Dartmouth's War on Fun

By Stefan M. Beck | Friday, June 11, 2004

In the 1985 film Real Genius, Chris Knight (Val Kilmer) and his cadre of young science savants turn their dorm into an ice skating rink. (The 'ice,' a homemade chemical marvel, passes from solid to gas without an intervening liquid state.) And this is among Knight's milder pranks. The film culminates in Knight's gang sabotaging an orbital military laser; they use it to destroy their wicked professor's house by cooking the metric tons of popcorn they've stashed inside. Here are hijinks on an astronomical scale.

— Routine behavior is now discouraged. —

Real Genius was one of the first films (Revenge of the Nerds being the only other noteworthy example) to subvert the established order of the college comedy: that is, uptight, homosocial losers v. dumb but good-natured alkies (alkies triumph). We find this guiding principle in all the greats, from John Cusack's The Sure Thing to Dartmouth's perennial favorite, Animal House. But Real Genius is something else. Its heroes may be 24-hour party people, but they're also intelligent and inventive. Fun and smart. In other words, just the sort of kids we'd like to find in the Class of 2007. But will we?

A little background. For years Dartmouth has been identified, whether fairly or not, with Animal House. The most recent Princeton Review survey ranked Dartmouth fifth in its 'Lots of Beer' category. We're fourth in 'The Best Quality of Life,' which must have something to do with the availability of free beer. (Mercifully, there is no 'Quality of Beer' category, for reasons which will become clear with your first sip of Keystone Light.) Given all this, and Dartmouth's reputation, a new student might expect to spend four or five years in a gentle alcoholic fog.

Don't count on it—at least, don't count on finding it in a frat basement. Several years ago, Dartmouth's president, James Wright, found the College in decline. The student body had fallen prey to the depredations of Demon Rum. The frats, like the burlesque houses and opium dens of the Barbary Coast, were the source of the problem; and Wright, a man of strategic vision, wouldn't stand for it.

His solution was the SLI, or Student Life Initiative, which was unveiled on February 9, 1999. The purpose of Wright's Initiative was to advance alternative social and residential options on campus, and, more to the point, to discourage participation in Dartmouth's Greek system. The latter of these aims was given greater attention, and the SLI resulted in a host of changes for Greeks. Most notable were the forced revision of fraternity and sorority membership policies; the institution of Safety and Security's intrusive weekly building inspections; and the prohibition of permanent bars and taps.

There are a number of gripes against the frats (but fewer against sororities; they take their share of the heat in the name of gender equity). To name a few: Frats are exclusive. They're guilty of 'institutionalized misogyny.' They contribute nothing to society, save a few token acts of community service. Worst of all, they smell like inner-city men's shelters.

Yet ask why the SLI seeks to push Greeks to the margins, and you'll hear a lot of reassuring pap: "Oh, it's not about hurting the Greek system. It's about helping students create alternative social options." The facts give the lie to this claim. Frats aren't the only social or residential spaces being targeted by arcane rules and 'initiatives.' Many of Hanover's popular off-campus houses have been purchased by the College, for the purpose of blocking student access to them. In 1999, Wright explained, "I'd love to get back on campus what we think to be around two hundred students who currently live off campus." He's probably mostly succeeded.

Off-campus houses sure sound like 'alternative social spaces' to me. Why is the College bent on closing them down? It's simple. For two decades Dartmouth has been hostile to the idea of students getting together and making their own fun, sans supervision or structure. President James Freedman (the Emperor to Wright's Darth Vader) acknowledged that his ideal student was a 'creative loner,' and that he hoped Dartmouth would court said loners. Come again? We could use one or two pop-eyed, shell-shocked geniuses, but a whole school full of them? Some of us came here to make new friends, not to spend four years holed up in an attic, scribbling quatrains with a crow-quill pen.

