Daniel Hogins, in a column that appeared last week, claimed that the College should stop trying to promote intellectualism at Dartmouth. The reason he cited was that Dartmouth students simply do not have the inclination to engage in intellectual discussion while engaged in the nobler pursuit of imbibing beer in fraternity basements. Mr. Hogins felt the College would not be able to force intellectualism down the throat of unwilling students.
This view is wrong on two counts. First, it is wrong in assuming that most Dartmouth students are of the anti-intellectual, fraternity basement types. Secondly, it greatly underestimates the power that an institution such as a college wields in determining the behavior of its members.
Mr. Hogins might be surprised to know that there actually are people at Dartmouth who would rather argue over dinner than drink beer in a frat basement. And it's not just a fake front of intellectualism either, as I have discovered. It's a real desire to think and debate about questions that genuinely interest them. Two recent examples give testimony to student interest in the life of the mind. One is "The Forum," a student-run magazine that does not cater to any particular ideology; and the other is Voices, a group that organizes talks by various people usually followed by discussion. Intellectualism, though perceived as uncool, is still alive at Dartmouth.
To see the College as merely the sum of all its members and to expect it to reflect the characteristics of the student population is to ignore the ability of the institution to make its members conform to its culture.
Mr. Hogins correctly portrays Harvard as a more intellectual college. Given the fact that the admissions processes at both colleges are similar and that they attract similar students (except, of course, that Dartmouth gets the brighter ones), how does one account for the difference in the level of intellectualism between these two colleges?
This disparity can only be accounted for by the differences between the cultures of the two colleges. Most Dartmouth students come in open to the possibility of pursuing an intellectual life, but they quickly fall victim to the subtle and not-so-subtle anti-intellectual talk and suppress their intellectual side. The character of the College determines to a very large extent how we behave. Most students end up conforming to what college culture dictates. Mr. Hogins ridicules his friend at Harvard for discussing Milton over tea, when he might have been doing just that himself had he gone to Harvard.
We are not as independent as we would like to think we are.
There is hope for intellectualism at Dartmouth because (1) the individual students are not anti-intellectual, and (2) the College's culture which looks down on intellectualism can be changed.
But changing the culture of a campus is not an easy task to accomplish. Exhorting students to be more intellectual can have a negative effect. Pro-intellectualism talk by the administration suppresses intellectualism by making it "uncool." But the College can work in subtler ways to promote the intellectual in all of us. It can provide more platforms where students can exchange ideas and discuss issues.
An excellent start would be the creation of a living community where people unafraid of exhibiting their intellectual side can live together and interact on an informal basis. Such a living community should not be created in the spirit of forcing people to be intellectual. Rather, it should be a medium through which intellectually inclined people can interact on a regular basis. This would provide them with an opportunity to meet like-minded people and would stimulate intellectual life in at least one section of the campus, the effects of which would diffuse throughout the campus.
This step would be necessary for the improvement of both the quality of residential life and the level of intellectualism at Dartmouth. It would be the precursor of the "super dorm" that the College has in the works -- a dorm where students would have the opportunity to interact more intimately with their neighbors and to engage in intellectual discourse with their peers outside the confines of the classroom. The "super dorm" would be the ideal situation.
But it will not happen overnight. There are some smaller steps we have to take first. The creation of a community such as I have described here is one such step.
