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The Dartmouth
July 16, 2025 | Latest Issue
The Dartmouth

Cellophane Soul

Can you hear the people sing, singing the song of angry men? I hear them, every morning when I awake, every afternoon when I nap and every night when I lay sleepless dreaming of what could be. My name is Jacob Osterhout and I am running for Student Assembly Vice President. Here, at Dartmouth, we need a change. Something is not working. We have trustees fighting students, students fighting trustees and professors voting 82 to nothing to abolish the student body in the name of the trustees. Just the other day I watched in horror as a dog, a black Labrador, was rudely escorted out of the new psychology building while people just stood around and watched. What has this college on a hill come to when fellow mammals are kicked out of buildings and students do nothing to stop this egregious violation of personal rights? A.C.T.I.O.N, action, action we want action.

Why is the Dartmouth student body not able to rally around a unifying cause? Why are we not able to maintain a positive, unwavering singular voice? I think it all comes down to one reason, this school needs to progress into a single sex system once again. Up until thirty years ago Dear Old Dartmouth was a single sex college, a college where students thought the SLI was a new fraternity and dogs could roam through all buildings, dorms and eateries. These were days when students chest bumped, flexed and smashed bottles over their heads and sexual harassment was not an issue.

Understandably, these days are gone, an amoebic cloud in an ever expanding memory. And so the college went co-ed, which was nice. Men and women, boys and girls, guys and dolls could all work next to each other in the lab, the classroom and the library. But times have changed and we would be blind to ignore the fact that co-ed is no longer working. No matter how many vaginal dialogues Dartmouth maintains, most men will never understand the inner workings of the female anatomy. And no matter how many times guys scratch themselves most women will never understand the need to itch their reproductive organs.

So here I quote Q-Tip who says, "Baby, don't you know that things go in cycles." Just as we were single sex before so should we be again, but here is the kick, this time we are going all female. The guys had their day in the sun, their some two-hundred years to be the only sex at this school, and now it is the ladies turn. Think about it, no more panty raids, no more dialogue on intra-campus gender relations, no more reason to get down on yourselves for not ever having gone on a date and maybe even the football team will improve, just kidding fellas, you're alright with me, I need your vote.

As with any change, there would be a few problems. What would happen to the Women's Studies department? Does it expand or disappear? And what would we do with all the men's bathrooms? There is always the possibility that ORL will turn them into dorm rooms to accommodate the ever-expanding housing crunch. But, these problems are minor compared to the ones Dartmouth has now, as we progress farther along the fall of the co-educational empire.

It is going to be tough, but Brett Quimby and I vow to stay on as your Student Assembly President and Vice President to help enact these changes even after the school has gone all female. We will sacrifice our dignity and the company of male compatriots for you, Mother Dartmouth. For Brett and I understand that the only way this school is going to survive into the twenty-first century is through sacrifice. So let us be your martyrs, your sons of Abraham, because, Dartmouth College, we want to bring the fate of this school back into your hands. We will be your opiate, your top-of-the-line-high-priced-drug-of-choice, that voice of reason that slips an arm over you in the middle of the night and whispers in your right ear in a low sultry voice, "Sweetheart, everything is going to be alright."