Several freshmen say they are upset after purchasing $12 hard hats from members of some club sports teams because they thought every member of the Class of 1999 had to own a hat if they wanted to work on the Homecoming bonfire.
Associate Director of Physical Education Ken Jones said the three club teams working on selling the hats -- the cheerleaders, the water polo team and the scuba club --have sold more than 400 hard hats to freshmen. Freshmen traditionally do most of the work on the towering Homecoming bonfire on the center of the Green.
Safety regulations stipulate that only six people can be on the bonfire at one time and a few dozen others around the base, according to Dean of Freshmen Peter Goldsmith. In other words, more than 300 eager freshmen will be left holding their hats with no job to do.
"I was really angry that the cheerleaders didn't tell me the whole story when I bought my hat," said a female freshman, who wished to remain anonymous. "I thought I couldn't work on the bonfire without buying one, so I gave in. If I had known the truth, I definitely wouldn't have bought a hat."
Other freshmen said they would have shared hats with friends and classmates if they had been told that only a handful of people could work on the bonfire at a time.
"I didn't buy one because I don't feel you should have to pay $12 to work on the class bonfire," Danny Indelicato '99 said.
But club sport members said the teams need the money raised by hard hat sales.
"Because cheerleaders receive very limited funding, we have depended on hard hat sales to allow us to travel this year," said co-Captain Elizabeth Fuller '97.
Jones said the wholesale cost of a hard hat is about $5, so there is $7 profit for each hat sale. When a member of a club sports team sells a hat, $5 of the profit goes toward his or her club team and the remaining $2 is put in a reserve fund for all cub sport traveling competitions.
"As far as we can tell, this should raise more money than all the club fund-raisers in the past," said Stephen Erickson, the director of club sports who is running the sale.
Erickson said each club sport works independently to sell the hats.
Dartmouth's 14 club sports normally have a total budget of $8,600, Jones said.
Goldsmith said anyone working on or around the bonfire must wear a hard hat to prevent serious injury in the case of falling objects. Goldsmith said this safety requirement began last year.
Goldsmith said the Blunt Alumni Center last year gave about 24 hard hats to the Class of 1998. Blunt will not provide any hats for this year's construction because the freshmen already have so many, Goldsmith said.
"The hard hats tended to walk away last year with the students and we were left with considerably less than what we started with," Erickson said.
Despite mixed opinions on the subject, hard hats will remain on sale until the day construction of the bonfire begins, Jones said.
Erickson said the hard hats were also created with the hope that freshmen would start a tradition of wearing the hats to sporting events or activities as a way to show school spirit and class unity. Those selling the hats also plan on selling "Gang Green" t-shirts.
Club sports advertised that the hats are comparable to the traditional "beanie" that first-year students had to wear in decades past. In 1953, an editorial in The Dartmouth termed the beanie tradition "belittling head gear."
The beanie changed to a class hat in 1955. The College in 1973 declared that this was a form of public hazing, and was impermissible.
