In a move perfectly designed to conjure "Animal House" jokes, James E. Wright, President of Dartmouth College, signed the Amethyst Initiative. This petition, introduced this summer by John McCardell, President Emeritus of Middlebury College, is designed to "reopen public debate over the drinking age." So far 129 college and university presidents have added their John Hancocks to this measure to curb binge drinking by maybe getting kids to start drinking earlier.

Though Dartmouth is the only Ivy on a list of signatories that includes schools as disparate as Hampshire College, Duke University and SUNY Purchase, UPenn President Amy Gutmann agrees the drinking age should be lowered to 18. Why didn't she sign the petition? The Daily Pennsylvanian will answer that:

Gutmann did not sign the initiative because she has not seen conclusive evidence confirming its claim that the higher drinking age causes increased levels of binge drinking

So why is Gutmann in favor of lowering the drinking age, if not to stop young people from drinking? Well, Gutmann--by way of the Daily Pennsylvanian--believes in a little thing called freedom.

It is "unrealistic" to expect people who can vote and serve in the military "not to be able to take a drink," says Penn President Amy Gutmann

After the jump, Cornell President David Skorton refuses to sign for no articulated reason.

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Princeton's dukes of drunk, Mike and Will, continue the 24-beer Newman's Day challenge, with live  and increasingly messily typed updates after the jump. For the morning liveblog click here. For an explanation as to why anyone would ever do such a thing, click here.

4:50PM: Pikes by the Pool

Mike: With Will in class, I've been looking for someone else to talk to about Newman's Day. Luckily, I ran into a friend who told me Princeton's Pikes were set up outside a dorm with a kiddie pool, grilling, and shagging golf balls down between the other residence halls.

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Newmans Day is a booze-based holiday at Princeton inspired by famous words almost certainly never spoken by Paul Newman, "24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not." This year, we commissioned Will and Mike, two Princeton participants, to liveblog their beer-soaked adventures. Live-streaming updates after the jump.

7:00AM: Baseball Bats and the Finer Points of Vomiting in Public Places

Will: I woke up to the dulcet tones of a baseball bat striking my front door.  The engineer living down the hall was having another long night.  As he paced, swinging his baseball bat around his head like a spastic monkey, he spoke to himself--"Maybe if I write a short introduction.  A short introduction will be fine."  As I prepared for a day of abusive drinking, I realized that he was discussing formatting decisions...while swinging a baseball bat, at 5am.  It was going to be a great Newman's Day.

Mike joined me almost an hour late, which meant I had a one beer lead on him and a chance to start watching my collection of Beavis and Butthead.

Tally: 2 beers
BAC: 0.02

....

After the jump: Mike arrives, things get frat-tastic. Live-blog! Beer! Whoo!

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Members of the class of 2012 will be disgusted to hear that - surprise! - beer is a rather popular beverage at college. With every school comes a small array of depraved beer-chugging traditions. At Princeton, we use the name of a guy whose son died from substance abuse as shorthand for a substance-abusing holiday known as "Newman's Day," said to originate from a line frat boys everywhere only wish could be attributed to Paul Newman:

24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not.

Obviously, the appropriate day for investigating this claim is 4/24, tomorrow.

Naming scandal aside, Newman's Day represents a unique opportunity in the annals of collegiate drunk-hood. What would actually happen if you drank perpetually, 24 hours a day? (Alternately: What would it be like to go to Dartmouth?) Would you become a literary genius, like famed writer-drunks of yore? Would you be able to function at all? Resident dude-bros Mike and Will (spring semester seniors, post-thesis, of legal age and armed with two cases of Yuengling, a breathalyzer, laptop computers, and several digital recording devices) will be taking the beer-by-the-hour challenge and sloppily typing their findings here. Check in periodically for updates on the progress of their inebriation, featuring drunken class attendance, participation in a dodgeball tournament, a guide to the most scenic of beer-slamming Princeton locations and a whirlwind tour of the eating clubs in the evening. Says Mike,

Will and I are not alcoholics. We're journalists for a day. And that day happens to involve a lot of drinking.

After the jump: Brothers of the brewski introduce themselves, explain the rules of the game.

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Certain things: death, taxes, pre-frosh baring their innermost secrets on Faceook, never seem to get old. Remember back when the now-esteemed Class of 2011 discussed their favorite drinks with the world (consensus: beer is gross, but foreign beer is like okay)?

Well, members of the Class of 2012 are not so different than their intrepid predecessors: they still like to talk about how much they love mojitos and margaritas and that "jager = good taste" (!!!!) and that they hate beer because it "smells funny and looks kind of funny too."

Indeed, worried that Princeton is for squares, Mary-Jane Smith (what a clever pseudonym!) writes in:

I made a fake ID (ok, the name's really lame... whatever) Do a lot of people smoke weed? And since the 17- 19 preview is near 420, will there be a lot of smoking? Because personally I smoke at least once a week and I was wondering if anyone else at Princeton did the same...

