Lincoln Students Want Liquor Trial In Hostels

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30804, 16 July 1965, Page 1

Lincoln Students Want Liquor Trial In Hostels

The Lincoln College Students’ Association wants liquor to be allowed in hostels for a trial period of one year so that students can show “they can regulate their own lives in a mature fashion.”

A solid core of senior students now attends the college, says the association’s annual report to be presented on Monday. Students taking master’s degrees are the second largest group in the degree sector, and the largest proportion, of diploma students, takes the three-year valuation and farm management course. This increase in average age and more mature approach to life have caused many senior students (third year and upwards) to prefer living out to accepting the stringent rules and regulations within the hostels, the report says. “Most students feel that they are capable of. deciding if and when they want alcohol and when the would like to have visitors. They prefer to regulate their own lives. This has led to a slight imbalance within the hostels, and it is essential to maintain a balance between senior and junior students, if the hostels are to function properly,” the report says. ‘ “The impression that we are still treated as schoolboys is well conveyed to students when the professorial board has to send represen-

tatives not only to the college ball to keep an eye on things but also to the graduation ball. The college certainly has not much faith in the graduates it turns out into the world at large. “With the integration of the hostels and the more mature outlook among students, we believe it is time for the college council to act on the question of alcohol. If students are allowed alcohol, it will put it in its proper perspective—not something that is mysterious and exciting, or to be drunk in over-large quantities after Rugby on a Saturday evening. It will also help students to treat the hostel more like a home, which is what the hostels are to most of us for three or four years, “The Students’ Association has now been negotiating with the hall council for three years or more to have liquor introduced, but has met a continual barrier of red tape. Ideas and suggestions have been shuffled back and forth between professorial board and the hall council with no constructive criticism resulting ... In short, college authorities have refused to face changes or offer anything constructive.

“Introducing -alcohol on to the campus would enable students to base their social Life around the campus (home) and not be forced to seek it elsewhere; would enable graduates to adjust to the outside world when they leave Lincoln’s celibate halls; would encourage senior students to remain in residence and maintain a mature outlook within the halls; and would enable students to have a more realistic approach to alcohol. It may help to reduce road accidents, if people .stay at home rather than drive 13 miles to nearby Christchurch,” says the report. “Surely it is better to drink in one’s home than to have to go out behind one’s parent’s back. This would apply to our under 21 students also, most of Whom drink before they come to Lincoln as it is. “So let us hope that the college council will take a progressive and realistic step and introduce alcohol on to the campus. Allowing the use of the Lincoln Hotel has shown that students will not abuse so-called privileges and has resulted in an improvement in drinking habits,” says the report.