[April 22, 2013] The Dartmouth Review Page 1

Dartmouth’s Only Independent Newspaper

Volume 33, Issue 2April 22, 2013

The Hanover Review, Inc.P.O. Box 343

Hanover, NH 03755

The Dartmouth Review

Of Fraternity Bros&

Administrative BoondogglesAlso IncludesThe Truth on:

Tuition HikesStrategic Plans

Tour GuidesAdmissionsDimensions

Binge DrinkingDick’s House

BaseballFolt’s Bolt

Page 2 The Dartmouth Review [April 22, 2013]

Tuition Skyrockets As Staff Increases

Mr. Neff is a senior at the College and News Editor of The Dartmouth Review.

By Blake S. Neff

We’ve made it, boys and girls. We’ve made it. We’re over the top. We have faced the great challenge and left it bleeding in the sands of the area. We have achieved The Big Six Oh Oh Oh Oh.

Sixty thousand dollars per year in combined tuition plus room and board. To be exact, $60,201. Last year, students had to pay $58,000 for the right to earn credits here, but the past 12 months have shown that amount to be totally insufficient, and so at their last meeting the College’s illustrious trustees approved another hike of 3.8%, well above the inflation rate of 2%. The new number almost boggles the mind, exceeding the median American household income by nearly $8,000. A full-priced degree will cost around $250,000, with the price soaring above $300,000 if one has the temerity to be an en-gineering major. To put that in perspective, that’s enough to buy a decent house in a cheap market, a terrible house in an expensive one, or over 400,000 Snack Pack pudding cups if bought in bulk.

This number puts Dartmouth firmly in the top 10 among American colleges (though it cannot top Sarah Law-rence’s hilarious $64,000 price point), but Dartmouth stands out from the pack by being one of the few rural colleges to rise so high. Nobody is shocked to see an array of New York schools (Sarah Lawrence is in Bronxville) in the top 10 surrounded by other big-city brethren. Dartmouth cannot protect itself with the same excuse. While Hanover itself is a very costly location thanks to the College, costs drop rap-idly upon leaving town and Lebanon is below the American average. Whatever the reasons for Dartmouth’s high costs, the administration can’t blame it on where the Rev. Eleazar decided to set up shop.

What, then, is responsible for Dartmouth eating money like a busted Pac-Man machine? There are several causes.

Astoundingly enough (though not surprisingly), the actual per-student expenditure by Dartmouth is well above even what tuition can finance. Even if every one of the college’s 6000 undergrads and graduate students paid full freight, it would “only” add up to about $360 million dollars, but in fact due to very generous financial aid and (officially) need-blind admissions the Col-lege only collects around $160 million. Dartmouth, on the other hand, managed to blow through $775 million last year, over $2 million a day and nearly as high as the GDP of Grenada, a country of 110,000 that Reagan knocked over in 1983. That amounts to about $150,000 per student, per year.

Where does all of this money go? Predict-ably, the biggest consumer of resources is human capital: The College has over 1,000 faculty and 3,328 non-faculty employees. Combined, they devour $439 million a year in wages, salaries, and benefits. This is a very large number, even for the Ivy League. Brown University has 2,000 more undergrads than we do, and more graduate students, yet it gets by with fewer non-faculty employees, employing 3,227. Cornell has 8,081 non-academic staff, less than two and a half times Dartmouth’s total for a university with almost three and a half times as many students. Princeton and Harvard employ staff at a higher rate, but Princeton also has the largest per-student endowment in the world to back up that outlay, and Harvard is not far behind. Their administrations may be spendthrifts, but at least they can afford it. We – however – just pass along the costs to students.

Not only does the College employ a legion (quite literally; a Roman legion was about 4,500 soldiers), but said legion is incredibly expensive, once again just like the old Roman ones. Whereas old Roman soldiers were recompensed with booty and land grants, Dartmouth’s profits from incredibly good benefits all the way down the ladder. And they don’t even have to risk life and limb! Even an entry level food services employee will take home over $15 an hour from his first day, with a raise after nine months, several weeks of paid leave, an additional pension contribution, and an extremely generous health plan that requires very little employee contribution. The result of all of this is that the average cost in wage and benefits per Dartmouth employee is just over $100,000, all for a workforce that lives in the picturesque Upper Valley, where the cost of living is higher than the American average but significantly cheaper than Cambridge or Princeton. And the standard of living is far better than say South Dakota. Brown’s employees, who live in similarly-priced Providence, cost just $89,000 apiece, thanks to the school spending $40

million less than Dartmouth every year on benefits. At Cornell the price is about $90,000 per employee. That’s still high, but even that $10,000 difference could be a huge boon for students if applied here. Since Dartmouth has somehow man-aged to have one employee for every single undergraduate, matching Brown’s pay could enable the school to cut tuition by $10,000 in one fell swoop.

Such a change is eminently achievable. The gross size of Dartmouth’s staff is a recent development, as well as a return to form after a few years of badly-needed cuts. In the 1990’s, with a student body of almost the same size, the College got by with with barely 2,000 staff, and some-how did not collapse into oblivion or get expelled from the Ivy League. Nevertheless, the College allowed itself to be sucked into the cycle of expansion. In 2012 Dartmouth added another 153 people to its administrative payroll, taking the total number of non-teaching personnel to 3328.

Perhaps such numbers sound a little abstract, so let’s put it into straight financial terms. If the College aver-ages $100,000 in expenses per employee, and the College has 5,987 total students (including graduate students), then each additional employee the College hires costs the students an average of $16.70. Not a lot, but multiplied by 153 new non-faculty staff it adds up to $2,555 per student, amusingly close to the $2,200 price hike just approved (and even closer if one makes the reasonable assumption that new hires earn somewhat less than the mean Dartmouth salary). Does this year’s College feel $2,500 better than last year’s College? Would the College become simply unbearable had those largely invisible hires not been made? Your call.

Some of the new jobs do have a dark humor to them. The College’s opaquely-named Advancement Division, whose duties include alumni relations and PR, added 16 people last year, so the snarkier sorts might observe that Andrew Lohse cost every student at Dartmouth $267.20 a year.

Looking for some kind of official answer regarding the College’s continued cost spiral, I sent off some emails to

various departments in the vague hope of talking to somebody. An email to the Advancement Division turned up nothing, but another to the Provost’s Office struck...well, not gold, but some other metal of solid value. Tin, maybe. I was all scheduled to meet with Interim Provost Wybourne when fate intervened and he had to jet off to London, making any direct communication difficult to say the least. Not one to give up, I pressed on and secured a few minutes with Martha Austin, Associate Vice Provost for Government Relations.

Speaking with her didn’t lead to any information on hiring decisions or overall expenses or, well, anything that I was hoping to find out, but I did learn a little more about whom the College was hiring. According to her, the 76-per-son ($1269.20!) expansion of the provost’s office outlined in official College documents is actually a myth. Twenty-seven people were transferred over from the medical school, and nine from Facilities Operations and Management. Of twenty-one hires in IT, 12 were temporary to help with the creation of the new website and other projects. So really, she said, the Provost’s office has expanded very little relative to its size.

A savage publication deadline prevented me from more closely auditing Ms. Austin’s claims, but a superficial glance makes them appear plausible. The Geisel School is the largest employment subdivision on the College’s fact sheet yet added few employees last year, which could reflect reorganizations that transferred employees out. Even if Austin can shift blame away from the provost’s office, however, it doesn’t mean there is no blame to be had. No matter how much reorganization the College has undergone, the fact is

that this year it employed 153 more non-academic staff than it did the year before. Even if some of them are temporary, so what? The soon-to-be-University is not going through an exceptional expansion right now. The College will always have temps and this year’s wave will be replaced by a new one in time. It may as well be considered a fluctuating year-to-year expense.

The consistent year-to-year expansion of the Col-lege’s workforce reflects the other trend driving high costs:

the continual expansion and reinvention of the College itself. The College truly renovates at a furious pace. The past few years have seen the Black Family Vi-sual Arts Center, a very costly renovation of the Hanover Inn, and internal revamps of the food court and Collis Student Center. The coming years will see even

more drastic expansion, with a North Campus Academic Center and additional buildings at the Medical Center projected to cost over $150 million. This building and renovating is so constant and high-cost that the College has to borrow millions; the school’s debt load has ballooned over the past 15 years by close to a billion dollars; interest alone on the College’s debt is around $22 million a year, or $3,666 per student. With such an incredibly expansionist policy, perhaps the College is not too dissimilar from the Roman Empire after all.

This ever-increasing bloat is a sad state of affairs born from the incentives created by modern careerist resume-building as well as the academic bubble in general. Your typical provost who aspires to, say, take over a large state university system gains nothing from a resume blip that reads “Maintained top undergraduate teaching rank for 7 years and didn’t screw it up.” The bolded paragraphs blathering about how they led the construction of yet another large academic building or how they “executed the successful rebranding of the College into a University which led to a 16.3% increase in international applicants,” however, almost make the resume-bearer seem like an accomplished adult. Like an Ouroboros, the College tries to grow by eating itself.

For the time being, the College can will itself onwards thanks to the striving of upper-middle-class Americans, eager to show their status and success by sending their children to top-ranked schools which they hope will put them on the path to the American elite. It’s not entirely clear how long this cycle can go on before centripetal force tears it apart. If our current rate of tuition growth continues, Dartmouth will cost $100,000 per year in fourteen years. In twenty, it will be at $125,000. At that point, even the ever-increasing legions of legacies will have dif-ficulty paying their way. Whenever the cycle finally tails off, it is not clear that the College’s traditional identity will remain. Degrees that cost as much as a house are toxic to a liberal arts vision that seeks to include anybody besides lower earners and the

spectacularly wealthy. For the moderately well-off who are a large proportion of the student body, higher prices require an increasingly mercenary approach to the Dartmouth experience. Notions of expanding one’s mind or undertaking challenging scholarship will fall by the wayside as students focus entirely on what will get them into their desired career path, a career path that will necessarily be lucrative. Many bemoan the College’s servile relationship with finance and consulting to the detriment of nearly every other career path, but this is the natural outcome of turning the college into a country club with a six-figure annual membership cost. Students must justify an enormously costly education by entering the most lucrative career fields; choosing to become a journalist, teacher, non-profit worker, or God forbid an academic is a fool’s game.

The College could fix the tuition dilemma in a lot of ways, if it were truly ambitious. Eliminating tuition as Cooper Union and College of the Ozarks have done is an impossible goal, but it’s hardly a stretch to say the College could get the cost of a 4-year education down to $200,000 and keep it there for a while. The college was able to torpedo about 10% of its workforce to deal with the 2008 recession without the sky falling; it could have stayed there.

Dartmouth should aspire to be the best and biggest liberal arts college in the world. That requires maintaining its traditions, its community, and its strong alumni base. It does not require $60,000 in tuition. If a college seeks to call itself the best undergraduate school in the country, long-term vision is crucial. Dartmouth should show some. Stop the madness and begin trimming the fat. n

Your typical provost who aspires to, say, take over a large state

university system gains nothing from a resume blip that reads “Maintained top undergraduate teaching rank for 7 years and didn’t screw it up.”

—The mythical Administration Building—

[April 22, 2013] The Dartmouth Review Page 3

Wednesday night means something special to every Dartmouth student. It’s Meetings Night. That means that for every Greek brother and sister, Wednesday is a time to relax. To take a brief hour or two out of your week and reconnect with old and new friends and to share in the joys of precious youth. For non-Greeks, it means that the beginning of festivities are delayed until eleven thirty at the earliest. When students from other colleges visit, they are invari-ably shocked at the wait which all Dartmouth students are accustomed to. After all, we began waiting our freshman year. Huddling in our dorm rooms, nursing our thirst for nightlife until meetings had finally ended, we waited. Every Dartmouth alumni remembers that meetings are on Wednesdays, whether they are decades-old fra-ternity brothers who just stop by to see the house or unaffiliated alums who just remember the weekly wait for meetings to end.

