INDIANA, Pa. -- The migration begins about 10 p.m. every Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

The crowds head toward a handful of bars on Philadelphia Street, and to parties at fraternities, sororities and private homes. A few hours later, police see them, too, as some of them stagger home.

Drinking and illegal drugs are nothing new for students at Indiana University of Pennsylvania or most other college campuses. But a series of drinking-related events in the past several months, including a student's fatal overdose, a suicide after a fraternity mixer, the arrests of some of the college's basketball players and the suspension of the cheerleading squad, prompted IUP President Tony Atwater to take action.

In August, the university imposed tougher sanctions for students arrested for alcohol and drug offenses on or off campus, including a year's suspension for those caught providing alcohol to minors. The sanctions are imposed regardless of whether a student is convicted of an offense.

Last month, Dr. Atwater established a panel to look at how the university and the county seat in which it is situated could reduce substance abuse among IUP students. Called the IUP Commission on Substance Abuse, the panel includes representatives of the college administration, students and the borough. The commission, which met for the first time Friday, also counts Indiana Mayor George Hood and police Chief William Sutton among its nearly 50 members.

"IUP does not stand outside the norm, but alcohol and drug use is something that colleges and universities cannot ignore," said Dr. Robert Ackerman, an IUP sociology professor and head of the Mid-Atlantic Addiction Training Institute. He heads the new substance-abuse commission.

An ongoing national study by Harvard University of alcohol use has shown little change in drinking patterns among college students in the past several years. A gauge of the extent of the problem is the study's early conclusion that more than a third of college students are binge drinkers, meaning they drink at least five drinks in a single sitting.

"The situation we are facing here at IUP is a situation where we are not alone," Dr. Atwater told more than two dozen panel members at the commission's inaugural meeting Friday. "This is a national issue. It's a national problem."

While acknowledging that IUP has a reputation as a party school, some students, nevertheless, say the university has exaggerated the problem, particularly the extent of alcohol use, and that the police have overreacted with scores of underage drinking arrests.

"I understand they don't want the underage drinking, but it's going to happen," said junior William Shultz, of Chicora. "The only thing now is that they're busting people who aren't out of hand."

Mr. Shultz, 27, was at the door of a party Thursday night at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house on South Sixth Street, checking female party-goers for IUP identification and collecting $5 from male guests. Unlike at the bars "Uptown" on Philadelphia Street, there was no examination of the ID cards for confirmation that everyone was of the legal drinking age, 21.

Indiana Borough's population of just under 15,000 nearly doubles when IUP is in session. The borough has 20 full-time police officers, a number that could probably be cut in half were it not for the "university-related" calls to which the officers are dispatched, Chief Sutton said. Between 30 percent and 40 percent of the borough's 11,000 annual police calls are for incidents which involve visitors or students at the college, he said.

IUP police patrol the campus, where statistics show arrests for alcohol and drug offenses increased nearly 40 percent from 2003 to 2004.

For the past month, borough police have dispatched a squad of undercover officers on Friday and Saturday nights to help curb substance abuse, particularly underage drinking and overt public alcohol misbehavior, such as public intoxication and disorderly conduct. The new enforcement initiative is funded by a grant from the Armstrong-Indiana Drug and Alcohol Commission Inc.

Many of the arrests are for what Cpl. Wes Hite calls "acts of stupidity," such as vandalism, urinating in public and flouting the borough's ban on open containers.

One such incident occurred about 10:30 p.m. Thursday, when police caught an inebriated 18-year-old IUP student trying to drag an orange traffic barrel to his apartment at South Seventh and Washington streets.

Cpl. Hite, a 12-year veteran of the Indiana police department, echoed the comments of Chief Sutton and university officials that most of the problems are caused by a minority of students, but it's a minority that keeps them busy.

"I shouldn't tell them this, but I say that if you're minding your own business and having a party in your house and it's quiet, then there's no reason for the police to be involved," Cpl. Hite said.

Mr. Shultz and his fraternity brother, Brian Horvath, 23, a junior from Johnstown, have adopted that advice as their mantra for weekend parties. They station themselves outside the fraternity house to gauge the noise level inside, screen guests and monitor behavior.

The last thing the fraternity wants is for one of the party-goers to attract police, they said.

The Greek organizations on campus received a stern warning and temporary social probation for IUP's homecoming in October after the Sept. 30 suicide of a freshman who had attended a mixer at the Theta Chi house. The probation, lifted within a day after student complaints, caused several Greek organizations to protest Dr. Atwater's inauguration two months ago.

Mr. Shultz and Mr. Horvath pointed to the university's intervention with the fraternities and sororities after the suicide as an example of how the administration has overreacted to the use of alcohol.

"They're going after the wrong people, that's what's happening," Mr. Shultz said.

But Dr. Atwater said the goal of the commission and the other measures he has taken, such as the strict penalties for violations, were designed to ensure student safety, not to punish the Greek organizations or to play big brother.

In fact, Chief Sutton said, the fraternities, in particular, have taken steps to solve the problems caused by underage or unruly students.

"Quite honestly, when I came here [in 2001], the frats were part of the problem. But now the frats aren't that much of a problem at all," he said. "I think IUP got a better handle on their Greek leadership, and we have communicated with them on a continuous basis. The fraternities are an identifiable group, so when something happens, it's hard to hide behind a rock."

For the past 30 years, Richard G. Orendorff has presided over thousands of cases involving alcohol and drug use among IUP's student population as Indiana's district judge. Drug cases were nearly nonexistent when he took the bench in January 1976, but they have increased steadily since then, he said.

Alcohol offenses, on the other hand, have been a constant on his docket and have increased as well the past several years, particularly with the Indiana police department's renewed emphasis on alcohol citations.

The penalties for underage drinking have changed, so the stakes are higher now for students caught under the influence of alcohol. A first-time offender faces a $300 fine and a 30-day driver's license suspension.

One day last week, a half-dozen students appeared in Judge Orendorff's office within a 15-minute period to appear at or schedule hearings and to pay fines. Though the judicial district was split into three pieces a few years ago, Judge Orendorff's office remains the busiest in Indiana County.

One continuing problem with the students who are arrested for alcohol or drug offenses is that their parents often deny it's true, said Judge Orendorff, who will retire next month.

"Mom and Dad don't know what's going on here," he said.

Judge Orendorff said he was recently forced to take a father to the Indiana police station to show him a videotape of his son acting out while drunk because the father refused to believe his son would drink alcohol.

While Judge Orendorff has seen denial on the part of parents, Dr. Ackerman said he and others at IUP were concerned about the callousness on the part of students when their peers are involved in drug or alcohol use.

One of the first signs for Dr. Atwater that IUP had a substance-abuse problem came shortly after he took over as IUP president in February. He learned while at a meeting in Harrisburg that a student had overdosed on cocaine and heroin, he said during Friday's meeting.

The student was found in a fraternity house hours after the apparent overdose, a clue that no one had thought to check on his well-being for hours, Dr. Ackerman said.

"There's no sense of a social conscience, where students are looking out for each other, and that's very disappointing," he said. "They might look out for each other getting the drugs, getting the alcohol, but I have no tolerance for that because that's a lack of conscience. When you have peer pressure, you need to have peer support."

The commission Dr. Ackerman chairs will submit its draft report in March, with a final report tentatively due in April. Panel members will look nationally to see what has worked and adopt a strategy they hope will be a model for other colleges, Dr. Atwater said.

Some students remain skeptical that the commission and IUP's renewed emphasis on substance abuse will have much of an impact.

"One of the reasons people come to this school is because of its party reputation," Mr. Horvath said. "Nothing's going to change."