The Bud Stops Here

Within minutes, the lot is deserted. Barnes can't prevent students under 21 from drinking, but he can sure make it more difficult.

Cracking Down

Barnes is well aware that college students are going to drink. Heck, he drank in college, though not a lot. His coaches saw to that, sending him out to run laps if he dared stumble back to his apartment early in the morning.

He grew up in the east end of Richmond, the son of a house painter and a nurse. Western Texas College, a basketball powerhouse in the junior college circuit, offered him a full scholarship, and as captain he led the team to a national championship in 1975.

Barnes played ball with an American all-star team for one season in South America, then returned to Richmond for two more years of school and basketball at Virginia Commonwealth University. Upon graduation he signed with a club team in Brazil before being told by his physician that his knees were shot. He spent a year as recreation director at a maximum-security prison, then entered the police academy at VCU where he was dubbed "Moses Hightower" after the car-ripping bruiser in the "Police Academy" films. Upon graduating from the academy, he went to work as a police officer at VCU.

Barnes acknowledges that cops, including campus cops, are known for throwing back a beer or three. He tells a story about being on duty at VCU when a bunch of his police pals, including a wet-behind-the-ears dispatcher, went out to party after their shift ended. The dispatcher returned drunk and, despite several warnings from Barnes, climbed in his car and sped away. Barnes chased him down and gave him a ticket for drunk driving.

Barnes had not just fingered a fellow officer. The dispatcher was his boss's nephew. The VCU force ignored him for more than a year after that, he says.

So why is he on a tear now about college drinking? There are several reasons. When he left VCU to join the Mason force 20 years ago, the university was a commuter school with about 15,000 students, only 1,600 who lived on campus. Whatever drinking was done happened off campus for the most part. Today, the school has a much larger enrollment, with 4,200 students living on campus and thousands more nearby. More students equal more problems.

The nature of the consumption has changed as well, according to Barnes. Students do not drink as often as they did a generation ago, but more of them drink to get drunk, he says. Vodka, whiskey and other high-proof beverages are common.

At conferences around the country, he hears the same story from other campus police officials: Fights related to excessive alcohol consumption are up and so are sexual assaults. More students are being taken to the hospital to be treated for alcohol poisoning.

The reaction by college administrations has been striking, particularly to those who grew up in the toga-partying days of the 1960s and '70s. One out of three colleges and universities now bans alcohol on campus for any student, including those 21 and older, according to an ongoing study by the Harvard School of Public Health. Two out of five forbid it in any university housing. Half of small colleges restrict alcohol at football games, tailgate parties, concerts and alumni events.

Georgetown University is considering a campus ban on kegs. At the University of Oklahoma, no alcohol is allowed for students of any age in residence halls, fraternity houses, sorority houses or on the surrounding grounds. No more three strikes and you're out for students at the University of Colorado at Boulder who violate drinking laws on or off campus -- two times will send you packing. At the University of Maryland at College Park, a school employee now lives in each fraternity house on campus to keep an eye on parties and alcohol.

That's just the rules side of the equation. On the counseling side, approximately four out of five schools ask new or prospective students to take an online alcohol education program. About the same number offer students alcohol-free dorms or residence halls.