For all of UW-Madison's efforts to stem student drinking, the problem is getting worse, not better, at least by one measurement: During the 2006-2007 school year, university police brought 112 students to medical facilities for excessive drinking. The year before, the number was 82. The year before that, 44.
"We believe, anecdotally, that the extreme ends of the spectrum are getting bigger," says Dale Burke, assistant chief of university police. "The number of students choosing not to drink at all is getting larger, but the number of students engaging in high-risk drinking behavior is also getting larger. That number in the middle, of students who choose to drink responsibly, is shrinking."
University police officers bring falling-down drunk students to either the detox unit at Tellurian UCAN or to a hospital. "The legal definition is incapacitated," says Burke. "There's a number of ways to tell. Can they say their name, their date of birth, where they are, where they live? Can they stand and walk without assistance?"
High-risk drinking is a grave problem on campus, acknowledges Burke. "The goal is," he says, "we don't want anybody to die."