To the Editor:
Dean of Residential Life Martin Redman opines that students at Dartmouth do not want to live in Greek houses because "...they don't want to live at the bar ...Wading through the six feet of beer cans on the floor, and the odor, and the people hanging off the banister --- is that a pleasant place to be?" ("New Dorms Pose Threat to Greeks," Feb. 23) While I recognize that this comment was made tongue-in-cheek, I nonetheless find the stereotypes and hyperbole used by Dean Redman to be sophomoric and inappropriate coming from a high-level campus administrator.
Dean Redman's description of life in Greek houses is at odds with the standards and regulations he, himself, has implemented. Clearly in his haste, Dean Redman forgot that Greek houses inexplicably are no longer allowed to have permanent bars, thus making life in a Greek house decidedly unlike living at a bar. And the "six feet of beer cans on the floor" to which Redman alludes would not exist were it not for the ban on kegs. I guess the remarkable drop in campus drinking attributed to the ban on kegs makes the sea of beer cans worth it. Perhaps Dean Redman's most astute point is his reference to the "people hanging off the banister." As a resident of a Greek house, not a day goes by in which I don't see some fraternity barbarian hanging off the banister, dangling precariously at any minute liable to fall into the giant pit of beer cans that signifies the floor. Not only does this disrupt my study habits, but quite often the noise from bodies falling off the banister makes it impossible to fall asleep at night.
If Dean Redman and the Administration are publicly going to laud their successes in cleaning up Greek system, they should not then turn around and take cheap shots at those same organizations which have worked tirelessly to comply with the their strict regulations.