This silent, but per-vasive influence on the campus reflects how im-portant the Greek system is to Dartmouth. It effects our comings and our go-ings, no matter which student you are. It puts the life in Hanover’s nightlife. It is quite simply, an undeniably huge part of Dartmouth and every student’s experience.

And so, of course it is the center of attention. Sadly, this makes it also the center of both complaints and love. The love comes from those who hold dear the house and letters they pledged their college experience to as well as who love the brothers and/or sisters they found in its walls. The complaints seem to appear around every corner. From those who never set foot outside an alternative social space to those who once desperately wished to wear letters of their own. This is what Dean Johnson sees fit to call the “silent majority” of Dartmouth students. Far from it.

The students who complain about the Greek system and who have supposedly supported Dean Johnson’s reforms are a unique sub-species of man colloquially referred to as whiners. They are a self-aggrandizing and irascible bunch who fasten onto the nearest excuse for a topic and violently harangue the student body and administrators. They combine at the same time a remarkable amount of pessimism and optimism. On the one hand, these whiners scream to the heavens that things have never been worse, that there is a crisis, and finally that something must be done. At the same time, buried beneath this pessimistic outburst is a thread of almost child-like hope. Naively, they

declare that their proposed solution is a cure-all. That this new something which must be done immediately will solve every problem you’ve ever thought about late at night. The most recent snake oil?

Destroying the Greek system. Oh, sure some whin-ers declaim that they merely wish to reform it, but at this point who believes them? Flagging applications numbers? Destroy the Greek system. Pandemics of sexual assault across the nation and at Dartmouth? Just get rid of the

Greek system. A lack of intellectual culture on your campus? Not enough love in your life? Back pain keeping you up at night? Why, just burn the fraternities down and you’ll have a bevy of intellectual and attractive lads and lasses battening down your door. Not to men-tion a good night’s sleep!

The truth is that the whiners are, to be quite frank, fools. They see prob-lems on campus and imme-diately attribute them to a set of institutions that dominate the social and private lives of a large portion of campus without a second thought. Unfortunately, the whiner

never considers that perhaps there is a different root cause than the particularly trendy cause du jour. Rather, the whiner pictures themselves locked in a Manichean struggle with a perversely villain-ous nemesis who seeks to destroy them while committing crimes against humanity. The sad thing is that the same people often complain in the same speech about the lack of intellectual thought on this campus. A whiner doesn’t

think, a whiner doesn’t con-sider, and a whiner doesn’t question himself. If they did, they might upon occa-sion have something to add to the discussion other than

their particular brand of snake oil. When next you hear these crusaders proclaim how fra-

ternities were responsible for every sin at the College since the days of yore, just remember: they aren’t the majority.

As much as Dean Johnson would like us to believe that in fact, the whiners are the majority, they aren’t. If they were, there wouldn’t be a Greek system. They wouldn’t have to whine and cajole and plot against the Greeks and everything else that is good about Dartmouth. The true silent majority is actually silent. They don’t write editorials, they don’t hold forums, and they don’t prod administra-tors. Why? Because they’re happy. They’re content with how things are. They’re the true silent majority - and the whiners know it. That’s why they run to the administra-tion and whine. The whiners can only win if the real silent majority lets them. n

EditorialDisregard the Wailing, We Are The Silent Majority

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News Editors

Tuition Skyrockets as Staff Increases Page 2The Week in Review Pages 4 & 5A Plan for Dartmouth University Page 6Tour Guide Misguidance Page 7PINE is Pricey, but Forgettable Page 7Fraternities: A Freshman’s Best Friend Page 8Social Life: Far Worse Elsewhere Page 8Reform Students, not Fraternities Page 9Dartmouth Baseball Excelling in 2013 Page 9A Tale of Admissions & Dimensions Page 10Dick’s House Needs a Doctor, Stat! Page 11Folt Bolts for UNC Chapel Hill Page 11

Inside This Issue

Thomas J.P. Harrington

The true silent majority is silent - they don’t write editorials, hold forums or prod

administrators. Why? Because they’re happy with the status quo.

Will R.F. DuncanWeb Editor

Taylor D. CathcartHead of Sales

Page 4 The Dartmouth Review [April 22, 2013]

Stinson’s: Your Pong HQCups, Balls, Paddles, Accessories

(603) 643-6086 | www.stinsonsvillagestore.com

students must realize that between the Office of the Dean of the College, the Office of Institutional Diversity and Eq-uity, the Office for Student Accessibility, and the Office of Pluralism and Leadership (OPAL), there exist four separate departments or committees for African American advising and outreach. The same is true for Asian American, Hispanic, Native American, LBGTQ, and “Women and Gender” campus groups, all of whom are concurrently served by a number of “interest-specific” and “general issue” efforts. To this, add the dozens of student-run awareness, heritage, and cultural organizations, a plethora of first-year seminars with titles like “Race, Emotion, and Culture” and “Asian American Women’s Literature,” and countless diversity-minded lec-tures and events, and you have yourself a sensitivity trap that puts the Anti-Defamation League to shame. With all of these resources already in place, is it really necessary to add yet another layer to the diversity bureaucracy? If the existing multiculturalist infrastructure is somehow inadequate, what makes Dean Johnson think that more of the same will make a difference against the elusive specter of exclusion?

All that we can think is that this is but a sign of bigger and more pressing problem: that of administrative incompe-tence. Over the course of the last twelve months, Dartmouth has found itself the subject of more than its fair share of bad news. As a community, we have suffered through torrents of hazing allegations and the resulting public relations nightmare; we have put up with class oversubscription woes and unprec-edented tuition hikes; we have soldiered through the abrupt departure of our president and declining admissions selectivity; and we have even come to terms with the fact, after all of these years, we might actually be attending a university after all. In short, the Dartmouth community has endured somewhat of an identity crisis, a clash of circumstances and values that have tried the very essence of what makes this small college the very big place that it is. Yet, the campus leaders who should have worked to promote the good and purge the bad, the ones whose job it is to provide the school with a sense of vision

and purpose, have failed to do either. Instead, they have just give us more of the same, forging “issue coalitions” and “incident response task forces” every time another problem crosses Parkhurst’s front stoop. Taken in this context then, Dean Johnson’s suggested diversity requirement looks hor-ribly banal, for rather than providing an innovative solution to a campus crisis, it simply allows the administration to do what it has done all along: create a bigger bureaucracy that fails to solve the wrong problems. It is for this reason that her proposal ought to meet stiff resistance from all who are invested in Dartmouth’s future. The College deserves better than this administrative nonsense and we need to encourage a style of leadership that will deliver change for the better.

A Senior Sorority Sis-ter’s Perspective

Being a member of sorority at Dartmouth has been one of the most rewarding experiences during my undergradu-ate education. It has helped me find new friendship, enrich my social circle, obtain support, and learn a lot about group dynamics. No amount of criticism of the Greek system could come close to the goodness of the experiences that I’ve had and defile my perception of my sorority life.

Having joined a Greek house my sophomore fall, I was lucky enough to be surrounded by a pledge class of both people I knew and complete strangers. Of course not all of these 40 girls became my best friends, but they all became friendly faces on campus. We all came from different sides of Dartmouth, and it was incredibly useful to have a medium and a community through which I could connect to these girls. Had I not been in the same house as them, I may have met them, may have talked to them, but its unlikely that all of us would have been so open and enthusiastic about build-ing foundations for friendship. Everywhere I went, I saw a

Dartmouth Administration in ReviewRejected Applicants In-vited To Admitted Stu-

dent Reception On the heels of the news that our admissions rates

have eased back up in to double digits, there comes this delightful little tidbit of news. Apparently, the people at the Admissions Department didn’t perform the basic task of checking their invitation list before pressing send. Or what-ever it is that one does nowadays with invitations.I would ask the Admissions Office to describe the procedure, but apparently they don’t follow one assuming that one of course exists. Perhaps that’s an assumption too far. According to the attached letter which was sent out just a short time ago, the Admissions Office simply invited both rejected and admitted applicants to the admitted student reception. So not only are we rejecting less people nowadays, we’re also giving them false hope. Surely that will inspire more students to apply in the future!

We were the only Ivy League institution who saw their acceptance rate increase and become easier. We are now in the elite group of Ivies with double digit acceptance rates: UPenn, Columbia and Cornell. Maybe we should just cement our status as a second-tier institution and change our name to University along with our other three friends.

Or maybe we could just start cutting out the incom-petent people who can’t figure out how invitation lists work. In order to better understand how this email is a sign of the large amount of incompetence at the Admissions Office and the incredibly bloated staff of the College, we would like to point you towards the full-length articles in this issue on pages 2 & 10.

Mandatory Diversity Class?

In recent weeks, the College has been abuzz with the news that some administrators are considering adding a diversity requirement to the Dartmouth curriculum. As first reported on our website early last month, Dean Charlotte Johnson initially suggested the idea while responding to an inquiry from the Afro-American Society about the admin-istration’s policies “toward racial bias incidents” and ethnic inclusion on campus. Her email, as posted to Facebook by a representative of group, included the following anecdote:

“As you may or may not know, we are moving for-ward with a coalition focused on actions that will positively impact the campus climate. A distributive requirement or some sort of mandatory course focused on diversity and inclusion has been suggested and is being considered. Other ideas will be considered as well, and some will be easier and more quickly implemented than others.” [Emphasis added].

Let us pray that she is wrong about that last bit, for we’re not sure that this campus is big enough for all of the “diversity and inclusion” initiatives it now contains. Few

“You had one job. One job.”

[April 22, 2013] The Dartmouth Review Page 5

Dartmouth Administration in Review

a much warmer and more welcoming place for me. While still a sophomore, I continued meeting and getting to know my sisters slowly and over time, realizing the important fact that people always have something interesting to share if you give them enough time to open up.

Throughout my years at Dartmouth the same feel-ings remained as I met new women joining my sorority. Even now, as a senior, I am still glad to meet the enthusiastic sophomore girls. I hope to be able to repay my debt to my sorority by offering them the same mentorship and friendship opportunities that I got when I joined the house.

I also learned many valuable lessons about group dynamics and the way organizations function through my involvement in my sorority. I got better at planning events, big and small, building morale, and managing teams. Not only have I had fun time working with these young women, but I also feel like I have picked up the most useful real world social skills through the context of my sorority. Especially as a house leader during my senior year, I learned a lot about combining friendship and running a major organization.

All in all, being a part of a Dartmouth sorority and the larger Greek system has been a key and wonderful experience for me. It can seem like an intimidating social structure, fit for only a few. However, I have found that if you agree to have sorority life be a part of your life, you will find that it can fit quite nicely, whether it becomes a big or a small part of your identity.

A Better Approach This piece doesn’t need to involve any names, as

I dare not use those who have passed on to make a point of personal discomfort. It is truly a tragedy when our campus loses one of its own, and helping each other cope is an ex-tremely difficult process. I can honestly say I’m relieved as a student to see that the College has tried to become more sensitive in their campus-wide blitzes to campus during tragedies and other events.

It was disappointing to see the subtle dig that the administration added to a certain email in order to imply that the College was not liable following a student death. Such things are irrelevant and distasteful when addressing a grieving student population. I’m glad to see that the approach has changed given the unfortunate number of deaths that Dartmouth has been privy to over the past couple of years.

