Letter From 'President Pelton': A Satire

Wednesday, November 19, 1997

Office of the President of the College, 6003 Parkhurst Hall, Rm. 107 • Tel. (603) 646-3901

M. Lee Pelton
President of the College

November 21, 2003

To: The Dartmouth Community
From: Lee Pelton
Subject:Report of the Committee on Alcohol and Other Drugs (CCAOD)

The sweeping reforms of the College's alcohol policy instituted in 1991 and 1997 have proved complete failures. Despite the fact that the national drinking age has been lowered to eighteen (18), this Committee still determines it legally imperative that steps be taken, immediately, just in case legislators change their minds, to combat the still-rampant problem of heavy episodic drinking — now defined as having one (1) beer in any one (1) sitting in any one (1) year. This represents a significant problem that requires a significant change in the status quo.

The report includes recommendations that:

1. The current monitoring policy is a failure. Safety and Security Officers will now reside in the five remaining CFS houses. Officer Degrasse has already requested a room at KDE, and Rebel Roberts has requested a room at Theta Delta Chi, since 'I heard Jerry Jeff Walker used to play there.' In addition, former CCAOD chair and College legal council Sean Gorman has volunteered to live in any CFS house, because 'I need a friend. Won't someone be my friend. I mean, we all need love.'

2. All CFS members must attend weekly training sessions which will include reruns from the popular 1980's cartoons 'Rainbow Brite,' 'The Get-Along Gang,' and 'Fat Albert.'

3. The mandatory ending time for all CFS parties is now 10 p.m. Last year, I changed the earliest permissable starting party time to 11 p.m. Given the new keg formulas compiled by the Office of Residential Life, fraternities will now use the following formula, developed by College researcher John Pryor:
{[ln(# of house members) • sin(# of acapella group members in said house) / • ...(ml of water consumed by house pets per day) • 1/number of dry pledges ] • O} - 3

4. The new limit for total alcohol on campus for any given weekend will be three (3) kegs, two (2) forty-ounce containers of Olde English 800, and a big 'ol bottle of Boone's.

5. Current disciplinary penalties for keg violations — i.e. loss of rush for first offense, complete derecognition for second offense — have only resulted in the derecognition of 12 CFS houses. This is not nearly enough. Therefore, we recommend the following revisions to the policy. First offense: Public Flogging of implicated house's social chair on the Green. Second Offense: Incarceration, deportation, definestration, and/or castration of violating house's President in a North Korean Work Camp, for a period no less than nineteen (19) months. Per keg.

Letter From 'President Pelton': A Satire

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