Although "work hard, play hard" is very much a cliche, it is a cliche that rings true at the College and is a source of pride to many Dartmouth students. It is especially often associated with Greek organizations. Yet, the recent publication of grade point average rankings of Greek houses ("Despite objections, Greek GPAs released," Feb. 2) has drawn criticisms from both the organizations' members and from campus administrators. They have raised concerns that the rankings may infringe upon the students' privacy and perpetuate typecasting.
The publication of these rankings, however, is not a significant privacy violation, nor a spring of stereotypes. Instead, the GPA data may provide information useful to the houses, as well as recognize the academic achievement of individual houses and of the Greek system as a whole.
As an aggregate measure, the GPA rankings provide no specific information about any single student and hence do not endanger individual privacy. That is the case even for houses with small numbers of members, although the transparency of the measure may be greater for them than for larger organizations. Furthermore, other institutional practices at Dartmouth go much further in revealing individuals' academic performance. For example, at Commencement, individual students are recognized as having graduated with various GPA-based honors. However, recognizing and honoring specific students (35 percent of the graduating class) also identifies students not meeting the criteria for such honors. Unlike the Greek GPA rankings, such recognition makes a statement about particular individuals.
Publication of house GPA rankings can also not be condemned as a reinforcement of stereotypes. Although its validity is debatable, GPA is the accepted measure of academic performance in the American educational system, and GPA statistics provide information important to Dartmouth students. The College's collection and publication of GPA statistics across student groups is therefore not unlike a census. The U.S. Census Bureau collects and analyzes data across various segments of the American population; few would argue that the Census's informative value is outweighed by publication of statistics about income or family size that might potentially reinforce racial or ethnic stereotypes. Similarly, the GPA rankings are more a source of objective information about certain groups rather than a perpetuator of stereotypes, which tend to be based on subjective perceptions about those groups.
Furthermore, the rankings are purely informative, and the houses are under no obligation to respond to them. If an organization is sufficiently concerned with its ranking, it may choose to examine and address its causes; this decision, however, is entirely its own. Associate Director of Student Activities Linda Kennedy suggests that this benefit of the rankings could be provided without publication of data for all of the houses. Although she correctly acknowledges that "once you give anything to anyone it's public information," her idea of "informing organizations of the house's own average and ranking compared to other houses and offering the GPAs of other organizations without their names attached" ignores another key fact about the spread of information at Dartmouth. Any noteworthy public information will not only disseminate with astounding velocity, but will also be quickly pieced together with other information. Hence, the type of lists she proposes could be quickly compiled, losing their effectiveness as protectors of privacy and would, once again, become campus news.
But there is nothing wrong with such information becoming campus news. In addition to providing a potential warning sign to some houses, the ranking also recognizes organizations with an outstanding academic achievement. Moreover, it recognizes the Greek system as a whole: Organizations can take pride in the fact that, on average, Greek affiliated students had higher GPAs than unaffiliated students. The Greek GPA rankings are therefore yet another testament to the happy coexistence of academic and social endeavors that is so characteristic of Dartmouth.
