Your roommate does not come home stumbling and reeking of liquor, and smokers don't line the curb across the street - if you live at Hopi Lodge.

The residence hall is the University of Arizona's only substance-free alternative housing.

Julie McCrea, area coordinator for the Department of Residence Life, said Hopi Residence Hall gives its 120 residents the chance to live in an environment free of alcohol- or drug-related pressures.

"The community finds its own alternative activities," McCrea said. "There may be 20 to 30 people on a Friday night just hanging out and watching movies."

McCrea said that residents of Hopi sign an agreement during the first week of school pledging to refrain from using alcohol and nicotine products at Hopi, even if they are of legal age. In addition, residents agree to not come home "under the influence" and take responsibility for their guests to ensure that they adhere to the substance-free policy.

Residents found in violation of the substance-free policy, McCrea said, may be asked to move, or they may have the option of recommitting to the Hopi policies and re-signing the policy pledge.

"We do take into account a student's interest in substance-free living when we make placements in other halls," McCrea said. "We try to pair roommates and neighbors who have expressed an interest in the program together."

"We are not going to make anyone live at Hopi against their will," she said. "We only place residents in Hopi who list it as one of their top choices and who have stated an interest in substance-free housing. We understand that students may change their mind once they get to college and experience new things."

McCrea said that Residence Life would assist any Hopi resident in a transfer to another hall if they decided that the Hopi lifestyle was not for them. She said only one student has requested a transfer since the program began two years ago.

Jana Smith, management information systems junior, has lived in the hall for the last two years after living in Coronado Residence Hall her freshman year. She chose to come back because she liked the quiet and tight-knit community that Hopi offers.

"This year the program has worked a lot better," she said. "We have had trouble in the last couple of years with residents not really adhering to the policies."

Smith credited the new eagerness to participate in Hopi with the large number of freshmen in the hall this year.

"On movie nights the lounge will be packed," she said. "We have had capture-the-flag games at night where almost everyone in the hall comes out to play."

Mike Bennett, biochemistry freshman, said he chose Hopi because it was highly recommended by his friends who lived in the hall last year. He said he prefers to live in a substance-free environment.

"The program works for the most part," Bennett said. "People don't drink or anything in the building or come stumbling home at night. A lot of people still go out on weekends," he said, "but they respect the policies and don't come stumbling back home."

Samuel Correa, accounting sophomore, lived in Hopi last year.

"The substance-free program works to an extent," he said. "There are less problems here than other halls, but there were still problems last year. It is such a small hall that you always knew when someone came stumbling back in," he said.

Correa, who still visits his friends back at Hopi, said he had noticed the resident assistants doing more this year to preserve the ideals of the community.

McCrea said Hopi was originally chosen because it was a small hall with only rare occurrences of discipline problems. She said that there have only been a very few isolated discipline problems since the program began.

She said 90 percent of incoming residents in 1994 said they were interested in a substance-free housing program through a question on the residence application. This led to the designation of Hopi as substance-free that fall.

"That number probably includes a lot of parent input," McCrea said, "but it is still quite a significant number of students. It showed us that there was definitely a demand for alternative housing."

Despite the overwhelming interest in alternative housing, McCrea said that there are no further plans to expand the program to other halls. This was partly because the program does tend to create stereotypes and label the residents as "goody goodies," she said.

For similar reasons, the program is not highly advertised in housing literature. In fact, the description of Hopi Lodge in the application packet refers to the program in only two sentences.

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