Original Article: http://dartreview.com/archives/2004/06/01/the_week_in_review.php
Tuesday, June 1, 2004
"Campus Confronts Caterpillar Problem"
A larger-than-usual brood of forest tent caterpillars emerged two weeks ago, making difficult even short walks across campus. The College responded with pesticides, and hopes that this year's overpopulation will lead to a decline in next year's caterpillar numbers.
Dartmouth's Coke Problem
To the chagrin of very few and the surprise of fewer, Dartmouth-brand spring water is not, in fact, local. A Coca-Cola subsidiary makes the expensive refreshment. The Daily Dartmouth managed to root out the few students who actually cared.
Vice City, In a Way
Poker, both online and among friends, has become the newest trend on campus. Students have flocked to No Limit Hold 'Em poker, prompting Hanover Police to contact the New Hampshire Attorney General's office to examine the possibility of pressing charges against students.
The Daily Dartmouth profiled two freshmen who they said won nearly $50 thousand at an online gambling website. The paper said they developed a gambling addiction.
Some fraternities and independent groups of students have taken to organizing weekly games, usually worth between $5 and $100. Undeterred by the threat of a police crackdown—which would be of dubious legality—a group of students participated on May 22nd in what they called Dartmouth World Series of Poker, a $60 no-limit game.
News Flash: Reporter Calls Iraq 'Quagmire'
New York Times correspondent Michael Gordon, speaking to a middle-aged crowd at Dartmouth on May 21st, described American involvement in Iraq as a "quagmire," though he listed few alternatives to the current situation. Although he did mention some of the positive accomplishments of the Iraqi conflict, including the rapid three-week war and the removal of brutal dictator Saddam Hussein, most of his presentation focused on US failures. He noted in particular American failure to prevent looting in Baghdad and the noninvolvement of the United Nations, its recent embezzlement scandals notwithstanding. Mr. Gordon was adamant, though, that the United States leave Iraq a functioning state. Interestingly, his suggestions for improving Iraq largely echoed those of President George W. Bush.
Fingers Too Sticky
Five Middlebury College students pleaded guilty on May 18th to the April theft of various items from Dartmouth Greek houses as part of a plea bargain. Four also acknowledged the underage possession of alcohol, a felony in New Hampshire. The five students were discovered in the early morning hours of April 15th in a sport utility vehicle loaded with paraphanelia from fraternities and sororities, including several composites and various plaques and memorabilia.
College Students: Pathetic
Researchers at Florida State University recently published a study about alcohol consumption amongst college students. The study sought to measure any correlation between race and rates of drinking. It confirmed that black students tend to drink less than whites.
Out of a pool of about 1,100 students, the average white student drank four days monthly, and the typical black student drank under three days in the same period. The average white student in the study had over five drinks in the past month, whereas the average black student had a paltry two and a half. Whites also engaged in binge drinking over twice monthly—double the African-American rate.
New Basketball Coach
The Athletic Department has named University of Colorado assistant coach Terry Dunn the replacement for longtime basketball coach Dave Faucher, who resigned after a 20-year tenure when his contract with the College was not renewed. In his thirteen years as head coach, Faucher brought the Indians to two second-place Ivy finishes, but more recently the team's fortunes have faded. This season's 4-24 record and 18-game losing streak placed Dartmouth at the very bottom of the NCAA. Dartmouth hopes that Coach Dunn will be able to rebuild the decrepit basketball program. He has said that the team's goal is "none other than to win an Ivy League title," an ambitious task.
When he coached at Colorado and Colorado State, Dunn played an instrumental role in rebuilding their programs, taking the Colorado Buffaloes to three NIT and two NCAA tournament appearances. Previously, Dunn had coached the Army and Air Force basketball teams. Dunn, now the twenty-sixth head basketball coach, vied with over a hundred other applicants for the appointment.
College Finances Improving
Over the last few years, the administration's management of Dartmouth's finances has been resulted in significant losses. As the College's investments experienced miniscule growth—lower than the rate of inflation—the administration spent like a drunken sailor, cutting into the endowment and cutting funding for everything from the swim team to Sanborn library. Last year, the endowment's two percent growth was considered a success—the second lowest rate of return in the Ivy League.
It seems that Dartmouth's finances are finally improving, though. For fiscal year 2004, the endowment had a 16 percent return, and is now valued at $2.4 billion. What's more, the College actually projects an operating budget surplus of $5 million. While the endowment is good news, we're not holding our breath about the surplus.
Syracuse Orangemen
Syracuse University is in the process of changing its nickname and its sports teams' uniforms as part of an identity remake. The twenty-one Syracuse sports teams will now be called the Orange, instead of the previous Orangemen and Orangewomen. The name change was the first step in making the Syracuse athletic program more inclusive. To further that goal, Syracuse Athletic Director Jake Crouthamel also felt that there should be heavy emphasis placed on teams wearing orange.
