'Kegnog' in Provo bucks the trend

PROVO — Three Brigham Young University students held an off-campus "kegnog" party Sunday night at their townhouse in east Provo, but this wasn't the average college kegger.

At a time when 81 percent of college presidents consider alcohol a problem for their students and the same number ban it from at least some portion of campus dorms, this Christmas bash created no worries for BYU President Cecil Samuelson: No kegs, no beer, no alcohol of any kind. Bing Crosby, crooning Christmas carols from the CD player, was drowned out by the din of animated conversation soaked in nothing more than great eggnog — and no, it wasn't spiked.

So, just how peculiar does that make BYU and its students when 75 percent to 85 percent of their peers around the country drink alcohol and consider it part of the college experience?

Ranked the nation's No. 1 "stone-cold sober" school for nine straight years in the annual Princeton Review book "Best 361 Colleges," BYU clearly stands out, but it is not alone. There are more than 700 religious colleges in the United States, and some of them, like Bob Jones University, which isn't included in the book at all, dismiss students for possession or use of alcohol. Others, like Calvin College, ranked 10th on the sober list, ban it from campus.

"I think there are many schools across the country that could be considered stone-cold sober schools," Calvin College spokesman Phil de Haan said. "BYU is No. 1 out of the 361 in the book, but would they be No. 1 among all the schools not in the book? Maybe not."

Large state schools won't knock BYU out of the top spot, but many of them are adopting policies aimed at increasing sobriety. Oklahoma University banned alcohol from campus, including all dorms, last year after a 19-year-old student died of alcohol poisoning.

In the spring, the University of California at Berkeley banned alcohol at campus fraternity and sorority events because of the "alarming increase in problems with alcohol abuse, hazing, fights and badly managed parties," the dean of students said.

This fall, Stanford University required every freshman to take a three-hour alcohol education course online. And last month, Harvard prohibited alcohol at the tailgate party before the Harvard-Yale game, an occasion previously considered "the ultimate in Ivy League boozefests," according to the Boston Herald.

A majority of schools are like the University of Michigan, which according to its Web site, designates 30 percent of its residence halls as substance free, "where all residents and their guests agree to keep the room free from all substances, including alcohol, cigarettes and illicit drugs."