This is a response both to the house editorial "But what do you really want?" (May 26th, Op-Ed), and to what I witnessed at the Student Assembly meeting on Tuesday night. In writing this, I can speak only for myself, not for my brothers, nor for any other working group chair.
I have NEVER viewed the proposal submitted by the Student Working Groups as a compromise designed to appease the Trustees. There is one line of compromise in that entire document, that of limiting houses to five rooms, and that is NOT a compromise with the Trustees. It is a compromise between students of this college. It is a recognition that there are houses other than my own, and there are students other than my brothers (including my closest of friends outside the house) that feel uncomfortable accepting an invitation from me to come upstairs and catch some rays or hang out.
The proposal we submitted was one I was excited about, and of which I was truly proud. Every recommendation was one I would have liked to see go into effect. Some of it was radical, but we spent three months finding out how to think about people other than ourselves.
I left the SA meeting early, not because I was disgusted with the resolution passed by SA. Almost all of the proposal was supported, except for a few sections that could not be explained in one sentence, or a 45-second time slot. Some of those ideas were controversial, and I cannot expect the SA to flat out support something that makes much of the student body uncomfortable. That is not the place of SA. I walked out because student opinion was never once the justification for cutting and amending those lines. Every word I heard in opposition to the proposal was selfish. And blind. "My house ... my residental and social life ..." I'm not talking about throwing your heart out on the table for every creative loner on Earth. I'm saying, not once did speakers against the proposal think about the house across the street or the house next door, let alone their unaffiliated friends. I would love for my house to stay exactly as it is, but if it means the difference between being here in five years or not, depending on the way outsiders feel about my house, then I'm willing to see change. I'll repeat what I said Tuesday night: If my house can't survive the loss of a few beds, then we're not brothers. I know my house can survive the loss of a few beds.
The actions of each house effect every other house, no matter how autonomous we feel from the inside. Outsiders see us as a "system," a single entity, and we are stereotyped, most often falsely and ridiculously, but stereotyped nonetheless, every day. If you think the Trustees will ever respect your autonomy or your "power," you're deluding yourself. They are committed to removing the Greek system.
We NEED to prove to them that we serve a function other than that with which we have been stamped. We NEED to prove that we benefit the greater campus. I know we do, but I also know we could do more. They've heard all there is to hear about close bonds, friendship, student-owned/student-run houses (see the billion letters I wrote two months ago). THEY DON'T CARE. There's two things we can do. First, we can step it up internally and prove that we're responsible and interested in groups other than our own, and we've done that a little, and that's awesome. But in the eyes of the Trustees (and some students) it's too little, too late. The other thing we can do is reform our system into exactly what we want. If you want to try and hold strong with the status quo, that's great. You will enjoy the benefits of the current system for the next one to two years. In three to five years when you come back to visit, you'll find a Cookie-Baking House in its place, and something like that in place of every other house you used to know and love. Your other option is to start thinking about people other than yourself. Think about the other houses and the system as a whole, which is going to be crushed if we think we can stand strong. Think about the students that didn't join a house because they didn't think they could pay dues or slush and didn't want to have to explain that to their future brothers. Think about students that choose to remain independant because the entire system has a stigma of alcohol abuse, sexual abuse and violence that they didn't want to be associated with, whether or not it was well founded. Think about the kids who decide not to come here because they think our House system is like every other stereotypical House system in the country, and are probably missing out on one of the greatest chances they'll ever have. Nobody, other than members of the system, currently knows that the best part about a house is hanging out during non-party hours, and just being among friends, free to speak as openly as you want to. We have got to show them what being in a house is really about, and if people are afraid to come to the houses, that is never going to happen. If you show me a better way, I will burn my proposal right now.
I want the house system I love to stay around for as long as possible, and the best way to do that is to make sure that there is overwhelming demand for it for a long, long time. It can't just be demand from members. It has to be demand from almost everyone (obviously there's always people that hate everything ... they can go dig a hole and die). People need to know that houses are welcoming places where they can relax and be among friends. Where students make the rules.
This is not about staying strong. If we "stay strong" we will not accomplish anything. This is not about compromise. If we think we can negotiate something, we're going to get the shortest end of the stick. This is about creating something we (as in ALL students) want, and is feasible, and showing the Trustees that the five principles are EXACTLY what we wanted. They aren't in opposition of the House system, in fact they completely enbody what this House system can be about. If we're willing to think just a little outside our own sphere, and consider some possibilities that will benefit students that we might not know, or that will be here in the future, then the house system that you know and love WILL be here for generation after generation of Dartmouth students, who will discover why we hold on to it so dearly.
