Racial slurs, student deaths and political campaigning dominated the headlines last term and made Winter term an eventful and controversial one.
College officials also made moves toward significantly changing residential life when the Board of Trustees implemented Dean of the College Lee Pelton's Dartmouth Experience proposal and the Office of Residential Life recommended that the College build more beds.
Hate speech
The College became embroiled in controversy after Jeffrey Link '98 wrote racial slurs on the door of two Asian-American students in the Choates cluster..
A couple weeks later, two other Asian-American students experienced similar vandalism on the door of their off-campus apartment.
The concern about race relations at the College led to the formation of the group Colors.
Colors is a student group composed of the leaders from seven campus minority organizations.
According to its mission statement, Colors is "a forum for leaders of student of color organizations to come together; discuss issues; support each other; promote interaction between our respective organizations and community; find direction, and join as one voice."
The Student Assembly organized an "emergency town meeting" in Collis Common Ground to discuss issues of hate on campus.
Colors held a two-hour rally against injustice the day after the town meeting.
More than 400 people attended the rally. At the rally, which students, faculty and administrators took the microphone to speak about incidents of racism, sexism and homophobia.
Out of the campus discussions of hate speech emerged two proposals from students -- a mandatory class that addressed tolerance and a speech code.
The administration has not yet formally responded to either of these proposals.
As students further discussed hate speech on campus, the poem written this summer by a Beta Theta Pi fraternity brother which contained allegedly racist and sexist remarks reemerged.
The College also received a copy of an allegedly sexist script written by an Alpha Chi Alpha fraternity pledge to be performed at a fall banquet.
In an effort to provoke responses from Beta and Alpha Chi, an anonymous group of students dumped manure on the lawns of the two fraternities.
The group demanded that Beta release its poem and that Alpha Chi release its pledge script written in the fall term.
Later that week, the same anonymous group delivered a flyer to residence halls. The flyer, titled "The Shit You Don't Hear About at Dartmouth," contained allegations against fraternities and individual students for allegedly racist, sexist and violent behavior.
The flyer included the text, with names omitted, of the Beta poem.
Responding to the allegations regarding the Alpha Chi pledge script, officers of the fraternity read and discussed the script to an audience of about 250 students in Brace Commons a week after the manure-dumping incident.
One week later, about 150 members of the College's Greek organizations gathered on the Green to participate in a candlelight vigil for acceptance and understanding to express their concerns about the incidents that had occurred.
After the vigil, sorority members met at Sigma Delta sorority to discuss their role in the Greek system.
At a Coed Fraternity Sorority Council meeting a few weeks later, the presidents of the six sororities requested that all CFSC members sign a pledge to improve the Greek system. All the presidents present at the meeting signed the pledge.
Student deaths
The term began with the announcement of the deaths of two recent College alumnae. Amy Naparstek '95 died at the age of 22 in a one-car accident on Dec. 30, and Alexis Boss '93 lost a 16-month battle with a brain tumor at the age of 24.
Dartmouth also experienced another suicide.
Anthony Lightfoot '92, who plead guilty to violating the civil rights of Morris Whitaker, the treasurer of the Black Alumni of Dartmouth Association, was sentenced to five years probation. Lightfoot was suspended last April when a warrant was issued for his arrest.
Two weeks later, Lightfoot killed himself with a rifle in Seattle.
In the middle of the term, another student passed away. A University of Massachusetts swimmer, Greg Menton, 20, died after suffering a heart attack during a swimming meet at the Alumni Gym. Menton had a congenital heart defect.
Primarily visiting the College
Dartmouth became the stomping ground for every Republican presidential candidate. Those candidates who did not visit during the fall, made sure they paid a visit to Dartmouth as they covered every inch of New Hampshire soil.
Republican presidential candidate Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., made a large production of his visit in January. Speaking to 500 people in front of Alpha Delta fraternity, he kicked off Music Television's "Choose or Lose" tour.
Dole was one of five presidential candidates who visited Dartmouth this winter. Texas Senator Phil Gramm spoke in Collis Common Ground the same weekend that Dole visited.
Sen. Dick Lugar, R-Ind., held a town meeting and later spoke at a dinner at Beta in early February.
Businessman Morry Taylor attended the Conservative Union at Dartmouth's celebration of President Ronald Reagan's birthday the day after Lugar's visit.
Honey Alexander, wife of former Tennessee Governor Lamar Alexander, campaigned for her husband on campus in early February as well.
Radio talk show host Alan Keyes spoke in Collis the day before the New Hampshire primary.
GOP presidential candidates Lamar Alexander and Pat Buchanan visited the College in the fall and Steve Forbes visited over Winter break.
Other events
At its term meeting, the Board of Trustees approved the smallest tuition increase in 30 years. Next year's tuition will be $28,233 -- 5 percent higher than this year's $27,039.
The Trustees also approved Pelton's Dartmouth Experience plan which he said he hopes will result in "the marriage of intellectual and social life."
The plan will allocate $600,000 to renovate the East Wheelock cluster and outfit it with a resident professor, a cluster dean, a snack bar and a $25,000 programming budget.
ORL recommended that the College build more beds in a report it released at the beginning of the term. The proposal outlined several different ways in which the College may approach building varying numbers of new beds.
College President James Freedman published his book, "Idealism and Liberal Education,' which hit the bookstores in January.
The College also announced that after assessing the alternative venues for Commencement, this year's graduation ceremony will be held on the Green.
