FRESHMAN YEAR: 2002-2003
Monetary woes marked the Fall term of the Class of 2006's freshman year after the College announced many wide-ranging budget cuts.
The budget constraints removed $1 million from the library system, which controversially responded by integrating the Sherman Art Library into the Baker-Berry complex and converting Sanborn Library into a reading room, despite some student protest.
After the College tried to cut the swimming and diving teams, however, students were not as passive. While College President James Wright's administration argued it would rather cut one team entirely than hurt each team slightly, reaction to the choice was vehemently negative. The day after the announcement, hundreds of students, along with alumni and parents, marched through campus protesting against the decision. They ended their night with a rally in front of the houses of the President and the Dean of the College. In the end, though, it was generous alumni donations to the tune of $2 million that saved the two teams.
In further reaction to budget cuts, some departments were forced to downsize course offerings, and the Board of Trustees upped tuition by 4.9 percent.
Phi Delta Alpha fraternity, suspended in 2000 for attempting to burn down Chi Gamma Epsilon fraternity, was granted colony status by the College. Phi Delt alumni returned to the house to conduct rush events, where prospective members were offered the unique opportunity of joining an empty house.
New revisions to the alcohol policy required all events where alcohol was being served to more than 40 people to be registered with the College. The rules limited each house to only two registered parties per week and were met with criticism from Greek organizations.
Despite worldwide SARS fears, the College decided not to quarantine students traveling from infected areas. College health officials, though, sent mass BlitzMail messages to students regarding the disease and the Beijing foreign study program was canceled.
At the beginning of the summer the Supreme Court struck down the University of Michigan's points-based affirmative action policy but upheld a broader affirmative action principle. Dartmouth had filed a friend-of-the-court brief defending Michigan's use of race as a factor in admissions.
SOPHOMORE YEAR: 2003-2004
As the January New Hampshire Democratic Primary approached, Dartmouth was buzzing with election-related hubbub. Democratic presidential candidates stumped on campus in the weeks leading up to the nation's first and most-watched primary election. Howard Dean, the most popular candidate among students, unveiled his higher education plan in a November speech at the College. Candidates Wesley Clark, John Edwards, Joseph Lieberman, John Kerry, Dennis Kucinich and Carol Moseley-Braun all made visits to the College as well.
In a poorly orchestrated, but nationally-televised debate that attracted only three candidates, Kucinich, Dean and Lieberman debated about women's issues in Moore Theater.
In College politics, the Board of Trustees voted to add six seats over the next ten years, only the second size increase in the Board's history. Meanwhile, Julia Hildreth '05 won the race for student body president by a single vote. Her lack of majority support spurred the controversial Instant Runoff voting system that was implemented the following year.
The Student Assembly's mascot search was ended when a majority of students in a poll disapproved of the moose as a mascot. Two students involved with the Jack-o-Lantern humor magazine, however, responded to the search by creating an unofficial mascot. Keggy the Keg, a characterized beer cask with green tights and large eyes, appeared at the Homecoming football game, on an ESPN special, in the pages of Playboy and in other national news outlets.
Within a short amount of time, the mascot had become an ingrained part of Dartmouth culture.
Campus crime resurfaced when Hanover police booked three students on cocaine charges after officers on a stakeout near Theta Delta Chi fraternity witnessed a drug deal.
Sophomore year ended with a return to fall rush for fraternities and sororities, but only after Greek leaders protested an administrative effort to cut the rush term in half. The compromise reached by the Office of Residential Life and the Greek Leadership Council was the first of an arguably more positive relationship between Greek houses and the College as the Class of 2006 entered its junior year.
JUNIOR YEAR 2004-2005
After sophomore summer, the Class of 2006 returned to Hanover in the fall to find the campus transformed into a hotbed of political activity. With the 2004 presidential election fast-approaching, President George W. Bush and his challenger, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), stumped throughout the state with their respective high-profile supporters in tow. Meanwhile, student political groups worked at a fever pitch to drum up support for their party's man, showering the Big Green with leaflets and mobilizing their organizations.
The Democratic and Republican parties clashed on the state level over voter registration, which had created headaches for students who tried to take advantage of New Hampshire's same-day registration laws during the last midterm elections. The ambiguity of laws requiring out-of-staters to change their domicile if they wanted to vote in New Hampshire, a swing state, left many students unclear as to whether they would be required to change their driver's licenses or forfeit state-based scholarships. Republicans stressed these prospects and encouraged students to vote in their home states, while the Democrats aggressively urged out-of-state students to register in New Hampshire.
Residential halls became cluttered with hundreds of leaflets promoting certain candidates and adding to the debate on student voting rights. Students also humorously noted the lawyers present at voting registration tables at Hanover high school.
Popular get-out-the-vote campaigns contributed to New Hampshire's Democratic success, the only state to switch party support from 2000 to 2004, although its four electoral votes would not be enough to turn the national tide.
