlet for high-achieving students, and a structured atmosphere for peer interaction.
The study continues to explore similar activity outside of Greek houses, in dorms, among sports teams and even among performing arts groups. It also reflects on parallels between drinking and the use of other substances such as marijuana.
"The emphasis on social form or ritual in student drinking or smoking suggests just how much 'substance-use' on campus is about belonging to and enacting of scripted roles in social groups," Alverson writes.
Alverson links ritualized heavy drinking to positive social functions, writing that "there is an apprehension about aloneness which is ameliorated by the plans and structures of ritual drinking."
Alverson said he has been approached by administrators seeking solutions to student drinking on campus, but that his research and expertise cannot provide such answers.
"Anthropologists do not approach a custom of society as a problem in need of a solution but as a phenomenon in need of a description," he said.
Regardless, Alverson said he believes that his findings have warranted critical review by College administrators.
"I think that the administration has taken an interest in this research and this has influenced some of their thinking on how they should understand this issue and how they might address it," Alverson said.
