The College's Undergraduate Judicial Affairs Office is investigating a first-year orientation DOC Trip in which mock through-hikers pretended to abduct a Dartmouth senior posing as an incoming freshman.
UJAO officials will consider whether students involved in the incident violated the College's standards of conduct, Director of Undergraduate Judicial Affairs Marcia Kelly said. The investigation could also indict the Dartmouth Outdoors Club, the student group that organizes freshman trips.
"Once we've collected information, we're going to be passing it on to Jim Larimore, the Dean of the College," Kelly said.
Details of the incident have been widely circulated in recent weeks, primarily because of a long BlitzMail message written by trip leader David Morse '03 after the event.
According to the message, Morse and fellow trip leader Lauren Maynard '06 planned the prank in advance and received cooperation from members of h-croo. Freshman trips are frequently the target of "raids," generally consisting of a prank accompanied by food.
In the prank in question, Will Raynolds '04 arrived at Robinson Hall on the same day as the rest of the tripees and pretended to be a first-year student in the trip group. On the trip's first day in the woods, Raynolds told the group that he had encountered two hostile through-hikers while refilling his canteens.
Jesse Beach '04 and Jesse Foote '01, playing the role of the through-hikers, wandered into the group's campsite later in the evening and further argued with Raynolds. The next day passed uneventfully, but when the group woke up on the third morning of the trip, Raynolds was gone.
After searching for Raynolds around the campsite without success, the group began the day's hike. They discovered Raynolds on the trail, tied between two poles and seemingly semi-conscious. As the group neared him, Beach and Foote jumped out from behind bushes and chased the tripees a short distance before revealing the prank. Afterwards, the two supposed through-hikers cooked breakfast for the group.
First-year students on the trip said that they had been fooled but expressed doubt that any group members were unduly frightened or offended by the raid. Tripee Adelaide Downing '07 described the prank as "pretty funny."
"I think everyone was cool with it," tripee Jacob Crumbine '07 said. "We had a good breakfast and then we continued hiking."
The College investigation apparently began soon after the trip returned. Although Dean of First-Year Students Gail Zimmerman told The Dartmouth that her office "is not responsible for investigating incidents," Zimmerman met with a number of freshmen tripees during orientation to discuss the prank.
"Zimmerman blitzed out to everyone in the group and asked for accounts of what happened," Crumbine said.
Kelly confirmed that UJAO officers are continuing to collect information about the incident.
"We talked with people in Outdoor Programs and people in both the First-Year and Upperclass Dean's Offices," Kelly said.
Administrators would not comment on the likely consequences of the investigation. However, individual students involved in the incident could presumably be subject to College discipline.
The DOC as an organization could also potentially be censured for the incident. Head of DOC Trips Jon Shea said that he gave a statement to the Organizational Adjudication Committee, which investigates violations of the code of standards by student groups.
DOC officers are generally not informed of raids in advance, Shea said, and there are no formal procedures for the approval of trip-related pranks. As a result, the attitude of DOC leadership towards raids has been mixed.
"When I talk to trip leaders about raids, I tend to discourage them because it always seems like there's so much potential for things to go wrong," Shea said. "But at the same time they are widely identified by people as part of the Trips."
In view of the prank in question, Shea said a change in raid policy "would be appropriate."
The UJAO may be investigating the trip as an occurrence of hazing, which is prohibited by New Hampshire state law and by Dartmouth policy. The College defines hazing as any organization-related activity that "could be expected to produce mental or physical discomfort, harm or stress."
The DOC runs over 100 outdoor trips each fall for incoming first-year students. Trips last five days and include one day in Hanover, two nights in the wilderness and one night at the DOC-run Moosilauke Ravine Lodge. The trips are an long-accepted part of the first-year orientation experience and more than 85 percent of freshman chose to go on a trip this year, according to the DOC website.
