Perhaps it was the smell of alcohol-fumed flames in the air, or maybe I had just smoked a bit too much of my one cigarette-per-year quota, but when I came back to school on Friday evening, Dartmouth struck me as some sort of museum piece. Finally I felt like I understood the town of Hanover, at least I thought, and its bizarre mix of college students and octogenarians who wear their pants at least up to their armpits. I think I now understand why some students fight to keep the school the same while others try to fight for improvements.
You see, I've been away for a while. No, not in the sense that I've been locked away in Bedlam or the slammer (though that's a little too close for comfort's sake). No, I'm living in New York this term " in midtown Manhattan to be exact. Now before I become too self-referential and divulge the boring details of my everyday life (see every other op-ed about internships), I'll say right now that this piece is not about New York, nor about how much I love Dartmouth, miss Dartmouth and get butterflies every time I see a fat man in the street with a Dartmouth sweatshirt (and for some reason I seem to see a lot of fat men in the streets, particularly in the financial district). However, what I will point out is that Dartmouth's veneer looks timeless. Students and faculty may graduate and retire, values change, but the look of the school will remain the same. Obviously this veneer is superficial, the green is meticulously groomed, but the setting looks unchanged for the past century. This was the New England WASP environment I had grown up in, for better or for worse. The reputations stick to the school for a reason: a conservative, white, drinking school in the "bucolic" town of Hanover (in addition to other adjectives trotted out by the press in the Zantop incident), a fraternity system that breeds alcoholics and bankers, a member of the Ivy League that somehow always gets a "4.5" on the academic prestige rating in U.S. News & World Report.
Coming from New York, I experienced a culture shock when I saw Hanover again. This transition also left me with various questions. I worry that Dartmouth will not be the same if it tries to pander to the various forces of postmodernism. Yet at the same time the school may lose its prestige if it fails to compete with other comparable institutions. The multiculturalism that pervades the Ivy League is certainly not the evil that some conservative publications would have it, but the attitudes that change with this new force may change the school irreparably. Will the vestiges of the museum atmosphere be able to withstand these forces and is it able to change? These are issues I leave unresolved because I don't know how the school can react. I don't know if the abolishment of the Greek system will hurt the success of Dartmouth graduates as businessmen (though the answer seems fairly obvious judging from the all-night drinking affairs I've heard about at some of the investment banking firms).
When I came back to school, I felt like I had already graduated. So it is with much trepidation (to use my stock valedictory words) that I think about the tremendous changes that will be completed before I come back to my 10th, 20th, and even 50th reunions. What I hope for is that I still recognize the image of school that I saw last Friday. Because amid the squabbling and arguments that usually appear on campus and in these very pages, I saw a school that I can miss. And maybe Dartmouth can find a compromise between change and the old guard -- moderation is something I hope to find at this school.