Really, Phlosphr, what does it matter? Unless the guy was interfering with the learning of his fellow classmates, there isn’t really an issue. He’ll learn the wisdom of being under the influence during class when finals time rolls around.
Actually, GMRyujin reminds me:
I took the AFOQT completely hammered/hungover from the night before (a lacrosse after-party).
According to one of my professors (a Captain) who didn’t think too highly of me at the time, “You blew the scores out of the water!”
Tripler
I’m starting to think there’s a thing to a li’l drinkin’ and leadership. 
Whilst on the ‘this reminds me of…’ tack I remember hearing a story which is probably urban legend but makes me laugh almost as much as Dante’s classic Insurance for the cataclysmically stupid
In short a guy turns up to an English lecture, completely and utterly stoned out of his tree and proceeds to pass out half way through. Several hours later he comes to in the middle of an advanced Japanese lecture. Thouroughly confused he goes screaming out of the lecture believing he had completely lost the ability to speak/read English.
Made me smile anyway!
I would have kicked him out for the day, called Academic Standards and my dean (I have to do a report if I kick a student out), filed a police report on the incident (public drunkenness) and gone on with my day after ranting and raving on the internet for awhile.
Pattern of behavior gets established, hopefully kid gets canned somewhere along the line, never passes the bar, etc.
On the other hand, if kid isn’t bothering anyone, it’s not worth it.
Thing is, it does bother the students.
We had a kid coming to class high every single day last semester. Well that was what the kids thought. Till it escalated one day and I kicked him out and did the above. Turned out he was having a breakdown.
Point was, the kids were unhappy about having this kid in their class making them uncomfortable. They were passing it off with this giggly bravado, but after I kicked him out, all the stories came out about how uncomfortable and angry they were about it.
I had a kid bring a bottle of Jack Daniels to class on his 21st birthday. Didn’t do anything about it, though I could have had him expelled for that. Well same kid was in jail mid semester for a club brawl. Then in jail in the summer for possession. Shithead failed three classes of mine before he was expelled. Which is why I don’t put up with this crap anymore.
Kids that are so stupid shouldn’t be in college, and if I can do something to put it on record, eventually they will get their comeuppance.
By the way, I teach French and I routinely tell my students that their language skills will normally improve with alcohol. We call it ‘lowering the affective filter’. When a person is at ease, the performance fear of speaking in a foreign language goes down. Most of my job is lowering affective filter, but I don’t advise a student come to class trashed to do so.
Really, the majority of the kids are there to do the business of class–whatever that means for them. While they are more tolerant than the profs, it pisses them off when there is someone not pulling their own weight.
This is not to say that I didn’t once buy a six pack on the last day of class after the evaluations were in at a job I was leaving, and drink them in my office while students came in with their pathetic excuses for why they needed extensions on their papers, and even share one with a student over 21. But this was a different school with different rules and I was also younger and stupider.
This is also not to say that last week after sliding into a snowdrift and digging myself out then getting stuck behind a stuck truck on a hill with a whiteout and blinding snow and SCHOOL WAS NOT CANCELLED that I didn’t go immediately to the liquor store at 7:45 am and buy a liter of Jim Beam of which I promised myself I would drink a shot if I made it to school. (but then I waited till evening!)
Ha! On that note, I took the ACT the night after a Metallica concert (and I was in the pit moshing all night). I got a 30 and managed to piss off all the people who’d studied and worked to get a good score.
Viva la slacking! Viva la booze!
I wouldn’t go that far…but I do like the fact that this school allows a certain amount of faculty lattitude with dealing with problem students. It doesn’t happen very often but when it does I always! make a mental note.
Yeah, I used to blow things off until the student breakdown last semester. If I hadn’t kicked him out and done all of the above, his breakdown wouldn’t have been caught, because it set a chain of things in motion–the police report being the key to get the right heads in the room. Saved a couple of lives that way.
Classroom disruption notices have to be in the syllabus–school rule.
I prefer the fact that there is a way to get it out of my hands. I have a tendency to worry all semester about how I am holding grudges, whether I would take it out on the students’ grades, whether there could be racial bias on my part.
I would rather not have the stress.
I’ve gone to classes where my BAC exceeded my GPA. As long as he’s not disruptive and doesn’t make it a habit, I wouldn’t let it bug you.
I used to show up to class hungover all the time. Two reasons:
- I figured even if I couldn’t pay complete attention, I could at least passively soak up information and maybe gain that “I think I remember Prof X talking about this before” insight when I’m studying for the test later.
- My parents had a relatively simple philosophy for me in high school. I could stay out almost as late as I wanted, and could do pretty much whatever I wanted, but the later I get home the earlier I get up and the more work I do the next day. I followed pretty much the same thing in college: If I went out drinking the night before, I would force myself to go to class the next day.
By the way, I spent all 8 semesters of college on the Dean’s list and graduated with a 3.85 GPA.
But perhaps the worst was my final semester of college. I was taking a purely elective photography class because I thought it sounded fun and interesting. We had to/got to do all of our own film developing. Well, Wednesday night was the big bar night, and the only time I could really find a couple of consecutive hours to spend in the dark room was on Thursdays before noon. So I spent several Thursday mornings in a dark room with all kinds of foul smelling chemicals, inadequate ventilation, and a killer hangover. Ahhhh, memories…
Heh, I was more than a bit lightheaded at my PhD orals. (Fortunately I am neither a silent drunk nor a vocabulary-challenged one, and the whole point of PhD orals is to reduce the examinee to a point of babbling incoherence, so none of the profs seemed to notice that I got there faster than most.)
But I agree that coming to class obviously drunk conveys contempt for one’s instructor and classmates. My sympathies.
Obviously? Your Proof by Intimidation doesn’t hold water.
Er, huh? 
I’m not sure what a “proof by intimidation” is, but yes, it does matter whether the student is obviously drunk or not. If nobody notices, no harm done, IMO.