To the Editor:

I would like to express my disappointment regarding your decision to publish a picture of students with alcohol on the sidewalk outside of Mandeville Hall in your Dec. 6 issue, especially given your regular practice of reporting community standard violations on page 2. However, my main purpose is to appeal to current and future Business Policy students to stop engaging in what I consider to be unbecoming and unprofessional behavior.

All of us who teach in the business school are proud of the effort and seriousness with which our students approach the Business Policy project. It is indeed an accomplishment worthy of congratulations. Furthermore, there are many occasions when adults celebrate events and accomplishments with alcohol in an appropriate way. It strikes me, however, that the completion of a class presentation followed by public drinking outside our campus buildings is not one of those appropriate times.

Beyond the fact that, even if you are over 21, this practice is a violation of the SJU alcohol policy, there are several reasons this practice is ill-advised. Firstly, I have been on the SJU Alcohol & Drug Advisory Council for the last nine years and, year after year, I see data indicating that the business students have more alcohol violations than other students at SJU. The research I have personally undertaken for the Wellness, Alcohol, and Drug Education program (WADE), which I presented at SJU 2016 Alcohol Summit, also clearly indicates that our students engage in higher levels of drinking and an alarmingly high rate of high-risk and irresponsible drinking. In this context, the fact that our signature academic accomplishment is becoming linked to drinking is, to say the least, unfortunate.

Secondly, one of the goals of the Business Policy project is to prepare students for the workplace, not just in terms of academic material, but in terms of professionalism and general business skills. It is not uncommon for recent graduates to return to HSB and report that they just participated in a workplace project very similar to what they experienced in Business Policy. As someone who worked in industry as a financial/budget analyst for over 12 years, I can tell you that people don’t “pop the champagne” every time they finish an important project, especially right there in the workplace where they need to get back to work (or in our case, our next class).

Finally, we have many guests on our campus every day and this does not strike me as an image we should be projecting. More importantly, I worry about underage students who see this and might think, (as upcoming cohorts are apt to do in almost any context), “let’s do something to top this when it’s our time.” The upside to this practice is minimal, but the downside could be serious.

So, again, congratulations to all students who have completed their Business Policy project and, by all means, celebrate your hard work. But can we put an end to this particular “tradition” please?

Sincerely,

Eric Patton, Ph.D, Chair & Associate Professor of Management