Students' Winter Carnival experience this year -- which will include parties, concerts, movies and free food -- will be a far cry from the protests and cancelled festivities that marked the Carnival eight years ago.
On Feb. 8, 1999, the eve of that year's Carnival, the Board of Trustees announced the Student Life Initiative, a controversial effort that many believed was an attempt to end the 150-year tradition of single sex Greek houses.
The SLI, as the initiative was known, aimed to make "the Dartmouth out-of-classroom experience match and support the academic mission of the College."
The Board recognized five principles to guide the College's mission to achieve this goal, ranging from offering a greater variety of social spaces to making the Greek system coeducational and eliminating "the abuse and unsafe use of alcohol."
Fears of anti-Greek sentiment caused by the release of the SLI, recently came to the forefront of student discussion again. An unfinished document, titled "Why the Greek System Must Go," written by someone who identified himself as the student body president, surfaced. While Student Assembly President Tim Andreadis '07 said he could neither confirm nor deny his authorship of the document, the debate on the nature of the Greek system rages on.
"Make no mistake, there are many campus leaders which have emerged in Greek organizations and the efforts of these individuals have been notable and should be applauded," the author writes in the leaked document. "But in my four years here, I have found same-sex Greek organizations to do little more than provide a social setting for men to sexually objectify women and for women to engage in back-stabbing."
Following the announcement of the SLI back in 1999, College President Jame Wright maintained that the initiative would improve students' out-of-classroom experience.
"I have no doubt that this initiative will help ensure the Dartmouth experience remains second to none," he said.
Linda Kennedy, current senior director of student activities and advisor to the 1999 Winter Carnival Council, recalled mass demonstrations of over 900 students at Psi Upsilon fraternity, just outside her office.
While she acknowledged that many students opposed the SLI, she also said that "there will people who were thrilled with it," and denied the presence of any riots per se.
"There were hundreds of people around the [Psi U] rink and they had a PA system and were up on the porch and people were making speeches -- some people had signs," Kennedy said. "I think everybody is scared of change."
In response to the initiative, many fraternities cancelled their parties in protest. Still, the weekend went on.
"We did add some events to Winter Carnival at the last minute -- we added a barbeque at midnight on Saturday night," Kennedy said. "It was very cold and the smell of hamburgers spread for miles."
While discussion and debate about the Initiative centered on the nature of the Greek system for much of the coming year, the ultimate effects of the SLI are apparent elsewhere.
The Organization Adjudication Committee, the body through which campus groups are reviewed for alleged violation of College policy, grew out of the SLI so that "all student organizations could be held to the same standard," Kennedy said.
"All students and student organizations should be treated under the same set of guiding principles and rules, and that violations be adjudicated by a single judicial system embracing all student organizations," the OAC's website said.
The undergraduate advisor system, freshmen orientation and the FUEL nightclub, among other measures, resulted from the implementation of the SLI.
The general nature of the Greek system, though. has remained the same.