Perhaps aware of this, Wright altered Freedman's plan. Instead of 'creative loners,' he pursued kids who, though social beings, would be put off by the noise and squalor of Webster Avenue. (What'd you think East Wheelock was all about?) These are the promising lads and lasses for whom the old Collis billiards room was transformed into a training-pants dance club called Poison Ivy, which failed, was renamed Fuel, continues to fail, and one day will be converted to a Chuck E. Cheese's or McDonald's PlayPlace. These are the kids who spend Green Key playing on a rented Moon Bounce, when they ought to be vomiting Rebel Yell on the AD lawn.

I don't mean to suggest that one always must drink, or even drink at all. (Hey, if you like dancing with yourself, Fuel is just the ticket.) The point is, SLI and related social engineering schemes aren't meant simply to keep you on the wagon. They're meant to accustom you to letting somebody else decide—what's fun, appropriate, or valuable to your college experience.

The Greek system is the SLI's enemy because it's an obstacle to this process. A few weeks at Dartmouth and the sights and sounds of Frat Row will be familiar to you. Yet it will remain unpredictable in this sense: you never know who you'll meet, what you'll talk about, where it'll lead. The same is true of off-campus parties or, if you're a freshman, room parties, which have been verboten from the start. These options put the fun in your hands.

Now compare these possibilities to the 'structured options' with which the College would replace them. Assuming first-year orientation hasn't much changed, or that it's worsened, it consists of left-liberal reprogramming, couched in activities so banal and controlled that the only thing freshmen come away with is a shared feeling of embarrassment. Play ice-breaking games on the BEMA all day and you may learn a few names; play Tree all night and your partner or opponent may become a lifelong friend.

Now we come to the sad truth: silly games or dry, awkward parties are exactly the sort of 'structured options' the College has in mind for you. I propose that Dartmouth is conducting a War on Fun—a new kind of war, fought on many fronts, from Frat Row to your dorm room. It becomes clearer every term that our school is in the hands of administrators who, to paraphrase Dr. Johnson, are not only dull themselves but the cause of dullness in others.

Just look at the riff-raff they embrace. Every year someone crusades against the Greeks, though it would be easier and less meddlesome just to stay out of frats. Invariably this grandstanding earns the kudos of the College or the Women's Resource Center.

Another example: This summer, a new student group called the BuzzFlood (formerly BlabberForce) decided Dartmouth needs an extreme makeover. It seems that store clerks, gas station attendants, and second cousins weren't snapping to attention at the mention of the school; so the Big Green needs a better brand, a better image—like Harvard's, for example. The rest of us were getting along fine at our obscure little college, but now we have to face facts: Dartmouth isn't twenty-first-century hip, and it's our duty to do something about it. The BuzzFlood has met with the administration. And the administration thinks this is a good idea.

So what does President Wright have in common with bitter anti-Greek agitators, or the BuzzFlood's junior-achievement marketing reps? They all want control. They want to interfere with a good thing, mold it in their own images, and ruin it. Wright wants the students distracted and docile, so they can be inculcated with the academy's orthodoxies. The Greek-haters want to make sure that if they can't enjoy themselves, no one will. The BuzzFlood wants to sully your college memories with the suspicion that you'd have been better off elsewhere.

Why can't they leave well enough alone?

With a little luck, some of you are saying, "This is paranoid. This is crazy talk. I'm having a great time at Dartmouth, in spite of the SLI. In fact, I don't even notice it." Glad to hear it. You are the College's hope—which brings us full circle, back to Chris Knight and his outrageous feats of derring-do. If Dartmouth really is undergoing a paradigm shift, away from its wicked old Animal House ways, why not make Real Genius the model for the College of today? Despite our best efforts, Wright has managed to put the Greek beast on a short leash. But if we can't be Blutos or D-Days anymore, we can at least be Chris Knights. Refuse to be told how to have a good time. Remind Dartmouth's administration that you came here to dream big dreams (and drink big drinks), and that when you need a second opinion, you'll ask for it.

Dartmouth's War on Fun

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