ProspectiveWeek is over. Freshman Parents Weekend is over. The next horde of prospectives probably won't start coming up for a while. In other words, we've got the place to ourselves.
As I enjoy the scene from my comfy Mass Row triple, I worry that next spring, I will be admiring Vermont's foliage from a cramped room in the River, the Choates or wherever the Office of Residential Life winds leave me.
I made one of my monthly treks to the River Cluster yesterday, practicing for the endless times I fear I will have to make that trip next year. I'll move out of my spacious abode and a trio of '99s will move in, leaving my older, wiser self in the Norwich suburbs.
That made me wonder: why should '98s give up our rooms, our priority for low-numbered classes and our privilege of building the Homecoming bonfire just so a bunch of high school seniors who would rather be in Cambridge or New Haven can invade Hanover? We shouldn't, and we don't have to.
Before we allow this crime to occur as it has for the past 220 years, President Freedman, in his first official act upon returning from sabbatical, should announce the nullification of all acceptances for the Class of 1999. He would doubtless face opposition from those affected, would be roundly condemned in academic circles and by the press and would probably be forced to resign under a cloud of protest. But let's look at this in perspective. The alternative would be my living in the River next year.
The abolition of First-Year classes would be a boon to the College in many ways. The Admissions office could be closed, freeing up housing space near the Green for '98s. We could still collect application fees, though, making up for the subsidy that freshmen pay to Dartmouth Dining Services. We would just reject them all, giving us a 0 percent admission rate and improving our "Student Selectivity" standing in the U.S. News survey.
Dartmouth would no longer be the only college in the Western Hemisphere that bars freshmen from rushing Greek houses. Eventually, every Dartmouth student would be above the legal drinking age, allowing for the abolition of Safety & Security.
A certain dean's office could be eliminated as well, providing the option of even more housing space or the institution of an Office of New Jerseyite Affairs, which Dean Goldsmith would be eminently qualified to head. Repetitive reprinting of Over the Hill could also be cut, saving enough trees to have two forestry competitions on the Green each year.
More room would open up in "gut" introductory courses, ending the current discriminatory policy of forcing upperclassmen to take hard classes. Last, but certainly not least, we would avoid the sticky problem of what to call the Class of 2000. At commencement, President Clinton could promise "Read my lips: No new 'Shmen!" to thunderous applause.
There would be some drawbacks, of course. DDS would lose its pool of unskilled labor, perhaps forcing it to raise its scandalously low prices. The English department could no longer play the game of repeatedly changing the test scores required to place out of English 5, a perennial source of fun at Sanborn. And budding meteorologists at the Dartmouth Outing Club would lose the practice of finding three consecutive rainy days in otherwise dry Septembers to hold the freshmen trip program.
On balance, though, Dartmouth would benefit. Now that my class is safely in, I say it's time we close the door. After two weeks of constant interruption from visitors, Dartmouth is, for the moment, the quiet college on a hill Eleazar Wheelock intended it to be. Let's keep it that way. Just Say No to '99's.
