An article in The D titled "At Six Year Mark, SLI Impacts Less Drastic Than Expected" (Feb. 14) stated that "current student opinion is far from the outcry that resulted when the [Student Life] Initiative was announced in 1999." This column seeks to refute that point, and make very clear that the SLI is indeed despised on campus today, and to beg every person who has at one time been associated with Dartmouth not to give money to the College until a radical redirection has occurred. It is the only way that every single member of the alumni can have their displeasure heard, and it is really the only thing that even handpicked trustees can only ignore for so long.
The Student Life Initiative, henceforth referred to as the "No Fun Policy," has smothered the campus and turned student life into a course in dealing with tedious administrators and complying with absurd policies. The only reason that the Greek system still stands is because of the strength of the rational alumni, and the ability of Greek organizations to work around block-headed alcohol sensitive softies who despise kegs because they never had the guts to take a keg stand themselves. This is hailed by administrators as "students learning to work better and communicate more effectively with the administration." It really reflects the apathy manifested from the mentality that these ignorant people aren't going away.
The moving of rush back to the fall is often cited as a great achievement in "communication." It is certainly a great achievement, but only because after years of trying, intelligent people managed to point out to slowcoaches something that was obviously beneficial after they were dumb enough not to realize it in the first place. This is not an achievement of communication; it is a small triumph for common sense, which oftentimes fails. The complicated keg resistration/40-person limit rule is again heralded as a great "achievement of communication" that puppet administrators have finally seen the error of their ways and proposed to modify the policy to something equally asinine.
Some formation of the phrase "I love Dartmouth, but the school is going downhill" is often uttered and illustrates how students still feel outrage about the No Fun Policy. Every day in this publication there is an article detailing one of its effects, where someone makes an outrageous statement about keg policy or action plans, and students are frustrated by their astonishing lack of original thought. What's worse is that as new classes come in, fewer and fewer students recognize that these policies are not the real Dartmouth, but actually just a result of the No Fun Policy. The fact that students are stopping to associate their disgust with the policy itself, and simply associating the policy with the administration is the only way in which the student body detests this misery any less than in 1999.
So what's the answer? Well, the only hand that beats "politically-correct agenda" is "there's no more money." Encouraging the withholding of alumni money to the school is the most efficacious strategy. The administration flat out denies that the alumni body as a whole is upset with the direction of the school. Many of them are not real people, so their lies don't surprise me. If alumni were to make an anti-pledge, something to the effect of, "I will not give one damn dime to a school that spits on the values which have made it great," then eventually something would have to change. The dollar power of the alumni base is still more powerful of a tool than any clandestine weapon that Wright and Co. can wield. The trick is uniting an effort to use it.
This is hard. Many people love the College and want to see it thrive. It will hurt to see the College limp in the short-term. However, you'll see that the plague is careful to note that alumni should continue to give to the school and voice their grievances through other channels. President Wright stressed this point in the recent discussions about the Furstenberg calamity. The reason he does this is because he knows that his job, and the jobs of all of his minions are contingent on maintaining alumni giving. He also knows that if alumni giving stays about on pace, then he can claim support for the general policies of the College. Oh, the storm that would come if there were a 50 percent drop in donations year after year. It would be like a witch-hunt of all the college "leaders" who have bedeviled the campus for years.
The Student Life Initiative is more alive and well than ever. Six years later, if someone can doubt the presence of opposition, then not nearly enough is being done. This article can serve as my personal anti-pledge to Dartmouth. Not one damn dime until I see someone's head on a fence post. Hopefully many others will make the same pronouncement.
