enlarge Derek Davis/Staff Photographer

Tyler Ingram, 22, has a beer while watching television at the Colby College pub in Waterville. Colby’s pub can get crowded on Tuesday senior nights, when food is served and beer costs $1.

enlarge Derek Davis/Staff Photographer

Unity College uses a wristband to track how many beers a student has consumed at the student center.

enlarge Derek Davis/Staff Photographer

Colby College students Doug Rooke, 22, left, Tyler Ingram, 22, and Holly Andersen, 21, drink beer and play pool at the campus pub in Waterville. Andersen said having a pub on campus encourages moderation.

ABOUT THIS SERIES

CAMPUS ALCOHOL abuse is the biggest health and public safety issue at college campuses today, despite efforts to rein in the problem.

SUNDAY: Nationally and in Maine, the number of students caught violating liquor laws and campus liquor policies is rising. University of Maine soccer players remember teammate Adam Baxter, who died from alcohol poisoning in November.

TODAY: Colleges in Maine are working to curb alcohol abuse, but specialists say it won't happen overnight. Maine Maritime Academy freshman Brett Gould had talked to his mother about underage drinking days before dying in an alcohol-related crash.

Second of two parts

Police and security officers patrol dorms. College keg parties have to be registered. Incoming freshmen take alcohol education courses as a condition of enrollment.

Even so, students don't seem to be fazed when police show up at parties to stop illegal off-campus drinking, said Hancock County Sheriff Bill Clark, whose department works with Maine Maritime Academy in Castine.

"They will sit there and continue to drink in front of you. They have a very casual attitude towards this type of violation. It is like, 'Oh, so what?' " Clark said.

College administrators say solving the binge and underage drinking problem on their campuses is complicated and potentially impossible. Although Maine colleges are trying a variety of strategies to curb alcohol abuse, their efforts have resulted in few positive results so far.

Liquor law violations reported by Maine campuses and those nationwide continue to rise. This school year, two freshmen – one at the University of Maine, the other at Maine Maritime Academy – died in alcohol-related incidents.

Today, almost every campus requires freshmen to undergo online alcohol education courses, designed to help students understand the consequences of alcohol abuse. Many colleges insist that students caught violating campus liquor rules undergo counseling.

Most colleges in Maine ban drinking games, such as "beer pong" or "caps," which make drinking a competitive activity. Some have adopted good Samaritan policies to encourage students to seek treatment for their dangerously inebriated friends without facing discipline or arrest.

Some of the measures were adopted after tragedies. Bowdoin College in Brunswick shut down its fraternities and banned hard liquor from campus after a visiting University of Maine student died from a fall off a fraternity roof 10 years ago.

Bates College banned all alcohol except beer and wine on its Lewiston campus after more than a dozen cases of alcohol poisoning surfaced during a Halloween party in 2000. Private parties were limited to no more than 50 people with no more than two kegs of beer.

Still, the crackdown did not lead to an end to binge drinking. In 2006, 14 students, from all grade levels, required treatment for alcohol poisoning after a fall dance.

"Virtually everyone had gotten access to hard alcohol," said Tedd Goundie, dean of students.

ON-CAMPUS PUBS KEEP CONTROL

Colleges also are trying to be proactive.

The University of Maine in Orono, Colby College in Waterville, Unity College in Unity and Maine Maritime Academy operate on-campus pubs. Administrators say the pubs reduce the incidence of drunken driving and put students of legal drinking age in a controlled atmosphere. Bartenders will shut off anyone who gets out of control.

At Unity College, the only alcohol available at the student center is bottled beer. Students must show a valid Maine state ID before donning a green wristband with tabs that are clipped off after each beer is consumed. The limit is five bottles in three hours.

On nights when a dance band plays, several hundred students might show up. But on a rainy Friday night in early April, fewer than a dozen students played pool or listened to the band jamming on stage.

By 10 p.m., the staff started closing up for the evening.

Colby's pub can get crowded on Tuesday senior nights, when there is food and beer is $1. And at those times, the pub serves as a moderating influence on consumption, say some students.

Holly Andersen, 21, of Holliston, Mass., a senior international studies major, said the college pub encourages moderation. "No one ever gets beyond control," she said.

SECURITY, POLICY DETERRENTS

Some colleges are also stepping up enforcement with frequent security patrols through residential halls. Every night from 11 p.m. to...