This Green Key Weekend heralded in a new frame of reference for me, and I would be lying if I claimed it was not unbalancing.
As I sat in the living room at Alpha Theta and looked at the throngs of alumni who flocked back to the College for the weekend, I suddenly realized that, come next Green Key, I would be one of them. In just a few weeks, I will cross that invisible line between undergraduate and alum that runs down the middle of the commencement stage. I have known this moment was coming for four years, but its imminent arrival still comes as something of a shock.
So, sitting there on the living room couch, I tried to perform the mental transformation, to put myself in the shoes of an alum, to imagine returning to this College that means so much to me after years of separation. I wondered if the College I would come back to five, 10, 20 or more years down the road would resemble the place that I have come to know and love.
I didn't know. I wasn't sure. And that is what really scared me.
I am not about to take up the alarmist cry, to claim that this College is in crisis. Dartmouth is one of America's finest colleges, and likely will be for some time. The patient is, as of yet, healthy. But I fear that the trends I have observed over my four years in Hanover are troubling, and that if this institution does not rethink its present direction, a self-fueled decline is just beyond the horizon.
The price of a Dartmouth education was already staggering when I arrived in Hanover, and it has continued to rise at a breathtaking clip. Tuition growth leaves inflation (and the rest of the economy, for that matter) in its dust, and tuition is only the beginning of the cost of life at Dartmouth. This problem is not unique to the College. Indeed, all of higher education seems trapped in a vicious spiral of raising student fees, often in large part to cover the costs of financial aid for students who cannot afford the rising price of an education.
At an elite, private school (read: expensive) like Dartmouth, the problem becomes even more pronounced. If these trends are not arrested, schools like Dartmouth will become the preserve of the very rich (who can pay without pain) and the very poor (who can qualify for aid). For the vast majority of students trapped in the murky middle, the College will grow increasingly out of reach. Families should not be expected to mortgage their houses, and students should not be expected to drown themselves in loans to pay for a higher education, especially not when there are plenty of fine public schools able to offer the same services at a much lower price.
What can students expect to get for the piles of money that Dartmouth demands? The answer seems to be progressively less education, and progressively more ancillary frills. Dartmouth is paying for this obsession with student life and administrative expansion at the expense of the College's core mission -- the teaching and learning of the liberal arts. During my time at the College, money has flowed in abundance to trivial projects like a new fitness center, trivial organizations like Programming Board have found their coffers flush with cash, and new deans (and their armies of assistants) for trivial functions have propagated like rabbits. At the same time, whole academic departments have disappeared, hiring in popular departments had straggled behind student demand, and promising educational programs have been allowed to wither on the vine -- all because of a purported lack of funds. If the College does not cut back on its profligate spending and refocus its resources away from boutique causes and social engineering, Dartmouth's position as one of America's finest liberal arts colleges will become increasingly jeopardized.
Finally, if certain aspects of student culture do not change, then some of Dartmouth's great, enduring social institutions may be headed for self-destruction. I am a proud member of a coed Greek house, and I believe that a good Greek community is the best possible contributor to the much-vaunted notion of "student life." But the future of Dartmouth's Greek system is in the hands of Greek students themselves. And as long as students continue to engage in, and Greek houses continue to condone, destructive behavior -- be it hazing, excessive drinking, or theft and assault -- then Dartmouth's Greeks will teeter on the brink of self-induced destruction. This behavior cannot be tolerated, whether the rationale is that "things have always been this way" or that it is needed to maintain a "sweet" image. Tragedy has been avoided this far, but not because of good planning or foresight. Instead, too many Greek organizations are relying on their ability to dodge bullets. Sooner or later, they will lose this game of Russian roulette. Students will die. And Dartmouth's Greek system "as we know it" really will perish, the final victim of an alcohol-soaked murder-suicide.
If these directions do not change, I am pessimistic about the College I will return to as an alum. Dartmouth is too wonderful, and it matters too much to me for me to give it up without a fight. I can only encourage other students who may have similar concerns to pledge to do the same. I want to be able to come to my reunions, to lounge in the Alpha Theta living room with future undergraduates, and to do so while feeling good about the institution that has come to be my second home.
I love this place. I just hope it can be saved from itself.
