After reading the editorial in The Minnesota DailyâÄôs Dec. 1 paper about the âÄúduhâÄù studies that the University of Minnesota and its affiliates publish, I was rather surprised. Are we not a research-based university? Does research not solidify hypotheses that we may already believe to be true? I was an assistant researcher to Brian Willoughby in 2007 during my freshman year. The conclusions that we were able to draw from our research may have been what some refer to as common sense, but it transformed that belief into something scientifically supported. The knowledge we gained from the study of students living in co-ed residence halls applied to universities, students and society as a whole. It gave the public information that begins to explain the binge drinking culture that is increasingly common at many universities. Also, the Editorial BoardâÄôs own conclusion that the co-ed residents have more fun than those in single-sex dorms because they participate in binge drinking and risky sexual behavior leads me to believe that your opinions on any topic cannot be trusted. What person thinks being taken to detox, vomiting in front of your peers, contracting an STI, becoming pregnant or impregnating someone else is fun? So before you go labeling a study that required hours of data collection and months of work to publish as âÄúduh,âÄù do your own research on how much money is saved by the preventative measures developed from studies like ours that work to prevent the behaviors you endorse as fun. Economically applicable? I think so. Caitlin Clark, University undergraduate student