Students received the final recommendations of the Committee on the First-Year Experience with a mixture of disappointment and relief yesterday.
In a report released to the College community yesterday, Dean of the College Lee Pelton drastically scaled down the committee's original proposals. The final recommendations call for a mixed-class cluster with more resources than other clusters, including a dean, a senior faculty advisor and additional programming space.
The report also proposes the creation of a faculty committee to investigate how to better link residential life and intellectual life and a review of student housing needs by the Office of Residential Life to determine if the College should build more beds.
Some students, like Student Assembly Vice President John Honovich '97, said by altering the committee's recommendations Pelton has "sacrificed the substance behind the plan."
But others, including Student Assembly President-elect Jim Rich '96 said he was "very pleased" overall with the final recommendations.
"In particular, I am pleased that [Pelton] took into account the attitudes of students toward the idea of first-year dorms," Rich said.
The committee's original report called for "priority consideration" of the River and Choates residential clusters as designated first-year clusters, with first-year students assigned to one of these clusters based on their pre-enrollment in freshman seminars.
Honovich said, "In an attempt to appease everyone, Dean Pelton has satisfied no one."
"I think it is a watered-down, very political move to ensure that at least some part [of the plan] is passed," he said.
Honovich said although he opposed many of the original recommendations, he would "rather see the old version or nothing at all."
"I don't think these recommendations will achieve anything," he said.
John Strayer '96, a member of the original Committee on the First-Year Experience, said he was disappointed by the final recommendations because an opportunity to fundamentally change Dartmouth was wasted.
Strayer said he was first disappointed with Pelton, but said "you can't really blame him for what he did."
He said it would have been difficult for Pelton to forge ahead with the original proposals in light of student and alumni objections.
"In a way I'm disappointed with Dartmouth students," Strayer said. "I guess I wish that more students had been in favor of the plan."
Senior Class Vice President Hosea Harvey said he too was disappointed with the final recommendations because they do not adequately address the needs of the entire first-year class.
"The logical ground of the original report and the facts behind it were more well-supported than the ultimate decisions that were made," he said.
Harvey said as the intern in the Office of the President he recognizes the importance of compromise between students and administrators.
"In this case, however, it is unclear that the mixed class residential cluster is an effective medium between all first-year clusters and no first-year clusters," he said.
Harvey said steps could be taken to ensure a more meaningful trial period.
According to the report, the new recommendations will be adopted on a "trial basis with the understanding that a decision to go forward with an expanded program will be made based on [what] we learn during this trial period."
Harvey said, "It would have been desirable to try to explore putting this plan fully into effect in a limited capacity," rather than putting a limited plan into effect in a limited capacity, Harvey said.
But Harvey, like other students, said he commended Pelton for listening to student opinion.
Conservative Union at Dartmouth President Bill Hall '96 said his organization thought the original recommendations would have been detrimental to the campus.
"I'm very happy that it has been toned down and that freshman dorms have pretty much been eliminated," he said.
Hall said CUAD, who protested the idea of primarily freshman residence halls in January, has not yet discussed the final report. But he said he sees no harm in the administration experimenting with the recommendations.
Jim Brennan '96, who had been opposed to the idea of freshman dorms since the original report was released, said he was pleased with the final report because "it puts into effect a lot of the beneficial recommendations of the original report most people agreed upon."
"I think that it is good that Dean Pelton took a lot of opinion into account from both students and other Dartmouth community members," he said.
Brennan said he thinks it is "neat" that the proposals will be given a test run and that the committee's goals will be reached in a manner that is "acceptable to the Dartmouth community."
Claire Unis '95, wrote in an electronic-mail message she would like to see the issue of stability in upper-class students' housing addressed, but "it sounds like Dean Pelton got a clear indication from students that this was not the way to do it."
"The final first-year recommendations meet some but not all of the goals of the committee, which in fairness were extremely far-reaching and perhaps tried to do too much," she wrote.
