Get Your Drink On

hotel Ballerup flughafenMy wife and I's alma mater, Indiana University, has fallen from the top spot in Princeton Review's 2003 rankings of the top party schoolsBrugge hotels in the country. The University of Colorado, Boulder is now at the top of their list followed by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, IU-Bloomington, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Washington and Lee University.

It would appear that participation from the folks on North Jordan Avenue and Varsity Villas was down from last year. Though it would be hard for me to imagine tumbleweed rolling across Kirkwood Avenue or a lackluster Little 500 weekend at IU. Despite the drop in the list it was encouraging to see that 3 out of the top 5 schools come from the Big Ten. The matriculants at Madison have always known how to throw a good tailgate party rife with brats and beer, and living in Champaign alone would drive even Carrie Nation to drink.

Now the funny thing about college rankings is that every administrator and faculty member hates them, unless of course their institution is high up on the more favorable lists. Back when I was teaching at IU it was named College of the Year among research institutions by Time magazine. There was a huge billboard about it on the outskirts of Bloomington that I would pass on my way to and from Indianapolis. And there were probably inserts of the article in every admissions brochure that went out the door.

luxury hotels in LuccaWhether these kinds of rankings are measuring alcohol consumption or the number of Nobel Prize winners on the faculty, at the end of the day they are all subject to one extent or another. That explains why one survey says IU is at the top and another says it's all bottoms up in Bloomington. I have no problem with that as long as administrators don't try and talk out of both sides of their mouths.

According to a very biased survey taken at the MacLaughlin household, which has four pieces of vellum hanging on the wall from IU, we can both attest that Indiana University is both a great institution of higher learning and a place that has many fine establishments for consuming an adult beverage. Please drink responsibly. Please read surveys responsibly as well.