The Legacy of Dean Lee Pelton

By Conor Dugan and Ben Patch | Wednesday, May 7, 1997

From a student perspective, only the President of the College wields more power than the Dean of Students. Of all Dartmouth administrators, the Dean has the most profound impact on the daily life of a Dartmouth student.

Dean Pelton has an outstanding academic record. After receiving his B.A. magna cum laude at Wichita State University he moved on to Harvard to pursue a Ph.D. in English and American Literature. After completing his doctoral work, he stayed on in Cambridge, holding a succession of academic and administrative positions.

In 1986, Colgate University hired Pelton, who increased the budgets of student organizations and improved student government. Still, according to one Colgate campus leader, 'a lot of people loathe[d]' Dean Pelton. It was at Colgate that he first gained a reputation as a 'frat-buster.' In 1990, Pelton released a report that centered around seven recommendations for the Colgate Greek system:

1. Mandatory catering for all fraternity/sorority events.

2. Strict prohibition of pledging.

3. Rush would be moved to sophomore fall.

4. Houses would not be able to refuse membership to any student willing to join.

5. Eventual turning over of all chapter properties to university ownership.

6. Construction of a student center as a long term goal.

7. Only juniors and seniors be allowed to reside in chapter houses.

When Pelton left Colgate, sixty-five percent of the campus still belonged to Greek organizations, but the Greek system was devastated. Catered parties had sacked fraternity treasuries and upper-class Greeks worried that the absence of a pledge period was eroding house unity.

With the resignation of former Dean of the College Edward Shanahan in 1991, Pelton was hired by Dartmouth as the new Dean of the College. The Dartmouth administration was quick with its praise. Alex Huppe, director of the Dartmouth News Service at the time, said of Pelton, 'This appointment is a real prize for Dartmouth. [Pelton is] a kind of quiet, intelligent man of obvious principle. This will be seen within the academic world as a real significant appointment for Dartmouth.'

Pelton began his tenure with the Dartmouth Greek system in crisis. Former Dean of Students Edward Shanahan had banned kegs from all Greek organizations and Dartmouth Safety and Security officers were permitted to enter fraternity basements to check ID's. Fraternities soon developed elaborate systems of warning lights and Safety and Security officers were often met with hostile students chanting obscenities and throwing cups. Students were also drinking more hard alcohol since it was easier to conceal and carry.

Faced with his first real test, Pelton met many of the students' demands. Though he added several restrictions, Pelton re-allowed kegs in fraternity houses. Pelton also halted the practice of having Safety and Security patrol parties. Instead, he instituted the current system of student monitors. As he told the Daily Dartmouth earlier this year, 'If we're going to have parties, I'd rather have parties with beer than hard alcohol, so let's control the amount of beer available... Students at that time pleaded with me that they had the capacity to make sure that these laws were obeyed. The bargain that we struck was [that] we would bring back kegs.'

Still, Pelton made it very clear that he intended to change the culture of Dartmouth. In an address to the freshman class in 1991 he claimed that, 'the night no longer belongs to Michelob.'

From the beginning of his time at Dartmouth, Pelton has advocated radical changes in residential life, including freshman dormitories, saying, 'I'm very much interested in the residential life program that has a sense of continuity and community. I'm very much interested in enhancing the College's intellectual vitality, a central theme.'

In 1994, Pelton organized the Committee on the First-Year Experience. This committee, comprised of thirteen administrators, eight faculty, and fourteen students, issued a thirty-two page report the following spring. The report called for an overhaul of the organization of the College's dormitories. The report called for at least three freshman dorm clusters and the construction of 100-130 new beds to house freshmen. The River dorms, the Choates, and the Fayerweathers would have been converted to freshman-only clusters staffed by Undergraduate Advisors, upper-class 'peer advisors', and live-in faculty members. Students also would be placed in housing based on their freshman seminars which, Pelton argued, would make a Dartmouth education 'seamless, it flows in and out of the classroom.' However, students are assigned to seminars based on their Verbal and Writing SAT scores, so dorms would essentially be divided by achievement test performance.

In addition, Pelton pushed for separate dining halls for each cluster, a system similar to the ones at Harvard and Yale. Students would also be granted preferential housing within a cluster for the next three years. At a town meeting on his report, Pelton met substantial resistance from angered students. Though his plan was not fully adopted, the East Wheelock Cluster survives as a watered-down version and includes live-in faculty advisors, an inordinately high percentage of freshmen, and decentralized dining services. One of Pelton's other motives for revamping residential life was to draw students away from the Greek system. On page twenty of Dean Pelton's First-Year Experience Report was written: 'We wish to state our view that CFS (co-ed, fraternity, sorority) organizations detract from the quality of the intellectual life at Dartmouth... CFS organizations isolate students along gender and racial lines which works against open discourse and interaction among students. One effect of single-sex fraternities and sororities is to encourage conformity and exclusivity.'

This year has seen a marked rise in administrative actions against the Dartmouth Greek system and many of the tactics used against the fraternities are strikingly similar to the ones Pelton used at Colgate. An unusually high number of fraternities have been placed on probation, prompting many students to suspect a deliberate crackdown by the administration. Safety and Security officers have repeatedly staked out houses to catch brothers unloading unregistered kegs and Beta was derecognized fall term.

Furthermore, Dean Pelton has recently reconvened the College Committee on Alcohol and Other Drugs. The Committee issued a report last term, which criticized the College's keg policy. The report was also critical of the system of self-monitoring, claiming that the monitors have never turned in a single underage drinker. Although the Committee has not released its final report, students anticipate further change in the College's alcohol and monitoring policies, and fear that kegs might be banned again.

Dean Pelton's legacy is still incomplete. With his prototype, the East Wheelock Cluster, only in its first year and dormitory life remaining much the same as when he arrived, he has done little to effect much change in that area of residential life. Things look a bit worse for the Greek system. Despite his initial aid to fraternities, Pelton has consistently worked to undermine their prominence in Dartmouth.

The Legacy of Dean Lee Pelton

Article Tools

Related Articles