Dartmouth United, a student organization founded a year ago with the goal of increasing social options at Dartmouth in a substance-free environment, is now seeking to become a College-recognized organization with official members.
This new policy represents a reversal of its original intent to not have formal membership. The 25-member organization is revising its constitution and will change from a group without formal membership to one with elected officers and membership. The organization will hold officer elections on Sunday.
Chris Miller '97, one of Dartmouth United's founders, said the change will make the organization somewhat like an undergraduate society that is "externally focused" and requires less time commitment from its members. An undergraduate society is a social organization akin to a Greek house with no rush or pledge period.
The move marks a reversal from Dartmouth United's original stance when it was launched in Fall term 1994. The organization's founders originally thought that having a membership would be detrimental to participation and lead to exclusion.
However, even though Dartmouth United did not have any official members last year, it was still a College-recognized organization.
In February, one of Dartmouth United's founders, Phil Lord '97, told The Dartmouth that the organization did not want to have structured membership.
"We're not so interested in members," Lord said in February. "When you start to have a set membership, than anyone who is not a member tends to feel on the outside."
Lord, who is also a member of Amarna undergraduate society, said Dartmouth United's new structure will strengthen the organization and ensure it survives the graduation of its founders.
Miller also said organizational leaders decided to have formal membership to ensure the organization's long-term survival.
"The feeling changed because we decided that in order to preserve DU's future so that it would be around after we graduated ... we needed to have at least a tangible structure," Miller said. "In order to do that we need to have membership and leaders."
But Miller said the organization is still trying to remain as open as possible.
"We're doing everything possible that we can to make sure that it does not exclude -- that it is open to everyone, that it feels open to everyone, that the parties and social events are open to everyone," he said.
Miller said Dartmouth United members are encouraged to remain members of other campus groups, like fraternities and sororities.
"Since we want people from all over, they should be affiliated primarily with their group first and then subsequently with our group," said Miller, who is a member of Alpha Chi Alpha fraternity.
Once the organization is officially recognized, Miller said it will probably apply to the Office of Residential life for some form of residential space.
The organization is well known for the two "Rock The Pond" parties it sponsored at the Dartmouth Outing Club house near Occom Pond last Winter and Spring terms. Both substance-free events attracted nearly 500 students.
Miller said the organization asks for less of a time commitment than Greek houses and undergraduate societies. Time demands are flexible to allow Dartmouth United members to remain active in other campus organizations.
Miller said dues will be less than $30 a term, much less than the hundreds of dollars some Greek organizations charge their members per term.
The idea behind the organization goes back to a casual conversation Lord had with Jay Lavendar '97 during the spring of their freshman year.
"We started asking questions about why we weren't completely satisfied with the social scene at Dartmouth," Lord said.
The students settled on two reasons: the way Dartmouth drank and the way the campus seemed splintered into groups of students.
"We almost felt like [the reasons] were interconnected," Lord said. "In order to get everyone together, there couldn't be alcohol present because that by nature excluded people who weren't interested in drinking."
But Miller said Dartmouth United is not trying to eradicate drinking from Dartmouth. The organization is only trying to bring students together in an environment free of activities that tend to exclude people, Miller said.
"Yes, there is some discord between groups and that's definitely something we're trying to combat," Lord said, "but in a social atmosphere. It's not so much that this group hates that group but that these kids don't hang out with these kids for a whole number of circumstances."
