'TIME' had bad timing

Throughout my four years in Bloomington, IU has been propelled into the national spotlight many, many times. Whether it was with Bobby Knight, former President Myles Brand, the Princeton Review No. 1 party school ranking or pornography, someone has always been quick to pick out IU as the shining example of a college system gone wrong.\nThis past week, Time magazine published a column that harped once again on IU's "drinking problem." They talked to students in bars and included statistics about the increase in arrests on the campus. They cited cheap drink specials and the proximity of the bars to campus as possible reasons for the binge-drinking epidemic plaguing IU.\nThis is not the first story about the issue, and it probably won't be the last. But there are several things about this story that are problematic.\nFirst of all, this whole story broke about eight months ago. Time is a weekly publication, therefore one would think a national newsweekly would be able to pick up on the story a little sooner. \nAnd if you are going to make generalizations about the drinking habits of IU students, it would probably be a good idea to talk to people outside of the bars. Will Loy's four-bar, 12-drink night, as reported by Time, is not a typical evening for anyone I know. It is safe to say that few college students can physically or financially afford to go to four bars and drink 12 drinks every night. \nBut what kind of perspective can be expected from people at the bars? Obviously they are at the bar for one reason -- alcohol (unless some really good band is playing, then they might have two reasons to be at the bar). \nWalk five blocks from Nick's English Hut in any direction, and you will find IU students studying, playing music, reading poetry, playing Frisbee or doing any number of activities that, shockingly, do not involve binge drinking. Admittedly, IU students do drink. But to say we party "too hard" and to single us out as the only example of college alcohol abuse is completely unfair. \nArrests for underage consumption have increased because the police have been cracking down, not because more students are drinking. In fact, there were far fewer arrests and citations during this Little 500 weekend than there were three years ago.\nBut gross generalizations and old news aside, the timing of this story is what really makes it a low blow, particularly to graduating seniors.\nMany of the people graduating this week are fighting an already antagonistic job market, and another news outlet discounting the value of our degrees doesn't help. Surely the article is a help to the guy in Human Resources who is trying to weed through hundreds of resumes, because as Tyson Picken said in the Time story, "Companies won't want to hire a guy who comes from the biggest party school -- they'll think all I did was drink."\nWe might have a few "clap-for-credit" classes here at IU, but I know IU doesn't grant degrees for alcohol consumption. Everyone who is going to shift their tassel to the left Saturday had to do some serious work in order to get their diploma.\nStudents are doing amazing things at this University. We have the No. 2 student newspaper in the country, as reported by The Princeton Review. Our MFA and BFA students are some of the best young artists in the industry. We have people doing groundbreaking research in almost every department. \nIt is funny that the same university Time once called the No. 1 research university in the country is now just a sad mess of drunken coeds. \nThat assumption is simply unacceptable. The thousands of students who will be accepting diplomas tomorrow are the same people who are going to be running the world in a few years. Maybe when we are successful doctors, teachers, reporters, businesspeople and politicians, people won't be so quick to second guess the quality of our IU education.