The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love." Or so wrote Somerset Maugham, the British playwright and novelist. The great tragedy facing Dartmouth College in this time of transition and growth is not that it will perish, but that people will cease to love it.
Tear out our tap systems, chop down our revered trees, let the old traditions fail. Dartmouth as an institution will not perish and we, the Dartmouth community, will survive. There are things about Dartmouth that need to be changed and there are things that need to be held sacred. As we've already seen, ultimatums will be made, sides will be taken and lines will be drawn. And in the ensuing fray and clash of opinions that will mark the next few years, something will be lost.
The College is supposedly undergoing dramatic alterations in the structure of social life. As with any period of major change, there are those who are eager to see improvement and there are also dissenters who don't like the look of things to come out on the horizon. That some people feel cheated by the proposed Initiative -- that there will be casualties both real and imagined -- is inevitable. Progress is, by its very nature, dependent on change and requires people to make adjustments. I don't think there's one person in the entire Dartmouth community who would be unwilling to make the necessary adjustments or concessions of tradition in order to improve the social atmosphere for all students. The resistance to change comes when the motivations for change are unclear or simply wrong.
I have no problem with tap systems being removed from Greek houses if it is part of an effort to curb unsafe alcohol abuse or to make fraternity basements less intimidating to certain groups of students. But when deans openly admit that the costly removal of permanent bars and tap systems will have no affect on the College's drinking scene, I have to question the impetus behind the change. If the only imagined benefit of the removal of taps and bars is, as Dean Redman implied, the removal of a strong symbol of alcohol that 'deters potential applicants,' than I have to ask why we're doing it.
Does anyone else think it's weird how far the College will go to appease these 'potential applicants?' Granted, potential applicants are of course necessary to the future of the College, and we shouldn't try to scare any of them away. But at the same time, we shouldn't sacrifice the happiness and well-being of current students by pandering to a nebulous group of kids who, if they really knew what was best for them, would end up going to Harvard anyway. If change is going to be made, make the changes for the current students who are dissatisfied with the status-quo, not for a bunch of awkward high schoolers with high SAT scores.
What will attract the best of the potential applicants isn't the lack of a strong alcohol symbol on campus. And building a few juice bars and a shiny new library isn't going to get the job done, either. Dartmouth needs to make a commitment to providing for its currents students, the ones who actually go here rather than the ones who potentially might apply here, in order to instill confidence in the applicant that Dartmouth is serious about improvement and growth of social options.
If current students aren't happy, no one will want to come here, regardless of whether there's a strong symbol of alcohol or not. I wasn't attracted to Dartmouth necessarily because of the Greek system (although I wasn't exactly wet-my-pants-terrified of its presence on campus, either) or any other single element of Dartmouth life. What attracted me was the fact that everyone I talked to in Hanover absolutely loved the College. But that almost universal love for the College is lost now. It's lost in the haze of uncertainty that surrounds the future of the school.
So the next time you see a swarm of potential '05s taking a summer tour of the College, remember to try not to make eye-contact because, if you do, they might ask you what you think about Dartmouth. It's tough to love a college where the administrators have less interest in how you're doing than does a bunch of pimply-faced high school kids. Make sure you hide your kegs, too.
