Although Dartmouth, set in the small, isolated town of Hanover, is often thought of as the most conservative Ivy League school, it has had its moments of great political activity.
Several incidents involving students rallying together in light of campus and national politics highlight the College's recent past.
In addition, because New Hampshire is the first state in the nation to hold its presidential primary elections, every candidate campaigns heavily in the state, and most of them also visit the College.
Taking over Parkhurst
Twice in the past 30 years, students have taken over the Parkhurst administration building in protest.
On May 6, 1969, nearly 80 students calmly entered Parkhurst, forced the administration out of the building and sat-in for nearly 12 hours before yielding to 90 New Hampshire and Vermont state troopers.
The demonstrators, led by members of the radical organization Students for a Democratic Society, were protesting the existence of the Reserve Officers Training Corps at Dartmouth and America's involvement in Vietnam.
The students were arrested and served 26 days in jail. On May 12, the Board of Trustees voted to end ROTC at the College by June 1973. The program was restored in 1981.
About 10 years ago, major protests broke out again.
Against the backdrop of international protest against apartheid in South Africa in 1986, Dartmouth erupted when a group of students destroyed the shanties which had been constructed on the Green to protest the College's investment in South Africa. The incident vaulted the College into the national media spotlight.
The four plywood shanties built by the student group Dartmouth Community for Divestment stood on the Green undisturbed until Jan. 21, 1986 when a band of 12 students acting under the name of the Dartmouth Committee to Beautify the Green Before Winter Carnival, drove a U-Haul truck onto the Green and demolished three of the four shanties with sledgehammers in five minutes.
Two factors that enhanced the magnitude of the outcry against the action were that 10 of the 12 attackers were staff members of The Dartmouth Review and the attack came the morning after the College's official celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. The Dartmouth Review is an off-campus, conservative newspaper.
Newsweek magazine ran the headline: "Shanties on the Green, The Dartmouth family is embarrassed again."
The DCD hung a banner across the wrecked shanties reading: "Racists Did This." This image appeared beside stories in The New York Times, The Washington Post and Time Magazine. All the major television networks covered the incident.
When then-College President David McLaughlin and then-Dean of Students Edward Shanahan refused to take immediate executive action against those who destroyed the shanties, or even to publicly condemn their act, 100 students accompanied by a handful of professors again occupied Parkhurst.
The Trustees did not divest until 1989 and only four of the attackers were punished with one-term suspensions.
Recent rallies
Demonstrations are not just a part of Dartmouth's past. Two large rallies were held during the past two years to protest hate crimes at the College and Proposition 209.
Several incidents of vandalism at the College directed first at homosexuals, then students of color, incited many students to angrily speak out against intolerance on campus in 1995.
In the fall of that year, pro-gay rights signs were torn or vandalized in residence halls and dirt was thrown at a dormitory window displaying the banner of the Dartmouth Rainbow Alliance.
The DRA is the College's homosexual and bisexual students' group.
During the 1996 Winter term, two Asian-American students living in the Choates residence hall cluster and two living in off-campus housing discovered racial slurs written on their doors.
The issues raised by these incidents led to the formation of Colors, a new student group composed of the leaders of several ethnic minority organizations.
Colors and the Student Assembly, the representative organization for Dartmouth's student body, held meetings to discuss the significance of these acts for the Dartmouth community. The most successful was a town meeting held in the Collis Student Center in early Feb. with an attendance of almost 400 people.
Colors also organized a rally against intolerance in front of Parkhurst. Despite two hours of cold temperatures, again nearly 400 students listened to over 40 speakers -- including students, professors, administrators and community residents -- speak out against intolerance.
Many students felt that the incidents demonstrated the need for a hate speech code at the College, while others felt a mandatory class about tolerance would help reduce such incidents in the future.
Although administrators have expressed interest in a diversity education course, the implementation of a hate speech code seems unlikely.
In another rally, a group of students, faculty members and administrators, including Dean of the College Lee Pelton, denounced Proposition 209 to an audience that was at times as large as 200 people in front of the Collis Center last November.
Proposition 209 is the California bill which forbids the discrimination against, or preferential treatment of, anyone on the basis of sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in the areas of public employment, public education or public contracting.
The "speak out" began after about 50 students conducted a mock funeral procession marching around the campus carrying a coffin that had "Here lies affirmative action" painted on its side before arriving in front of Collis.
A group calling itself the Dartmouth Coalition for Equal Access and Opportunity planned the event, which started with presentations by speakers followed by an open microphone.
Many Dartmouth students said they support affirmative action and the repeal of the measure, the California Civil Rights Initiative.
Hot campus topics
Although students are not holding large scale demonstrations today, several campus issues this year are still causing controversy.
The College revoked recognition of Beta Theta Pi fraternity at the end of Fall term, severing all official ties with the organization.
The move stemmed from Beta's violation of the terms of suspension imposed on the fraternity during last Summer term when one of its members chased and attacked a member of Sigma Nu fraternity.
The College found Beta guilty of violating its terms of suspension for using alcohol in the fraternity's basement.
In the meantime, the Beta alumni corporation has invited numerous parties, including the College, to lease the house at 6 Webster Avenue temporarily until they can reorganize and reinstitute Beta at Dartmouth.
In another significant event in the Greek system, a new sorority, Delta Pi Omega, was given provisional recognition by the College in January. The new sorority decided this summer that it will seek national affiliation rather than remain locally independent.
There are now seven Panhellenic sororities and 14 fraternities in the Coed Fraternity Sorority system.
In May, a series of anti-Greek system actions aroused anger among members of the Greek community and caused some to look to the administration for protection.
One morning, an anonymous group posted pink flyers in residence halls across campus. The posters not only accused individual fraternities of harboring rapists and using offensive language, but also criticized sorority practices which the flyers said degraded women.
Chalk messages appeared across campus on sidewalks, near campus buildings and in front of a number of fraternities.
Also in the news are the ongoing changes to Dartmouth Dining Services.
DDS proposed a plan during the Spring term that would require all students to buy a non-refundable $800 per term meal plan in an effort to halt the massive financial losses that have plagued the company. DDS has lost more than $1 million since 1994, as more students take their business to downtown restaurants.
The Student Assembly sponsored a referendum and an overwhelming 93 percent of the 2,700 students who participated in it favored cuts in DDS services rather than increased required spending.
As a result, the required spending amounts were decreased with option plans as low as $475 for students who live on campus and $300 for students who live off campus.
DDS is instead scaling back its current hours and services and may also cut back on the number of DDS workers, including student employees, this fall.
Presidential candidates visit
The fall of 1995 was dominated by the visits of several candidates for the Republican nomination, all vying for position in the February New Hampshire primary.
Lamar Alexander, a former governor of Tennessee, Conservative political commentator Patrick Buchanan and Chicago businessman Morry Taylor all spoke at the College.
Dartmouth's Rockefeller Center for the Social Sciences and WMUR--TV of Manchester began collaborating on a series of five polls examining the primary preferences of New Hampshire's voters.
In January of 1996, former Kansas Republican Senator Bob Dole spoke on the lawn of Alpha Delta fraternity.
Music television's "Choose or Lose" campaign to encourage young adults to vote, complete with Tabitha Soren and the stylish "Choose or Lose" bus, showed up to cover Dole's speech.
Republican Senator Phil Gramm, publisher Steve Forbes, Republican Senator Dick Lugar and radio talk-show host Alan Keyes also visited the College.
