Like millions of others, I am the parent of a college freshman, my daughter Christene, who is attending Wesleyan University in Connecticut.
I miss her, of course, but do I worry about her? Only a little, and no more than I ever did. Let me tell you why.
Christene worked very hard to find a school that was not dominated by a drinking culture. There are fraternities at Wesleyan, she tells me, but no on pays any attention to them.
When applying to college, Christene set about to pick the right environment for herself, a place that would allow her to focus on her education, but also a place where she could have fun and not worry about the spillover effects from other students' drinking.
Are there many other students like Christene? You wouldn't know it from the news coverage on college student drinking, but most college students today are just like my daughter.
According to the latest Harvard survey, just over 57 percent of college students either abstain from alcohol or are light to moderate drinkers. Between 1993 and 1997, the proportion of college students who abstain from alcohol rose by 22 percent.
The vast majority of our nation's college students are not caught up in high-risk drinking, a fact that is very important to remember.
Of course, that still leaves a large number of students whom we worry about.
Two weeks ago, I learned about the death of Courtney Cantor, freshman at the University of Michigan. She went to a fraternity party, and although she was only 18, she had no trouble being served alcohol. She returned later to her residence hall, and then she died when she fell out her window and plunged six stories to the ground below.
What made her death especially poignant was that her father, a columnist for the Detroit News, had written a column just one month before about how difficult it was to send this young woman, his youngest child, off to college. And now she was dead.
And hearing about this tragedy, I worried a little bit more about my daughter.
It was just over a year ago that Scott Krueger, a freshman at MIT, died from alcohol poisoning after a fraternity hazing. His mother now looks back on the time when Scott was trying to select the right school. There are so many questions that she wishes she had asked about the alcohol scene at MIT.
Other parents need to reflect on this. If parents want the right academic environment for their child, then they need to ask --
-- How many students are showing up in hospital ERs because of alcohol?
-- What specific steps has the school taken to reduce student drinking?
-- Does the school have strong presidential leadership on this issue?
-- Are the school's rules enforced?
-- Is there a campus and community coalition in place to eliminate low-price alcohol promotions that encourage high-risk drinking?
And there are many other questions besides.
Parents in the State of Washington can rest a little bit easier today, knowing that the state's academic leaders have come together to declare their joint commitment to fighting high-risk drinking by students.
But this is only the first step.
Parents and students need to keep watch, to see how this commitment is actualized, and they need to keep the pressure on.
The deaths of students like Scott Krueger and Courtney Cantor can be prevented. We simply need the will to make it happen -- to create a safer environment, both on campus and in the community, where students will be helped to make the right decision to avoid high-risk drinking.