Two roads diverged in wood, and Caleb Scott '97 ignored them both. Part poet, part actor, part guerilla-politician, Scott has followed a nontraditional path in an effort to try to change the usual modes of expression at the College.
"There's so much here and if I get an idea in my head, if something floods into my brain and it's something I want to do then I just do it -- because I can," Scott said, speaking with a stutter.
"When I got here, I sort of grabbed the reins and took off," Scott said. "I just jumped in headfirst and didn't mind if it gave me a concussion because it would heal and it would be worth it."
There could be no better example of Scott's out of control approach to his Dartmouth experience than when he decided to enter the race for Student Assembly president his freshman spring.
"I thought it'd be fun to shake things up a bit," Scott said. "It was something that someone initially dared me to do, and I decided that -- looking at student government and how really uptight it is -- it'd be nice to do it and have fun with it."
"Sometimes the pigs take the farm."
Scott eventually finished last in the five-person race behind, which was won by Danielle Moore '95, but not without taking six percent of the vote.
His freshmen year, however, consisted mainly of creative, not political, endeavors.
That year, he and a group of friends formed a club called Midnight Poets, who would gather every night on the Green at midnight to read poetry by candlelight.
He wrote and edited for a newsletter called "The Drunken Boat," a one-page collection of student poems.
And while working in a paint factory last summer, he came up with the idea for another alternative publication called "Shaft" -- featuring poetry, essays and short fiction -- he would eventually come to circulate the next year.
"Looking at all the student publications here, and a lot of the stuff is really great, but in terms of how people approach the written page, it is very, very conservative," Scott said.
Scott also acted in the College's production of Shakespeare's "Measure for Measure" freshman year, "Macbeth" sophomore year and also Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot."
His flair for drama has a more personal relevance. Scott said he struggled with his stutter his whole life, and for much of the time while growing up he refrained from using his voice and became reclusive.
He tried to explain the problems that he had encountered with his speech. "Let's say you got out of bed in the morning with the knowledge that you could walk. But every time you took a step you'd fall on your face."
Yet instead of shying away from the problem, by sophomore year in high school, he decided to confront it directly. Scott joined the debate team and tried out for the play "Electra."
"It was amazing for me. I found out that when I act a part in a play, I don't stutter ... I never would have known that had I not decided to act," Scott said.
