Editor’s note: This is the final part of a four-part series on binge drinking.

The campus culture at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana is drenched in alcohol. There are statistics to prove it. In 2004, 77 percent of students reported that they drink.

These statistics come to life when you walk down Green Street. On a Saturday or Sunday morning, you can smell alcohol lingering in the air. Nearly a dozen bars line this area, all allowing students in at the age of 19.

Many attribute the young age required to enter a bar as a main reason for the University’s alcohol-centered culture. “I agree that Champaign bars being 19 accounts for the prevalence of drinking on campus,” said Champaign’s Mayor Schweighart. “But we wouldn’t consider switching it because that will just push the drinking to farther away house parties or Urbana bars. Then you have kids driving.”

Another sculptor of the alcohol-soaked culture on campus is the three-day weekends for students. On Thursdays, bars shelter crowds of students comparable in number to those that come out on Friday and Saturdays.

“There has been a gradual cultural change on campus where more and more students have no classes on Fridays,” said Pat Askew, vice chancellor for student affairs. “Professors keep pushing for class schedules that don’t meet on Fridays to balance their research and teaching.”

The significant decrease in the number of Friday classes offered has played a part in increasing the Thursday night drinking scene over the past few years.

Campus town bars concentrate on exhibiting their popularity and business. They offer very cheap drink specials to draw in crowds. The cheaper drinks lead to binging because students can afford more.

Looking at Green Street on weekend nights is telling of the campus’s dependency on alcohol for its social culture. But the issue is larger than just a social culture; it is an overall campus culture.

“Even in class you can’t escape drinking,” student Amy Unander said. “If you are broken up into groups and no one knows each other, there’s an awkward silence until someone tells a drinking story and then everyone will relate and warm up.”

The Illini Union Bookstore sells 5 different types of beer mugs and 18 different types of shot glasses in its Illinois souvenir section. The student-run newspaper, The Daily Illini, sandwiches articles between bar advertisements in every issue.

Campus Sportswear, a t-shirt producing business on campus, is responsible for clothing nearly all the barcrawls that occur. A barcrawl is a group of students that wear matching t-shirts and go to several bars in one night. Campus Sportswear owner, Tom Coleman, estimated that about 20% of all t-shirts that he prints for students are made for barcrawls.

Bar crawls are a relatively new phenomenon on campus, starting about five years ago, Coleman said. Three years ago, Campus Sportswear would get t-shirt orders for 10 different barcrawls a week. Now, each week at least 20 different barcrawl orders come in.

The Booze News is another example of the drinking culture at the University. Each Wednesday, this popular student-run paper distributes 8,000 issues. It features weekly columns such as “Bartender of the Week,” “Drinking Games,” and “Drink of the Week.”

“Booze News works because it has what students are interested in reading,” said Rob Erickson, the editor-in-chief of Booze News. “It’s real.”

A student directory Web site called Facebook has become a big trend. One of its features allows students to link through common interest groups.

One of the largest interest groups is called “I Drink, I Party, and damnit, I’m awesome!!” It currently has 1,710 members. “I thought it was a funny idea – drinking is funny, partying is funny,” said the creator of this Facebook group, Grace Howell.

When she first created the group last semester, each day membership would nearly double. “I was really surprised how much it snowballed,” Howell said. “Some days, 150 students would want to become a part of my group.

The community- students, staff and city- agree that campus culture circles around alcohol. This leaves an exhausted University administration and town of Champaign constantly trying to curtail the dominant culture. It is difficult to fight the prevalence of alcohol on campus, said Vice Chancellor Askew. “We take a multi-faceted approach.”

The administration has implemented a social norm campaign that aims to show students the consequences of and alternatives to drinking. This campaign has put up posters around lecture halls and run ads in the Daily Illini warning students of the dangers of binge drinking. They also mass produce ball point pens that show statistics about how many students do not drink.

Beginning next year, an Interactive Theater Show and Discussion on alcohol will be included into the freshmen orientation. It will give new students exposure to the issue and encourage moderation.

The Illinois Union Board is also fighting the drinking campus culture. Their alcohol-free late night programming has tripled the last two years, increasing from 3 programs a semester to nine planned for next fall semester.

Illinites, a social alternative to the bars, is a program held at the Union on weekend nights. It hosts a wide variety of activities ranging from mechanical bulls to karaoke and draws in nearly 1,000 students for each program.

Fighting the drinking culture in the dorms is one of the largest issues that resident advisers face. “Drinking in the dorms is a major, major, major issue,” said Luis Aranda, a resident adviser in Garner Hall. “It is to the point where my residents are planning their meals and homework around drinking.”

Of the 10 day extensive training that resident advisers undergo, three of those days are spent solely on dealing with alcohol issues. “Housing is not na‹ve, they know kids are drinking in their rooms,” Aranda said. “It’s mainly our job to make sure no one goes overboard.”

The University cannot do anything to combat the bars; they are under the city of Champaign’s control. “The campus culture is a difficult thing to keep up with,” Mayor Schweighart said.

The mayor plans on implementing a point system set to start next year that will hold bars responsible for the drinking tickets that students are given. After 15 tickets are given in a particular bar, that bar will be fined or their alcohol license will be suspended.

Completely doing away with the alcohol-soaked culture at the University would be impossible, Askew said. Officials cannot vanish a dominant culture.