2015年美国布朗大学调查表明,美国校园内强暴事件日益频发,平均每6位女性中就有一位女性在刚入学后醉酒失去防御能力遭性侵。斯坦福大学轰动一时的校园性侵案给大家一个响亮的警告,校方是时候在规章制度上做些有力度的改变了。
测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识:
provost教务长;院长['prɒvəst]
formidable强大的;令人敬畏的['fɔːmɪdəb(ə)l; fɔː'mɪd-]
endeavor尽力,竭力[ɪn'devə; en-]
earnest认真的,热心的;重要的['ɜːnɪst]
entreaty恳求;乞求[ɪn'triːtɪ; en-]
Bacchus manoeuvre酒神巴克斯策略
choke窒息;阻塞;说不出话来[tʃəʊk]
vomit呕吐;呕吐物;催吐剂['vɒmɪt]
porcelain瓷制的;精美的['pɔːs(ə)lɪn]
fraternity友爱;兄弟会;互助会;大学生联谊会[frə'tɜːnɪtɪ]
sorority妇女联谊会;女学生联谊会[sə'rɒrɪtɪ]
boozy嗜酒的;酩酊的['buːzɪ]
stereotype陈腔滥调,老套['sterɪə(ʊ)taɪp; 'stɪərɪə(ʊ)-]
damning咒骂的;毁灭的;受永罚的['dæmiŋ]
abstinence节制;节欲;戒酒;禁食['æbstɪnəns]
tawdry非常华丽的;廉价而俗丽的['tɔːdrɪ]
abstainer节制者;戒酒者;弃权者[əb'stenɚ]
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My heart went out this week to Greg Boardman, the vice provost for student affairs at Stanford, the poor man charged with implementing the California university's policy on undergraduate drinking. For all of Stanford's might and achievement at the heart of Silicon Valley, it has suffered in the past few months for the actions of Brock Turner, a former student jailed for six months for sexually assaulting a young woman. Turner, a member of
Stanford's formidable swimming team, was drunk and his victim unconscious. His crime prompted yet another look at binge drinking at American colleges. Stanford has responded by banning hard liquor and Mr Boardman wrote to undergraduates this week explaining the change, asking them to “bring your best selves to this endeavour” and be a part of solving the problem. “We must create a campus community that allows for alcohol to be a part of the social lives of some of our students, but not to define the social and communal lives of all of our students,” he wrote.
His earnest entreaty sits on the website of Stanford's office of alcohol policy and education. Here one can also learn about the Bacchus manoeuvre, which is the method of turning over an unconscious person so they don't choke on their own vomit, and the practice of pregaming, drinking a large amount in a short time before going out for the night. “Although it may initially seem cool, most people visit the ‘porcelain god' an hour or two later,” the university warns.
Stanford's approach to student drinking also includes alcohol-free “cardinal nights” of movies and entertainment intended “to challenge the faulty normative belief that alcohol is needed in order to have fun on a college campus”.
Faulty as it may be, that normative belief is rooted in American culture. With his cardinal nights, Mr Boardman is taking on the force of movies like Animal House, Road Trip and Old School. He is taking on the beer-and-barbecue traditions of tailgating — serving a meal from the back of a car — before college football games. He is challenging fraternity and sorority traditions, and is up against the allure of boozy, spring-break trips to Florida beaches.
These habits have survived a deluge of adverse research and statistics. The National Institutes of Health reports that each year about 1,825 college students die from alcohol-related, unintentional injuries including car crashes. About 97,000 experience alcohol-related sexual assault or date rape.
Much of the drinking is due to social pressures. True to the Animal House stereotype, the students who drink the most are those living in fraternities or sororities. Those who drink the least live with their parents and commute to classes.
Perhaps most damning of all for universities is that alcohol abuse among students is higher than it is for young adults who do not attend college, particularly so for women. Universities seem to make the problem worse.
A few years ago, the journalist Malcolm Gladwell wrote that America's approach to the problems caused by alcohol is to “moralise, medicalise, and legalise”— anything but treat alcohol the way the Italians or French do, as simply as they do food and ordinary socialising. To drink in America is still at some level a vice — at least naughty, at most a trigger for serious, antisocial behaviour. Equally, the decision not to drink comes with a halo.
This has left universities struggling. In 2008, a group of college presidents urged that the drinking age be dropped from 21 to 18. The 21 rule only came into effect nationwide in 1984. It is absurd that Americans can vote, be sent to war and buy a gun before they can buy a beer. But the effort to drop the age limit was rebuffed by a combination of abstinence and law enforcement groups.
Drinking is also a natural partner of the sport culture that has become so commercially important to American universities. You drink before the game and even more after the game. A study of college drinking by the Harvard School of Public Health in 2008 found that cheap, freely available booze correlated with binge drinking. A Saturday night cruise through almost any college town could confirm this.
One strategy that appears to be working is urging parents to warn their children against drinking before arriving on campus. At some colleges, students are told that if they have to be brought home or hospitalised after drinking, their parents will be informed. The fear of being ratted on to the people writing the $50,000 annual tuition cheques is proving powerful.
But the spate of tawdry news about college drinking compounds a strong, negative narrative about American universities as places where young people struggle rather than thrive, where they fall victim to anxiety, debt and the worst kinds of social pressure. Prescription drug abuse has been increasing among students, presumably to cope with the anxiety. And drinking habits are becoming extreme, with more abstainers but more students drinking to excess. Mr Boardman is right that this is a “multiple lens” problem. The answers need to be less blurred.
请根据你所读到的文章内容,完成以下自测题目:
A.turn over an unconscious person
B.choke on drinker's own vomit
C.practice of pregaming
D.drink a large amount in a short time
答案 (1)
A.900
B.1,825
C.2,008
D.5,000
答案 (2)
A.2000
B.2005
C.2008
D.2012
答案 (3)
A.fall victim to anxiety
B.academic stress
C.debt
D.worst kinds of social pressure
答案 (4)
(1) 答案:B.choke on drinker's own vomit解释:酒神巴克斯策略是将醉酒的人翻过身来以至于他们不会被自己的呕吐物噎住嗓子使他们窒息,并且还要做些“赛前训练”,让学生在晚上出去玩之前短时间内大量饮酒。
(2) 答案:B.1,825解释:每年由于大量饮酒而丧失生命的大学生有将近1825人。
(3) 答案:C.2008解释:在2008年,很大一部分的大学校长要求将美国的可饮酒年龄从二十一岁降低到十八岁。
(4) 答案:B.academic stress解释:年轻人大量饮酒作出的挣扎都是由于他们过早的成为了焦虑的牺牲品,有借款要偿还的债务以及不利的社会压力。