In its current form, the GKS is a junior service organization made up of approximately 60 members who play an important role in Orientation, Homecoming, Commencement, the Baker Bell Tower tours and various other events.
"We're really the ushers of the college when it comes to official functions," President of the Society Sebastian Restrepo '07 said. "Our purpose is just to make people welcome at the College and to help out the College in any way possible."
The idea for the Society was developed in response to a welcome that the Dartmouth football team received on a visit to the University of Washington in 1920.
The Dartmouth team was greeted at the train station by UW's service organization, The Knights of Hook, who provided transportation to the players' lodgings, served as guides for the team and even introduced them to women in the area.
In 1921, following the merger of two sophomore societies, Sigma Pick, and Shield and Sabre, Dartmouth's GKS was created. The organization's name reflected both the College in the word "Green" and hospitality in the word "Key."
Initially, the responsibilities of the GKS included welcoming and entertaining guests, acting as the rule enforcement committee for first-year students, and selecting ushers and cheerleaders for athletic events. In the years following its inception, the responsibilities of the Society varied and the organization became increasingly service-oriented.
From the first year of its formation the GKS hosted an annual spring show, similar to a variety show, as a fundraiser for its budget.
Following the cancellation of the annual four-day House-parties weekend in 1924, the Green Key Society's variety show was expanded to fill the social gap.
The House-parties weekend, which was first organized in 1899 by the class of 1900 and canceled in 1924 after years of participant misconduct, brought hundreds of women to campus for back-to-back fraternity parties, a junior promenade and various sporting events.
After eight successful years of the variety show, the GKS reinstated the promenade in 1929, renaming it the Green Key Ball.
The 1939 Green Key Handbook clearly stated the purpose of the dance.
"Coming in the last month of the junior year of the Green Key men, the Prom provides a fitting climax to a year of College service and adds to an ever-increasing number of happy memories," it read.
Because the GKS was the only College organization permitted to hold a prom, the Green Key Ball enjoyed decades of success. However, in the midst of its popularity, the administration canceled the dance in 1967 after a student riot erupted in reaction to a speech by former governor of Alabama George Wallace at the College.
Following the cancellation of the prom, the role of the GKS in the weekend steadily declined and events like fraternity parties and sporting events became the weekend's main focus and the basis of today's Green Key Weekend.
"The function of the Green Key Society in Green Key Weekend has totally fizzled out," Pam Banholzer '81 told The Dartmouth in 1980.
In recent years, however, the Society's role in the weekend has increased to that of a coordinating body.
The GKS, whose only funding comes from the sale of day-by-day planners and Green Key Weekend t-shirts, lacks the money to plan many events itself.
In its current form, the GKS meets with all the groups holding events during the weekend to facilitate communication between campus organizations and to compile a schedule of events for the weekend that is then distributed to the student body.
