The average College student wakes up on Friday morning both exhausted from an arduous week and excited about the prospect of the weekend.
The first thing most do is check out their BlitzMail to read where they are going to go and what they are going to do -- and Graham Gunst '99 tells them.
Gunst, a former member of the Big Green football squad, is the author of the Weekend Update which about 4,200 people receive late Thursday night or early Friday morning.
The third person to direct the Update, Gunst was hand-picked by his predecessor, Randall "Party Bob" Poulin '97, because he "was outspoken and always ready to speak [his] mind," Gunst said.
"In general, I try to keep it funny and entertaining as well as informative," he said. "I encourage social chairs [of fraternities and sororities] to send me what's going on and if they want, I can spice it up for them."
Gunst, who is a member of the Dartmouth Rugby Football Club, spoke with a strident tone and answered all questions with the same freedom with which he speaks his mind at the top of the weekly BlitzMail message.
"I am just commenting on what I read around campus. I am not making anything up," he said. "I am someone who is going to say what I think. I hope other people do the same."
Few people have the communication power on campus that this government major from Kentfield, Calif., does. His straight-shooter attitude grabs its share of attention from both students and administrators alike.
"I receive comments -- both positive and negative -- from many students and I appreciate them. I am merely expressing my opinion," he said. "Some claim I have a biased view but I am merely calling it the way I see it."
Gunst said he has only received two responses from College officials. One arrived from a Kiewit employee when a student who was selling a stereo was attempting to make a profit -- a violation of the Computing Code.
The other was from the Office of Residential Life when Gunst stated his negative opinion on the lack of cable television in dormitories.
Many of the comments from students are produced due to the joke which is sent at the conclusion of the message preceded by a "raunchiness rating" of the content to follow.
"I get the jokes from all over the place. People forward them to me, or if I am stuck I search through a book or a magazine like Playboy," he said.
Some other responses Gunst receives are a bit more humorous.
"Since we are at a place of higher education, I get people correcting my spelling and grammar," he said. "In addition, people often reply to me rather than forward a part of the message to their friends. So, I get a lot of people that I don't know who want to go to a party with me or buy a couch."
Gunst has an "unofficial" deal with the employees at Kiewit Computation Center, who have in the past asked him to change the manner in which he sends the message out.
"They wanted it to be a list-serve, the way many organizations communicate, but I think it would lose that personal touch," Gunst said.
The Update, which was created by Kenji Sugahara '95, goes to undergraduates, graduate students, alumni, people in the Hanover area, faculty members, administrators, Kiewit employees for monitoring purposes and even a few Bostonians who like to keep up with the events in the Upper Valley.
He knows of no other institutions that communicate weekend activities over e-mail, but that has not stopped him from improving the current system at Dartmouth.
Gunst has attempted to add more classified ads as well as an entire sports and weather section to the Update during his tenure.
His weekly work for the Update, between accumulating blitzes and erasing Postmaster messages is about four to five hours and sometimes more. Compiling and sending the messages take about one hour each, as he uses a template from previous weeks to speed the process.
The messages are sent in 10 batches. First, two separate sets of freshmen messages go out followed by two sets for each of the other classes in ascending age order. The ninth batch's recipients are made up of graduate students, super-seniors and any other people off-campus. The final message is sent to administrators. That way, Gunst added jokingly, he can censor the final blitz.
This year, a group of five students approached Gunst for assistance on DCAF, a web site at which students can find information about activities, weather and classified ads.
"It fills in some gaps that the Update cannot," Gunst said. "It has events for the entire week and links to certain events both in and around the Dartmouth community."
He added, that contrary to popular belief, DCAF was not meant to replace the Weekend Update, but to supplement it. Eventually, Gunst wants to move all the Update classifieds onto the DCAF web page if his readership concurs.
Gunst's status as the party guru on campus occasionally helps him play "the waiting game" that many students have to deal with at the door of fraternities on nights they have large parties.
He said some fraternity members yell, "Hey, it's the Weekend Update guy, come on in," and others make Gunst wait with the rest of the student population.
Gunst sarcastically warns those who do not give him quick entrance.
"We'll just see whose parties are on the top of the list for Friday night," he said.
