REGIONAL REPORT : Social Life a Bit Tamer at Area Colleges : Education: Students are still having fun, but AIDS, the economic crunch and new rules on alcohol are among the factors that have turned down the volume on activities.

First, here’s the sobering news from the social front of Southern California college campuses. On the surface, it’s enough to make you want to spend Saturday night in the library, cuddling a chemistry textbook.

The recession and higher tuition are biting into students’ expendable income. AIDS is understandably chilling love lives a bit. And tougher regulations on alcohol use are changing social life, although certainly not drying it up.

For example, San Diego State has banned beer kegs at fraternity festivities. Pomona College now requires specially trained bartenders at campus parties to discourage underage drinking. USC has ended the traditional Thursday night celebrations on Fraternity Row. UCLA students are scrambling for more part-time jobs, cutting into their study and fun time. And UC Santa Barbara undergraduates will mix Halloween rowdiness with AIDS education.

But all this does not mean a revolution in social life. Southern California college students remain quite resilient when it comes to blowing off steam after hitting the books. The gusto is still being grabbed and the volleyball games continue. After all, isn’t the whole country watching UCLA and USC and San Diego State and UC Santa Barbara for the very definition of contemporary cool?

“People are still partying. It hasn’t hurt anybody’s social life,” Dan O’Brien, president of USC’s Interfraternity Council, said of new, tough campus rules about fraternity life. The regulations ban Greek parties on weeknights and forbid women visitors in fraternity bedrooms if drinking is involved.

Many USC students consider the new regulations an invasion of privacy and want them revoked. But students are also learning to co-exist with them peacefully, O’Brien said. More USC students are staying around campus on weekends to party, instead of joining the traditional Friday afternoon exodus home. More weeknight gatherings are being held in private, off-campus apartments.

And women have been known to quietly visit upstairs at fraternities with a few beers at times when there are no organized festivities and little chance that campus authorities will make an inspection visit. “When the cat’s away, the mice will play,” O’Brien said.

At Pomona College in Claremont, strict regulations on alcohol consumption went into effect last year in response to a federal law that threatens to cut off funding to schools that are lax about illegal drinking and drug use. Only designated servers can dole out alcoholic beverages at all Pomona events. Students who are 21 and older are given plastic bracelets to identify that only they can legally obtain a drink.

Those Pomona changes are hotly discussed on campus. “It really disappoints me that students only really start to shout and scream about student freedoms when you take their alcohol away,” said Edward Cox, managing editor of the campus newspaper, Student Life.

Still, underage drinking has not disappeared, noted Scott Renschler, a senior who is a resident assistant in a Pomona dormitory. “They can’t drink in public as much. But, at most parties, if you are underage, someone will get you a drink,” he explained, disapprovingly. In addition, many Pomona students attend parties at neighboring colleges where, they contend, drinking rules are less strictly enforced.

On Sept. 29, two Pomona students were stabbed by a non-student outside a party at adjacent Harvey Mudd College. Both wounded men are recovering.

Pomona officials privately complain that the alleged assailant, a 17-year-old Fontana youth who was arrested, might not have come to the party if he hadn’t thought he would get in. Harvey Mudd officials deny that, stressing that the youth was ejected twice from the party and that drinking rules at Harvey Mudd differ little from Pomona’s. Nevertheless, Harvey Mudd has suspended all campus parties for at least a few weeks to review its policies.

At San Diego State, new rules this fall ban beer kegs and communal ice chests for alcohol at fraternity and sorority parties. All parties in fraternity houses have become “bring your own” because the clubs can no longer use chapter funds to buy alcoholic beverages. Two fraternities face disciplinary actions, including insurance premium surcharges from their national organizations, because of violations this fall.

Doug Case, adviser to San Diego State fraternities, said the regulations “don’t solve the problems of alcohol abuse but place the burden on the individual rather than the fraternity.”

Meanwhile, UC Santa Barbara is bracing itself for the annual Halloween rowdiness at Isla Vista, the neighboring student area. In 1987, more than 1,000 people were arrested at the giant celebration in the streets, which drew about 40,000 young people from around the state. Actions by the university and local police calmed subsequent festivals. But this Halloween falls on a Thursday, raising fears about an extended, wild weekend.

“Last year Halloween was a Wednesday. So it was pretty hard for San Diego or Chico students to come. This year, they might come Thursday night and stay Friday and Saturday,” said Monique Willemse, a UC Santa Barbara senior who heads a patrol of student volunteers who walk Isla Vista streets on Halloween to cool down tempers and help the intoxicated. Her group, RED (Respect, Equality, Dignity) Alert, is asking Santa Barbara students not to invite out-of-town guests.

Compared to previous years, most Southern California schools plan more campus activities that are alcohol-free, such as comedy nights, intramural sports and community service events. “We certainly still have our problems. But I think it’s becoming more acceptable to be at a social function and not drink,” said Cheri Wechsler, UC Irvine’s director of sorority and fraternity relations.

San Diego State this fall even made an entire dormitory floor off-limits to cigarettes, alcoholic beverages and drugs. Officials report they had little trouble finding volunteers for the 52 spaces on the floor, which houses both men and women.

Jonny Perez, a UCLA senior and orientation counselor, said collegiate social life continues as strong as ever but that students are more careful about mixing alcohol and driving. “I think people have learned to have a good time but to take care of yourself at the same time,” he explained. “Now the attitude is to have fun and come out of it OK too.”

That attitude may extend to romance in this era of AIDS. In interviews around Southern California, college students say they are cautious about sex.

“I think promiscuity is definitely looked down upon,” said a female sophomore at UCLA. “I think our generation has a heightened awareness about AIDS and is acting accordingly.”

AIDS education is part of most freshmen orientations. Condoms are readily available in campus bathroom dispensers and health offices. During Halloween festivities in Isla Vista, students will dress up as giant condoms and perform “safe sex” skits. AIDS awareness posters warning “Don’t let last night haunt you” will be posted around UC Santa Barbara.

Some campus health officials fear that behavior hasn’t changed enough, however. “I think students are being safe on their first sexual encounters with a partner but then abandoning that if they get emotionally involved or fall in love,” said Andrew Winzelberg, assistant director of health education at UC Santa Barbara. “Unfortunately, the virus doesn’t care what their emotional attraction is.”

Throughout Southern California, the slow economy and fee increases--20% at Cal State schools, 40% at UC--are affecting campus social life, students complain. They say they have to work longer hours at part-time jobs, in some cases because higher-paying jobs have dried up. UCLA officials report that campus cafeteria jobs that went begging for student workers two years ago now have plenty of applicants.

“There’s a decrease in time left over after work and studying. That’s not to say that people don’t go out or don’t date, but the time they have for that is less,” said Jose Solorio, student body president at UC Irvine.

UCLA senior Lauri Mattenson explained: “I do not go out as much as I used to because of money. At least in my circle of friends, we’re doing things that don’t cost as much. A lot of smaller get-togethers at our apartments, going to the beach to relax. And we study a lot.”