Thursday, September 26, 2013

Calvin College: one of the top 10 Sober schools in the country.
Many of my friends these days often have a hard time understanding why I don't drink a lot.  (This may be a cultural difference--I'm given to understand the drinking culture is a lot bigger in England, Scotland and Ireland, or so my English, Scottish and Irish friends keep telling me.  And in the expat community I find myself hanging out with a lot of Brits and some Irish.)
But anyway, for anyone out there who can't understand why I'm not a big drinker, just follow the above link.  It turns out I come from one of the top 10 Soberest schools in America.  So it's my background.

6 comments:

dpreimer said...

Mmm -- I'm skeptical. Look at how many military academies are "sober."

Joel Swagman said...

ah, good point. I didn't even notice that.
The article didn't even give the methodology, so you do wonder by what criteria they decided this. If it was purely by students' self reporting, than that would be more a reflection of what students wanted people to think about their drinking habits than an accurate report of their actually drinking habits:
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/economics/faculty/bios/HaneyDocs/page-58952330.html

On the other hand, I don't know, could you make a case that a military academy is different than the recruits signed in off the streets? Maybe the military academies attract a more serious level of students? Or more likely, have strict rules and draconian punishments about drinking?

dpreimer said...

Could be. I know the code of conduct at these places is pretty extreme. Still, the military culture is pretty big on booze. As with Calvin students, I'd expect there to be some (considerable?) clandestine indulgence.

Joel Swagman said...

Actually it wouldn't surprise me if Calvin was one of the soberest schools in the nation. I'm not sure how much stock I would put in the exact number of the rankings, but it's got to be up there somewhere. Yes, I can attest from personal experience that clandestine indulgence was had. Probably anywhere 18-22 year olds are gathered, a fair amount of drinking (and other sorts of rule breaking) about. But still, the point of these lists are relative rankings. As much partying as there is that goes on at Calvin, I'm sure the partying at the big state schools are more.

Drinking did go on at Calvin, but in religious schools drinking is a much more polarizing issue. In a state school, I think drinking on the weekends would just be a matter of course. At Calvin, it was something divided the school's social life. I suspect the same was true at your Bible college?

dpreimer said...

I don't recall it as a polarizing issue, but it might have been. The school was quite conservative, and the '80s has always struck me as an unpleasantly "conservative" decade in general. But I hung around drinkers (maybe the better word is "indulgers") so nobody in our crew was scandalized. And no-one ever approached any of us in a state of "Christian concern," so far as I know.

I'm a little surprised at your assessment of Calvin. All my Reform buddies were keen on beer from a very young age on. When I asked about this, I was told stories of families gathering after church, breaking out sherry and beer, the men filling the parlour with cigar smoke and the women ... well, who knew what they were up to, since it was a completely different part of the house (the kitchen, most likely (feh))? Then two years ago I attended a wedding put on by a Reform family. All these lovely young -- very blonde, very Dutch -- girls, ditching their high-heel shoes on the lawn, and walking barefoot while clutching bottles of beer. I had to wonder what kept Mennonite boys from pitching the faith of their fathers in favour of John Calvin and his gorgeous, beer-slurping Calvinistas.

Not that that's any reason to embrace a religion, of course...

Joel Swagman said...

Hmmm... our experiences appear to be quite different.
It could be a regional thing. The Dutch Calvinist Canadians I knew at Calvin were all big drinkers, and seemed to come from families that were big drinkers.
But I don't think this is true of the Dutch Calvinists in West Michigan. It was certainly not true of my extended family--none of whom drank. If you get out of Grand Rapids and go into the West Michigan towns were the Dutch are even more prevelant--like Hudson, Zeeland, or Holland, than the hang-ups about alcohol out there are even bigger.

Of course, people did drink at Calvin. There was at least one huge party going on every weekend somewhere off campus. But a good percentage of the student body also frowned on this activity. I have memories, for example, of coming back from drinking one night, and getting chewed out by my suitemates for it the next day. (One of them said he was disappointed in me.) I also have memories of a long awkward conversation where I girl I quite liked was scolding me for having been drinking on a weeknight.
Again, I'm not saying drinking doesn't happen at Calvin. I'm just saying I can't imagine any of these conversations happening at most other schools.