Through Green-Colored Glasses

By Daniel F. Linsalata | Sunday, October 1, 2006

In the midst of the doldrums of this past summer, between a corporate job that siphoned off more than a bit of my soul and an extended visit to Dartmouth because there is no other place I would rather be, I went on an eBay shopping spree. I amassed quite a collection of Dartmouth paraphernalia, none of it less than sixty years old. My best find was a slim, 1937 volume written by Leon Richardson, a member of the class of 1900 and former chemistry professor at the College, entitled Dartmouth College: A Statement of its Objectives, Achievements, and Opportunities. In the final chapter, regarding “The Soul of the College,” Richardson eloquently portrays Dartmouth as “a continuing institution; its vitality is not limited by time or space; it holds steadfast to its purpose and maintains its ideals, unaffected by the ephemeral lives of men. It is true that its impact is ever changing, its methods are continually revised…”

The only true gripe students, and even alumni, can have with the College today is that this final clause seems to have trumped the centuries of timelessness and tradition encapsulated in the phrases preceding it. Dartmouth is not Harvard, and thank God for that. Yet there are those who are not happy about this. On your Dartmouth Outing Club trips, you almost certainly met two types of people: those who were rejected from Harvard and “settled” for Dartmouth, and those who had the good sense to make our hallowed institution their first choice. Upper classes and graduates can similarly be segmented: those who still suffer an inferiority complex but nonetheless could not be paid enough to go elsewhere, and those who simply develop such a filial love for the Hanover Plain that all other places become irrelevant. I can only hope that, even if you came here in the former group of freshmen, you will join the latter group of sons and daughters of Dartmouth by the time you shake President Wright’s hand for the final time and are ceremonially whisked off to all corners of the girdled earth.

The transformation is subtle, though noticeable. Far from an active process, you simply grow to understand “bleeding green” as far more than a euphemism for over-consumption on St. Patrick’s Day.

Danger lurks, however. As the Harvard inferiority complex has become more ingrained in our institutional mentality, certain people have come to believe that to reach its full potential, Dartmouth needs to essentially become a second-rate Harvard; a large, research-oriented university with hundreds of thousands of groveling alumni who donate money out of a sense of arm-twisting obligation rather than true passion; a university where students may see one real professor in their first two years of study; a university… in a bustling metropolis. Dartmouth is obviously none of these things, and nor should she be. Nor can she be without sacrificing the fundamental identity that we cling to so dearly in Hanover.

It is difficult to say from where this twisted vision of Harvard in Hanover arose, but the easy culprit is the late President, James O. Freedman, James Wright’s immediate predecessor. Freedman once expressed to a Trustee his inner desire to be president of Harvard. In the meantime, he was content to attempt to transform Dartmouth into Harvard. His ideal student was the “creative loner” who spent his Saturday nights in his dorm “mastering the cello or translating Catullus.” Quite the proposition for fostering a dynamic, social academy, eh?

Unfortunately, Freedman’s vision stuck. It has manifested itself myriad ways, from cutting teaching requirements for professors to bolstering research funding; the demise of the writing and speech programs to the recent departure of some of Dartmouth’s best professors; and, most noticeably, a strict regimen of hand-holding, indoctrination, and “alternative social options” (all remnants of the recently-defunct Student Life Initiative, a thinly-veiled assault on the Greek system) to ensure a mind-numbing uniformity in the experiences and decision-making of Dartmouth students.

Somewhere in the past decade, various people have thought that, somehow, all of this was a good idea. Unfortunately, they simultaneously ascended to power on the Board of Trustees and in various alumni bodies. As we speak, these powers that be are in the process of trying to force through a new constitution for the Alumni Association which, in short, will solidify their hold on power and make it nigh impossible for those in opposition to change it. The document is confusing, mind-numbingly long, and wantonly anti-democratic. (It also happens to be, by far, the most important issue facing Dartmouth in the immediate. You can read an executive summary on page 9.)

So what can you, individually and as the Class of 2010, do about all the administrative meddling and imposed visions? The simplest answer is, well, nothing. That’s right: do nothing. Ignore all of it. Decrees and actions on the part of Dartmouth’s administration are unquestionably influential, usually directly affecting students. Happily, they are also easily ignored. I cannot recall one instance in my career at Dartmouth in which administrative actions have impeded my sheer enjoyment of the place or diminished my love for it. It is difficult for anybody to fundamentally change an institution if those people who comprise it, the undergraduates, simply go on about their lives, oblivious to the pronouncements being imposed upon them. For the time being, Dartmouth is still Dartmouth.

If self-imposed apathy seems a bit passive for your taste, allow me to proffer another suggestion: write for The Dartmouth Review. The Review is the perfect outlet to objectively and critically analyze the administration, the faculty, the students, and every other facet of the College; a counter-balance to the endemic nonsense pervading through Dartmouth today. Our staff is articulate, sharp-witted, and acutely inimical to taking ourselves too seriously. We steep ourselves in intelligent discourse, Dartmouth tradition, and heady libations. If any or all of this is appealing, if the minefield of campus discourse becomes overwhelming, or if you would like to contribute to our pages, our doors are open to all who are interested.

May you have the best of luck as you take your first steps in your transformation from pea-green freshmen to passionate sons and daughters of Dartmouth.

Through Green-Colored Glasses

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