With little fanfare and limited community attention, the Board of Trustees announced yesterday the first wave of changes resulting from the Student Life Initiative, launched last year.
And just as the debate following the initial announcement focused on Greek issues, so too did yesterday's more concrete declarations center on Coed Fraternity and Sorority reform -- including moving rush to Winter term, banning taps and bars, upholding the moratorium on most new houses, and abolishing the independent Greek judicial system.
More sweeping statements charged the College administration, and chiefly Dean of the College James Larimore, with implementing most of the non-Greek social reforms -- including developing new alcohol and drug policies, building and enhancing residential clusters, and planning new student recreational and dining facilities.
In a letter released immediately following the Trustees' announcement, Larimore outlined several changes which would be effective this coming summer, including reversing a steering committee recommendation which would have limited CFS residency and enhancing residential and minority group support staff.
In an interview with The Dartmouth, College President James Wright and Trustee Chair William H. King Jr. '63 stressed the consensus on the Board in favor of these changes and said once again that it was "committed to doing this."
"The Board is not timid about making sure recommendations are carried through," King said. "It's not something we're going to dillydally over."
The Board's actions
While Wright and King stressed the need for students' continued involvement in the implementation process, many of the specific changes their report demanded are contrary to student feedback already provided in reports from the Student Assembly, CFSC and others.
Instead, the Board endorsed many of the recommendations made by the steering committee report which was widely debated on campus, and supported by less than 20 percent of the students in a poll conducted by The Dartmouth.
The Trustees yesterday endorsed the steering committee's definitions for CFS standards and minimum membership requirements including the controversial requirement for a live-in undergraduate advisor for all houses.
The Board also supported the controversial moratorium on new selective, single-sex, residential houses -- a rule widely condemned by the Assembly, the CFSC and the Panhellenic Council.
All three groups' responses to the Student Response Task Force called for a creation of a seventh residential sorority to accommodate the increasing number of women wishing to join the groups.
"The Board is not looking to have single-sex, residential, selective organizations play an expanded role in the community," Wright said. "We're well aware of the concern of women. This is not an effort to be punitive."
Wright held the door open to women seeking to form a nonselective residential organization, even though it would be single-sex.
Also in opposition to much student feedback was the Board's decision to push rush to Winter term starting in the academic year 2001-2002.
In separate instances at the announcement breakfast and in the later interview with The Dartmouth, Wright cited the effect of fall rush on freshman classes.
He said the decision was not focused on limiting upperclass participation, but said the Trustees did not want students' first terms at Dartmouth influenced by the conspicuous rush process and sought to free upperclassmen's time to play their usual leadership roles throughout campus.
The Board announced the ban of Greek house tap systems, bars and mass refrigeration units.
Wright said this effort would be successful where previous efforts have failed because of his plan to "work with organizations" and discuss the issue of alcohol abuse with students on campus.
"The taps provided an open source of alcohol. There was continuing concerns on what that symbolized," Wright said.
The Board also approved the construction of 500 new beds within the next five years, and the possibility of 600 more within the next 10 years.
Administrative tasks
While many of the points in the Trustee announcement were specific and detailed, leaving little room for alteration, the greater percentage were more vague statements of support for ideas or concepts.
While the Board established areas that needed change such as residential life and alcohol, the responsibility for studying, financing and implementing changes now falls to the College's administration.
The Trustees charged the College with initiating planning for enhanced residential clusters and expanded recreational and dining facilities.
It approved a first-year housing experiment starting with the Class of 2005, but with the expectation "that no more than 50 percent of the class will be housed in this way." The administration must conduct a review of the test within five years.
The Board also directed the College to focus on alcohol education and charged the administration to develop revised alcohol policies.
One noticeable addition to the Initiative scope is the formal directive to begin studying the D-Plan.
Wright said the study could include evaluations of both the required summer term and the College's 10-week schedule, but stressed the report's mention of a "regular calendar" does not necessarily mean the implementation of a semester system.
King said the addition of the D-Plan to the Trustees' vision was the result of the community's frequent linking of discontinuity with the unique system.
The report calls for a review of senior and undergraduate societies, the World Cultures Initiative and academic affinity organizations by June, 2001. Also within a year, the Board expects the College to act on a specific residential plan for graduate students.
The Dean's role
Much of these broader reforms called for by the Trustees will fall to Dean of the College James Larimore to oversee. He stepped into this role immediately following the announcement by presenting several actions effective July 1.
Chief among them was the reversal of the steering committee's recommendation which would have limited CFS residency to seniors and junior officers only.
Larimore told The Dartmouth that discussions with Greek leaders and Dean of Residential Life Martin Redman convinced him that this idea would cause too severe a financial impact on the houses.
Larimore said the same deliberations he undertook in deciding the residency requirements would guide his yet-undecided announcement on CFS residency during the Summer term.
Effective July 1 will be the expansion of advisory positions for many minority groups to full-time hours. Additionally, ORL will hire professional staff as resources for UGAs, who themselves will be compensated more.
Fitting with the Trustees' promise to expand first-year student programming will be the expansion of the Orientation program.
Budget and time
King and Wright said they did not yet have a full sense of how much the Initiative changes would cost, but King said the Trustees were more than confident that the College would have the financial resources to see the projects through.
Equally unclear is a comprehensive timeline for the changes and their implementation. Wright said the Board did not have a specific timeline in mind, except in the cases mentioned in the report.
Several of the recommended implementation dates in the steering committee report, such as that for moving rush, were pushed back one year in the Board's final announcement yesterday.
