Faculty and other members of the Dartmouth community agreed that Green Key Weekend
Volunteer coordinator for Dartmouth community services at the Tucker Foundation Erin Murphy '95 said that she absolutely sees a more festive atmosphere on campus over the big weekend.
"It's become obviously a celebration of spring," she said.
Murphy pointed out that Green Key weekend was not tied to Tucker's Green Key service efforts, saying that the two names do not correlate today.
Assistant Dean of Residential Life Deb Reinders said Green Key is not a community service weekend.
"It's more of a social weekend," Reinders said, emphasizing the large numbers of alumni who come back to campus for the weekend.
Reinders said that it is alumni from the two most recent graduating classes who visit for Green Key.
"They come and visit and share what they're doing in the world," Reinders said.
She said the return of alumni adds to the festivity of the weekend which begins on Thursday afternoon.
Reinders said she doesn't usually attend Green Key activities, as they are mostly Greek events.
"In the past the Greeks have provided many of the social activities that occur," she said. "Most of the fraternities last year had a registered social event."
Reinders does wander down Webster Avenue to take a quick look, she said.
"I do like to get down Webster avenue Friday afternoon," she said. "Depending on the weather you can go down Webster avenue and there will be barbecues."
President of the Panhellenic Council, the body that governs the College's Greek organizations, Jess Russo '97 agreed that this specific weekend is not service-oriented.
"I didn't even know there was an emphasis [on community service]," Russo said. "I think as individual houses we do so much over the year anyway."
Russo said she sees Green Key as a unique opportunity to unite Dartmouth students in the more temperate and hospitable outdoors.
"It's one of the first times you can get outside, and it's beautiful out," she said, noting that she finds other big weekends less enticing.
Russo said she is not a skier so carnival is not a big deal for her.
"And homecoming's more of a freshman thing," she said. "There's more for everybody on Green Key weekend."
While Green Key weekend is geared towards students looking for a spring time frolic, faculty members choose to be a bit left out in the not-too-cold.
History Department Chair Gene Garthwaite said he is virtually unaffected by the weekend's course of events.
"I don't even know what weekend it is," he said. "It's a part of student life that doesn't really affect me."
Garthwaite said that he does notice class attendance and performance tend to fall off around Green Key time. As for his plans for that weekend, Garthwaite said he intends to be active in his garden.
Biology Professor Eric Lambie agreed that a sense of apathy lingers about his classroom when Green Key rolls around.
"Students might not be concentrating in class on Friday and maybe you can't expect them to show up the Monday after Green Key weekend," Lambie said.
Lambie also tends to keep out of things over the weekend.
"If nobody told me Green Key was going on, I wouldn't know," he said.
Lambie said he did, however, note an association between the weekend and drinking on the part of students.
Josh Mooney '98 furthered Lambie's perceptions of the weekend, saying he sees Green Key as an excuse to party and finds this disconcerting.
"It doesn't seem like it's anything concrete or anything," Mooney said. "I don't even know what it is, exactly."
Mooney finds this particularly troubling because the nature of Green Key is assumedly service-oriented.
"Truthfully, it makes me sad," he said. "It's almost like a degradation to give it a party mode."
"Dartmouth students need a break but when a community service based weekend turns into a party weekend, I think there's something wrong," Mooney said. He said he does not plan to partake in the College's festivities.
Murphy said Green Key weekend has nothing to offer her and has no plans for the weekend, either.
"I don't really hang out on the Green much any more and I'm not going to a fraternity party either," she said. "Honestly, what else really is there?"
For some, Green Key weekend means working overtime. Safety and Security's Sergeant Mark Lancaster said he has a full calendar over the weekend.
"Everything escalates considerably," Lancaster said. "A lot of the younger alumni come up and our stats boost up as a rule."
"There's a lot of the normal but more of it," he said, referring to alcohol related cases and noise complaints.
Amidst all of the madness, it is inevitable that everybody has to eat at some point, and for this reason Everything But Anchovies manager Maureen Dowd said she is also kept quite busy by the festivities.
"It's warmer [than the other big weekends] so people are out," she said. "Things happen later in the night so people come into the dining room late."
Dowd said that while she experiences Green Key to some degree, this does not seem to be the case for other community members.
Acting Government Department Chair Lynn Mather said she does participate in the weekend, if minimally.
"Last year there was a really great jazz concert on Webster Avenue, and I went, and I liked it," Mather said.
Mather said she might take part in this Green Key weekend if it offers something similarly geared towards a general audience as opposed to just students.
"I'll wait to see what's happening," she said. "If something really interests me, I might participate."
