It's nice to feel wanted. There're about forty
thousand people in the Class of 2005, and we all feel very important. Not because we can cross the street and cars will magically stop for us, but because since we've arrived here, we've received enough literature to wallpaper our rooms, been accosted by countless upperclassmen trying to enlist us, and sat through several numbing talks.
This is not our take on orientation. This is just on frats.
Have you ever had your eye on some attractive individual, ambled over, and promptly made a complete fool of yourself, though at the time you found yourself suave and compelling? That's the way the flap over frats looks to us. We are attractive. The SLI has spinach stuck in its teeth and is coming on to us. That is my semi-revealing analogy. I'm sure those on the front lines would disagree (insert great moral argument here), but I wonder if people realize how this looks to outsiders. Outsiders, as in, what we were until about two weeks ago. This is all just politics. It's like a presidential race. Or two kindergartners fighting over a rag doll.
Have you ever noticed how students usually give pretty good reasons for their stances on the frat thing? If you believe frats promote racism and/or sexism, that's a good reason. If you think the administration is being fascist, that's a good reason too. I haven't met too many students who've said, "I just want to get plastered, man." I'm sure they're out there, but they're definitely in the minority. Then there's the administration, a wolf-like grin on their face: "We think the frats promote racism and sexism too." I wonder if racism or sexism motivates a rich white male Republican (in other words, your typical Ivy League Trustee board member).
Of course, they do not. The real factor can be expressed by a line of dollar signs. The administration seems to be against frats for every reason except monetary ones, and of course, this is why the administration has the sincerity of a used car salesman, because they would get a lot of cash if the frats had to sell. That's most of it right there.
At least that's understandable. Every generation turns into a bunch of stodgy, soulless bloodsuckers when they get older. We'll do it, one day, even if you can't conceive of it now. Case and point: most of the administration got to "experience" the sixties and/or seventies. If you think most of them were stodgy then, you are probably mistaken.
It's about control too. Stop me when the phrase "Gestapo tactics" enters your head: introducing controversial bills in the summer, enforcing building codes that aren't enforced on the dorms, completely cold-shouldering SA, using the racism/sexism card (We got these little SLI booklets in our Hinman boxes during orientation, full of firsthand frat horror stories and articles against frats -- I felt so bad for the students who wrote them. Under the SLI context, it was ridiculous. They essentially took people with genuine, good beliefs and turned it into propaganda. What I'm trying to say is, they don't care about that stuff, but they use it to their advantage anyway, and that's pathetic.) And then there's my personal favorite: unannounced searches.
This is all very predictable and understandable too. In the long run, the best way to get money would be if we were all mini-thems who did exactly what they told us. For most of us, this is not the case. This is why these "alternate activities" will continue to flop miserably: I was at Collis on Friday night a week ago, at about 11:30, and I poked my head into Poison Ivy, one of the new darlings of the SLI. There was literally not a soul to be found. Expensive lights bouncing off an empty dance floor.
Students need to realize that the administration is going to continue to go after the frats, regardless of race/sex issues, because that's what's in their interests. Administration needs to realize that we're not going to do what they want us to do. If they break the frats, we'll find other places to do frat-like activities. In the meantime, the school is suffering image-wise. The Princeton Review ranked Dartmouth first in the country in quality of life a year ago. Now we're fourth.
One of the fluffy justifications College President james Wright has given for this crusade has been something to the effect that part of having a rewarding academic experience is creating a suitable environment for it. I don't know about the other people here, but U.S. News & World Report was not a factor in my coming here. I came here because I stepped onto campus and I loved the environment. I came here because this was by far the happiest student body I saw out of all the other places I visited.
Personally, I don't know where I stand. I don't know if I want to have a stance. I'm a lot less sympathetic toward the administration because they picked this fight and they're using students with good intentions to advance their cause, but I don't really have an opinion. I'll go to frats sometimes. I won't go other times. If I can help it, I'm not going to get caught up in all this B.S. I hope other people try to do the same.
