Alexandre Dumas once proclaimed, "I'm a Dumas." Dartmouth administrators have continued in this tradition to the point that this column is so saturated with topics to address that it can no longer attack just one egregious error in judgment. In the last few weeks Dartmouth has seen yet another awful prospective student weekend, the death of the oldest liberal art, expenditures for 800 Nalgene bottles to assist in the creation of anti-alcohol propaganda, the ballooning of the women's sensitivity budget and the literal silencing of free speech. These subversions of common sense are the latest pieces of evidence of the Wright administration's glaring incompetence.
"Dimensions of Dartmouth" weekend undoubtedly served its purpose -- to convince any students who like having fun that Dartmouth isn't the school for them. The admissions office puts together a program that is reflective of what Wright likes to say is happening at Dartmouth. Sadly, it is laughably far away from the truth. The features of Dimensions weekend and Orientation are mainly things that I've never seen or heard of again in my subsequent three years here. Prospective weekend is a time where we should be showing our guests a good time and trying to convince them to join our community. It is not a time to re-enact scenes from PCU and highlight the failed administrative agenda that is obsolete 51 weekends out of the year. Such blatant social engineering, especially the forcing of fraternities to close their doors to "prospies," reeks of an agenda that the admissions office would prefer students who would fit in the mainstream of Dartmouth culture feel not welcome. This could explain the growing number of people at Dartmouth who are good at school, but bad at life.
Professor Jim Kuypers resigned out of frustration with the administration's lack of commitment to educating its students, effectively eliminating the speech curriculum. More specifically, the only professor of speech resigned after years of struggling for adequate funding and staffing. He could no longer deal with administrators who could benefit from a better liberal arts education themselves. Considering the historical place that rhetoric has both in a liberal arts education and in the history of Dartmouth specifically, this should be considered an outright scandal. When placed in the context of a ballooning administrative budget and arguments that the school has abandoned its commitment to core values of educating students, this can be viewed as typical. Worse still is the fact that Professor Kuypers, whose waiting lists look like bread lines, is a professor who is skillful, well-respected and genuinely cares about his students and teaching. Who needs those?
Instead, I would prefer Nalgene bottles. Better yet, Nalgene bottles with administrative lies about alcohol. 800 obnoxiously-priced water bottles with a new ludicrous statistic written on them served as bribes to students to come and lie about their affinities for alcohol this week. The results of this screening will be used to make the propaganda that we all know and love that litters campus. How many tuition dollars are used to employ these alcohol-sensitive softies, produce large color posters of propaganda and then purchase expensive popular water bottles?
While there are no funds for academic departments, Dean Larimore, when not playing the role of Sauron from Lord of the Rings, announced that special double-secret discretionary funds would be used to contribute to the plague that is the woman's sensitivity budget. It seems as though Abby Tassel will be replaced by two people, and that more funds will be earmarked for the endeavor. Maybe we can look forward to "taking back the night" twice as often. The Dartmouth administration has also begun the process of fighting sexually uncomfortable settings in all of our abroad programs. That's something that seems plausible to accomplish under the administrative budget. Maybe we can have sensitivity campaigns running on our dime across five continents. I bet we can convince European men to stop hitting on women in the streets by implementing a fierce campaign of table tents, hippies and posters. Does anyone else feel that Dartmouth is a very safe environment for women compared to anywhere else in the world?
Free speech on campus took a few more right hooks to the jaw as President Wright deployed his Safety and Security henchmen to impose scare tactics on Dartmouth students exercising those rights. Fans at sports games (god forbid there should be school spirit) have been threatened by Safety and Security that if they do not halt their "offensive" chants, then they will be removed and disciplined by the college. If this isn't a speech code, then what is? Maybe I'll stick to singing "Men of Dartmouth." Oh wait, that's been deemed offensive too. Wah Hoo Wah.
To end on a somewhat positive note, Provost Scherr should be commended for agreeing to extend library hours for next year. This was a glaring problem that needed to be remedied. However, the amount of hemming and hawing that needed to occur before the administration almost begrudgingly agreed to submit should be noted. This has clearly been the right move for a long time. It shouldn't have had to be a concession, or a handout to student desires. It should've been a proactive move by the administration to aid the quality of education. Library hours are about as cut and dry an issue as one can imagine. If a student pays $40,000 per year to go to school, he better be able to read a book at 2 a.m. if he wants to. In reality, it's a travesty that the library closes at all. If you're saying that the budget couldn't fit it, then someone needs to be fired to make room in the budget. It is this type of balancing of priorities that typifies the inadequacies of the Wright administration in seeing the bigger picture. It shouldn't have come to this.
That's all for this fortnight. The honorable mention list that didn't quite make the cut includes the shortcomings of the SEMP committee, party packs, why April Thompson should be fired and GBLTQ table tents (guess what the Q is for). Maybe next time.
Lastly, I know you're offended. That's part of the goal. Nothing's being accomplished if no one is offended. Please don't waste my time telling me about it.