However, the college deserves credit for its will-ingness to provide support for the student population. I remember personally being greeted and engaged by several deans and Dean Johnson within several hours of the terrible news I had received about a close friend. The administration had mobilized counseling and support resources including Dick’s House, Tucker Foundation, and the Undergraduate Deans’ Office. A student could seek help from any one of these resources at any time that worked best for them.

When dealing with such tragic incidents in which students have lost their personal friends, sensitivity is para-mount. I’m glad to see that the administration has provided such extensive support for its student body, but I hope it never forgets the sensitivity necessary when dealing with losses to the Dartmouth community in the future. Then, other students will not have to suffer as we did.

Rejected Again: Class Oversubscription

As the clock struck midnight on February 28th, 2013, Dartmouth students logged onto their Banner accounts and began the nerve-wracking and drawn out Add/Drop process. The site soon crashed after twenty minutes of persistent page refreshing. It was obvious that oversubscription was an issue for many students who were denied acceptance to their first choice classes during spring course registration. Comments such as “RIP Banner” slowly began to flood the Class of 2016 Facebook group as students waited for the revival of the outdated website. Unfortunately, the class selection process at Dartmouth is unsatisfactory for all parties involved. The Registrar’s Office works with professors to accommodate students’ class choices by adding extra class sections or overriding the Banner enrollment quota. When a professor allows the class to grow to twice its intended size, the original classroom is sometimes still used. As a result, crowds pack into classrooms and compete for a limited number of desks and elbow room. Even with the extra sections and overrides of enrollment quotas, students are often left with their second or third choice classes.

During my first three terms at Dartmouth, I have only gained a spot in 4 out of 9 of my first choice classes. This will not only affect my D-Plan schedule, but it could also cause me to spend an extra term taking classes at Dartmouth. Connell Studendmund ’16 bravely recalls her Writing 5 selec-tion process. “My roommate raved about her fall Writing 5 class with Wendy Piper,” she said. “So when I gained a spot in the class, I was thrilled. Much to my dismay, I received a blitz over winter break, weeks after the preliminary course registration, notifying me that the class had been canceled and that I had to choose an entirely new class.”

Dartmouth takes pride in distinguishing itself from its peer institutions due to its focus on undergraduate teaching, but think about how much stronger this distinction would be if students actually gained admittance into their first choice classes. The level of engagement and collaboration between the professor and student would unquestionably increase. Perhaps our ranking would even drop back down into the single digits. Much like everything else at Dartmouth, the class selection process is extremely competitive. Even after surviving the college admittance game and receiving ac-ceptance into an Ivy League institution, Dartmouth certainly does its best to prepare us for a life full of rejection. Whether it is due to a lack of professors and course offerings, or an uneven distribution of students on campus during specific terms as a result of the D-Plan, oversubscription should be one of President Hanlon’s primary concerns.

In Praise of The Iron Lady

Margaret Thatcher was a conservative icon for a conservative decade where after years in the wilderness in both America and England, true conservatism finally made a comeback. Thatcher brought Classical Liberalism back

into fashion in Britain after years of Socialistic policies and mismanagement. She forced her own party to finally stand for the Conservative principles that they were supposed to espouse when for years they had simply preached a watered down “Tory Socialism”. Thatcher understood that running a country was like running a household and that at the end of the day the budget had to be balanced. She proved to be an iconic leader for the 20th century and took Britain out of its state of decline and gave the British people a nation to be proud of again.

Thatcher’s childhood growing up as the daughter of a Methodist shopkeeper greatly influenced her outlook on the world. Her father valued hard work and patriotism. In her father’s world, good men and women were all that could defeat evil. Her father was active in local politics and encouraged Margaret to become involved as well. He believed, like her, in the gospel of freedom and hard work over government handouts.

Thatcher earned her degree from Oxford in Chemis-try and eventually became a barrister during a period where many women were not involved in professional life. Thatcher faced many challenges as a woman in mid twentieth century Britain, especially from her own Conservative Party. Many of the Conservative MPs looked down on her as a woman of middle class origins. At the time, many Conservative politi-cians were cut from the same elite British public school cloth and looked down on others who did not come from their strata of society. Thatcher would always embrace the ideal of meritocracy over the Conservative Party’s entrenched snobbery throughout her career.

Her challenges as Prime Minister in the arena of economic policy were numerous and ranged from fight-ing Britain’s powerfully entrenched trade unions to raising interest rates to combat inflation. For years, both Labor and Tory governments gave into the Trade Unions’ demands and continued to support dying industries with socialist cradle to the grave welfare. Thatcher proved to be a powerful adversary through crushing the miners strike and cutting off govern-ment support to no longer viable industries. She would be demonized by many working class people for these actions, but she understood that England needed to be saved. Even if the medicine was bitter, Britain required it. She understood that conquering the threat of inflation was of the utmost importance and rose rates even when it caused England to enter into another recession. When even her own party wanted her to back down she famously responded, “You turn if you want to, The Lady’s not for turning.” Thatcher understood the dangers of out of control spending and an out of control money supply. When she saw what was necessary and right she would not give into the consensus merely to please others.

In foreign policy, Thatcher understood that the free world could not give into Communism and Collectivism. She saw Communism and Fascism as both coming out of the same collectivist mold. Thatcher believed in personal and economic freedom above all else. She understood Britain’s unique contribution to the Western Liberal tradition and putting the rights of the individual over the collective good. She proved to be an invaluable partner to Ronald Reagan in the global fight against Communism earning her the nickname of “The Iron Lady” as bestowed upon her by Soviet newspapers.

She is more controversially remembered throughout the world for the Falklands War. When Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands and claimed them for itself, Miss Thatcher responded with force. Famously, she ordered a British Expe-ditionary Force to drive the Argentinians from the Falklands. The US government had urged Thatcher to not retake the Falklands believing that it could only lead to further desta-bilization in the region. Many military experts told Thatcher that England was in no position to retake the Falklands and that it was too far away to do so. Miss Thatcher proved the naysayers wrong and one British newspaper famously held the headline “The Empire Strikes Back”. Despite her resounding victory, the war remains a controversial part of her legacy.

Thatcher permanently altered the landscape of British politics. She famously once slammed a copy of F.A. Hayek’s A Road to Serfdom on the table of a Tory Party meeting stating “this is our bible” when many Tories wanted to back down from her more extreme policies in order to propose an alternate platform. Thatcher could be famously undiplomatic, but her policies worked and made England into a major finan-cial center. Her policies forced Labor to reinvent itself with freemarket principles. Thatcher brought the center of Britain back to the right where it has stayed to this day. One wishes that such courageous leaders could face down the unions and other vested interests at Dartmouth and restore the College’s glory as well. President Hanlon will have a unique opportunity to do so, let us hope that he will seize it. n

“What do you mean you only had to fight two bears to get into this class?”

-Col. James Donovan ‘39

Page 6 The Dartmouth Review [April 22, 2013]

A Plan for “Dartmouth University”

Mr. Greenstone is a senior at the College and a News Editor of The Dartmouth Review.

By Harold W. Greenstone

It is hard to debate the fact that there has been con-troversy, angst, and change at the College in recent years. An oft-discussed transition to a “Dartmouth of the future” is evidenced in practice with the arrival of the eighteenth member of the Wheelock Succession, President Phillip Hanlon, this spring. With the challenges of the world and the opportunities brought about by new leadership, the College certainly has the potential to adapt, focus, and most importantly, hone its own strengths. And to do this: change names to “Dartmouth University”, reprioritize as a graduate institution, and gener-ally uproot the strong bonds of undergraduate teaching and community that so many cherish?

One afternoon in March, a message arrived from Interim President Carol Folt enthusiastically announcing the arrival of Dartmouth’s Strategic Planning Working Group Reports, of course immediately drifting into the depths of email inboxes as students burrowed into their books for final exams and the broader alumni community was caught in the frenzy of early spring. Asking for feedback from the community, the message seemed to suggest some gravity to the Strategic Planning process and thanked the dedication of a group of involved individuals, but did not provide much context as to the goals and key components of the process. From the Strategic Planning website, one could glean some purpose from Dr. Folt’s straightforward statement that “every aspiring institution needs to take stock of where it is, and where it wants to be.” Whether “aspiring” is the best way to describe Dartmouth College is another question that we will revisit, but in essence the purpose of Strategic Planning has been to examine a number of key areas of Dartmouth’s educational footprint in order to adapt for the future. At first glance, that sounds like a wonderful concept, but a careful examination of the reports reveals a frightening shift away from so much of what is great about the College, a set of biases that undermine representation of the community, and despite an abundance of ideas, a dearth of good ones.

The nine Strategic Planning Working Group Reports range from analyzing the College’s primary educational characteristics (“Pedagogy, Teaching and Mentorship” and “Students of the Future”) to reimagining Dartmouth (“Gradu-ate Education for the Future” and “Global Dartmouth”). The selection is rounded out by the seemingly peripheral and, after a detailed look, fairly distracting “Workforce of the Future” and “Alumni Involvement for Life” reports. The reports begin by highlighting a traditionally positive char-acteristic or two of Dartmouth in the given area, but then quickly dismiss the good with a laundry list of the inherent weaknesses of the College and failures relative to current educational trends. A student or alumnus who had a positive experience stemming from one of the many unique qualities of the College would quickly refute such pessimism, but this attitude seems to be absent from the reports. After identifying areas of concern, the working groups then generally go on to list several specific ideas that aim to bring Dartmouth up to par with the supposedly wonderful compet-ing peer institutions.

Taking the example of the “Pedagogy, Teaching and Mentorship” report, the state of learning at Dartmouth College does not look to be very strong. To start, the reader of the report is told that “we do not presently have direct evidence to support or refute our reputation for undergraduate teaching excellence and, more importantly, we have limited evidence to demonstrate that our highly valued teaching consistently results in effective student learning.” Furthermore, the report identifies unawareness and underutilization of both connec-tions to the professional schools and research opportunities for undergraduates. Having enjoyed phenomenal cross-school learning through undergraduate Tuck courses, and also un-dertaken undergraduate research on multiple occasions, I can add my experience to the chorus of students resoundingly refuting such pessimism. Ask any student who has been chal-lenged with Socratic learning in Professor Kohn’s legendary Financial Markets and Intermediaries course or who has shared ideas across two complementary discussion-based history, literature, or arts classes if quality teaching is alive and well and Dartmouth, and the answer should be clear. A number of the reports similarly target a problem that seemingly does

not really exist, but just as much trouble lies in the solutions as the diagnoses.

The problem with the recommendations of the reports is their narrow focus on the recurring themes of institutional prestige, an adjustment toward a more graduate-focused educational model, and technology. The effectiveness of each individual working group’s efforts is diminished by the feeling that the entire Strategic Planning process was steered in this common direc-tion. While such qualities are by no means bad in isolation, their combination has no basis in the unique historical advantages of Dartmouth, and instead serves as the catalyst to compare the College to vastly dissimi-lar institutions. Numerous students and faculty have jokingly referred to the concept of a “Harvard North Campus”, but the preconceived goals pervading the Strategic Planning process make this idea a scary possibility for the College. The focus on prestige (and suggestion that this is currently an area of failing) is a particularly disappointing oversimplification, as it discounts the leadership of Dartmouth in specific programs, a dedication to undergraduate teaching, and perhaps most importantly, the College’s unique preparation of curious and engaged minds for the world.

