Dartmouth 1957
WASP. One syllable encapsulates how a lot of people on the outside view Dartmouth. The 1950s and 1960s were the reign of the "Old Boys Club" at Dartmouth, and one might suppose that "White Anglo-Saxon Protestantism" was even more dominant prior to coeducation.
Nevertheless, we cannot attribute the differences between then and now to an increased diversity in the student body. During this time, Dartmouth was a school without girls, and the vitality of manhood had to manifest itself somehow.
"We were Dartmouth men, and we were proud of it," Jay Davis '54 said. "We were not rowdies, but we were known as rugged outdoors types."
Davis remembered the Dartmouth of the early 1950s, when College President John Sloan Dickey was in office. This was a time when fraternity members organized "formal meetings dressed in our robes in the chapter room" and professors would frequent Psi Upsilon fraternity to give scholarly talks, according to Davis.
Of course, some of his peers did not remember Dartmouth in such an austere and serious way. Bob Slater '56 said that to some small degree, coeducation existed even in those early years.
"The only day that women were not on campus was Wednesday," he said. "They were either winding up a long weekend or starting one."
In terms of academics, both Slater and Davis said that their classes at Dartmouth were extremely challenging.
"There were no inflated grades," Davis said. "We had to work hard for a B and to graduate."
Slater said he was proud that he was able to graduate from Dartmouth but added, "it was too darn hard."
The college application process was surprisingly similar to what today's students endure, according to Slater. Although any College Confidential addict will assure you that the difficulty of college admissions has been rising exponentially for the past two and a half centuries, the choices made by our alumni counterparts nonetheless resemble our own.
Slater, for example, said he was choosing between Dartmouth and Williams College. Although his mother thought Williams would be less competitive, his father ultimately commanded that he attend Dartmouth.
Davis decided on Dartmouth "because it was an Ivy League college located in ski country," he said. This rationale certainly doesn't seem foreign to many of us at the College today.
In spite of the obvious differences between the Dartmouth of the 1950s and the Dartmouth of today, the changes that have occurred have been merely surface-level. The commonalities strike a more important chord, and the same hill winds run through our veins.
Dartmouth 1977
Although Dartmouth had diversified somewhat by the 1970s, it still held fast to its WASP-y roots.
"I remember sitting in Spaulding [Auditorium] with my entire class and thinking, I've never seen this much blonde hair in my life," Mark Greenstein '75 said. "It was pretty common that I was the first Jew people had ever met."
However, Dartmouth made a momentous step to transform its student body by admitting women in 1972. There had been female exchange students on campus in previous years, and some of them transferred permanently to Dartmouth, but 1972 was the first time that women were admitted with an incoming class.
Those opposed to coeducation were vocal in their unsavory reactions. Occasionally, when women entered Thayer Dining Hall, "people would yell out [numerical] scores" to assess their attractiveness as if we were in the Olympics, " according to Greenstein. Women were frequently referred to as "co-hogs," and Greenstein said he remembers many awkward moments, such as when singing the Alma Mater prior to the addition of the "daughters of Dartmouth" line.
Ultimately, Greenstein admitted that "it felt much better when women got there."
Betsy Stueber '77 found female solidarity in North Massachusetts Hall, which was an all-female residence hall at the time.
"The smartest thing I did was ask to be in an all-female dorm," she said. "I loved North Mass, and I felt it had an important role in integrating women into the community."
Residence halls were especially important because they played a much bigger role in campus social life during the 1970s than they do now, according to Stueber, who said each hall had chairmen and even organized parties.
"We were like our own sorority," Stueber said. As a chairwoman of North Mass, Stueber said she organized mixers and events that allowed women to "have some control over our social life outside of the frats," she said.
As the last Ivy to admit women, Dartmouth was perhaps not on the cutting edge of gender relations during the 1970s. It was, however, on the frontline of computing during this time thanks to the efforts of then-College President John Kemeny, a co-developer of the BASIC programming language.
"I remember being in the Kiewit Computer Center at 2 a.m. working on a project and thinking, Wow, this is probably not happening at many other places in the country,'" Tom Foster '77 said.
Nonetheless, students in the '70s still had that "work hard, play hard" attitude that continues to characterize Dartmouth culture, according to Foster.
Outside the classroom, fraternities played "more of a central role" to Dartmouth social life than they do today, according to Foster. However, likely because of the skewed gender ratio, fraternities were much less accessible for all students than they are today.
"There were [some] frats that frightened me, and I never went to them," Stueber said.
The themes for parties were also a little more risque, according to Stueber, who recalled a wet T-shirt party held at a fraternity.
"I think it's a lot more civilized now," Foster said of Dartmouth's social scene.
For Greenstein, Dartmouth has always been a good balance of fun and academic rigor.
"It always felt much more like a camp than it did an ivory tower," he said.
Dartmouth 1991
While most of us were just infants, Dartmouth was both alive and thriving, experiencing a period of innovation and transformation in the 1990s. During this time, the College saw the creation of new traditions while some old traditions were gradually eradicated.
Take Homecoming of 1990. Prior to this year, tradition held that the number of tiers of the bonfire would equal the year of the current freshman class. However, as the increasingly tall structure became increasingly dangerous, the College was forced to put a cap on the height of the bonfire. Following an accident at Texas A&M University in 1999 in which 12 students were killed due to the collapse of a 40-foot bonfire, Dartmouth started hiring professionals to do most of the building in order to protect the safety of its students.
The 1990s also signaled the end of certain traditions. On Commencement, known as Class Day, the seniors typically walked in procession to the Bema. After a humorous history of the class was shared, the soon-to-be graduates walked up the hill to the stump of the Old Pine, where a farewell ceremony was typical held. For over 140 years, the ceremony included the smoking of what were designated as "peace pipes" to symbolize the seniors' "clean break" from the College. However, the practice of smashing the pipes on the pine was deemed offensive, particularly to the Native American community. Consequently, in 1993, this 121-year-old custom was outlawed. Instead, seniors are now given candles and invited to the Green at midnight for a candlelight procession. But not all of our school's precious traditions faded during this decade. The Ledyard Challenge, in which students attempt to swim naked from the Ledyard Canoe Club on the New Hampshire banks of the Connecticut River to the Vermont side and return by running to the same spot via the Ledyard Bridge, was born in the early 1990s. Under a full moon, four students first made the naked swim across the Connecticut River, but despite their valiant efforts to scurry back across the bridge toward the clubhouse, campus police caught two of the young nude daredevils before they reached the safety of their clothes. The Ledyard Challenge has been attempted by Dartmouth students ever since.
The 1990s marked numerous modern advancements at the College, as campus buildings were given high-speed internet access, owning a computer became mandatory for all enrolled students and construction on Berry Library commenced. In addition, a new dining plan was finalized, the curriculum was altered and a new alcohol policy was created. While the 1990s may not be classified as the most radical decade in Dartmouth's history, those 10 years nevertheless marked a time of transformation that have ushered in the Dartmouth of today.
