Winter Carnival -- chock-full of College lore -- has always stood at the crossroads of Dartmouth's past, present and future. To tackle the challenges facing the Big Green today, undergrads should look to the annals of the February festival for its timeless wisdom.
Recently, at the callous hands of the male-dominated Greek hierarchy, the gals of Alpha Xi Delta and Alpha Phi have been left as gender refugees, roaming the campus in search for "a basement of one's own," as Virginia Woolf would put it. Yet there are no vacant plots of real estate near the prized strip of Webster Avenue. No satisfying alternatives. No quick fixes.
The forever-impotent Programming Board and Student Assembly remain unable to break the tyranny of X and Y chromosomes on the Hanover social scene. And repeating the "Frat-Free Friday" fiasco of 06X fame will only backfire. It seems that the quest for harmony between the sexes will wallow ahead only at the most glacial pace.
This reality, however, does not have to be Dartmouth's destiny. The medicine that will cure the College of its social ills can be found on the other side of the equation: Blunt the power of the testosterone-filled venues on Webster Avenue. The silver bullet that will reap automatic dividends and work wonders for the daughters of Dartmouth lies within the dusty volumes of Rauner Special Collections.
A tad counterintuitive, but this Winter Carnival, Dartmouth needs more dudes. Hear this out.
Toasting to the "Mardi Gras of the North" in the primitive pre-1972 era, Dartmouth men imported hordes of youthful co-eds to partake in the weekend of snow-filled shenanigans. In 1964, the Boston Globe opined, "Winter Carnival is a nice enough name, but not very descriptive. What they should call it is Girls Unlimited ... Two thousand -- count 'em, two thousand -- blooming young things mob the campus for the fiesta of St. Eleazar." Exalting these wenches of the winter, the Globe proclaimed, "It's Girl Time at Dartmouth."
Under the banners "2,000 Girls for One Winter Carnival" and "Men Prefer Well-Scrubbed, Casual Blonds," the New York Times chronicled the chilly fete in 1966. "[The women] poured in by plane, train and bus from colleges as far away as the Universities of Arizona and Miami."
Talk about "all the news that's fit to print."
One fraternity president told the Times, "Girls are special at Dartmouth. We don't see them very often."
Bingo. Here is the pickle the College faces in 2008: It has been 36 years since the Admissions Office removed the "boys only" sign hanging from its door. Females at the Big Green have lost that aura and mystique; they are no longer an endangered species meandering along Main Street. These days, even the number of matriculating ladies has nudged out the boys.
Simply put, Dartmouth's daughters have become an undervalued and underappreciated commodity. The unyielding forces of social capitalism must remedy this dilemma.
This Winter Carnival, in a role- reversal decades in the making, College females should import strapping gentlemen from local colleges to Hanover by the busload -- the finest that Franklin Pierce College and Southern New Hampshire University have to offer. Overlook human trafficking laws. The fierce competition resulting from the booming supply of testosterone and relatively few girls would once again make the women of the Big Green "special."
In a plague of Biblical proportions, these male imports would descend like locusts on the basements of Webster Avenue. In the process, they would dampen the risks resulting from booze-dispensing fraternity brothers' monopoly over all the social spaces. These third parties flooding the basement scene would chug the brothers' brews, clog their pong lines and flirt with their female friends. Sure, Dartmouth's daughters would still not be wearing the proverbial pants, but at least they would have one pant leg.
Seniors can recall loads of controversies that have rocked the Big Green over their four-year stint: Noah Riner and Jesus-gate, the Rally Against Hatred, the temporary suspension of Fried Chicken Mondays, the simmering battle of the sexes and an alarmist alumni insurgency. And yet Dartmouth endures.
Winter Carnival embodies the best of Dartmouth: tradition, school spirit and its "sense of place" in the wilds of New Hampshire. By harnessing the magic of the College's past, Winter Carnival rejuvenates undergrads and reminds them that Dartmouth is worth fighting for. Keep fighting the good fight.
