The Undergraduate Chair
DARTMOUTH'S most valuable asset will always be her students. What they are, it will be, President Dickey says, and at least in Martin Luther's day a Professor would doff his cap in respect for all the future doctors, lawyers, and scholars gathered in his presence - a tradition now defunct. Just the same, basking in the warm May sunshine are members of the 21st century Establishment. Whatever else, they have all the potential. in the world, and four years in Hanover to do what they want with that potential.
What do they do, then?
Study, mainly. Between classes and the paperback explosion, a large portion of the Dartmouth experience is spent eye on book, pen in hand. An equal portion is spent punting - a man-year or so. Punting means talking, playing a record, taking off for Skidmore, or simply walking down to the Post Office to buy a stamp, with an ice cream cone on the way back. This is the life. With all that potential, the world's on a string - Marshall McLuhan; Hannibal at Cana; preferred stock; Cape Cod nights; quasars. Anything is possible on these green spring days, sitting on the porch of College Hall watching the softball games.
The bulletin boards are covered with" chances to do anything in those 24 hours of relatively free time. Rides to Smith; sky-diving in Orange, Mass.; buy a Honda motorcycle; play the guitar; go to Expo 67. Anything.
Most importantly, the students have carved out a real community for themselves in Hanover, and they make it run, from 6 a.m., when a sleepy engineer warms up WDCR and belts out "Men of Dartmouth" over the airways, to 4 the following morning, when the student night editor puts The Dartmouth to bed. Campus organizations are a large part of undergraduate life, but they have changed in the past ten years to fit the students' needs, and their tightening schedules.
Outside of fraternities and athletics, the biggest activity on campus is the Dartmouth Outing Club, which boasts some 1200 members. Roughing it - or "chubmg - is no longer the universal skill. (Roadtripping is. Thanks to Route 93, which puts Boston about two hours away, it is theoretically possible to live the Good Urban Life in Hanover, though not likely.) The day of the legendary Dartmouth chubber is gone.
The DOC has instead become an efficient service organization. A record number of students rent out cabins to escape Hanover's bustle. The Ledyard Canoe Club and Bait and Bullet offer instruction and facilities to interested students, and Cabin and Trail maintains part of the Appalachian Trail. The Mountaineering Club offers rock-climbing lessons, and every winter the Winter Sports Council teaches skiing to 700 students.
These are all student-run organizations; a hard core surrounded by dilettantes, as it were.
Next in line of activities is student government. There is very little glory in it, and very few Big Men on Campus of the classical mold. The Undergraduate Council has some eighty members, and with Palaeopitus, Green Key, the attendant committees, and the IDC men, those active in student-body affairs number over 300.
The majority of these are elected to do the dirty work for the rest of the school - making policy decisions, penalizing misconduct, and representing the popular will to the Administration on issues like "women upstairs." The UGC's committees also perform services like the Chest Fund, cheap charter flights to the West Coast and Europe, and, late this term, running a new coffee house called "The Ram's Horn" on West Wheelock Street.
The Dartmouth Christian Union is the political and social organization representing the school. An average of 300 students work for the DCU at a time. They constitute the main link beween the College and nearby New Hampshire and Vermont, as they aid indigents, cut firewood during the winter for hard-pressed farmers, repair roofs, visit hospital patients, tutor high-school students, and much, much else.
Their latest project is a system of "White Bikes," scrounged from the Campus Police lost and found. These bicycles will be placed all over campus at the disposal of the student body as a public utility, like sidewalks. Find one at your dorm, pedal down to class, leave it, just like Hertz.
WDCR, 1340 on the dial, is still one of the few professional radio stations run entirely by students, and it may be one of the best rock 'n roll stations anywhere. Broadcasting 19 hours a day, it requires 30 to 40 students to keep it going, and has a total staff of over a hundred. "Tales for the Midnight Hour" has left the air, replaced by reruns of "The Shadow."
Its arch-rival, The Dartmouth, remains the College forum for news, vendettas, and public statements by College officials. After some lean years in the early Sixties, The D has bounced back to become an excellent college newspaper, and publishes, from time to time, supplements like a joke "Almanack" and an authoritative report on the Hanover economy which defended the downtown merchants. It has a staff of 80, and a hard core of approximately 15 wild men keep it ahead of chaos. Finding 30 to 40 news stories a week in Hanover can be fairly difficult.
Finally, there are many old-style clubs - 15 or 20 students sharing a common interest or pooling resources to buy expensive equipment. Dartmouth Project Mexico, for instance, enables students to live and do volunteer work for a summer in Mexico City. The Flying Club helps students to learn to fly, and has one airplane, 15 members, and a long waiting list. Occasionally the members rent their Cessna 150 to themselves and roadtrip to Smith in good weather.
Everybody, in short, is wrapped up in one thing or another. It takes a certain amount of gear to run a project, but organizers are never in short supply, and the next decade or two will no doubt see a Rocket Club in the COSO fold. There is a warm, almost cliquish sense of camaraderie in the hard core of nearly all clubs. The "In" feeling and the shared experience are not forgotten.
There is also a certain pride in contributing something to an organization as, several years ago, for posterity's sake, the Corinthian Yacht Club whipped up a fleet of sailboats in the Hopkins Center shop.
But student activity is changing form. As the average Big Greeners study more, they are more likely to spend that free hour at the Nugget than in Robinson Hall, and that free evening at Skidmore. They will be more cautious about "getting involved," because hour exams are coming, and after that, papers ... one must plan ahead. (A conspicuous exception to the rule is intercollegiate athletics, which require heavy commitment but pay off with a sound mind in a sound body, so to speak.)
Also, as students become more professional, they enjoy studying, the good old Life of the Mind, and talking as an end in itself. And they opt in favor of the Dartmouth Experimental College, the fraternity seminars and discussions, and the manifold projects of the Committee on Freshman Reading. The trend is toward "co-curricular" activities, as opposed to extra-curricular. The DEC, after all, holds classes.
Such is the student life, circa 1967: classes in the morning, punting and participation in the afternoon, studying, and punting in the evening. There has been a shift - from monism to pluralism, one might say. The Dartmouth man is less a member - or an apprentice - and more of a shopper in the cultural supermarket: a peck of knowledge here, a pint of stimulation there.
Four years in Hanover is still an education, though, and it's still fun. And, come to think of it, the biggest student activity is still sleeping late. Plus Çachange....
Students casting ballots for class officers in the annual election April 13.
