In a full-page announcement in the September 22nd issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education, the Arbor Day Foundation congratulated over 250 colleges and universities for earning “Tree Campus USA” recognition. Please put your leaves together and give these institutions some applause.
Not to be outdone, the Anheuser-Busch brewing company has taken the bold and controversial step of awarding its first Golden Keg of Excellence to the state whose college students consumed the most Budweiser beer per capita during the first three weeks of September 2017. The winner, by a wide margin, was Florida, where the average student drank the equivalent of seven 12-ounce cans of Budweiser and/or Bud Light per day. João Castro Neves, Anheuser-Busch’s North American CEO, gave a special tip of the mug to Florida State University, whose students led the nation with an average of over 10 cans per day. Neves commented that “this achievement is all the more impressive — and inspiring — because it cuts across many demographic categories at FSU, including those that typically divide us as a nation: race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, and disability status. For example, even FSU students who don’t have a working esophagus drink nearly 8 cans of Bud a day, a tribute to our company’s Intravenous Consumption Outreach Program that was launched last year. And seeing cisgender and transgender kids all throwing up together at 3:00 am on a Sunday morning after a fraternity party makes me feel good about where we’re heading as a country. As we’re fond of saying at Anheuser-Busch, “Black or white, gay or straight or whatever, we hurl as one.”
In recognition of FSU’s accomplishment, Anheuser-Busch is building a spectacular canal filled with extra foamy Budweiser Signature Draft that will wind its way throughout the Tallahassee campus, providing swan-boat shuttles for students, faculty, staff, and visitors. Students will be able to dip their tankards into the canal and quaff with abandon as they travel to and from class. Indeed, FSU will become the “Venice of the American South,” Neves promises.
Not surprisingly, Utah finished last in the Keg competition, hamstrung by its plethora of Mormon-dominated schools. “We understand the constraints that Utah is operating under,” Neves commented, but he had harsh words for New Hampshire, which came in next-to-last. “You would think that a state that contains Dartmouth College, whose official motto is ‘We’re rich, we’re cold, and we’re drunk,’ would perform with greater distinction, but it’s clear that students at the University of New Hampshire are not doing their part. What’s up with that?”