Ellis on the Review Today

By Michael Ellis | Friday, April 21, 2006

Some might wonder why today’s Review seems more sedate than its predecessors, which, of course, it is. Circumstances are different now than they were in the 1980s: during my editorship, not many staffers have been bitten by enraged professors, let alone suspended or expelled from Dartmouth by an administrative kangaroo court. To be sure, there are still attacks on the Review in some corners: our offices were vandalized and burglarized two years ago, and there’s been an effort to keep the newspaper out of the dormitories. Dartmouth has changed a great deal over the past twenty-five years—for the better and for the worse—and the Review has changed with it, staying all the while true to its original mission. It is with irony that we note that the same people who once attacked the Review for its supposed offensiveness now attack it for not being attacked by them enough.

James Wright is no James Freedman. Wright is more indirect, discreet, perhaps underhanded. The situation on the ground simply doesn’t warrant the kind of tactics the Review employed during the eighties and early nineties, which would ring hollow today.

The Review today, then, faces a new challenge. How can we reconcile our original mission of providing a conservative perspective on campus affairs with an academic environment that is less ideological, less easily offended, than ever? By less ideological I mean several things. Liberalism on campus remains, but it is not quite so loud. Most professors are professional, and leave their politics to the antiwar protests and the teach-ins. The faculty and administrators may still be as doggedly liberal as ever, but they are quieter in their zealotry. These changes are testament to battles won, early on, by The Dartmouth Review. There hasn’t been another Professor Cole because the Review stared down—twice—Cole’s first incarnation.

In light of those changes, today’s Review relies less on theatrics and more on the fundamentals of conservative journalism: the depth and detail that long-form journalism can lend to complex subjects, its willingness to raise issues that other campus publications are too lazy to approach, its devotion to Dartmouth’s history and traditions that might otherwise fall by the wayside, its unswerving devotion to a core vision of a College that provides a superior liberal arts education, and its ability to do all of these things while simultaneously introducing an air of levity and humor into the campus and alumni debate.

This formula continues to drive campus debate. For instance, last year the Review invited Harvard professor Harvey Mansfield to campus; he was asked to take part in a debate on manliness and masculinity. When we asked the Center for Women and Gender to field a suitable opponent, its representatives informed us that CWG does not believe “public debate to be a method conducive to furthering its aims on campus.”

This response seems to be largely representative of the new campus atmosphere. When I noted that the campus atmosphere was less ideological, perhaps it would be more accurate to say ideologically comfortable or ideologically settled. This is why the Review remains important today. Almost every substantive issue the Review raises—library funding, the Student Life Initiative, new campus construction, a core curriculum, the opacity (or lack thereof) of the administrative budget, Dartmouth’s Speech program, the state of freshman writing, Dartmouth’s admissions standards and their effect on athletics, the recent rash of faculty departures, and perhaps most importantly, alumni Trustee elections—would go unscrutinized and undiscussed without the Review’s influence. Whenever the administration is on the cusp of making a major change that will indelibly affect Dartmouth’s future, they can count on the Review to analyze it from a reasoned, detached, and conservative perspective.

It is perhaps in the realm of alumni Trustee elections where the Review has had its greatest impact over recent years. The election of T. J. Rodgers ’70, Peter Robinson ’79, and Todd Zywicki ’88 to Dartmouth’s Board of Trustees were landmark events. They were positive proof that the ultimate aim of William F. Buckley’s God and Man at Yale —increased alumni control over how contribution dollars are spent—is ultimately attainable. We are hanging on now to that goal by our fingertips; but soon it could be in our grasp. Additionally, their election has led to a welter of important changes at the College. The moratorium on new Greek houses has been lifted. A stultifying speech code has been repealed. The workings of College finances are gradually becoming more apparent, though slowly, like a photograph in the developing bath.

The Review’s role in the successful candidacies of Rogers, Robinson, and Zywicki was indisputable: the paper thoroughly outlined their campaign agenda, and provided in-depth coverage of ongoing election stories and issues on our website (which was garnering 2,500 unique hits a day at the height of the election). It was a spur for thousands of alumni to participate. The election showed the Review’s agenda moving from the fringes of the campus debate to the mainstream.

As the College moves ahead, then, we remain cautiously optimistic. There have been many recent changes for the better. It would be naive to believe, however, that the trends will continue unless the Review and others who care about the College continue their hard work. The gains of the past few years could easily slip away if the Review does not continue to be vigilant in its work. In the immediate future, the stakes could hardly be higher—the Greek system is still on tenuous footing, the effects of the new construction on campus life have yet to be seen, and the alumni will be called upon to fill more seats of the Board of Trustees. Fittingly enough, the first twenty-five years of the Review’s history closes just as it began, with a traditionally minded alumni body and student base galvanized by events.

I have no doubt future Review staffers will continue to cover all of those developments and more in their quest to make Dartmouth a better place—and neither do I doubt they will face today’s same mix of scornful and welcoming reactions on campus when they do so.

Ellis on the Review Today

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