Our beloved school’s budget is suffering. Students have seen tuition rise like a steady flood for some time now. Parking passes cost $50 for a single semester, and that provides no guarantee of finding a spot in an overcrowded lot. The bathrooms in the Woodbury Business building are more like teleportation chambers to a 1970s Barstow truck stop.
With the increased costs to students and decreased institutional resources that come with an economy as this, where are we to turn for assistance?
Why not try selling beer on campus?
Such a suggestion, of course, breeds further questions. Why is alcohol prohibited on campus? It’s difficult to address this without acknowledging the predominant culture in Utah’s government, legislation and educational institutions. Is this an issue of pragmatism, or is it a matter of the separation of church and state?
This does not even need to enter into the debate – our school is a state university and as such is in no way affiliated with any religion, nor should it be held to a religious standard. Several campus eateries sell coffee and tea, which is against the local grain. Expanding the market into beer could reap substantial financial benefits.
One could argue that the commercial distribution of alcohol would breed drunkenness or slothful behavior. An easy fix to this, of course, is to extend the already firmly in-place public intoxication laws onto campus grounds as well. If a student comes to class drunk and disorderly, any reasonable professor would kick them out of class, just as they would surely kick a sober and disorderly student out of class.
Our campus features several smoking areas outdoors for those students and faculty that choose to participate in such a practice.
Why not restrict alcohol consumption to a campus-run in-or-outdoor beer garden for any (of legal age, of course) to come and take a load off?
It’s not such an outrageous proposition. Higher education institutions across the country sell alcoholic beverages on campus to those of legal age.
Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Penn State, Berkeley: all fine establishments that see the advantages (social, financial, and otherwise) to such commerce.
Further, anyone that claims to support entrepreneurship should find great reason to support the legalization of responsible alcohol consumption on campus. If the market doesn’t bear it, then let’s get rid of it, but not preemptively based on a tenuously subjective dogmatic imperative. Would you rather support a nanny state?
The next time you’re about to take your Bio 1010 midterm and can’t quite shake your jitters or you’re trying to muster the wherewithal to ask out that cute girl in your Literature of the American Renaissance class, think of how much easier your respective task would be after a brew or two.
yawn
If the entire point is lowering tuition costs, what alternatives are there? Is the UVU Review on the UVU payroll? Do students help cover the expense of your frivolous out-of-state newspaper conferences? The expense of your newsroom and its contingent equipment? Most insulting of all is the possibility that they help cover the cost of printing this bullshit. If UVU students foot the bill at all for this fiasco of a newspaper, there’s an obvious option for ameliorating their expenses, and it’s much more appealing than using alcohol to stupefy an already dangerously doddering population of UVU students: Fire the jackass who wrote this article. And while you’re at it, the rest of you should resign.
hey byu dope, mind your own business and go away. this is a brilliant idea, as is something like the bunnel cafe, that could easily offset tons of costs for the school and students.
Why does a BYU student care what happens at UVU?
By “I’m a BYU student.” do you really mean “I want to go to BYU but didn’t get in.” or maybe “I couldn’t get anyone to sign my ecclesiastical endorsement this semester but I’m totally worthy for Spring.” (I’m just guessing based on your potty mouth.)
Or maybe the real answer is – “I’m attending UVU for my general electives because they are cheaper, better and not loaded with biased information so I can transfer after my mission to BYU and find a wife.”
Seriously, shut up.
yawn.
This is a brilliant idea? Really? This is what passes for brilliant at UVU? There’s no mention of the cost of getting through the mountains of red tape that would frustrate the endeavor at every turn; there’s no mention of the impossibility of selling alcohol at a state university in a state whose government only begrudgingly allows the sell of alcohol at state liquor stores; there’s not even a mention of how successful this kind of venture is in places where this kind of idea doesn’t end up ardently derided by mobs of religious fanatics. This is a terrible idea espoused by a horrible writer in an awful article.
Besides, if the lackluster management (understatement) of extant on-campus institutions (this newspaper: holy shit, this newspaper) is any example, a bar would have an impossible time ever becoming profitable on UVU campus–again, not to mention the fact that it would…
Awww, you’re adorable when you’re angry.
Hey “I’m a BYU student”,
You may not realize this, but you are the butt of throw away joke. I almost didn’t write this because its too funny to watch you flail around enraged like the point of view character Benjamin from “The sound and the Fury”.
This article was written and published simply for the amusement of watching reactions like yours. Even a casual reading of the article can pick up notes of anticipation for reaction. The very fact that you couldn’t resist commenting reveals that the author not only knows your type, but can clearly get a reaction from you at will. How does it feel to be so transparent, so predictable, that you become little more that a puppet for your betters?
BYU person, it is a good idea, and that you don’t see it as a good idea is a testament to the likelihood that you don’t drink (or think) more than anything else. You’re right to say that the whole idea is a little bit of a pipe-dream. It just won’t ever happen. And you’re right to point out that there’s a good reason for it, which is of course the absurd and frankly unethical involvement of the Church in any number of governmental agencies and processes, including getting a liquor license. That in no way makes this a bad article. Sometimes the very impossibility of a thing is reason enough to mention it. Further, you’re statement that a bar on campus would be unprofitable is simply ridiculous. Bars are invariably profitable. I defy anyone here to name even one bar that has closed in the last year in the county, much less the several that it would take to demonstrate a trend…
of unprofitability. Don’t joke around – you’re against drinking as such and that’s all there is to your objection to this well written and entertaining article. There are far worse articles in this paper, including but not limited to the hand sanitizer article in the same section. But here you are, commenting on the alcohol article. I hate to border on the ad hominem, but you’re a dogmatist and you’re way out of line, BYU student.
Also, What is you’re problem with the school newspaper? I’ve never thought it was anything but a decent student newspaper; not perfect, but it certainly does not appear to be the mismanaged “fiasco” you claim it to be. Do I smell a Daily Universe reporter around?
I think this would be a great idea. But let’s be honest, this article is not talking about starting a bar on campus. It’s just about selling beer. For the religious majority, who might not know, bars have beer, wine and a full selection of liquors available. Many of my buddies on campus, and I, have talked about doing something like this for over 2 semesters. We are all averaging between 15-20 hours per semester, and spend a lot of time on campus every day. There are many days, where you are putting so much effort into your studies that you would love to go get a burger and a beer for lunch, without having to arrange for a DD. I have visited one of my friends, who’s going to school at Colorado State University, in Pueblo, CO. They sell beer on their campus, and it does wonders, not just for the institution, but for student morale as well…
Now I know many members of the LDS Church don’t even want to think about something, like this, sullying the campus they walk through. At CSU: Pueblo, beer is available at one location. If you wish to purchase it, they check your ID (age), and verify your driver’s license information (to make sure it isn’t fake). Once you have paid for your beer, it is given to you open, and you cannot leave the area with it (and they make sure of that). People aren’t trying to sneak it out, anyway. They don’t have to. They can enjoy it right there. This provides a perfect place to relax (for those who wish to partake), while providing the school with some extra income.