Chris McClure, the creative director for Nike Team Sports, said he is looking for a return to the "Jim-Brown-esque" days of Syracuse, when the football jerseys were orange with navy numbers. The choice of orange with blue accents for Syracuse uniforms marks the first time that the school will have designated, consistent colors for all sports teams since they did away with rose pink and blue in 1890.
Because of Nike's production schedule, it will be impossible to get the new jersey onto the football team this season, but McClure hopes to have the new uniforms ready to the 2005 season. Basketball and teams will soon follow, as the new logos and colors are gradually phased in.
Many feel that these steps will increase Syracuse exposure, because "anyone can pick up a newspaper or turn on the television and see one of the school's teams and instantly identify it with the Orange." Others could not see what the big deal is. Syracuse men's basketball coach Jim Boeheim said that the identity makeover would not make much of a difference, as the school is already identified by the color orange. "We've always been Orange," he stated. "What's the difference?"
Interweblogging Too Much
Harvard University recently fired an undergraduate coordinator for the Committee on Degrees in Social Studies at Harvard University for posts to her online weblog. For two years, Amy Burch had included a link to her weblog in her e-mail signature. Just recently, students and staff bothered to follow that link to www.AnnoyYourFriends.com and then to her "blog" and found a myriad of startling posts.
On April 28th she wrote, "Work is aggravating me, I am one shade lighter than homicidal today." She continued on, "I am two snotty e-mails from professors away from bombing the entire Harvard campus." In another post she declared that she was "ready to get a shotgun and declare open season on all senior faculty members and students who dared cross [her]." One of her strongly-written posts named both of her supervisors, denouncing one's "random freaking out" and the other's "anal retentive control freakishness." Enough, apparently, to check their employee's weblogs.
Failures Across Dartmouth
Dartmouth's Student Assembly has again decided to provide cheap bicycles to students in a communal sharing program. Called Rides Across Dartmouth, the program would provide ten bright green bikes for students to use—if they can find one, with a 400-to-one ratio. 2001's Big Green Bikes program, also run by the Assembly, saw a number of problems, including theft and neglect. Still, Assembly leaders remained optimistic. Kirsten Murray '07 idealistically opined that with luck, "people will respect the rules we laid out and we'll be able to get more bikes." In the meantime, The Dartmouth Review would like to commend Student Assembly on its innovative method to waste $1000 in student funds.
Dartmouth Inexplicably Popular
The admissions office once again overshot its enrollment goal, as 1,095 accepted students submitted letters of intent for the class of 2008. Although this exceeds both the 1,070-student goal and the anticipated fifty percent yield, Dean of Admissions Karl Furstenberg expects normal attrition over the summer to thin the ranks slightly, as Harvard, Princeton and Yale clear their waiting lists. The overfilled class spells particularly bad news for waitlisted students, both for prospective '08s as well as '07s who came up empty in room draw.
While mean SAT scores jumped signifcantly, racial diversity numbers are down slightly from the Class of 2007. Minority matriculants comprise 30.4 percent of the incoming class, as opposed to 32.8 percent of '07s. Additionally, fewer students will be receiving financial aid, consistent with a slight increase in enrollment of legacies and students from private schools.
Artists Starving, Form Union
Bemoaning low salaries, cold rooms, and air clouded with paint fumes and charcoal dust, employees at Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia voted to join a union. Nude art model Claire Hankins explained, "We were at a loss about how to get the schools to pay attention to us."
Serry's To Close
Longtime local merchant Serry's Clothiers and Tailors, will be closing after serving Hanover residents and Dartmouth students for ninety-seven years from its Lebanon Street storefront. Co-owner Christopher Zappala, who is retiring, cited more casual styles and the rise in popularity of big-name labels as two reasons why the store no longer does the business it once did among those in the College community. As College traditions like the senior Green blazer and patch fell by the wayside, student shopping dropped off as well. In addition to retirement of Zappala, the closing will end the careers of the three Serry's tailors, in their eighties. Students and locals alike will miss the dependability, quality, and person-to-person service Serry's has provided the community for almost a century.
The Dartmouth Bookstore—another widely-recognized local institution and the nation's oldest family-owned bookstore—has been in negotiations to sell its space to multiple unnamed national chains throughout the spring.
The disappearance of these two businesses will indeed change the Hanover landscape forever, and sadly, the replacement is likely to be more generic chains such as Dunkin Donuts, recently opened inside Food Stop.
Rugby Will Have a New Home
The Dartmouth Rugby Football Club recently held a symbolic groundbreaking, after years of waiting, for its own clubhouse. Players, alumni and College administrators attended the ceremony at Garipay Field, where construction will being this summer on the Corey Ford Rugby Clubhouse.
The 65,000 square-foot clubhouse, named for rubgy team founder Cory Ford, will feature men's and women's locker rooms, a coach's room, a training room, and a large social space.
Team members hope that the physical plant will help legitimize their sport, often viewed as a haven for alcoholic rebels. The actual groundbreaking will not take place until the summer, due to complications in obtaining a building permit from the town of Hanover. The team decided to stick with the May 8 ceremony so that the groundbreaking could be held while this year's seniors remained on campus.