Throughout the last several administrations, the College has grappled with its "Animal House" reputation. The recent heated campus climate reflects a history of struggling to tackle concerns about student life and academic prestige.
In the last 40 years, during which the College transitioned to coeducation and saw the growth of affiliated campus organizations, the Greek system has faced criticism from within campus and national media. Administrative focus has oscillated between academic and social life with each passing president.
Controversy has mounted recently over allegations of rampant sexism, racism and homophobia on campus, which were left largely unaddressed by former College President Jim Yong Kim.
Despite urgent issues regarding student life, President-elect Phil Hanlon will receive strategic planning documents that do not explicitly address campus concerns.
Rather than focusing on social issues, Kim turned his attention toward budget reform and fundraising, in addition to bolstering the quality and prestige of Dartmouth's graduate schools.
These fiscal and academic efforts parallel those of former President James Freedman, who pushed for greater measures in academia and student and faculty diversity. Freedman served from 1987 to 1998, a period marked by a flurry of academic initiatives.
Though Freedman helped double the endowment and boost diversity, his administration faced criticism for the "Harvardization" of Dartmouth. Detractors said that Freedman emphasized growing the College's graduate schools at the expense of undergraduate teaching.
In spite of the administration's attention to the College's intellectual life, however, Dartmouth continued to struggle with a Greek-dominated campus culture.
The Fiske's Guide to Colleges wrote in 1989 that, "It's really a fight to the finish between the advocates of old Dartmouth (drunken beer bashes, the old-boy network, fraternity pranks and the like) and those who want to make Dartmouth like the great universities of today (intellectual, inclusive and diverse)."
When former President James Wright took office in 1998, he took the helm of a school that had undergone tremendous reform to become an academic powerhouse. Wright then turned his attention to the College's social issues, which the administration perceived to be largely rooted in the Greek system.
The Student Life Initiative was a product of the Board of Trustees' growing concern over the public's negative perception of Dartmouth's Greek system, co-chair and former trustee Susan Dentzer '77 said.
"Data from the Admissions Office indicates that a leading reason students will turn down Dartmouth is the perception that the student life and the social life do not offer rich enough opportunities for them," she said.
In an effort to address these student concerns, the committee on the Student Life Initiative surveyed student groups across campus regarding Greek life and academic and social issues.
Days before the 1999 Winter Carnival, Wright and the Board unveiled the initiative, which sought to overhaul the Greek system through social and residential reform. Though public reaction and critics saw the initiative as an effort to dismantle campus Greek life, Wright said he hoped to create a supplemental system that was "substantially coed." In an interview with The Dartmouth at the time, Wright said that change would mean an end to the Greek system "as we know it."
Student and alumni backlash to the Student Life Initiative was so severe that the administration ultimately abandoned its stance on Greek life. One thousand protesters marched to the President's lawn, and Greek leaders voted to cancel all Carnival festivities.
As a result, each subsequent administration has operated under the shadow of the Student Life Initiative. Many of the issues that Wright attempted to solve reflect those that are prevalent on campus today, including excessive drinking, hazing and sexual assault.
"There's constant work in every administration," Dentzer said. "It's an ongoing process of having the entire social fabric underpin and undergird and support our academic strengths."
Wright declined requests for comment.
On the heels of Wright's failure to reform the Greek system, Kim turned to increasing the visibility of intellectual life at Dartmouth, both in the United States and abroad. Folt's interim administration continued to revamp the College as of this year, campus tour guides no longer lead prospective students along Webster Avenue.
Kim attempted to address concerns regarding student life by improving the College's intellectual environment, faculty strategic planning advisory committee chair and sociology professor Denise Anthony said.
Strategic planning emphasized academic concerns, even as some faculty acknowledged that intellectual and student life were intertwined, she said.
While Folt maintained that the strategic planning reports did not ignore campus social life, Anthony said that "some faculty think that's the elephant in the room."
"Kim's administration wanted to focus on the academic and intellectual life and had a hope, and maybe it was just a hope, that attention on those issues could help overcome certain problems," Anthony said. "It's incomplete in addressing these social life problems and concerns."
In March 2012, Janet Reitman's Rolling Stone article detailed allegations of hazing by campus fraternities, prompting a media firestorm that largely condemned Dartmouth's Greek life. Andrew Lohse '12, whose column in The Dartmouth ignited national attention, emerged at the center of media coverage.
"Dartmouth's administration, and, of course, its trustees, need to be held accountable for their inaction on issues that diminish both student life and our school's name," Lohse said in an email.
The reaction to Reitman's article led to an uneasy campus climate. A year later, tensions again boiled over when students said they received online death threats after protesting issues of sexual assault and inequality at the 2013 Dimensions show. Folt canceled class on April 24 for a day of dialogue the interim administration's most significant response to social climate issues.
"Concerns will continue to be raised and inflamed until the administration takes serious action regarding our dysfunctional campus climate," Lohse said.
Today's campus awaits Hanlon's arrival on June 10. Hanlon has not indicated whether he plans to take a new direction regarding student life. Continued dialogue, tempered by respect, will underlie his approach, Hanlon said in an email.
Dentzer said that she expects Hanlon will be receptive to student opinion when determining a course of action for campus social problems.
Anthony said she remains unsure how Hanlon will approach the issue.
"I can't speak at all to whether Hanlon himself has ideas about that coming in," she said.
With the reemerging concerns regarding campus social life, Anthony said she believes Hanlon's challenge will be greater than Kim's.
While the strategic planning initiative focuses solely on academic and intellectual life, Alumni Council president John Daukas '84 said in a previous interview that the Dartmouth community is "holding its breath" to see how Hanlon will handle social issues.
While the Board's presidential search documents have traditionally contained no reference to hazing, alcohol or sexual abuse, Hanlon's search committee outlined these campus issues as aspects of the Dartmouth community that he must address.
The strategic planning working group reports will not, however, provide Hanlon with clear guidelines on approaching these student life concerns.
Anthony said that Hanlon will face the challenge of balancing the reports' current academic focus with the Dartmouth community's demand for a response to social issues and will have the freedom to "brand it however he wants."
While Kim's legacy of strengthening Dartmouth's academic prestige is reflected in the strategic planning initiative, the ideas in the working group reports are largely products of student and faculty innovation, Anthony said. She said she expects Hanlon will likewise "shake up" and challenge the Dartmouth community one that increasingly demands social reforms from the Hanlon administration to address student life issues.
Dentzer said that the transition into Hanlon's presidency during the College's current state of social flux continues the pattern of alternating administrations being forced to tackle either academics or social life.
"I think that life at institutions goes in cycles, and clearly Dartmouth is at an inflection point now, where people recognize that it's time for change," Dentzer said. "That was our perception on the Board in the 1990s, and it's coming back again"
