For the last couple of weeks everyone has been talking about "last times." "This is the last time we'll be in Baker." "This is the last time we ever have to eat in Food Court." "This is the last time we will ever use the second floor bathroom in the Hop." We're leaving.
What do you get when you mix hard work, late nights, caffeine, WordPerfect, breadsticks, pencils, notepads and almost 100 students? You get The Dartmouth, America's Oldest College Newspaper. Five mornings a week, The Dartmouth is distributed to students' Hinman mail boxes at the Hopkins Center, full of news about campus events, Dartmouth sports and the outside world. "The D," as The Dartmouth is commonly referred to on campus, is the College's only daily, independent source of news and is essential for anyone who wants to know what's going on. Completely student run, The Dartmouth has no ties to the College.
With a little more than 1,000 students on campus, summer should have been a quiet term at Dartmouth.
Two weeks ago, sorority sisters and fraternity brothers ate hamburgers and mingled on the well-kept lawn of the nicest house on fraternity row at the invitation of College President James Freedman. Having only recently returned from his six-month sabbatical, Freedman said he was more than happy to get back into the routine of the College's top administrator. "There are two things you miss," said Freedman, who spent his sabbatical in Cambridge, Mass.
All students who applied for Fall housing will receive rooms
Adam Nelson '97 has one of the biggest necks, pound-for-pound on campus. During the football season Nelson said his neck measures 21 inches around, but at the present time it's only a delicate 20 inches in circumference.
Cate Avoes '98 was arrested early Sunday morning on a charge of burglary with the intent to commit criminal mischief when she broke into a Dartmouth professor's home, according to a press release from Hanover Police. According to the release, Avoes, 19, was arrested just after midnight in the act of vandalism in the kitchen area of the residence of Philosophy Instructor David Sosa. The release stated police responded to a 911 call from the downstairs tenants of the house, who reported hearing breaking glass in the main living area of the residence. Avoes is acquainted with Sosa, the release stated, but no further details were available as to the motive. "I was making a film, and I had David Sosa's permission to be in the house to film a scene that involved a little breakage, but the people downstairs hadn't been told.
College Registrar Thomas Bickel said the new course dropping procedures instituted at the beginning of the term, which allow students to drop courses more easily, have so far been successful. The procedures, approved almost unanimously by the faculty last spring, allow students to drop a course without consequence for the first two weeks of any term. For the third week of the term until two weeks before the last class of the term, students are able to drop a class without their professor'spermission.
They manage to walk backwards for miles without tripping over while explaining the Dartmouth-Plan to a group of high school kids in less than three minutes. No, they're not magicians.
Before beginning renovations on Robinson Hall, the College employed a private company last week to remove asbestos from a number of its first-floor rooms. Assistant Director of Facilities Planning Jack Wilson said the asbestos removed from the rooms was contained in the floor tiles, for which asbestos fibers were used as a binding agent. The rooms were formerly the offices of Outdoor Programs. "Asbestos in this form is a very low level of hazard unless the fiber is broken up," Wilson said. He added that before removal, the asbestos presented "no danger at all" because it was not flaking off into the atmosphere. In the rooms, Wilson said, the asbestos containing tiles were covered by carpet, but by moving the carpet, some of the tiles were disturbed. This proceedure created a health hazard. "This is a pretty standard type of procedure," Wilson said. Kathy Decato, a full-time administrative assistant in the Outdoor Programs offices said she was at first worried by the idea she had been working around asbestos. But Decato said she now realizes that in a stable form, asbestos presents almost no danger. Wilson said asbestos fibers "can be found around campus in many locations." Between the early 1950s and the early 1970s, Wilson said asbestos fibers were often used as a binding agent. Wilson said it has been College policy over the last 10 years to remove the asbestos on a systematic basis. Now, he said, few buildings remain with a lot of asbestos in them, but it does still exist in "a few pockets" on campus. "Much of the tile throughout Robinson Hall does have asbestos fibers in it," he said. Wilson said in many instances the College has removed asbestos from Robinson Hall. Remaining areas like overhead piping joints insulated with asbestos fibers will need to be removed during the building's renovations, he said. New Hampshire has quite stringent laws about asbestos, Wilson said. "If the asbestos itself is in a stable condition it doesn't have to be removed, but any time you need to disturb asbestos ... then the asbestos needs to be removed in an approved manner," Wilson explained. Removing the asbestos last week was "fairly expensive," Wilson said.