The Undergraduate Year

To the contemporary undergraduate, the normal state of affairs is one of never-ending flux. This dynamic aspect of normalcy is reflected constantly throughout the year—in the number of weekends the individual spends at his desk or outside of Hanover, in the courses he picks and the attitudes he forms and the clubs he joins, all at a college stuck square in the center of a piece of landscape he probably never knew existed previously.

And he is never the same. After the last war, the "average" student was a student in every sense of the word. The ex-GI who came to Dartmouth and other colleges with the my-days-of-fun-are-behind-me attitude put a new intensity into the classroom; he asked such searching questions that complacently aging professors were forced to revise the pat lectures of many years' standing. He was intent in everything he did, whether it was an assignment or a Softball game, and he set a whole generation of fellow students to examining the purpose of a higher education.

When the class percentages of the civilian students once again rose to an overwhelming preponderance, there was an immediate desire to return to the, golden prewar days of smaller classes, an easy life, and a predictable future. It even began to look like the days which a new crop of undergraduates had only read about in books or seen in idealized movies. At the football games, the raccoon coat with the flask pocket made an intermittent, but significant, appearance. Cars sported gaudily painted nicknames, and the straw skimmer was back with a jaunty green and white hatband. Everything seemed to point just ahead, to a four-year stay in a sheltered ivory tower of education.

Although the signs were there, the promise was never fulfilled. The undergraduate was suddenly brought to the realization of an education in a society, of a very vital connection with the world around him. For the first time, in an almost normal world, the student began to arrive at a comprehension of a four-year preparation for life.

In every facet of undergraduate life could be found evidences of individuals making adjustments to a world that was making inroads upon their lives—even while they were at college. Decisions took on a sense of responsibility and of importance within themselves. The undergraduate year was one of impending maturity.

ONE all-pervasive influence of major stature could be singled out. The obvious, salient points at which the military entered Dartmouth life were calmly noticed. Whether any future influence of a repressive sort would manifest itself was yet to be seen.

The peacetime draft picked around the edges of the student body for a few years, grabbed a sizable percentage of seniors sans graduate school acceptances, and finally resulted in the establishment in Hanover of three reserve officer training units. Since the 1946 establishment of a Navy and Marine ROTC, the Dartmouth enrollment in these programs had risen steadily. But, in a single year, with the addition of Army Ordnance and Air Force units, the number jumped to 1,000 undergraduates. By the units' own predictions, that number could by next year easily pass beyond 1,500, putting almost sixty percent of the undergraduate body in some military reserve uniform.

Rather than face a two to four year hitch as a noncom, the undergraduate was looking ahead and making preparations. Even more important among his motives, however, was the simple desire to complete at least his four years of education uninterrupted.

The consequent effects of pressure have already been felt; and it is generally understood that they will be considerably worse in the future. As every one of these programs requires a military or naval science course every semester, the free elective was immediately affected. And, with the basic requirements for his degree and his major study before him, the average student was finding it impossible to frequent departments bearing no major study credits, such as Comparative Literature, Biography and the humanities. The oncevaunted honors program disappeared in all but two or three departments, and in some of these, only two students were making use of the benefits of the individualized study programs.

Courses were nevertheless a very important part, the overwhelmingly important part, of undergraduate life—more so than they had ever seen before. One of the surest indices of the amount of time spent studying is the extracurricular program. As far back as last year, freshman heelers in every organization were becoming scarce. Worried about keeping in the top half of their class to avoid the draft, incoming '54s decided to stick to their books for a year, get settled and then look around. Very few ever got around to writing their first news story or even carrying a water bucket for the football team. As scarce as '54s were in comparison with previous years, '55s failed to try out for organizations in unprecedented numbers. Few groups on campus which depended upon unsparingly donated hours failed to feel the pinch of declining manpower.

As intent as the individual was upon staying close to the top of his class heap, it was nevertheless with a new confidence and assurance that, if he did, he would be able to stay in college. As contrasted to the previous year of confused memoranda from Selective Service headquarters, and consequent panic enlistments through the year, a definite pattern was evolving. If conditions in the world persisted in their present form, the individual had a pretty fair idea of just when, where and for how long he had to serve. The only hangovers from the uncertain military requirements were the pre-ROTC seniors who, as graduation approached, were still scrambling for the most favorable "deal" they could find. At best, these deals meant some specialized education program—but with the gimmick of a longer term of service.

OUTSIDE of this creeping paralysis in the curriculum, as one member of the faculty termed it, there were signs of a different sort of paralysis—in the active expression of ideas. Everyone seemed to have very definite ideas on a variety of subjects, but few seemed willing to make the effort to have their thoughts felt or even heard.

