The Undergraduate Chair

IT'S the Dartmouth undergraduate who may feel the sting of the Selective Service, but it's the Dartmouth faculty who are doing something about it.

Eighty professors and instructors signed a petition calling on the College to "adopt a policy against the submission of academic grades or student's standing in class to Selective Service boards."

Under the present system, in which students are eligible for reclassification from 2-S to 1-A if they do not rank in a certain upper percentile of their class, the faculty believes it is forced "to serve as part of the administrative apparatus of the Selective Service Administration; and decisions as to grades, in which it is difficult enough to attain objectivity even without such consideration, become decisions as to who shall serve in the armed forces and who shall not."

The petition asserted that student scholarship was inhibited by the added pressure on grades and ranking, so that "it changes in a basic way the character and purpose of the academic community and the personal relationships within that community."

In addition to the class-standing criteria, the Selective Service bases its reclassification judgments on the results of a 150-question selective service test. After the first of three Saturday examination dates, most Dartmouth students felt sure that their rank was unimportant. They'd make it on what one man called "that silly test."

Accustomed to a diet of essay exams, tricky short answer questions and multiple choice queries with three answers all of which are right, one just a little more right than the others, many students found the Selective Service exam the easiest thing since eighth-grade general science. A rumor that no Dartmouth student failed to pass a similar exam during the Korean War also buoyed spirits.

The war clouds seemed to lift over distant Vietnam as hundreds of students left local exam centers, confident of another year of stateside security. Those who had feared that the test results might be a prelude to an army physical rushed to sign up for a late June examination date.

The Dartmouth, commenting on the faculty petition, wisely stated, "Whether this proof is based on class standing or the results of a national exam, the source must remain the student himself. This is the essence of the faculty statement, which recognizes the danger inherent in too great an overlap between the academic and the bureaucratic. . . . When a student is forced to seek good grades solely for the purpose of getting a deferment, his search may all too often lead to 'guts' rather than true intellectual experience. The pressure on the faculty, too, becomes significant when a grade does not determine who goes to Yale Law School, but rather who goes to Vietnam."

C. Gregory Eden, former president of the Interfraternity Council during its difficult 1965-1966 year, broke the precedent on absolute silence that has been set by nearly all student government leaders after ending their terms of office and spoke out in the latest issue of Eranos, a magazine dedicated to the intellectual improvement of Dartmouth.

"The Larmon committee suggested that the College take more responsibility for the social needs of the undergraduates. This was suggested thirty years ago - when is it going to happen? Is the Hopkins Center the answer?

"The token continuity administered yearly by the Dean's office accomplishes little but to sustain the present mediocre system," Eden charged, and attributed this condition, in part, to the "inability of the faculty to come to grips with the problem of adequate social facilities for the undergraduates.

"At present the IFC is merely an agent for the Dean's office in distributing information," Eden wrote with some disillusionment. "It is unsure of what it is supposed to be doing, and so is everybody else."

The present IFC, trying not to duplicate the apparent sins of the past, has supplemented its annual pre-rush meetina with a panel discussion on "Fraternities and the Independent." Jeffery Amory '65 former Cutter Hall chairman, Robert' Span '67, managing editor of TheDartmouth, and Owen Leach 67, general manager of WDCR, will state the independent point of view to the attending freshmen, while William Kirkpatrick, Jon Eastman and William Dix, all newly elected house presidents, will speak for the fraternities.

In a long anticipated but nevertheless dramatic move, Delta Upsilon, the fraternity which has ranked first in overall house competition for the past decade, voted overwhelmingly to sever its ties with the national and thus become the eleventh local among the 24 fraternities on campus. The switch, contingent upon approval by alumni, will take place on September 1, in time for rush next year.

President Michael Merenda '67 said that lack of identification with the national and other DU chapters, plus strained relations with the national which the house does not identify with, were crucial factors in the decision. For the past three years members of the Dartmouth chapter have unsuccessfully attempted to eliminate a "blackball" provision from the national constitution.

"In view of these reasons for a house to be a local rather than a national," editorialized The Dartmouth, "it would be well for the chapters of national fraternities at the College to reevaluate the importance of their membership in those organizations. We feel that the importance of national membership at Dartmouth has faded to nothing, and that an all-local system would be the most advantageous for both the fraternity system and for the College."

