Currentfashion around campus, and particularly on this page, is for administrators, students and writers to bemoan the supposed lack of intellectualism at Dartmouth. Often this criticism takes the form of thinly veiled frat-bashing or assaults on other bastions of the Old Dartmouth: sexist, Greek and anti-intellectual.
The proposed solutions to this affliction usually involve either massive reworking of the entire Dartmouth system or a dramatic paradigm shift among students. Neither is a realistic solution, however, and the diagnosis reflects mistaken assumptions about the College's role.
Intellectualism may be partially linked to a social milieu which promotes free thinking and discussion of ideas, but such a setting cannot be created through deliberate policies to change the nuances of student interaction on a college campus. Rather, we should focus on smaller steps that, put together, provoke a more dynamic atmosphere.
Such stimuli can take many forms. Guest speakers and forums, such as the well-attended conference on the future of the U.N., take thought-provoking issues outside the classroom. Newspapers serve the same role for both readers and staff. Student organizations can also be a source of interesting and controversial issues.
For the most part, Dartmouth does a good job of promoting these types of activities, but it should do more. Finding money to cover speaking fees often involves patching together meager contributions from 20 different organizations. Increased funding would help ensure that the College does not lose potential speakers because of a few dollars in transportation costs or honoraria.
The same goes for newspapers and organizations. College money is better spent on these small-scale goals than on massive reforms of residential life or student-faculty relations.
Smaller classes, expanded course offerings, and increases in the relatively low salaries of Dartmouth professors would help as well. These categories of spending are more likely to promote intellectualism than indirect means.
On a larger scale, construction of a more user-friendly library, which gives students more opportunity to interact, would be a great improvement over the time-tested but rather forbidding stacks of Baker. The College should keep that idea in mind throughout the North Campus expansion project.
The recommendations of the First-Year Committee are a separate issue. Dartmouth may or may not gain intellectually from the proposed changes; realistically, the results are difficult, if not impossible, to predict.
Smaller reforms, such as bringing back the Freshman Lecture during Orientation Week, are more important, but these steps should not be expected to transform Dartmouth intellectual life. Cumulatively, though, they will have an impact.
However, this entire debate creates a false dichotomy between the desired intellectualism and an opposing, presumably anti-intellectual view. The issue of Dartmouth's uniqueness should not center around frat parties, but on a view of education that differs fundamentally from that of other Ivy League schools.
One college guide notes that Harvard students study the world for its own sake, but at Dartmouth, students are more interested in applying their knowledge to practical pursuits. This tendency is often confused with anti-intellectualism, but it is merely a different perspective, and it is one of Dartmouth's unique attributes.
In a time when academia is seen as disconnected from the "real-world," most schools would benefit from students who view themselves as active participants in the worlds of government and business rather than inhabitants of an ivory tower.
Some Dartmouth students do use that excuse to ignore their intellectual life, and it is probably linked to the widespread perception of Dartmouth as devoid of true scholars. In addition, intellectualism and the ivory tower syndrome are by no means inextricably linked. However, a pragmatic mindset has the potential to be one of Dartmouth's most impressive strengths.
Ivy League schools are often criticized for being too intellectual. Students are encouraged to spend much of their lives pursuing an endless series of degrees, and the outside world of jobs and competition is seen as something to avoid. On the other hand, bartending academies, for example, avoid such criticisms but are hardly great institutions of learning.
Dartmouth has the potential to break away from this catch-22, to be a prestigious school without being an ivory tower. President Freedman's translators of Catullus should be welcome here, but so should students who use their education as a tool to earthly gains.
The debate over intellectualism has the potential to change Dartmouth's way of life fundamentally. Before engaging in this headlong rush to be "more like Harvard," however, we should examine ways to improve on Dartmouth's unique brand of intellectualism, which could eventually be a model for other schools.