Still the vast majority of the 2012's have moved on to a more important subject: themselves. They want to answer the most burning of questions: in this, the most competitive of all college seasons, how did they get in?  We'll let them tell you themselves:

You guys think you have tough choices! Ha! Listen to this... I got into Harvard, UPenn, Yale, Brown, CalTech, Stanford, MIT, and Dartmouth. Unfortunately, I somehow got denied from Cornell, which I really liked, but I was in all likelihood overqualified. This was unfortunate.

One Yalie on how "funny" life can be:

omg its so funny. like i got accepted here, but waitlisted at harvard and princeton. i mean what the fuck

After the jump: the academic records you never wanted to see.

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Yeah the jokes in the beginning sort of fall flat after five years, and the soundtrack is just too much, but the basic concept is gold. The concept, you ask? Get a keg of O'Douls non-alcoholic beer and throw an impromptu "keg party" in the 1903 courtyard. Sobriety ensues.

So Harvard students are like, totally standing up to Dean Pilbeam and his anti-drinking crusade! Just because some silly administrator wants to get rid of university funding for undergraduate parties doesn't mean the students have to take it! Somehow, someone convinced these kids that fighting Pilbeam is fighting fascism at home. This, friends, is the battle of our time: if Harvard students don't receive $1700 a week to throw parties, the terrorists / Islamofascists / Nazis / whatever win.

According to the Crimson, the Undergraduate Council isn't going down without a fight.  Despite Pilbeam's harshly-worded letter, the council voted to allocate $17,000 for 10 weeks of party grants. What's more, the President of the UC sent a letter to Pillbeam almost Churchillian its eloquence/self-importance. His words will make you want to cry, if only at the heartbreaking solipsism of the average Harvard student:

I can only believe that despite the wealth of power the administration retains, despite its power to harass, to withhold, to prosecute and to destroy, it still stands in awe of reason… Perhaps, it fears, despite its liberal use of fear-mongering and its casual ignorance of fact, the world will peel back the curtain and discover the emptiness that lies behind. I have no doubt that the administration will go to any length, will press any advantage, and will commit any crime to assert its domination over the Council, as it has already committed the worst crime of all: it has rejected truth in claiming to protect it…

The Council may spend its funds as it wishes, but it must not spend money on certain initiatives. Anyone may say whatever he or she wants, but must do so according to pre-established rules of propriety and etiquette. The absurd has truly made its home in the seat of rationality. ??As the contradictions in our society have become more obvious, the number of individuals who have joined our ranks continues to grow. Never before have so many joined our mailing list. Never before have so many written letters to Dean Pilbeam, called Dean Kidd, and demanded that they account for their actions. And never before have we seen such a brilliant outpouring of political art, ranging from the humorous to the cynical to the hopeful."

Undergraduate Council, this is truly your finest hour.

After the jump: the letter in full. Read the rest of this entry »

IvyGate's only been around for a year, but smartass student comedy groups have populated the Ivy League since shortly before the Oliver Cromwell era. We assume YouTuber HarvardHooligan to be in one of these, like Lampoon or something, but we (er, I) are too lazy to actually research this. Whatever he is, he's produced a surprisingly well edited video, considering the two-day turnaround, in response to Interim Dean David Pilbeam's memo killing school-sponsored alcohol parties. Enjoy/feel indifferent:

Fair enough. Still kind of want this kid to get expelled. Wait, are the Hooligans like a group? Meh.

Hi, this is Michael, the guy who disappeared? Well, it's that time again, when Nick and Chris, sorely disappointed, brush off the old and usher in two new guest editors to amuse and delight. Oh, the times we had: We watched the claws come out and saw the blood of source code spill. We watched as Columbia, once again, jacked its own students while Cornell's mystic buzz machine won every award, ever. We even read a book! And listened to rap! And discussed, like, world politics or something! Oh, and we discovered that the worst people in the world are really --SPOILER ALERT!!!-- into ranking themselves. There was some other stuff, too, but I'm tired of typing and you're tired of reading.

Maureen would have contributed to this post, but the trauma of editing IvyGate made her need to go out and drink heavily tonight. She wishes our readers the best, even the one who called her a whore, because she's forgiving like that.

Seriously, it was a lot of fun, so be nice to the new guys. We hear they're even better than us!

--MICHAEL MORISY and MAUREEN O'CONNOR

In our continuing coverage of the Class of 2011's alcohol-fueled escapades - (don't worry Antonio; you're in good company), we bring you an entire genre of weirdness: the 2011 facebook party groups.

Across the Ivy League, these remarkably similar groups of self-proclaimed alcoholics are proliferating. They feature a whole lot of back-and-forth about what kinds of parties to throw, what kind of drinks are totally bomb, and how to obtain fake ID's - or, as Penn kids prefer to call them, "counterfeit documents."

Many of these children seem like douchebags; others are just clueless. But watching them interact is utterly fascinating. They are learning, people. And that's what college is all about. Though we do wish they'd take some time out of Drinking 101 and learn to spell.

After the jump: Why the Class of 2011 is the Best Class Yet

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