In another significant portent of things to come, Delta Upsilon also voted to have a professor in residence next year and to solicit members from among the faculty.

The globe-trotting Dartmouth Rugby Club returns the generous hospitality it received on European tours in 1959, 1962 and 1964 when early this month it (and the Hanover community) plays host to the Rosslyn Park Rugby Football Club, one of the top amateur squads in England.

Through the generosity of the townspeople the thirty British players and 24 wives and supporters are to be feted at an appropriately lavish banquet, and treated to a dance, a picnic, movies and a tour of the College and surrounding area.

Rosslyn Park was in the States to compete in the Boston International Rugby Tournament. On May 31 they came up to Hanover for a three-day visit, to play Dartmouth's "A" and "B" teams and to sample New England hospitality.

"Sponsoring the visit is our way of thanking all those in Europe who have made our trips enjoyable in the past," said club president Tim Urban '66. "We were honored that Rosslyn Park chose us as their one collegiate opponent on their U.S. trip, and we're looking forward to returning the visit."

"Okay," he reasoned slowly, "if it's not a plane, a helicopter, a star, the moon, a satellite or a bird, what is it?"

Twenty men stared up above Dart- mouth Hall at an orange pin-point of light which seemed to be moving rapidlyeast. Others joined and watched as the light seemed to bob, weave and veer as it dipped toward the horizon.

"It's coming back."

"What's coming back?"

"The ... the flying saucer."

"Don't be absurd, it's not a flying saucer, it's just an orange light flying around."

"You know, if you look at it just right, you can see the whole body, not just the light on top."

"It's getting dimmer. It's going, it's going, it's gone."

"How all these Dartmouth- men could stand on a cold May night and look at a little light is beyond me. This place is really going downhill."

"I guess it was silly. Besides, it's probably landed somewhere in Maine by now."

A mystery, and even cynical men wondered, just a little, what that thing they thought they saw was. It turned out to be an inflated laundry bag with orange flares attached that some guys in the Wigwam dorms sent up. At least, that's what the news stories said.

But.. . you know, if you really looked closely and squinted a little, you could see its body.

There was something lonely and strange about Freshman Week at Dartmouth. We had been away from home before, often in fact, but walking slowly across the Green, alone, with that beanie on and four years stretching out endlessly before us, we couldn't help getting that empty feeling down deep in our stomachs, the kind that sends a lump up to the throat.

Then there was a car horn and a "Hey '66— Ya busy?" We weren't and we went and worked raking leaves on fraternity row, carrying old couches, beating worn rugs, meeting our classmates and sipping our generous rewards of beer in the basements of odd sounding buildings like Fiji and the Nu.

There was Thayer Hall - anemic dogs, fussy ticket punchers, the bread fights, the catcalls when we saw a skirt. There were rallies and bonfires. The "townies" would organize and go after our beanies, those beanies we never valued or wanted until their security was threatened. More often than not we got them back, and then, somehow, they meant something. And there was the coach, telling us how every team was so good, and the Saturdays when we were better than any team.

They opened Hopkins Center, the "Mid-Western grain elevator," "the world's largest intramural post office," "the East's only sinking theater." And before we left they had ended the Freshman Reading Program and Great Is- sues. They started a new system of course selection, built a computer center, founded an "experiment in living," filled a new swimming pool, won a Lambert Trophy, built a new language lab and a field house.

Meanwhile we had decided to be profootball players, doctors, lawyers, Peace Corpsmen, professors of English, history, economics, French, cinema directors, actors, designers and public servants.

But we had also become a class, not any class, but Dartmouth 1966, and, somehow, although we won't admit it, that lump in our throats will be larger when we turn away than it was when we first arrived.

They might call us the Undefeated '66s, or the "pall-bearers of GI" but we'll call ourselves Class of 1966, Dartmouth Class of 1966, and we'll reminisce endlessly about the four most memorable years of our lives.

Barrett Cup Winner: Angus King '66 of Alexandria, Va., Undergraduate Councilpresident, receiving Dartmouth's top student honor from Dean Thaddeus Seymour.

Dartmouth debaters Neil Danberg '66 (center) and Tom Brewer '68 with CadetPat Keating, took fifth in the national tournament at West Point in April. Northwestern won the championship trophy named for Sigurd S. Larmon 14.