John Strayer '96 needs to have his voice heard.
"I don't know. Maybe I'm a bit of an egotist," Strayer explained. "I don't necessarily like having my way, but I certainly like to be heard."
That is why when he first came to the College, he immediately started writing columns for The Dartmouth and also signed up to work for both WFRD and WDCR, the two College radio stations, where he is now summer general manager.
That is also the reason he has since taken on leadership roles in organizations actively working to change campus life, as a member of the Committee on the First-Year Experience and as the first president of Amarna, the College's second undergraduate society.
Strayer, a 20-year-old philosophy major who considers himself a "common-sense moderate," is an opinionated person who is not afraid to let people know what he thinks.
"It gets me in trouble sometimes," he said. "At a Trustee dinner, I thought there were a couple of Trustees who thought I was a little ... " Strayer paused for a minute, "precocious."
"In general I think it's a pretty good way to go," he continued. "Maybe it's some kind of life plan. Everyone wants to feel like they are doing their best and for whatever reason, that means being heard."
Strayer said he takes a certain amount of joy when someone picks up a point he is trying to make in a column or a committee meeting.
"For me, if I write a column that someone says 'right on,' or 'that was a good column,' that to me is a sign that I did my job," he said. "One of my criteria is that people read it and light bulbs go on."
Beyond the columns
Strayer does not limit his activities to columns and the radio station. Last spring Dean of the College Lee Pelton selected Strayer to join the residential life sub-committee, which perhaps made the First-Year Committee's most dramatic recommendation: all-freshman dorms.
"It was the first time I'd ever seen faculty, students and administrations interacting, and I found that fascinating," he said. "When you put people in a room like that and ask them to talk about Dartmouth, there are so many ideas that are generated."
During the committee meetings, Strayer said he felt like he was very involved in the discussion and that people were listening to him.
"He's very perceptive and that came through during our committee deliberations," Pelton said.
As Amarna's president, he is working to set up the house's membership drive next fall.
But he almost didn't join Amarna.
When he came to campus this fall, he said he "basically wanted to join a Greek house," but "for whatever reason, it didn't work out."
"Actually, I think things worked out for the best -- if I had joined a Greek house, I wouldn't have joined Amarna," he said.
And now Strayer said Amarna is the most important thing to him at Dartmouth. He said he enjoys meeting and getting to know people in Amarna's coed atmosphere.
Strayer said he does not necessarily consider an undergraduate society inherently better than a Greek house, but said that "there are certainly a lot of factors that would attract someone to Amarna."
If a students is looking for an organization with a strong alumni base and many rituals and traditions, "Amarna sucks," Strayer said matter-of-factly.
"But if other things are important to you -- like dealing with everyone in your organization as your peer, if its important that you deal with the opposite sex in a situation very similar to ones you face for the rest of your life, than Amarna's probably better than a lot of other social organizations," he said.
His Dartmouth experience
During the past two years, Strayer said he also has learned a lot about the College. He still loves Dartmouth, but now "I'm just not as blindly in love with it, which I think is a deeper attachment, to see all the faults and still be attached to it."
Some problems he sees at the College include a lack of residential continuity and gender inequity.
"A lot of it is the way the social system seems to be arranged, where at any given party the women in the room are always guests," he said. "In some cases the sororities, instead of trying to do their own things, are trying to out-fraternity the fraternities."
But at the same time, Strayer said there are very good reasons why the fraternity system should exist at Dartmouth.
Yet, Strayer sees imminent changes in the social scene
"I think that at some point down the line there definitely is going to be a shake-up," he said. "How long that is, I have no idea. Things as they are now are anachronistic, and we haven't reached a settled position where things can rest for 50 years.
"Jokingly I say we should get into the 1980s any time now," he said. "We're going in an extremely positive direction ... It's an exciting time to be at Dartmouth because things are changing. In a lot of ways we're just starting to deal with coeducation -- but the hardest things to do are already done."
One sign that Dartmouth is getting better is that many students are seeing some of the College's negatives, Strayer said. In the past, students would not see any reason for change, he added.
And Strayer considers himself one of the questioners -- someone who is neither a liberal, a conservative or an idealist, just someone who brings issues to the discussion table and offers his views on them.
"I want to walk out of here after four years feeling like I've made my mark," Strayer said.
"Some people want to make their mark academically," he said, "some on the social scene. For me, I've made the choice that I sort of want to make my mark vocalizing on campus issues."