Student government made very great steps toward active self-government. The problem of an honor system was brought to the point of a definite action; a Judiciary Committee in the Undergraduate Council was well attended in its opinions, ranging to disciplinary judgments upon their fellow students—even to expulsion; Palaeopitus came forth with a wholly new concept of freshman orientation without hazing—and implemented that plan with a program for immediate enaction. But the overlapping of duties within these councils and committees let the busy only become busier. A committee member estimated that the bulk of the undergraduate offices were filled by not more than 75 men. And, despite extensive space in TheDartmouth, the average Dartmouth student showed little knowledge and less interest in the proceedings.

In a big political year, New Hampshire became the focus of an over-emphasized primary election system. Solidly Republican, Dartmouth undergraduates with strong ideas reserved them for dormitory discussions. In a political void, the attention given to New Hampshire forced some last-minute activity in Hanover. The Young Republicans, known to be proEisenhower, whipped into action and sponsored a local address by Harold Stassen. Democrat Kefauver slipped through Hanover unsponsored, and after the storm, a group devoted itself to promoting the fortunes of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas. But the total combined membership of all these groups wouldn't have stretched the capacity of the average classroom. The Dartmouth undergraduate may have had his opinions, but he was keeping them to himself.

One trend of the times showed itself unfortunately in the establishment of the non-partisan Liberal Forum, devoted to the ideal of promoting the expression of views which otherwise would not be heard. A worried Undergraduate Council, in voting approval, also tacked on a 20-man minimum membership limit required for continued approval—to insure responsible leadership. But it was the only political group so singled out for such attention.

SOCIAL life as usual centered around the fraternities. Last year's three big weekends were all marked by an impending finality; this was to be, perhaps, the last normal Carnival, the last normal Green Key. After weathering the summer, a summer which was expected to bring a drop in enrollment, social life took on new proportions. Winter carnival became so big that it set a record for attendance; it became so big that the problem now was how to make it smaller. The trend towards bigger social weekends was one that had been growing for the past few years, and hit its peak in this year. With a relieving of the tension, and a feeling that there would be another year and another round of parties, there was no apparent reason for the size and intensity of the social problem outside of an evolution over the years.

Criticism of fraternities took a slightly different twist: that of the national affiliation. The Undergraduate Council's Committee on Review of Discrimination found its proceedings repeatedly bogged down by the simple fact of an adamant, unyielding national office. Charters with clauses directed against minorities were universally condemned, and the sole remaining question was how to exert enough pressure upon the central office to force at least a local option concerning which pledges to take and which to refuse on the basis of individual worth. A general movement in the fall to go local had great appeal, but fell before the technical difficulties of property ownership and house mortgages. The time seemed opportune for a new campus referendum to determine whether the fraternities should be left to their own wills, or whether they should rid themselves of undemocratic practices, to lose College recognition in the case of failure.

A MAJOR concern of the College population as usual centered about athletics. In a troubled athletic world of scandals and professionalism, Dartmouth's amateurs were on the up-grade. New coaches and unrecruited teams kept respectable Ivy League standings, and the teams with the worst records showed marked improvement.

Few of the students had a chance to represent their college on the athletic scene, but almost everyone could and did engage in athletics. The newly expanded Intramural program, through fraternity and dormitory leagues, had extensive coverage, providing umpires, equipment and schedules in every conceivable sport. As spring approached, at least fifty organizations, dormitories and fraternities had entered teams in three softball leagues and several more subdivisions.

And, as spring approached Hanover, Dartmouth planned to graduate the last of a series of post-war classes. The group which matriculated in the fall of 1948 had the last vestiges of the veteran. It was the last of several classes to go through a difficult admissions set-up with an inflated number of applications. It was the possessor of a string of academic records which may never again be approached. And it was supposed to have been the first in a line of "normal" classes.

With its departure, the College will be made up of a new generation of men who realize that any previous concept of normalcy is out of the question. They will be conscious at every step of the way that theirs is a very close relationship with life, that the short stopover in Hanover is but very brief in any span of world affairs. Reminded constantly by the Great Issues course, by their military preparations, by a Department of Russian Civilization, the classes to come will be faced by an adjustment to their environment totally unlike that of any undergraduate body in supposedly normal years.

At present Dartmouth undergraduates were only beginning to take cognizance of this responsibility. In governing themselves, whether it be the fault of the individual or the system, the group must as a group learn to participate. As fraternities, they had to learn that in the modern age, discriminatory practices had to be eliminated—even at the cost of the life of the chapter if need be. They were only starting to understand that going to classes was outside the jurisdiction of an attendance system, that the responsibility was grounded in something deeper. In politics, the simple problems of reading a daily newspaper were coming to be understood; the gaining of political knowledge and opinions, comprehended to be basic to their life.

In this undergraduate year, the individual who came to Hanover to be educated and live a country-club life appeared to be an anachronism. As much as the undergraduate year marked an end to an arbitrary era, it hinted of problems to be faced in the future. These problems would have to be faced, and they could be met best by the individual who came to Dartmouth with the concept of the need to educate himself.

EDITOR OF "THE DARTMOUTH"