The University of Colorado at Boulder (CU), voted in one survey the nation’s top party school last year, had the third highest incidence of alcohol and drug violations among large universities nationally, a Rocky Mountain News analysis of campus crime statistics shows.
CU officials said that stepped-up enforcement probably played a role in the ranking. “I think we’ve been concerned about this for a number of years,” said Bob Maust, chairman of CU’s Standing Committee on Substance Abuse. “We think it is comparable to other, large research universities, but that does not mean it is acceptable.”
The News analyzed crime statistics reported to the U.S. Department of Education for 2002 by universities with 10,000 and more students and then ranked them by the rate per 100 students. The analysis found:
• The University of Colorado at Boulder had the third-highest rate of students referred to the college’s judicial administration for liquor and drug infractions. On average, almost one in 10 students were referred for disciplinary action in 2002.
• CU-Boulder had the highest number of illegal weapons violations referred for discipline, 18, in the nation. Most of those involved students caught with pellet guns in dorms.
• Colorado State University ranked 16th nationally in the incidence of forcible sex offenses. UNC and CU were 84th and 136th, respectively.
Last year, Princeton Review ranked Colorado-Boulder the No. 1 party school based on a survey of 106,000 students. The two previous years, it was ranked eighth and fifth, respectively.
In the crime ranking, CU in 2002 referred 2,410 students to the judicial administration for alcohol violations and 393 for drug violations, the figures show. That’s almost nine referrals for every 100 students.
Only the University of California at Santa Cruz, with 13 per 100, and the University of Vermont, with 11 per 100, ranked higher for 2002, the latest year for which data were available.
Link: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_2712250,00.html