“Global Dartmouth” truly misses an opportunity to suggest necessary and well-conceived improvements to the global experience at the College due to an excessive focus on issues of appearance and prestige. The marquee goals of the working group are good, evidenced by the statement that “top quality education, particularly in the liberal arts tradi-tion, has always aimed to give students the intellectual tools they need to situate themselves in the world.” And, as the report acknowledges, Dartmouth has always had a strong focus on bringing the necessary international exposure to students through the flexible D-Plan and leading study abroad programs. A good recommendation to follow would be to continue innovating in such opportunities, which the report touches on with ideas about making study abroad easier for students with restricted schedules or those hoping to utilize the

new winter break. However, “Global Dartmouth” also takes a decisive turn toward establishing international prestige as the paramount concern in providing a strong global education. Furthermore, even as students involved in the early stages of Strategic Planning through coursework found that prestige was actually one of the lowest ranking responses to a survey on the important components of global education, the final report claims that there was “much consensus among faculty, staff, and students” on Dartmouth’s global activity. Finally, buried at the end of the report, comes the saddening and mis-guided claim that our beloved and fiercely defended name, Dartmouth College, is a detriment to institutional prestige, and should be replaced with “Dartmouth University”.

Throughout a number of the reports graduate educa-tion is discussed, and is seemingly the more noble variety in the eyes of the Strategic Planning Working Groups. “Graduate Education for the Future” accurately points out the current state of the College as revolving around the undergraduate program, augmented by Tuck, Thayer, Geisel, and Graduate Studies, which each “provide a unique enhancement to overall campus feel.” That said, though many in the community are happy with this equilibrium that Dartmouth uniquely maintains among all institutions, the reports suggest that an increased focus on graduate studies would be prudent. Given the lofty expectations across the working groups of adding faculty for both research and teaching, along with support staff and ap-propriate programs, a relatively clear choice presents itself: should Dartmouth expand massively to create a separate

graduate presence, or should the existing “balance” be adjusted to favor graduate studies? Bits of both options surface in the Strategic Planning reports, and both present some problems. Along the lines of the former, the suggestion is made for hir-ing and organizing separate graduate school faculty, which

not only is costly, but could be dilutive to the small College. On the other hand, the reports attempt to clearly refute “the false dichotomy that graduate student presence takes away from professor-student contact time in the AB program.” Such a statement might not be so far off, given that an idea also ex-

ists in the reports that the unique teaching requirements of Dartmouth’s faculty are burdensome and counterproductive. Such suggestions of a shift toward the common, graduate-focused university model are quick to ignore the positives of the unique teaching style and undergraduate-to-graduate campus mix of Dartmouth.

Finally, nearly all of the reports extensively address technology as an area for improvement that could complement a given working group’s chief goals. Such a philosophy is a correct, albeit slightly obvious, approach to the challenges of our rapidly digitalizing world. And while the reports point out Dartmouth’s past accomplishments in the field of technology and suitability for innovation and trial applications, they do seem to paint an overblown picture of a dire technology crisis, with one report going so far as to say that the “technology strategy at Dartmouth poses the most significant threat to our standing as a leader in pedagogy.” However, the treatment of technology across the various reports points to one underlying theme: online education. In keeping with the tone of the entire Strategic Planning Process, this focus feels centrally selected, arbitrary, and a bit irrelevant to Dartmouth. After hearing of a Strategic suggestion that our College, so strongly based on the value of inspirational fifteen-person classroom discussions with leading professors, should start packaging and selling video lectures, one has to wonder if the great $100 million budget crisis still lingers in the shadows. Ironically, the “Digital Dartmouth” report barely touches the topic of online (or to

sugarcoat, “global” or “blended”) learning, instead covering much less Strategic topics of boosting digital literacy and improving academic data analysis. This is not to say that such ideas are bad; in fact, if nearly all of the transformational goals from the Strategic Planning process were scrapped and the College instead made incremental, practical improvements such as these, the results would be much better.

The content of the Strategic Plan-ning reports notwithstanding, their delivery was ill-conceived. Interim President Folt’s email announcing the release of the reports stated an important goal of collecting feedback from the Dartmouth community, a process that should carry particular im-portance for students and alumni, who had

limited prior involvement. The timing of the release during the crunch point of the winter term, as well as the lack of much other outreach on the part of the administration to familiarize students with the Strategic Planning process, has clearly shown in the lack of knowledge or interest from the majority of students. Frankly, however, from the tone of the working group reports, there does not truly seem to be much interest in accepting feedback. From the format of summarizing each group’s expert findings without presenting much of a set of alternatives to the clear avoidance of saying “the College” to the general negativity about Dartmouth, the reports convey inflexibility. Who knows, perhaps we will be pleasantly surprised by alternative insights collected from the community. While at the time this issue went to press, The Dartmouth Review was under the impression that the dead-line for feedback had passed, any stakeholder in Dartmouth ought to read the Strategic Planning Working Group reports to understand what will cross President Hanlon’s desk for consideration when he takes office.

While Dartmouth certainly needs to constantly inno-vate and improve, let us also take note of our strengths. So many of our current students came to Dartmouth for the small liberal arts college experience, how could we imagine just abandoning that? Let us hope that the new President, an actual alumni of the College, will not forget Webster’s immortal words: “It is, Sir, as I have said, a small college. And yet, there are those who love it.” n

A a careful examination of the reports reveals a frightening shift away from

so much of what is great about the College, a set of biases that undermine representation of the community, and despite an abundance of ideas, a dearth of good ones

—The direction that the administration wishes to push Dartmouth University—

[April 22, 2013] The Dartmouth Review Page 7

By Adam I.W. SchwartzmanHanover’s newest restaurant is PINE, which opened at

the Hanover Inn on March 18th. A sterling review in The Daily Dartmouth and buzz circulating on campus signaled an opportunity for this burgeoning restaurant critic, who took a meal straightaway to put PINE to the test. Luckily for both me and the other members of my party, it did not fail the test.

According to a press release from the College, PINE marks the last stage of the Hanover Inn renovations, which cost in excess of $41 million, despite an original projection of only $13 million. But was the money well-spent?

Not quite. The interior of the restaurant has a variety of seating options, from tables to couches and plush chairs, and the external wall is covered with wide windows. Artificially flickering electric candles do not add to the atmosphere, which is also negatively impacted by the close proximity shared between some tables. PINE’s overall aesthetic is something like a cross between Market Table and Three Guys Barbecue, with a heavy hand on the “pine” motif that extends to wooden plank columns and menus that resemble clipboards.

Regrettably, poor service was the hallmark of my ex-perience, which was slow enough to test even the patience of Job. My waitress was curt and clearly overworked, a sign indicating that the restaurant is understaffed. Perhaps the restauranteurs are now finally attempting to cut costs? Unfortunately, these measures directly impact the custom-ers.

My party was shown to a pleasant enough table near a window facing out onto Main Street, which was only slightly soured by the ‘90’s alt-pop that poured from the speakers above our heads. The muzak soon became the least of our worries. Things worsened when a couple was

seated at a table no more than eighteen inches away from our own. Our convivial evening had been intruded on, and the sort of talk that accompanies a dinner between boys was rendered nearly impossible.

But the bow was broken when before our very eyes the next-door couple was served their entire meal—all before we had even received our drink order.

By the time our drinks did come, I was pleased to note that my beer came in an impe-rial pint—a welcome sight west of the Atlantic—and a steal for Hanover at $5.50 a glass. A hefty sip calmed my nerves, and I was once again ready to give PINE my full attention.

PINE’s menu is impressive, and lives up to the restaurant’s dual promise of upscale dining and casual fare. Snacks includ-ing deviled eggs and homemade fries certainly evoke bar food, and are cheap as well.

The appetizer menu piqued my interest with more complex choices. I was not adventurous enough for the steak tartare with lentils, violet mustard, and cau-liflower, but the relative exotica for Hanover was appreciated. Indeed the pledge to source in-gredients locally—invoked by both Executive Chef Justin Dain and restaurant overseer Michael Schlow—appears not to have impeded a healthy variety of items on the menu.

The major uptick in price and sophistication comes in the entrée menu, which aside from the “Hanover Burger”

marks choices ranging mostly in the high twenties. I selected the short ribs with tuscan kale, soft polenta, crispy shallots and spiced sauce. It was tasty, although forget-table. Hardly stunning. Such was also the case with the grilled swordfish with eggplant, tomatoes, black olives, and golden raisins. The dinner fare was overall under-

whelming, particularly given the high prices.

PINE will inevitably cater to guests of the Hanover Inn too unseasoned to grab a table at the Ca-noe Club or Murphy’s on the Green. It is well suited for that purpose, particularly if the staff works out the service kinks in the months to come. Perhaps a student opinion in The Daily Dartmouth provides the best summary of this appeal: “It is a great place to go if you have family in town, preferably a very wealthy family.”

For students, PINE is appeal-ing for its cheap snack menu and healthy pours. In this venue, the restaurant can compete with main street restaurants for Dartmouth patrons, both undergraduates and graduate students. Given the res-taurant’s casual seating options, it seems likely that PINE is interested in capturing that demographic and their dollars.

It bears noting that PINE is still in its infant stages, and it is likely that improved performance will come in time. It also remains to be seen whether PINE’s lunch and brunch offerings, which begin operation later this month, will be up to par with other options in Hanover. n

By James G. Rascoff

The adventure of touring college campuses as a high school student offers a welcome relief from an otherwise hectic, nerve-racking, and impersonal college admissions process. One can pore over a Princeton Review guidebook for hours on end, but for many prospective students, the determining influence in college selection may well be a campus visit.

Few colleges boast campuses as impressive as Dart-mouth’s. When I first stepped on to The Green late in my junior year of high school, by then a seasoned veteran of college tours, I came to a tremendous realization: this is what a college should look like. At the conclusion of my tour, I had determined that Dartmouth also felt like a col-lege should. By November of my senior year, I had long since resolved to make Dartmouth my college, and I was fortunate enough to see my aspirations reach fruition.

No single factor was more crucial in my decision making process than that fateful campus visit, and when I had the opportunity to apply for a position as a tour guide last year, I relished the prospect of similarly influencing prospective students. This is why, as a proud Dartmouth student and tour guide, I am profoundly worried by the persistent efforts of the College leadership and Admissions Office to ruin that experience for the next generation of prospective Dartmouth students.

A few weeks ago, I returned from an off term in New York to find that a “mandatory refresher session” from the Admissions Office was required of all guides. At this ses-sion, a series of changes to the regular tour route were an-nounced. Most were innocuous (the Hop and surrounding buildings are now to be referred to as the “Arts District,” in case anyone was wondering). However, one change to the route seemed particularly calculated and “mandatory:” tour guides are henceforth NOT to bring their groups to Webster Avenue.

On this new tour, guides will squeeze a discussion of Dartmouth’s Greek Life into the tail end of the tour, in Col-lis, as part of a larger discussion of campus extra-curricular options. Apparently, our Admissions Office has reshaped its tour route in the hope that prospective students and their families will overlook a certain Rolling Stone article if they

don’t see Fraternity Row itself: out of sight, out of mind! Pretending, for a moment, that this thinly veiled attempt to defer attention from Dartmouth’s Greek scene is actually a well-intentioned attempt to design a more appealing tour, if I were a prospective student, I would wonder why my tour guide was off-handedly mentioning the very heart of Dartmouth’s social life between explanations of Collis Miniversity and Thursday Night Salsa.

The fact remains: Greek Life is not just another extra-curricular option. This is not to detract from the many extra-curricular activities Dartmouth offers, which are fantastic selling points. Rather, Greek Life is an option that well over half of eligible students choose to partake in; it presents a diverse and multi-faceted group of organizations for students to choose from, and it is the principal source of social life at Dartmouth. In the event prospective students fail to notice their bucolic surroundings, it is worth noting that Dartmouth is not a city school; students cannot choose among bars, comedy clubs, significant music venues, and live theatre on a nightly basis. Naturally, alternative social spaces exist on campus. But for a majority of Dartmouth students, nightlife and Greek Life are synonymous.

