To the Editor:
It's Tuesday night. I've just returned from Collis Common Ground, where the candidates for Student Assembly president and vice president presented their views and themselves to a pathetically small gathering of students. After an hour and a half of speeches and discussion, I must admit my mind is still reeling with visions of ideas, community, and, well, visions. Throughout the speeches I was in turn impressed, skeptical, and bored by what the candidates had to say. However, what struck me the most was not what they said, but what one candidate neglected to say.
After each candidate delivered a three minute speech, the room was opened up to questions from the audience. One woman asked that each candidate discuss his or her responsibilities and obligations for the coming academic year in order to determine their time commitment -- what seemed to me a legitimate request -- and as they went down the line each listed several activities, frequently vowing to eliminate some of them if elected. After Bill Kartalopoulos '97, the last vice presidential candidate mumbled the requisite list of committees and organizations, I leaned forward to ask my friend, "Why does that guy's name sound familiar?" My friend replied, "Oh, he writes for the Review."
He is, in fact, the Senior Editor of the Dartmouth Review. A small omission, perhaps, made no doubt in full awareness of the stir that would be caused at the mention of this publication. I wouldn't have admitted to that crowd at Collis that I was the Senior Editor for the Review, either; then again, nor would I seek such a position.
I don't read the Review every week but the issues I have read left a bad taste in my mouth, though I have never to my knowledge read an article specifically authored by Kartalopoulos. But that's not the point. There is no denying that the Review is offensive; I dare say the writers revel in their own very offensiveness; shock value is part of the paper's point and certainly part of its appeal. The point is, if Kartalopoulos wants to be Vice President of the Student Assembly, then he must take responsibility for the activities he devotes his time to and the ideas he believes in. And if Kartalopoulos -- or any Dartmouth student -- wants to express his views in the Review or anywhere else, I would expect him to take not only responsibility, but pride in his publication.
The contrast between the tone of a typical issue of the Review -- outspoken, sarcastic, controversial -- was shockingly different from the image of Kartalopoulos on stage tonight. Though he lacked the polish and enthusiasm of some of his opponents, his ideas were not invalid and he does have experience with the Assembly. With this in mind, should we immediately eliminate Bill Kartalopoulos from consideration for Student Assembly Vice President because he writes for the Review? Certainly not. Perhaps he would argue that his journalistic interests are irrelevant to the position that he is running for; maybe he would be right. But this is the kind of information that we, as voters, need to have, in order to make informed decisions. And I must continue to question the credibility of a publication whose own writers fear mentioning, in any forum.