To the Editor:
Although I've been following the Student Life Initiative debates, wondering what will become of the CFS houses, I've been struck at the lack of attention paid to the rest of the report. There are two recommendations in specific that should not be taken lightly. The first is the set of recommendations detailing changes in residence requirements; the second is the set of criticisms related to "alcohol abuse" by College students.
The most disturbing aspect of the report from the Committee on the Student Life Initiative is the recommendation to create a system of residential clusters. To those aware of universities other than Dartmouth, these clusters smack of residential colleges at places like Yale, or U.C. Santa Cruz. Residential colleges, for those who do not know, are an antiquated form of social organization whereby random chance decides where and with whom a student lives, eats or socializes.
There are two real dangers for Dartmouth inherent in a residential college system. Firstly, residential colleges can be conceived as modular units of students. By abstracting the student body into clusters, the committee has made expanding the Dartmouth student body a relatively easy procedure. With dining halls located in clusters, all that is needed to expand the campus population is to build another "cluster unit." With the northward expansion of the university, the separation of Arts and Sciences, and the plans to build new dormitories, the committee has helped to lay the groundwork for an unparalleled expansion of the Dartmouth student population. We should not take these developments lightly.
Instead of promises to decrease enrollment, an equally logical answer to the housing shortage, the College has promised to expand facilities. And like building more prison cells to house more convicts, more beds will not relieve a housing shortage.
Members of the Dartmouth community should be wary of such promises. We should be concerned about the possibilities the committee provides to expand the college. Its proposals are not new. The First Year Experience Committee created the idea of cluster units back in 1993, and College planners were aware of the concept when they laid the groundwork for the northern expansion. By including such recommendations in a plan with a red herring such as the CFS issue, the committee has made it harder to comprehend the logical conclusions, but that does not mean that we should do the same.
Expansion brings about the second danger of the report: fragmentation of the Dartmouth community. Dartmouth occupies a special niche between the small college and the large university. Unlike Bates, Colby, or Williams, it is possible to graduate from Dartmouth without knowing everyone in your class. It is not as incestuous as some of the smaller liberal arts colleges, but it is also not so large that students are forced to create arbitrary social alliances (even though its isolation often works against such things, the CFS system is an example.)
Dartmouth began as a college without fraternities, and it will probably end its days without selective social organizations. Take a step back, and you'll find that the CFS issue is not that great. But Dartmouth did start as a small college. Most students never have to rely on an untested, unfinished academic to grade their papers, tests, or assignments. Professors and students have a remarkable amount of interaction at the college, more so than at Harvard, Yale, Princeton or Stanford. Increase the number of students and that will all be a memory.
Dartmouth should strive to remain the size it is. If the College wants to provide greater choices for students, mandating arbitrary living arrangements is not an acceptable solution. I urge the Dartmouth community to move beyond the CFS question and to investigate the ramifications of the rest of the report of the Committee on the Student Life Initiative.