The decision to omit a larger discussion of Greek Life from tours will appear to prospective students, at best, a clumsy attempt to divert attention from recent P.R. setbacks. The truly frustrating result of this revision to the campus tour, however, is that it denies guides the oppor-tunity to highlight the truly unique and positive aspects of Dartmouth’s Greek scene.

Critics of Greek Life loudly cite its misogynistic char-acter, its exclusive nature, and a host of other complaints. These problems are not unique to Dartmouth’s fraternities. Rather, Dartmouth’s Greek scene is uncommonly inclu-sive.

At any other school with a Greek system, a freshman male would be barred from entering a fraternity party un-less he knew several brothers, or was accompanied by a number of female friends deemed suitable by the brothers of the fraternity. At Dartmouth, a student ID guarantees entry to any Greek party on campus. My friends at other schools largely rushed fraternities at the onset of freshman fall; they all live in their fraternity houses, eat their meals in their fraternities’ kitchens, and consequently develop a narrow circle of friends. At Dartmouth, these problems are absent.

What is particularly irksome, as a tour guide, is the utter lack of autonomy afforded by the Admissions Office. Memorable tour guides are effective tour guides, and effec-tive tour guides rarely regurgitate carefully tailored scripts.

Apparently, the Admissions Office would rather its guides err on the side of mediocrity than be entrusted with the common sense not to mention binge drinking and Andrew Lohse’s “kiddie pools full of vomit” to their tour groups. When discussing Greek Life, guides are ordered to “stay on script” and not to “prolong the discussion” beyond the 180 words the Admissions Office deems appropriate for a comprehensive discussion of Dartmouth’s Greek system. I have managed in the past to complete my tours without terrifying any parents or mentioning my own affiliation. After Andrew Lohse’s Rolling Stone muckraking article, tour guides were even summoned to an emergency session on how to handle any questions about hazing or drinking at Dartmouth. These new measures by the Admissions Office are wholly unnecessary, contrived, and indicative of a wor-rying trend in the decisions of Dartmouth’s incompetent leadership.

At risk of beating a dead horse, I would be remiss not to mention the Admission Office’s ludicrous decision to remodel the Dimensions show. In an explanatory email, an Admissions Office representative wrote to all tour guides: “This year, we are designing a welcome program that invites our admitted student visitors to see/hear how Dartmouth students are realizing their passions in sig-nificant ways.” What the Admissions Office neglects to realize is that students’ passions are realized at universities across America. A prospective student interested purely in academic prestige, extra-curricular achievement, and im-pressive student bodies would choose Harvard, Princeton, or Yale over our humble College. Our Dimensions show, our social life, and our quirky traditions are not insignifi-cant afterthoughts for the Admissions Office to conceal from prospective students; they are the life and soul of the school, and the reason Dartmouth commands such fierce loyalty from its students and alumni. Hiding these aspects is incredibly shortsighted. Our system is not broken, yet the Admissions Office and administration seek to fix it. Why? Because it’s easy. It’s easy to sweep something under the rug instead of dealing with it honestly and forthrightly. It’s easy to avoid difficult subjects. But it’s not the right move, it’s just easy. n

Mr. Schwartzman is a senior at the College and the former Editor-in-Chief of The Dartmouth Review.

Mr. Rascoff is a sophomore at the College and a contribu-tor to The Dartmouth Review.

PINE is Pricey, but Forgettable

Tour Guide Misguidance

—The Hanover Burger—

Page 8 The Dartmouth Review [April 22, 2013]

By Nicholas S. Duva

Dartmouth’s fraternity system hasn’t gotten good pub-licity lately. Ever since “Confessions of an Ivy League Frat Boy” was published in Rolling Stone last March, fraterni-ties here have drawn nothing but ire from all quarters.

I wholly understand the anxiousness that such reports may have on your state of mind. I am a freshman here at the College, and, a year ago this weekend, I was here for Dimensions, with offers of admission from Dartmouth and a few other schools in hand. And, perhaps like you, my parents and I alike were thoroughly scared by Andrew Lohse’s tale and all of the other rumors we had encoun-tered. While the reports of extreme hazing were natu-rally startling, what really worried me was the picture of Dartmouth as an exclusive, cliquey, petty, good-old-boy-type place. Such ideas almost kept me from coming here.

I am impossibly thankful that those thoughts did not end up dictating my decision: I’ve loved my time at Dartmouth. And while I could easily speak to my (albeit limited) experience here, the other articles in this issue do a great job of showing how untrue the popular por-trait of Greek life here is. I will say this: though you may find some personal reasons not to choose Dartmouth, fear of Greek life should not be one of them. This is not just because Dartmouth’s Greek system is not as bad as advertised, but also because social scenes at comparable schools have their own negative, comparatively unpubli-cized quirks.

Take Harvard, for instance. I visited a friend there in October, and encountered a particularly bizarre social scene. Instead of fraternities, Harvard has “final clubs” – famously exclusive, all-male societies. Every fall, when “punch season” comes around, the campus alights with

controversy over the clubs’ mere presence.Final clubs have a real impact on the lives of fresh-

men there. At Dartmouth, students often “pre-game,” and then head out to Webster Ave. Fraternities generally blitz out news of a party to the entire campus, and anyone is welcome to come. At Harvard (as was my experience), the pre-game is the game, as the final clubs are usually closed to freshmen (especially males). The situation there is unfortunately conducive to dangerous levels of drinking, as students congregate around multiple bottles of hard liquor in some bedroom instead of Keystone Light in a fraternity basement. Additionally, freshmen who wish to eventually join a club must assiduously cultivate contacts throughout their first year, desperately trying to secure themselves a spot. The process can induce an awful lot of stress.

I do not mean to insinuate that Dartmouth’s Greek system does not have problems of its own. I do believe, however, that they have been publicized far beyond those of comparable schools. Look at Cornell. Although Dartmouth has become the Ivy League school synonymous with hazing, in Ithaca two fraternities were just suspended for “serious physical hazing.” Two years ago, a student died there after participating in a fraternity drinking ritual.

Even the University of Chicago’s fraternity system has its problems with heavy drinking. I went to the accepted students’ weekend there a week before Dimensions last year, and I remember that one of the frats there was host-ing a “Margarita Night.” At Chicago, a “margarita” is a red Solo cup filled about halfway with tequila, with a bit of cheap margarita mix and water added; needless to say, drunk prospies were stumbling all over campus that night.

And as the examples of Harvard and others show, similar social problems are often extant absent a strong Greek Life. After Princeton banned fraternities and other societies in the 19th century (they still exist there, just in a very limited state), a system of “eating clubs” sprang up. Much like Harvard, the system at Princeton encourages a

desperate scrum for spots in the more prestigious clubs. Eating clubs, though, have a much more creative way of cordoning access. Some clubs issue “passes” to nonmem-bers for parties, which people present at the door; certain parties require multiple passes. There is a thriving pass trade at Princeton: when Friday and Saturday come around, the not so well-connected scramble to find some way of getting into an eating club. Often they are unsuccessful, as I was during my visit to the school in December.

As countless other schools demonstrate, the lack of Greek life does not necessarily portend a healthier social life. Georgetown, Williams, and Amherst, which all lack a strong fraternity presence, and have systems where sports teams have individual houses that usually host the most popular parties. There, if you’re not lucky enough to know how to put a ball in a hoop or the back of the net, you’re more likely to find yourself locked out of the fun on a Friday night.

Much of what I say above is based on my personal experience and what I’ve heard from friends that attend all of the above schools, so, please, take what I say with a grain of salt. And seeing as how I’m a freshman, I have no experience whatsoever with pledging or life in a brother-hood. I do, however, know very well what it’s like to be in the position of a prospective student.

And as subjective as my experience has been, it really has made me believe that we have an excellent social setup here in Hanover. Whereas at another school I would not get into a party without a few girls at my side, here I can wander up to a fraternity with a nerdy-looking schmob and still get into pretty much anywhere I like. Whereas at another school I couldn’t even approach a house on a weekday, here fraternities open their doors to freshmen on Monday and Wednesday. Friends from other schools that have visited have marveled at how inclusive the social life is here, how we don’t need to “know a guy” to open the door for us. n

By Alexander Kane

Gauging the social life at an institution can be tricky. Departments can be assessed based on the quality of professors and courses. Tuition couldn’t be a more black and white issue for rising seniors in high school given their knowledge of their own family’s budget and eligibility for loans. Figuring out if you’ll fit in at a certain college, on the other hand, seems impossible to answer without first-hand experience. It’s a lot of guesswork, involving subjective perceptions and the impressions given by the College and its critics. Unfortunately, for incom-ing students, those impressions can be overwhelm-ingly misleading.

I remember the first impression of the College’s social life that I received on a tour in the summer of 2011. It was a rainy day, but not so unpleasant as to keep us from slogging around campus; however. it was wet enough that some soggy pieces of Keystone thirty rack boxes floated along Webster Ave. A clas-sic Dartmouth scene that I have now come to know quite well. Our tour guide took it in stride, though at first he looked a little rattled by the concerned faces of some parents. He gave that strange, narrow and qualification-filled definition of Greek Life that I suppose tour guides are told to relate. Frats organize “social events,” like concerts, the majority of campus participates in Greek Life, but you don’t have to, and sometimes there’s alcohol, but no one underage drinks. Ever.

There’s something unsettling about these half-truths from the perspective of a prospective student. At least a part of you ends up thinking maybe they serve to cover up an even more harmful reality that the College seeks to sweep under the rug. After Andrew Lohse’s article came out, the rug seemed to hide the skeletons the College could no longer fit into its closet.

The administration went on the offensive and took a stance entirely in opposition to Greek Life. In the elitist rat race of collegiate rankings and reputation, the College wouldn’t let hyped up charges of hazing weigh it down. It embraced a bizarre hypocrisy: touting its traditions, but blushing whenever one of its oldest institutions, the frater-

nity system, became the topic of discussion. I imagine that in the context of that Rolling Stone

article the Greek Life portion of tours has become more awkward, maybe even more ominous. What used to be a somewhat casual dismissal of overly anxious parents seems more like blowing off a substantive threat, like some heavy handed foreshadowing in a subpar apocalypse movie: No need to worry about that smoldering volcano, it’s been dormant for a hundred years!

As a freshman in the College, earlier this year I ven-tured into that strange world of Frat Row for the first time myself. I remember walking right up the front walkway with one of my friends from high school, approaching the front door, and then boldly knocking. No one answered. Phi Delt’s music hung in the air, delightfully out of date. I knocked again, perhaps a little more frantically this time. Finally, a brother pointed us to the back door and we were ushered into our first frat.

Dartmouth’s Greek system’s openness cannot be overstated. At most other colleges, entry to a frat for a freshman guy means camouflaging yourself in a herd of freshman coeds, or maybe climbing in a window. After all, haven’t we all seen those very actions played out in every movie about going to college? That enjoying a fraternity,

or sorority, only requires rapping on the right door gives freshman a huge amount of choice. Admittedly, certain types of people gravitate towards certain houses (GDX’s demographic seems somewhat weightier than Tri-Kap’s), but freshmen gain access to that variety of social circles and scenes to peruse and find the best fit. How else would freshmen later decide which house to rush and pledge?

That inclusiveness links freshman to the rest of the College. The Greek system gives new students a

venue they would not otherwise have to meet up-perclassmen. If you play enough games of pong or hang around a house long enough you’re bound to meet a brother or two eventually. In the process, you’ll be sure to extend your social circle from just your freshman floor to encompass wider segments of the community. Seeing more familiar faces around campus inculcates a sense of belonging at the College, and knowing more upperclassmen means you’ll meet people with interests similar to your own.

