DEBATERS PLAN ACTIVE YEAR
While Carnival plans occupy the greater half of Robinson Hall, and the campus prays furtively for' snow .... at the time of writing the temperature is 55 degrees, and it has been raining for two days .... the Forensic Union has already released a schedule of thirteen debates for this spring, climaxed in Hanover by a debate with a girls' team from Williams and Mary and with Georgetown in March. Baker Library has installed a free coat checking system, with student attendants paid by National Youth Administration funds. The unseasonable weather reached a point where The Dartmouth published a story beginning: "Light flurries of snow fell .... this afternoon" under the imposing head of "Snowfall in Maine." The ski school at the Hanover Inn was held on frozen crust fifteen miles north of Hanover.
Warm weather has been a considerable aid, however, to the Hanover building program. Chandler Hall is nearly down, work being retarded by the fact that each brick is carefully cleaned of old cement and transported for use in the construction of the new dining hall. That building has shown considerable progress through an atmosphere of steaming cement and smudge fires. The Phi Gams are already seeing hope of holding a spring houseparty in the new Wheelock street building. The Gamma Delta Chi house, about to be demolished, now totters on the brink of an imposing cellar hole which will eventually become a squash court if building funds are sufficient.
The appointment of Davis Jackson '36 by President Hopkins to serve as College adviser of fraternities is a move which has been awaited for some time. It is a positive step toward a solution of the indecision that has been present ever since the failings of the fraternity situation were made public by the Social Survey Committee last year. The appointment should be evidence of the sincere wish of the College to cooperate in the effort to strengthen and more fully understand the program of fraternities during the period that has come to be looked on as a "trial." It is local appreciation of the problem that caused the creation of the special committee appointed by the national fraternities having chapters at Dartmouth to study the situation at Hanover. The move by the College is still too recent for the local chapters to have formulated any consistent opinions, but at first glance it would seem to be very favorably received.
The Interfraternity Treasurers' Council took action on the widespread difficulty in collecting fraternity dues, and formulated a plan which was presented to each house whereby dues would be paid by semesters, beginning in February, 1937. If Dartmouth fraternities adopt the plan it will unify the financial systems, and facilitate solving problems that arise in individual houses under the present more or less haphazard arrangements.
Simultaneously with the fraternity developments, the Inter dormitory Council strengthened their regulations in an effort to offset any tendency to abuse present privileges, emphasizing their disapproval of beer cans and refuse being thrown from dormitory windows. A small thing in itself, perhaps, the extent to which that can be carried is realized when snow melts in the spring.
