A suggestion for RPS

I have come up with a brilliant idea that will save Residential Programs and Services. This idea is so insanely simple its a wonder no one has thought of it before: All RPS has to do to provide students with the highest level of service imaginable is to sell beer.\nWait, it gets better. Not only should RPS sell beer, it should also let students use their meal points to buy it.\nI had this epiphany while perusing the \narticles on ESPN.com about the Duke/ North Carolina game. According to the Web site, Duke students have a place in their student center called the Armadillo Grill. It is an on-campus restaurant and bar, and students can put the tab there on their meal plan.\nTo save RPS, IU needs a similar establishment, as well as bottled beer in every freezer right there with the Coca-Cola and Frappucino.\nWithout a doubt, RPS needs to be saved. It's starving out students by closing dining halls. It's hurting families by laying off workers. If you don't believe me, just ask Sharon Robertson, a custodian at McNutt Quad, who is in danger of losing her job. \nRPS is also losing money faster than a drunken sailor in Bangkok. Sandra Fowler, director of dining services for RPS, told the IDS in the Oct. 19 story "Dining closures possible," that they have lost between one and two million dollars a year for the last two years.\nBecause RPS receives their money from students up front, it can't possibly be a problem with the budget process, especially when IU has access to the talent in its legendary business school. The problem must be a shortage of subscribers to the meal plans.\nI can assure Fowler that beer on the meal plan will take away all her worries. Speaking as an off-campus student, the only way I will eat at any RPS dining establishment is if one of my friends drags me to a residence hall to eat on his or her card, or if I am too lazy to walk past the Indiana Memorial Union from Ernie Pyle Hall to search of food.\nIf RPS sold beer, I would definitely sign up for a meal plan just so I could participate in government-subsidized alcoholism. I know I am not alone.\nPlacing beer on the meal plan will make the average IU student a much more moral and responsible member of society.\nFirst of all, students will no longer lie to get money for beer. Students will no longer have to register for 20 hours to prove to the parents that they needed that $500 for books, just to drop six hours, collect the bursar refund and return the books. Students will no longer have to lose their bus pass, get a new one from IU and sell the old one to a stranger at a nice discount (Warning -- It is wrong for anyone other than myself to use my columns for evil purposes -- WWJD).\nUnder the beer plan, the only deception students would have to perpetrate is to convince their parents that they really, really need Meal Plan A.\nSecond, students will become more responsible by learning how to create and maintain a budget. No one wants to have the "I am starving because I spent all my meal points on Budweiser" conversation with the parents. IU could even get more students interested in math and finance by offering "How to budget $2,000 a semester on beer" classes.\nFinally, RPS should institute the beer plan because Duke has one. Duke is number eight in the U.S. News and World Report's rankings of top colleges. I'll say it again: Duke is the eighth best college in the nation. They must be doing something right.\nIU would be wise to emulate every one of Duke's policies in the hope that one day our lowly university will crack the top 50.\nAside from employing a legendary basketball coach (and we know that will never happen with Mr. Club Sport at the helm), I think beer on the meal plan would be a good way to start.