In experiencing all of this, you’re bound to become closer friends with your own class along the way. It can be awkward at first, if you and your pong-partner pick the wrong door or suffer through a few brutal pong losses. But in the grander scheme of things, those are just temporary and will undoubtedly bring you and your friends together throughout your short time at Dartmouth. In the houses, the stresses of school life are stowed away for a short while and you get to know the people you’re spending the four most formative years of your life with. The Greek system

forms an indelible part of Dartmouth’s culture. In at least one way or another each student’s life is affected by this institution. Admittedly, perhaps some of my tour guide’s answer is true. You don’t have to participate if you don’t want to.

Sports teams, extra curricular activities, and classes all provide a similar venue to engage with the student body just as dice or pong do. But not everyone can embrace or succeed in those particular routes. Yet, there is nothing to be afraid of in any of these paths.

The Greek system, thus represents a choice for fresh-man and prospective students. A choice, nothing more and luckily nothing less. An entire section of the Dartmouth community is waiting to be explored if you so choose. All you have to do is knock. n

Nicholas S. Duva is a freshman at the College and News Editor of The Dartmouth Review.

Alexander Kane is a freshman at the College and a contributor to The Dartmouth Review.

Social Life Far Worse Elsewhere

Fraternities: A Freshman’s Best Friend

—Despite the salacious Rolling Stone article, freshmen and prospies should not fear frats—

[April 22, 2013] The Dartmouth Review Page 9

By Paul F. DanyowThe Dartmouth baseball team is having an amazing

season Thus far, they have achieved a 23-6 record overall, and are 8-4 within the Ivy League. They are currently on a 6-game winning streak, including a four game sweep of Brown on the weekend of April 13th-14th, and they are strong con-tenders for this year’s Ivy League Baseball Championship. The Review recently sat down with outfielder Ryan Toimil, a ’14 from Boca Raton, Florida.

The Dartmouth Review: Obviously you’ve been having a very successful season thus far; how does it feel compared to where you were at this point in the last couple of years?

Ryan Toimil: I think we have a really good chance this year to win the Ivy Championship. We returned most of our starting position players, which helps because we are experi-enced, and also have a really solid pitching staff that always keeps us in the game. Everyone on the team is very excited and working hard to keep improving as well. Overall we’re feeling great about our chances this year.

TDR: What were your expectations for this team at the beginning of the season and how has the team’s performance compared to them?

Toimil: We knew we would have a good team in all aspects of the game. Our strong start to the season boosted everyone’s confidence, especially as we beat Minnesota, a team that started an incredibly strong pitcher against us. I had high expectations for the team and we have lived up to them so far. We’ve hit a bit of a rough patch in the past couple weeks but we are recovering from it and still have a lot of confidence moving forward in our season. Our 19-4 win over Holy Cross on April 10th was a big confidence booster because we had been struggling with hitting a little bit until then.

TDR: What is the team doing psychologically to get over the “hump” of losing in the finals last year and move

forward into this season?Toimil: If anything, the loss last year has motivated the

team to play harder and better this year. We’ve learned not to underestimate any opposing teams and to give 100 percent in every game, but overall last year’s loss has only served as motivation for us this season. A key thing about this team is the chemistry between us; we’ve become as much a family as a team. This togetherness keeps everyone focused and on the same page as we work to reach our common goal of getting to and winning the championship. Everyone has put in the work and we have gotten really close over the course of the year in preparation for the season.

TDR: Which team(s) do you see as the biggest re-maining obstacle(s) for Dartmouth on the way to the championship?

Toimil: The two teams we have lost to before in the finals are Princeton and Cornell, who are both consistently strong and are likely opponents for the Ivy League championship. Having played them before in the championships of previous years definitely brings out more emotion when we play these teams. We are currently in the middle of conference play and are playing four games this weekend against Brown. We need to go out and play well in these games because Brown is in our division, and beating them would really help us in our chances to reach the Ivy Championship. Yale and Harvard are the other two teams in our division and we will play series with them on the subsequent weekends.

TDR: Are there any particular strengths this team has that are driving the success you’ve had so far?

Toimil: This is a very balanced team that is strong in all areas. I play outfield, where we have a number of particularly strong players. Bo Patterson has done a great job coming off the bench and filling in at center field, and Jeff Keller and Ennis Coble are two of our most reliable hitters who always play with their hearts. The pitching squad has also been ex-cellent this year. This team is very close off the field, which has really made a difference in winning games because it motivates us all to do our jobs and not be a weak link in the

chain. We took a trip to the Dominican Republic together at the end of the fall, and it was a great team bonding experience. Everyone has a good attitude, which is also important for winning big games. We have a lot of depth, which is helpful when we run into injuries, and our confidence stemming from our experience and ability to compete with anybody is a big factor in being able to win consistently.

TDR: Can you talk a little bit about the pitching rota-tion and why it is working so well this season?

Toimil: Cole Sulser is our starter and is fully recovered from an injury he sustained during his junior year. This sea-son, he’s been an absolutely dominant factor on the pitcher’s mound. We also have three lefties who all have different styles but are all very effective and can win games for us. Having a majority of left-handed pitchers is unusual and can make batting against us particularly difficult for opposing teams.

TDR: Are there any standout freshmen that you expect to make a particularly important contribution as you work towards the championship?

Toimil: All of the freshmen are playing and doing a very good job. Right now most of the spotlight is on upperclassmen because of the number of strong upperclassmen we have, but the freshmen are all working hard and taking advantages of the opportunities they are given. They’re going to ensure that we have a really strong team going forward. Nick Ruppert had been having a great year in the outfield until his injury, and all of the freshman pitchers we have show a lot of promise for the future.

TDR: Is there anything else you would like to share?Toimil: We had our first televised game against Cornell

last weekend on our field which was quite an experience. This was the first Ivy League game to be televised and we are proud to have had the opportunity to play in it. We’re very happy with this season and are doing things this year that Dartmouth baseball has never done before. For example, this is the first time in program history that Dartmouth has won 15 of its first 18 games, and we are very confident about our prospects moving forward to the championship. n

By Meghan K. Hasset

The Huffington Post recently published an article about Dartmouth written by an ’07 titled “Devil in the Night: Frat Culture at Dartmouth.” Go right ahead and add Ezra Tzfadya’s fairy tale of evil fraternities to the collec-tion of sensationalist, unhelpful, controversial-for-the-sake-of-controversy articles depicting Dartmouth as this hellish place where innocent fun goes to die, and blaming the Greek system for all the social problems at Dartmouth that have been piling up this past year.

Dartmouth College does indeed have some incredibly deep-rooted social problems. A frightening percentage of our students engage in high-risk drinking frequently. Dartmouth is still very much a man’s world. Yes, the fraternity basements can get pretty nasty and unhygienic. Yes, there is sexual assault as there is on every college cam-pus. Many of those assaults are hushed up due to shame or to victims not even being sure about what happened. Some victims would prefer to never know.

I’ve certainly been that freshman girl with fuzzy memories and the grim real-ization that I wasn’t at all in control of the previous night’s events, and I know all too well that I am not alone. And there is absolutely a disturb-ing lack of respect for women on this campus. However, Tzfadya also makes the troubling assertion that “dawn hushed the anguish” of students who drank themselves to the brink of alcohol poisoning or women who were assaulted while intoxicated. Dawn does nothing to ease that kind of pain and regret. We don’t need to take back our Dartmouth night; we need to take back our Dartmouth. The sexism, racism, and alcohol dependency that plagues this campus does not fade away with the sunrise…and there is no such thing as the devil as convenient as that would be. There’s only us.

The problem we have is not a fraternity problem,

a sorority problem, or even an alcohol problem. It is a problem of self-respect as a student body. The self-respect as a student body to walk a woman home when she’s had too much and leave her untouched. The self-respect of women to not feel the need to “hook up” in order to feel better about yourself. The self-respect to avoid booting at all costs.

I do agree that the students need to take back our Dartmouth. We can be gross, sexist, crude, and even cruel.

However, shutting the doors to the fraternities would not be beneficial in the slightest. You don’t need frat houses with bedrooms, basement troughs, and pong tables to cultivate rape, dangerously high BACs, alcohol-ism, or the mistreatment of fellow human beings. Plenty of times all you need is a lack of empathy or a touch of

self-loathing. Unfortunately, Dartmouth has those two in spades. If the fraternities were shut down, the drinking would go to a different kind of underground—residence halls, where nothing is regulated and liquor is more common than Keystone Light. Despite the hysterics of adults and would-be muckrakers, light beer is far less dangerous than the hard liquors that define our sister schools’ social scenes. No risk

management, registered kegs, S&S walkthroughs, Green Team, no threats of probation…those all add up to a recipe for disaster.

Don’t believe me? Just think about Dimensions. The Greek system will essentially shut down while prospec-tive students are here. As a UGA, I’m terrified, and so are my fellow staff members and our Community Direc-tor, because the drinking will then be facilitated by the hosts of prospective students behind closed doors in dorm rooms. We will see more than just pre-gaming—we’ll see pre-gaming that just becomes the main event. The risk of blacking out, causing harm to yourself or others, and regretting your night practically double when people are drinking in unregulated settings like the dorms—this is why they’re so dangerous. Big parties at fraternities are actually the safest place to be because S&S is well aware

of them.If you have a problem with the Dartmouth culture, and

you speak out about your issues with it, I applaud you. I do not applaud proffering ridiculously counterproductive solu-tions. Condemning the Greek system does nothing but con-demn the Greek system. Plenty of students have actually found a great deal of much-needed support and closeness in a fraternity or sorority. Since I joined my sorority, I’ve significantly reduced the amount of drinks I have in a night and don’t feel a need to go out to a fraternity. And when I do choose to, I have sisters by my side so that I don’t feel so vulnerable or alone, and I certainly don’t feel that need to grab another Keystone to dispel insecurities.

Let’s talk real solutions. Real solutions come from open, honest, frank discussion about our culture and what needs to change. Not hiding it and forcing it underground. Putting frats on probation doesn’t do a thing for the amount of student visits to the DHMC. You know what does? The BASICS programs and UGAs reporting incidents of drinking, depression, personal trauma or disruptions to the residence hall communities. BASICS allows students to confront their drinking in an open, judgment-free way without any risk of punishment and come to the realization on their own that they often binge drink because something else is going on in their lives, or that the amount they drink is unnecessary. Sounds cheesy, but it works. So does the floor UGA reporting odd behavior or a resident feeling lonely. When that report matches up with an report of dan-gerous drinking from S&S, we can make real progress.

What also works is SAAP, EDPA, SexPerts, Green Team, and all those student-driven initiatives to change the way Dartmouth functions as a society. Trust me, I’m very tired of sexual assaults being met with a lack of support for the survivor, shame, and little to no disciplinary and ju-dicial action. However, being as frustrating tragedies like Rehtaeh Parson’s death and the Steubenville rapes didn’t require a frat culture, destroying our Greek system will do no good at all. We exemplify a subset of a universal prob-lem, and we need to take action in ways that don’t assume our problems are caused by the uniqueness of Dartmouth. That, to me, is also “hiding behind the uniqueness of Dartmouth,” Mr. Tzfadya.

Also, we don’t play Beirut. Before critiquing the Dartmouth frat scene, you should probably get to know it. Otherwise, your critiques are pretty useless, aren’t they? n

Mr. Danyow is a freshman at the College and a contribu-tor to The Dartmouth Review.

Ms. Hassett is a sophomore at the College and a con-tributor to The Dartmouth Review.

