It's midnight on a Friday night. The residence halls are alive with rock music and the voices of students gearing up for a night of partying. This may appear to be a happy, healthy student community, but to area residents, it's noise pollution.
For Hanover citizens who live side-by-side with Dartmouth students, the antics of their young neighbors sometimes prove frustrating.
Acts of vandalism, for example, are frequently attributed to students, leading to strained relations between town residents and students. Dartmouth engineering professor Elsa Garmire, who lives on Occom Ridge Road, believes that students recently broke two china dogs on her property.
Garmire said that someone entered her yard on a February night around 10:30 p.m. After hearing noise, she went outside and found that the dogs had been broken, with pieces taken. She said that she believes a fraternity pledge broke the dogs and took the pieces as souvenirs.
"The reason I think it was a frat is because of the pledges," Garmire said. "In the past, people have come to the house needing souvenirs. They ask, and when this is done in good faith, it is fine."
Garmire said she hopes a fraternity will pay for the damage.
"They were given to us in China in 1989," Garmire said. "I am hoping that someone will admit to it and replace them."
Garmire approached the Intra-Fraternity Council about the incident, according to Sigma Phi Epsilon president Patrick Granfield. Yet Granfield said there is no reason to believe that a Dartmouth fraternity member was responsible for the vandalism.
"I certainly regret what happened, but I don't understand where the link is," Granfield said.
"I can't speak for the other houses, but Sig Ep's brotherhood development is based on community service, and we do not require brothers to take souvenirs from the neighborhood," he added.
A more serious disturbance occurred in Norwich, Vt., this April. Beth Barrett, who lives on Elm Street near houses rented to College students, awoke at 2 a.m. on April 6 to a loud bang on her atrium doors.
"I was about to open the door, and I saw a shadow," Barrett said. The shadow belonged to a young man standing on the porch.Barrett described him as "clearly inebriated," adding that the man had broken one of the door's glass panes and was insisting that she let him in.
"It was very scary," Barrett said. "I called 911 and the police came in 10 minutes or so, though it felt like forever."
When the police arrived, however, the man hid, and only after the police cars pulled away did the man return to Barrett's door and again demand to be let in, saying that he lived there. The man was apprehended by an officer who had stayed with Barrett to complete paperwork.
"They arrested him and cited him," Barrett said. "He is an undergraduate student at Dartmouth, and he didn't want the College to know about what happened."
Barrett has had no further contact with the student, who has not offered to pay for the damage he caused.
"I just wish he would come over and apologize," she said. "He still doesn't think he was drunk that night."
Though that was the only negative interaction Barrett has had with students, she said that people in her neighborhood are wary of college-age tenants.
"I just bought my house, and people asked me if I would rent to Dartmouth students," Barrett said. "Students are known to be rambunctious, and if I were going to rent out a room, I would rather rent to a graduate student."
Disturbances similar to the ones Garmire and Barrett experienced are caused by a feeling of privilege that pervades the Dartmouth campus, according to English professor Ivy Schweitzer. She and her husband, fellow English professor Tom Luxon, live as faculty associates in a house next to the East Wheelock cluster and Chi Heorot and Alpha Delta fraternities.
Schweitzer recalled an incident she and her daughter witnessed one night during Fall term.
"We were driving into our driveway on the Friday of Homecoming weekend this year, and as we pulled in, a guy walked up and started to pee against Heorot. I don't know whether he was a brother or not, but it was like a dog marking territory -- it showed title and ownership."
Schweitzer said she feels that Dartmouth students do not view spaces around the College as something they have to share with members of the community, a factor that contributes to destructive behavior.
"There is a sense that students have that it is not public space, but private," she said.
Students aren't the only ones who view town spaces as part of Dartmouth, according to some residents. The College's expansion into residential areas, especially recent plans for new dormitories on Maynard Street, is often viewed with disapproval.
Joy Cavenny, a lifelong resident of Choate Road, remembers a time when there were no streetlights and the Choates cluster did not exist.
"The College is like an octopus," Cavenny said. "Eventually, they want all these houses. I guess that's growth, but we won't have any grass left."
Because of the College's physical location between the river, the town of Hanover and a large neighborhood to the east, the north of campus is one of the few places where expansion is possible, Dean of Residential Life Martin Redman explained.
"We don't have a lot of expansion opportunities," Redman said. "If you looked at an air view of Dartmouth, you would see that the space we have seems to be mainly in the northern vicinity. Maynard Street is a large site that gives us the opportunity to create a different kind of community to the north of campus and build better bed spaces."
Dorothy Matthews, who lives on Clement Road, is worried about the effect new dorms will have on the community.
"The Maynard Street dorms will completely change the neighborhood," Matthews said. "Six hundred people in one block is a lot. If a horn honks up there, we can hear it here."
However, Matthews said the age of her future neighbors fails to concern her.
"I have never had a problem living so near the students," Matthews said. "Besides, maybe they will study all the time."
According to Redman, the College is working with local residents to reach mutually agreeable decisions. Recently, College architects and Hanover residents met to discuss the College's building plans and to air any concerns, Redman said, adding that there will be further opportunities for discussion in the future.
"The College has been fairly open with the neighborhood," Redman said. "We want to reach a solution."
Most residents contacted by the Dartmouth said the College has a positive effect on the community. Many said that despite the noise and commotion of their student neighbors, the students add much vitality to the community.
"I am a widow, and I like to hear the noise," said Cavenny. "It is fun."
Students add diversity and interest to the otherwise isolated Hanover, according to Schweitzer.
"I think there is a lot of energy," she said. "It's like a city feel."
