In Tuesday's issue, The Dartmouth featured another piece from one of our esteemed alumni -- that strange, arcane population that seems intent on achieving some sense of maintained relevancy ("Zero Tolerance on Drugs, Too," Jan. 7). Amazingly, this time the argument did not involve any trustees, but instead amounted to an impassioned plea for a more lenient drug policy from Dartmouth's administration. The article cited facts, figures and straight-up '70s style in posing the question, "why does the Wright administration come down so hard on students for an activity that is benevolently accepted at every other school in the Ivy League?"
I believe Mr. Asch was referring to "smoking marijuana" in this context. At any rate, here's a cause I can really get behind. Thank you, Joseph Asch '79, for returning campus debate to the really relevant issues.
And in most respects, I am completely serious. From a disinterested (uninterested, really) perspective, the entire trustee issue seemed significant only as an example of the immaturity of a bunch of 40-year-olds. It depresses me that these guys can't find another arena for their ego battles, and their behavior makes me question my conviction that I'll grow up some day.
But I won't stoop to their level and spend all my time on a stupid issue; instead, let's assume that their squabbling is justified, and might have some intangible, esoteric effect upon the "future direction" of the college.
After all, the Dartmouth Board of Trustees and our administration have a proven track record of progressive self-examination and effective, goal-oriented action. In the summer of 2005, the college hired McKinsey & Company, a management consulting firm, to come to Dartmouth to help assess the administrative structure and "help identify ways in which the College could enhance administrative functions."
We're still waiting on the full report, which, as rumor has it, only "President Right" and a few of his most trusted henchmen were ever allowed to see. Apparently it was a tad harsh. In its place, the general public was tossed a toned-down "Executive Summary" that berates the College on slightly less offensive terms in smaller, harder-to-read font.
The most popular complaint within the report was a certain "complexity," if you will, (some might call it utter chaos) to the organizational structure. First off, "Officers and employees do not always understand who sets institutional priorities and makes decisions." And, if that wasn't enough, it seems that "faculty, students and employees do not always know who to call or how to move a project forward;" finally, an explanation for that total lack of response to my endless queries. Who do I call to find out why Food Court feels compelled to stop serving cheese steaks at 9 p.m? The answer remains mysteriously elusive, though I would imagine it relates in some way to all that "bureaucratic red tape" to which the report keeps referring.
And a particularly troubling discovery was that of Dartmouth's "Shadow Organizations," which "have developed...around some functions [in] several departments at the College." Shadow organizations -- I couldn't make this stuff up.
Of course, the biggest question of all is, why haven't we seen much change since McKinsey's presentation of that report in 2006? Presumably, the task probably got filtered into one of those shadow organizations and turned into the McLaughlin cluster, but I'll stick to tradition and leave such questions unanswered.
I think this Asch fellow is really onto something -- not necessarily in his drug policy reformation, -- but the sentiment that provoked him to write his article. In a moment of Dartmouth-induced nostalgia, Asch chose not to buy a building in some sort of misguided, world-class pissing contest, but to examine Dartmouth's current student body and to address an issue of immediate concern to them. I can't imagine that Asch really supports illegal drug use, but I am convinced that he genuinely supports the welfare of the undergraduate Dartmouth population; the alumni and administration of this college could take a lesson from his action.
Let's return the focus to the Dartmouth student -- the one on campus right now, presumably with a joint in his hand -- and stop constantly planning for a future that never seems to come.