Dartmouth Baseball Excelling in 2013

Reform Students, Not Fraternities

—The first and most successful of the would-be Dartmouth muckrakers—

Page 10 The Dartmouth Review [April 22, 2013]

A Tale of Admissions & Dimensions

Ms. Sohr is a freshman at the College and Arts & Culture Editor of The Dartmouth Review.

By Caroline A. Sohr

It’s neither a secret nor a surprise: Dartmouth is receiving fewer applications, accepting a higher percentage of applicants, and experiencing lower yield rates. However, while it is clear that our current admissions statistics are less than desirable, more analysis is necessary to truly understand the current state of affairs at McNutt Hall.

I. ACCEPTANCE RATES

On March 28, 2013, Dartmouth offered admission to 1,788 prospective members of the Class of 2017 who had ap-plied to the College regular decision, bringing the total number of accepted students to 2,252 from a pool of 22,416 applicants. This reflects a 10 percent acceptance rate, which is an increase of .6 percent from the 9.4 percent admit rate last year.

Dartmouth was the only Ivy League school to report an increased acceptance rate. Last year, our acceptance rate for the Class of 2016 was the fourth highest in the Ivy League, below those of Brown (9.6 percent), Cornell (16.2 percent), and Penn (12.3 percent). However, our acceptance rate for the Class of 2017 is the third highest, now below only those of Cornell (15.2 percent) and Penn (12.1 percent), as Brown’s acceptance rate dropped to 9.2 percent.

In addition, Dartmouth was one of only two schools in the Ivy League to receive fewer applications, the other being Princeton. While having receiving 23,110 applications for the Class of 2016, the College only received 22,416 applications this year, marking a decrease of 3 percent.

However, in addition to accepting a higher percentage of students, Dartmouth accepted a greater number of students to fill the same size class this year. While admitting 2,252 students for the Class of 2017, the College accepted only 2,180 applicants for the Class of 2016 and 2,178 applicants for the Class of 2015, marking an increase of 72 students from last year. The Admis-sions Office hopes to enroll between 1,120 and 1,125 members of the Class of 2017, which is slightly above the current average class size of 1,111 students.

While many assume that the increase in the number of accepted students reflects anticipation for lower yield rates, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Maria Laskaris said in an interview with The Dartmouth that the Admissions Office planned to accept more students outright and fewer students from the waitlist. She also said that the College is hoping for a slightly larger class this year in order to smooth out the “peaks and valleys” in enrollment over the past few years.

Dartmouth’s yield has been hovering around 50 percent for the past few years, reaching a high of 51.9 percent for the Class of 2014. If between 1,120 and 1,125 students matriculate and the College does not have to turn to the waitlist, its yield rate this year will be around 49.8 percent, which will be an increase from the 48.5 percent yield rate last year for the Class of 2016.

II. EARLY DECISION AND LEGACIES

When considering the simple statistics – admissions rate, number of applications, and yield rates – things at the Admissions Office don’t seem so terrible after all. In fact, at first glance you may think that it is possible to argue that one very public scandal stemming from an infamous Rolling Stone article and an even more notorious Dartmouth edito-rial haven’t had a significant impact on admissions numbers. However, to so would be to grossly oversimplify a complicated process and, more importantly, to overlook important details that reveal the true severity of the situation at the Admissions Office.

How, might you ask, is the College able to manipulate the numbers in order to seem more selective than we actually are? The answer is simple: by accepting more early decision applicants and legacies.

Eleven years ago, Dartmouth accepted 384 students from a pool of 1,114 early decision applicants. Ultimately, 380 students of those 384 who had been accepted early matriculated to the College, comprising 36% of the 1,068 members of the Class of 2006.

These figures – the number of students and the per-cent of enrolled students who were accepted early decision – remained constant from 2002 to 2009, when the Class of 2013 matriculated. Throughout these eight years, about 380 students were accepted Early Decision, making up a steady 35 percent to 36 percent of total enrolled students.

However, in 2010, the College’s steady ED statistics suddenly changed. Dartmouth accepted 448 students early

decision for the Class of 2014, an increase of over 50 students from the previous year. Students who had been admitted early accounted for 39% of the Class of 2014. The next year, the College continued this trend, accepting 474 students, 43 percent of the Class of 2015, through the early decision plan. The 465 members of the Class of 2016 who were accepted ED last year make up 42 percent of the current freshmen class.

This year, the Admissions Office continued to ac-cept a high number of students early decision, despite seeing a significantly smaller applicant pool. Dartmouth received 1,574 early applications for the Class of 2017, a 12.5 decrease from the 1,801 early applications received for the Class of 2016. However, despite receiving over 200 fewer early ap-plications, the Admissions Office admitted 464 students, a mere one student less than last year’s 464.

Dartmouth also recently began accepting a greater number of legacy students to each class. Legacies were a steady 11% of the incoming class for at least three years (and were an even lower percentage before then) before jumping to 14% for the Class of 2014. Legacy students also com-prise 14% of the Classes of 2015 and 2016. And while figures for the Class of 2017 are not yet available, we can only assume that they will continue, if not build upon, this current trend.

The reason for this is simple: accepting a high number of early decision and legacy applicants keeps Dartmouth’s yield up. By applying through a binding early decision program, applicants are essentially telling the College, “If you admit me, I will come, regardless of the scholarships or financial aid that I could have received at other schools.” Since stu-dents who apply early sign a binding commitment to enroll should they be admitted, accepting a high percentage of ED students protects Dartmouth’s yield rates from reflecting a true fluctuation in interest in the College. The same goes for legacy students: while legacies aren’t as likely to enroll as ED admits, they ultimately decide to attend Dartmouth at much higher rates than their non-legacy peers.

Dartmouth’s yield is an important statistic because it indicates how desirable it is to attend the College. While overall yield rates from the past ten years seem to hover right around 50 percent, con-sidering the finer details tells a slightly different story. The College is relying on high enroll-ment rates from early decision and legacy admits to keep our yield artificially constant. I’m not a statistician, but af-ter a little manipulation, I was able to calculate the yield rates for students accepted to the College regular decision for the past few years. The regular decision yield rates for the Classes of 2014, 2015, and 2016 are 40 percent, 38 percent, and 36 percent, respectively. On the other hand, overall yield rates for these same classes are 52 percent, 49 percent, and 49 percent.

These numbers very clearly reveal that fewer students who are accepted to Dartmouth regular decision want to attend college here. Why might that be? It’s a complicated issue, but an ineffective administration and a few public scandals seem to be likely culprits. However, instead of fudging our numbers to hide deeper issues, Dartmouth should get our admissions statistics back on track by fixing the root of the problem: why fewer students want to come here.

III. DIMENSIONS

Every student’s path to Dartmouth is a little bit dif-ferent. Some have been planning to spend their college years sunbathing on the Green, studying in Baker, and reveling on Webster Avenue for as long as they can remember. Others haven’t even been to Hanover before Trips – but somehow know immediately after stepping off the Coach in front of Robo that Dartmouth is the college for them. Many others take a more traditional route: going on tours at many schools, whittling down a long list of possibilities, sending in applica-tions, and attending accepted students’ events before making a final decision. For this last group, a positive experience at Dimensions (Dartmouth’s accepted students weekend) is often one of the most important reasons – if not the most

important reason – why they ultimately decide to attend our beloved college on a hill.

In past years, many prospective students (prospies) have been drawn to Dartmouth by the enthusiasm of our com-munity, which comes to a head during the annual Dimensions Show. During this show, a group of current freshmen woo prospies with entertaining renditions of Top 20 songs rewrit-ten to describe life at Dartmouth. These freshmen, known as “Dimensions Crew,” spend weeks before Dimensions writing lyrics, choreographing, and practicing for their performances. Often dedicating at least two hours a day to preparing for the arrival of the prospies, they have a distinctly powerful passion for Dartmouth and make it their goal to convince accepted students to come here.

Reflecting Dartmouth students’ impressive creativity and enthusiasm, the Dimensions show gives prospies a candid

yet informative look into what it’s like to be a student at Dartmouth in a way that sets us apart from many of our peer schools. Instead of just hearing an admissions officer talk about the amazing academic, extra-curricular, and social experiences and opportunities that students have

here (as is the case at many of our peer schools), propsies watch Dartmouth students in action – singing, dancing, wear-ing flair, and being excited about going to school here. Since many prospies are considering other colleges with similar academic environments during Dimensions, the Dimensions Show distinguishes Dartmouth, allowing prospies to see that we are light-hearted, excited, and welcoming people – in ad-dition to being good students.

In February, the Admissions Department caused campus-wide outrage when it announced that it had planned to cancel the Dimensions Show for the Class of 2017. The Admissions Office believed that this would help draw students who may have been turned off or intimidated by the singing and dancing of the Dimensions Show. However, while many agree that there is no harm in incorporating more academic or intellectual events into the Dimensions program, current Dartmouth students expressed overwhelming opposition to cancelling the headline show. After a lot of hoopla, petitions and protest, admissions reinstated the Dimensions show,

although it will be relocated, for logistical reasons, to FoCo from Leede Arena, where it has been held the past few years.

While the Dimensions Show is back on, the admissions department and the administration nonetheless seem to be trying to direct the focus of Dimensions weekend towards academics and away from social life and the Greek system. During Dimensions, prospies are expressly prohibited from all Greek houses, which may disappoint some who were planning to spend some time during Dimensions weekend in frat basements. However, this policy protects prospies, fraternities, and the College, who must consider the liabili-

ties that come with hosting hundreds of underage students on campus.

Alexander Olesen, president of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, supports the administration’s new policy, saying, “I think it’s a safe play to keep prospies out of frats during Dimensions. Nothing would reflect worse on the school than an alcohol-related incident with a prospie.” Olesen believes that prospective students will have ample opportunities to learn about the Greek system and social life at Dartmouth without actually going to frats: “I think that those prospies who want to know more about the Greek system will get plenty of information from the administration and students on campus during the weekend.” SAE is hosting an informal barbecue with the Inter-Fraternity Council and Greek Leader-ship Council, which Olesen believes will help prospies learn about the Greek system without actually going to frats during Dimensions. Finally, as Dimensions quickly approaches, we can only hope that the many prospies who will soon invade Hanover enjoy their weekend at the College. Despite the sad current state of affairs in the Admissions Office, we are opti-mistic that President Hanlon, through effective and efficient administration, will be able to point our beloved College back in the right direction. Let us hope that he has enough grit to face down the vested interests in the College administration and help the students.

And, just as importantly, we hope that those 17s who have been struck by the unique spirit of our College will heed this simple message: come to Dartmouth. n

While the Dimensions Show is back on, the admissions depart-

ment seems to be trying to direct the focus of Dimensions weekend towards academics and away from social life and the Greek system.

—The Admissions building in all its glory—

[April 22, 2013] The Dartmouth Review Page 11

By Blake S. Neff

We strongly considered not writing any piece about the departure of Dr. Carol Folt, adhering to the old Ro-man practice of damnatio memoriae and trying to pretend the whole affair never happened (after all, that’s what Wikipedia is going to do), but ultimately journalistic eth-ics prevailed and we accepted that as a longtime faculty member and significant force over the past year, we had to say something about her.

Our dearly beloved Folt goes a long way back at Dartmouth, having joined the faculty in 1983 shortly after earning her doctorate at UC-Davis. After nearly 20 years as a professor, she ascended into the administration, begin-ning as dean of graduate studies, then becoming dean of the faculty in 2004, provost in 2010, and finally interim president. She did not submit herself as a candidate for the full presidency, and was expected to return to her role as provost before Chapel Hill came knocking. In a move that surprised some and relieved many, Folt announced on April 11 that she will depart Hanover this June to become Chancellor at the University of North Carolina’s flagship Chapel Hill campus. She will be the first female chancellor in the school’s history.

