Dean of the College Lee Pelton will lead a "town meeting" this Thursday night to discuss the recommendations of the Committee on the First-Year Experience.
Pelton, who chaired the committee last year, said the meeting will give students the opportunity to learn more about the recommendations and to express their concerns.
Pelton said he hopes alternative suggestions arise from Thursday's meeting, but he said he does not know what to expect from students.
At Thursday's meeting, Pelton will make a presentation of the central recommendations of the report. This will be followed by short five-minute presentations by four student panelists, Jim Brennan '96, Theresa Ellis '97, Andy Schader '98 and John Strayer '96. Afterwards there will be a question and answer period.
Pelton said he is unsure exactly where the report will go from here but said he will have a clearer idea Friday morning.
"Student reaction is not the single determinant in what the next steps are," he said.
Pelton said he hopes to present a final report to the Board of Trustees at its meeting this spring.
The Trustees "have given the report as it currently is a vote of confidence," Pelton said.
Chair of the Board of Trustees John Rosenwald said the Trustees are anxious to hear how the "town meeting" turns out.
"I applaud the administration for undertaking this. It is one hell of a lot of work by Dean Pelton and his task force," Rosenwald said.
Rosenwald said it is possible not all recommendations in the report will be decided by the Trustees. Instead some, like having professors live in residence clusters, may be decided by the "operating management," he said.
The report will not be handed to the Trustees as an all-or-nothing package, Pelton said. But he said, "Clearly there will be some minimum package."
The recommendations are not set in stone, Pelton said. In fact, he has already tinkered with some of the original recommendations.
The report, issued last spring, proposed changes designed to improve the first-year experience by restructuring the College's residential system, enhancing intellectualism and revising the orientation process.
The original report recommended three Senior Faculty Fellow Clusters, where a Faculty member would reside with primarily first-year students.
The River Cluster and the Choate Cluster were originally chosen to be Senior Faculty Fellow Clusters, and a third cluster, the "Bema Cluster" consisting of Wheeler Hall, Richardson Hall and the Fayerweather Cluster, has been selected.
Other modifications include increasing the construction of new beds from 100 to about 140 beds and including a greater number of upperclass students in the Senior Faculty Fellow clusters.
Student reaction to the recommendations has been mixed. Pelton said most students who have had the opportunity to discuss the recommendations with him support the report. The majority of objections have come from students who "have reduced the whole issue to 'freshman dorms,' " he said.
"The problem is that so very few students have actually read the report and have had the opportunity to hear me discuss the recommendations and revisions," Pelton said.
Class of 1995 Vice President Hosea Harvey said many students have chosen to simplify the report into its main suggestions, "ignoring the fact that it is 35 comprehensive pages."
"As a class officer, I'm concerned that we really haven't discussed the full pros and cons of the report," Harvey said. "I also think that by and large it's not something that boils down to any one idea."
Harvey said the Coalition of Class Officers will meet with Pelton to discuss the report today.
A member of the committee, Strayer said he is supportive of the entire report.
Strayer said the meeting is a great opportunity for students and also said the report is in no way finalized.
"Dean Pelton really believes that good ideas come out of student debate," he said.
Brennan said although he agrees with the broader aims of the report, he does not support the single variants such as "freshman dorms," faculty fellows, or housing first-year students according to their freshmen seminars.
"I do not think it is beneficial to undergraduate social life. I think it stratifies the campus," Brennan said. "I see freshman dorms being too much of a huge, radical shift in the undergraduate life of the College."
Student Assembly Vice President John Honovich '97 said the Assembly began examining the report last week.
Honovich said the Assembly will submit a resolution stating its position, the results of a referendum or a report to the Trustees this spring but will have concluded its work by the end of this term.
"We will choose one of them. We probably could do two or three," Honovich said. "The town hall meeting is the beginning. By no stretch of the imagination is that the end of gathering student opinion. Things are going to get very intense."
President of the Conservative Union at Dartmouth Bill Hall '96 said CUAD does not support the report and may submit a proposal for changes to the report to Pelton later this term.
Hall said CUAD feels "freshman dormitories" insult the intelligence of upperclass students by saying that upperclass students would corrupt freshmen and that "freshman dormitories" give the administration the opportunity to "inoculate" freshmen with a liberal agenda.
Last term, 531 students signed a CUAD petition against freshman dorms. But Hall said he does support the basic aims of the report.
Pelton "claims those are his underlying aims. Those are not his real aims -- it is just a bunch of propaganda he is spouting," Hall said. "His real reason is to indoctrinate [freshmen] with his agenda."
Members of CUAD will attend Thursday's meeting, Hall said.
"We want to come into this situation willing to listen. I hope this is a two-way process," Hall said.
