This summer the pages of The Dartmouth have crackled with calls for the College to bolster its "Brand." Dartmouth's image -- so the thinking goes -- does not have enough pizzazz, so everyone should work to inflate its prestige, and in no time it will be zeppelin-sized. Campus activists have even formed a new student group, playfully titled "The BlabberForce," that will try to do this.
I bring it up because I think you're allowing the wrong kind of students into this joint. As Dean of Admissions, I just can't understand why you're letting these clowns slip under your radar. I mean, The BlabberForce? Branding? It's all pretty shallow and petty and in the end really quite pathetic.
Let me get the ridicule out of the way first--the dumb name, for starters. My God, give me a break. "The BlabberForce" sounds like a new type of bubble gum. But hey, at least they're giving it the old College try.
When I first heard of branding, I thought it was some sort of joke. I mean, come off it -- Dartmouth is a first-rate school, and anyone worth his salt knows it. And Dartmouth already has a well-known image: the premier undergraduate teaching institution in the country, where the professors are professors and the students are drunk. There's the charm of the rural New England campus. And at least traditionally, the graduates were known to carry a certain stock: well-rounded, convivial, social, bright, work-hard-play-hard, etc.
Among the ranks of The BlabberForce, I can tell, there's a lot of anger and frustration with all this; they've said it themselves, in fact. They desire something else. These are the people, I imagine, who applied to Dartmouth as a second choice, just in case they weren't admitted to Harvard, Yale or Princeton. Hey, better luck next time, fellas. When the rejections from those three little rats' nests came rolling in, they were devastated. That's got to be a real bee in your bonnet, to be obsessed with prestige and then be given the boot by the most "prestigious" schools. Man, that smarts.
After they finished sobbing, they faced reality. Dartmouth was the next best choice for them. It's not a university, but it's definitely better than Cornell, the loser of the Ivy Leagues. A son of Dartmouth can't make waves like a Harvard man does with the name-drop, but what can you do?
So they get here in the fall, and they're like, holy crap, this place sucks. There are plenty of opportunities to point out how smart you are, with all the intellectual discussions and the East Wheelock housing and whatnot. But there's just not the same snob appeal that can be found in Cambridge, New Haven and, well, New Jersey. So these waffle-bottomed rejects all get together and say to themselves: we've kind of got a steak, but we need a lot more sizzle.
At this point, I can only wonder how their line of thinking went. Well we need a better Brand ... and a really stupid name ... OMG, I've got it! The BlabberForce!!! Hey, we can all send unsolicited e-mail to our friends from home about how Dartmouth totally rules and is, like, the best! Hey, have you heard? -- the dude prosecuting Kobe Bryant is a Dartmouth grad! Check us out, we're sweet!
The BlabberForce came up with a bunch of bad ideas, all of which deserve to be lampooned, but I won't go into it now. Res ipsa loquitor and all. The bottom line is this -- their self-congratulating, sour-grapes narcissism is embarrassing and unbecoming of alleged "College" students. And that's where you come in, Dean Furstenburg.
Karl -- can I call you Karl? -- they wouldn't have put up with this nonsense in your day. You belong to the class of 1967, after all. If someone broached this back then, you guys would have made him run the gauntlet or something. Lest the old traditions fail, you know.
But this isn't about administering beatings. Actually, I heard that President Wright was planning on cutting the student body altogether because of all the budget problems. But before that happens, you can change the class of 2008. As you gear up for new applications, you should try to admit more like your class in 1967 and less like my class in 2005, if The BlabberForce is any indication. Call me old-fashioned, but I'll take the steak instead of the sizzle any day.