Folt will head right into the firing line at Chapel Hill, as she inherits several scandals that contributed to the early departure of her predecessor, Dr. Holden Thorp. In addition to two ongoing investigations regarding the school’s han-dling of sexual assault claims, the school’s African Ameri-can Studies department is being taken to task for severe academic abuses, including unauthorized grade changes, forging faculty signatures on grade rolls, and no attendance requirement for several classes. Also, in a familiar sight, several of UNC’s fraternities have faced hazing accusa-

tions in recent months.Folt’s 12 years in the administration leaves behind

several criticisms that are often lobbed in her direction, from the petty to the serious. On the pettier side of things was Folt’s lame habit of dropping the “interim” from her title until the last few weeks, when it suddenly began to reappear.

More serious are the criticisms levied at Folt regarding the signature production of her brief term: The Dartmouth Strategic Planning report. While Folt was far from the sole author of the report, it is closely intertwined with her short reign and reflects many of her long-held beliefs about the College. Folt was deeply concerned with the College’s perceived shortfall in international reputation compared to its Ivy League peers. Perhaps feeling slighted by a Kosovar youth who thought she was a mere headmaster at a secondary school, Folt has repeatedly emphasized the need for Dartmouth to build a stronger “global presence.” This sentiment is behind the ham-handed suggestion that Dartmouth rename itself to “Dartmouth ****ersity,” and expensive-sounding ideas to establish offices around the world.

Folt’s reign has also been marked by the College’s slavish devotion to garnishing its public image in the wake of Andrew Lohse-mageddon. Not only does the Strate-gic Planning report focus heavily on image and how to make the College look and feel more like Harvard, but the administration has even been meddling with the College’s reputation in small but aggravating ways, such as by at-tempting to abolish the centerpiece Dimensions show and by preventing tour guides from talking about the fraternity system. Crucial parts of the Dartmouth experience, parts which make the College unique and set it apart, are being pushed into the background like an embarrassing coke-addicted cousin.

Another aggravating development during Folt’s brief tenure was the abolition of Advanced Placement credits

for students matriculating at the College. AP courses have helped a great many students by enabling them to skip basic intro courses or gain additional credits, boons that allowed students to complete majors more quickly, take fewer courses during a term, or even graduate early. The deletion of AP credits will likely boost academic standards only a little and makes the College less attractive than its competitors, hardly an enviable development.

Perhaps the most notorious action by Folt occurred many years ago during her tenure as Dean of the Faculty. In 2004, Music 3 professor Jon Appleton had the temer-ity to hand out a handful of C’s and D’s in his 74-student class. Following complaints from numerous students, including one who claimed his father was “paying [Apple-ton’s] salary,” Folt intervened and changed all of the com-plaining students’ grades to a “pass” without ever check-ing their work or speaking to Professor Appleton. When Appleton complained about this violation of his academic freedom, Folt and others sought to intimidate him into silence, and after refusing he left the College in a huff for “early retirement.” Afterward, Appleton described Folt as “morally bankrupt” and contemptuous of undergraduate education.

Presumably most faculty members had more positive relationships with Folt (after all, it’s hard to ascend into leadership roles if everybody hates you), but it says a lot that when The Daily Dartmouth published a retrospective on Folt last week, it contained Appleton’s criticisms but no praise from current faculty.

Still, whatever her flaws, Folt at the least didn’t irrevo-cably screw anything up, which is all we can ask of her as an interim president. She may have had some poor ideas, but it falls on Dr. Phil Hanlon to critically evaluate those ideas and make sure the worst ones don’t come to fruition. Folt can go to a large public research university, which is probably more up her alley as a biology professor. We wish her and UNC the best of luck. n

By Nicholas S. Duva

About a month ago, a group of students tried the new grilled chicken thighs at Class of 1953 Commons. As it was not particularly well-cooked chicken, it ended up making a group of students quite sick, one of whom was interviewed for this article. That student made his way to Dick’s House, the ostensible first stop for any Dartmouth student with a sickness. Although one of six or seven students there for food poisoning-related symptoms, he was given only token, substandard treatment. Only after passing in and out of consciousness and visibly hallucinating in front of a nurse was he given actual medicine. Such stories are commonplace. In fact, a column that detailed a similar lack of treatment was published in The Daily Dartmouth in late March, in which Jon Miller ’15 describes an aura of neglect at Dick’s House.

On the other hand, many students have returned from the infirmary with glowing reports of their experi-ences. One student, who was sick with a particularly virulent case of strep throat, noted that not only did the nurses attend to her very well, but they did so in a caring, gentle manner. Upon her departure, the staff, whom she had grown close with, reminded her that, if her sickness were to recur, she was welcome to stay another night. The excellence of some student experiences also serves to display our health center’s problems with treatment in a harsh light. The good intentions of the staff do not eliminate the fact that aspirin and a paper cup full of water are used to treat a majority of the ill students that walk into Dick’s House.

It is unfortunate that Dick’s House provides such per-functory treatment. It is, however, one of a very small and dwindling number of college health care centers that maintains an overnight infirmary. For students who may have otherwise had to leave campus due to a persistent sickness, the infirmary can be a godsend, allowing them to keep up with their work, and reduce their recovery time. Some students are even more overjoyed to avoid a potentially costly and lengthy trip off-campus for treatment.

The overarching story of Dick’s House, then, is one of wasted potential. Dartmouth is, of course, the smallest school in the Ivy League, and the only one that still carries the moni-

ker “College.” We are an undergraduate-focused institution: our professors are renowned for taking a personal interest in their students instead of their research, and our quality of life remains amongst the highest in the nation. Our health center ought to be another check on that list: it ought to be one of the best in the nation. Dick’s House fails to rank amongst the best not because of the incompetence of its staff. As noted, there have been many stories of unusual kindness on the part of the nurses there. Why this strange difference in treatment styles? Why does one student receive great treatment and the

other substandard? Rather, the fundamental problem is that the administration has been regularly restricting the treatment that it is allowed to provide.

According to a source well-acquainted with the inner-workings of Dick’s House and the Dartmouth medical sys-tem, back when the Dartmouth–Hitchcock Medical Center was located in what is today Maynard Lot, our health center served more or less as an extension of the hospital. Whereas the primary care center today has the resources to treat little more than strep throat, fevers, and on a good day respiratory infections, back then it provided a much greater range of services.

But since 1991, when the Lebanon DHMC campus opened, services provided at Dick’s House have been steadily dropped. Today, during terms, only nurses are on staff 24/7. And as the source notes, “their scope of practice is so severely

limited that they cannot even start an IV on a patient without sending him up to DHMC.” The tyrannical restrictions at Dick’s House mean that it serves as little more than a babysit-ting ward for people that get picked up by S&S and so have to wait until their Blood Alcohol Content falls below .06. That is what our infirmary has been reduced to. That is where all of the potential for supporting undergraduates has gone. With this limited scope of practice, which essentially limits Dick’s House to the same level of care and support for a patient as a caring roommate would, it should not be surprising that the

quality of care for serious and real illnesses is so low.Again, though, this is not a commentary on the

staff at Dick’s House. This instead is a commentary of how the administration has consistently neglected our health center. As good and as kind as the nurses may be, administrative directives prevent them from actually do-ing anything. They simply are not allowed to administer effective treatment. As seen with the infirmary, what they can do, they do quite well.

The undeniable quality of staff shows that the po-tential utility of our health center is being wasted. Our source notes that simply placing a doctor there 24/7 would immeasurably increase the effectiveness of treatment, and would not be terribly costly compared to the sunk cost of operating Dick’s House as-is. That the administration has failed to put in a full-time doctor is especially unfortunate because the decline of Dick’s House has coincided with the rise of an increasingly expensive and well-staffed faculty clinic in Hanover. The College has the ability to

make Dick’s House much better. It just doesn’t seem to have the desire to do so.

Again, Dartmouth is renowned for its focus on under-graduates, for attempting to make every student here feel like he or she is truly cared for. The substandard quality of care at Dick’s House puts a giant, black mark on that reputation, and, outside of the very real health consequences, has the effect of making students feel more like numbers. After all, aren’t we just numbers that pay tuition for four years and then disappear? Our health center could easily be better, and ought to be better. Students would not only benefit in terms of health, but would also have greater peace of mind and ties to the community. Why do alumni love every other part of Dartmouth? Get the administrators out of Dick’s House and put in a doctor. Maybe then they could get back to their main goal: providing real healthcare. n

Mr. Neff is a senior at the College and News Editor of The Dartmouth Review.

Mr. Duva is a freshman at the College and News Editor of The Dartmouth Review.

Folt Bolts for UNC Chapel Hill

Dick’s House Needs a Doctor, Stat!

—Dick’s House has long been a center of student controversy based upon its often substandard care—

Page 12 The Dartmouth Review [April 22, 2013]

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I fear the Greeks, even those who bear gifts..— Virgil.

Dean Vernon Wormer: Greg, what is the worst fraternity on this campus?

Greg Marmalard: Well that would be hard to say, sir. They’re each outstanding in their own way.

— Animal House

“How can any educated person stay away from the Greeks? I have always been far more inter-ested in them than in science.

— Einstein

Where fraternities are not allowed, Keynesianism flourishes.”

— Barry Goldwater

I am sorry because I am getting old and I shall not live long to thank the Greeks, whose resis-tance decided World War II.

— Joseph Stalin

Historical justice obliges me to state that of the enemies who took up positions against us, the Greeks particularly fought with the highest courage.

— Adolf Hitler

Bush is a frat boy in the White House. But we’ve had that before.

— Harry Shearer

[Fraternities] are probably the greatest bastion we have for our future, the great bastion we have where we can develop leaders to take care of the protection of the Republic and our way of life.

— Barry Goldwater

College students have always shown a more or less marked tendency to form themselves into societies.

— William R. Baird

Whereas the Greeks gave to will the boundaries of reason, we have come to put the will’s impulse in the very center of reason, which has, as a result, become deadly.

— Albert Camus

Let Greeks be Greeks, and women what they are.— Anne Bradstreet

I imagine that one of the biggest troubles with colleges is that there are too many distractions, too much panty-raiding, fraternities, boola-boola, and all of that.

— Malcolm X

I took a great deal more from my fraternity than I gave — but what I took was a very great deal — compan-ionship of the highest order, self-confidence born of belonging to a group of which I was proud, enrichment of my personal life, which gave all my college career added dimension, and even an extra bond to several life-long friendships that already existed.

— Walter Cronkite

Blaming speculators as a response to financial crisis goes back at least to the Greeks. It’s almost always the wrong response.

— Lawrence Summers

Otter: But you can’t hold a whole fraternity respon-sible for the behavior of a few, sick twisted individu-als. For if you do, then shouldn’t we blame the whole fraternity system? And if the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn’t this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? I put it to you, Greg - isn’t this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do whatever you want to us, but we’re not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America.

— Animal House

Our country, in which virtue is especially hon-oured, watches with admiration the struggle of the Greeks.— Mainichi Shinbun, Japanese Newspaper, 1941

The advent of other Greek letter fraternities met the social needs or supposed needs of un-derclass men.

— Reverend E. E. Parsons

“I came to the Greeks early, and I found an-swers in them.

— Edith Hamilton

I look forward to joining the ultimate Dartmouth fraternity—former members of the Wheelock Succession.

— Jim Yong Kim

“Then all the Greeks took Sosthenes, the chief ruler of the synagogue, and beat him before the judgment seat. And Gallio cared for none of those things.”

— The Bible