The "Campaign for the Dartmouth Experience," officially launched in November of 2004, was Wright's first capital campaign.
The first fall rush was held in 2004 after three years of winter rush for Greek houses. Fall rush proved to be successful for fraternities and sororities, and produced high turnouts for pledge classes.
Theta Delta Chi fraternity and Delta Delta Delta sorority had a problematic pledge term, however, as the two houses found themselves embroiled in a hazing scandal toward the end of Fall term. Police investigated a Tri Delt pledge activity held at Theta Delt involving sorority pledges performing alleged provocative dances for the fraternity brothers. Although the inquiry failed to yield enough evidence to bring either house up on criminal charges, both houses were put on College probation at the end of Winter term following a joint Committee on Standards and Organizational Adjudication Committee hearing in February.
A firing, a hiring and a controversial letter put Big Green football center stage heading into the Winter term. After a 1-9 season, 13-year head coach John Lyons was fired in December. Lyons led the team to two championships earlier in his Dartmouth career, but ran out of steam in his last six years in Hanover.
Just a few weeks later Dean of Admissions Karl Furstenberg found himself at the center of a major uproar after a local newspaper printed a private letter he wrote to Swarthmore President Alfred Bloom four years ago, commending him for cutting his college's football program, which Furstenberg termed a "sacrifice to the academic quality and diversity of entering first-year classes." When the correspondence surfaced it unleashed a torrent of protest from student-athletes and the College community, which exploded into a campus-wide debate on admissions and athletics.
As the controversy raged on, Buddy Teevens '79 was tapped as the new head football coach. Teevens returned to the helm of Dartmouth football after a five-year stint as head coach that started in 1987.
"We were all aware of it," cornerback Steve Jensen '05 said of the letter incident. "Teevens told us that he sat down and talked to [Furstenberg], and he reassured us that he is committed to football and athletics at Dartmouth."
Later in the year, mounting discord between the administration and College employees resulted in two high-profile Spring term resignations.
Sexual Abuse Awareness Program coordinator Abby Tassel tendered her resignation in April, citing a lack of support from supervisors and hostility from colleagues.
Tassel's resignation elicited vocal responses from students. Sexual Abuse Peer Advisors and others who worked with Tassel compiled testimonials from victims who benefited from Tassel's work and are now spearheading efforts to find a replacement.
On the heels of Tassel's departure, friction with administrators produced another resignation in April. In a scathing letter, Jim Kuypers, the sole faculty member of the Speech Department, blasted faculty deans for belittling the speech program, which he had run on his own for 10 years, and denying proposals to hire more faculty and install a tenure track. Kuypers went so far as to compare Dean of the Faculty Carol Folt and Associate Dean of the Humanities Lenore Grenoble to mythological monsters Scylla and Charybdis.
Kuypers' exit marked the end of speech study at Dartmouth, a field that was taught by a full department from 1920 until 1979 but scaled down to office status thereafter.
The comings and goings of Spring term helped fuel some criticisms from students and alumni who were concerned that the administration was mismanaging personnel priorities, compounding course oversubscription in Dartmouth's economics and government majors.
But while relations between administrators and some employees disintegrated, successful collaborative efforts between students and the administration also distinguished the Spring term.
May saw Larimore accept the proposals of the Social Event Management Procedures committee he convened in the fall to analyze the portion of the College's alcohol policy regarding party registration. The committee, comprised of students and administrators, came up with changes to shift more responsibility to the houses in organizing and running their events.
Policies on registering alcoholic events had created some tensions between the Greek community and administrators, especially in the wake of the controversial Student Life Initiative, which was perceived by many as an attack on Greek life.
Committee member Rob Freiman '05 said the SEMP committee was an example of a recent trend of partnership between students and administrators. Provost Berry Scherr also agreed to extend library hours to 2 a.m. on weeknights, following a proposal by Student Assembly.
Making a solid mark on Dartmouth culture, Student Activities director Linda Kennedy unveiled the wildly popular "Party Packs," or midnight deliveries of pizza to registered parties on campus. Although some disagreed with the program, empty pizza boxes in Greek basements became the standard before long.
A battle between insiders and outsiders also played out in the spring race for Student Body President, in which Student Assembly veteran Noah Riner '06 narrowly defeated non-Assembly member Paul Heintz '06 and three fellow Assembly members by sweeping up a majority of votes under the new Instant Runoff Voting rules.
Alumni elected two petition candidates for Board of Trustees in the Spring, filling two empty seats. Peter Robinson '79 and Todd Zywicki '88 defeated four Alumni Council-nominated candidates, during a campaign where they focused on the administration's handling of academics, athletics and free speech issues. When the third party group Alumni for a Stronger Dartmouth stepped in to endorse the four Council candidates, the distinction between the nominated and write-in candidates became even sharper, despite the fact that all six candidates supported most of the same platforms.
