The Undergraduate Chair
THE Queen's transport was paid in blood. Tom Rush didn't and got here late. The basketball team almost scored a major upset. And a picture of an ice statue appeared on the front page of a Birmingham, Alabama, newspaper. In other words, it was Carnival.
The greatest story to arise from the Carnival weekend was that of a surprise date which resulted in providing Dartmouth with its 58th Queen of the Snows. The girl, Barbara Jean Harris, was from California and neither she nor her steady date, Richard Anderson '68, anticipated being together over Carnival. Anderson's Tri-Kap fraternity brothers, without his knowledge, decided differently and twelve of them went down to Boston to sell blood to raise money for her plane fare. Raise it they did and, still without Anderson's knowledge, Miss Harris arrived in Hanover to eventually become Queen and to have, I assume, a great time.
A close rival to this story concerns the basketball team which whipped up a huge amount of enthusiasm by almost upsetting Columbia at the start of the big weekend. The crowd at the game was large and an even larger one was promised for the Saturday evening match with Cornell. Unfortunately, the Cornell coach and his team were snowed in after their game at Harvard and never showed. He said it was because of the cancellation of the planes, but popular opinion contends that the anticipation of a large, enthusiastic crowd at the game gave him cold feet. In the end, it didn't really matter for the team got here Monday and was narrowly defeated before a rather dismal (in size, anyway) turnout.
Another non-visitor was the folk singer Tom Rush, who shared billing in the annual Carnival folk concert. His co-star, Carolyn Hester, did make it to Hanover and gave a prolonged show which was well received by the audience (if not by the reviewer).
A surprise visitor was a snow storm which added to rather than subtracted from the enjoyment of the weekend. Imagine, it actually snowed rather than rained over Carnival.
It may be a senior's sentimentalism, but the statues appeared better and more original this year than ever before. The center-of-the-green icework was generally acclaimed and a friend reported that a picture of it appeared as far away as Alabama.
Carnival was not just fun and games for at least one date. She was arrested for possession of marijuana upon her arrival at Lebanon Regional Airport. The incident spread around the campus and gathered rumors of a "raid" that was sure to come tonight, and if not tonight, tomorrow night to be sure. The raid, of course, never came, and the incident was really trivial, but it does serve to introduce a subject of vital concern to both students and administrators - the subject of drugs and, specifically, drugs on campus.
There is no part of student life as misunderstood as the part played by marijuana. This fact alone seemed a major motivating force behind the establishment of Dean Seymour's Task Force on Drugs. No one can say how many people smoke marijuana, few people can really explain why, and no one can definitely tell who, among the students, is a pothead.
I suppose that the first thing to be done is an attempt to explain some terms which may or may not be understood. Pot, mary jane, or sometimes "the weed" are names for marijuana (it has others but they are rarely used around here). Stoned or high are terms for being under the influence of marijuana. A head is one who habitually uses it (just as an acid head is one habitually tripping out on LSD).
Once upon a time, you could pretty well tell who might or might not be playing with drugs - now it is impossible. The long-haired junior sitting next to you in class is probably straighter than you are, while the crew cut "A" student may be flipping out twice a week. You just cannot be sure. Below are some theories which I have garnered through talking with people, assessing rumors, and taking guesses. They are presented with the belief that many people, like those I have talked with, are sincerely interested in finding out about student drug-taking.
The number of those who smoke pot regularly (pot being the staple for the average, rather amateurish college man) is vastly overrated. My guess is that it doesn't go above one in ten, if indeed it runs that high. The number of people who have (or will have before they graduate) smoked pot may run as high as five in ten, but that includes those who try it only once (for kicks, of course) and are sufficiently sickened or turned off not to try again. I'm told that pot has the nasty habit of making many people sick the first time they take it, and that tends to limit those who would consider going back.
Marijuana is not difficult to obtain and it is not particularly expensive - especially when contrasted with liquor (as it often is). It is also easy to grow (especially since few know what the plant looks like) and rumor has it that there is some growing on some portions of the campus. The rumor has never been proved or disproved.
Some people, a tiny minority, are said to have switched entirely from liquor (which is, as it always has been, illegal in the hands of most undergraduates) to marijuana, but Saturday night bashes show no signs of giving way to massive pot parties. The rationale is fraught with the twin idea that liquor is inherently more dangerous and that marijuana can expand one's mind. The latter idea, embraced by a majority of heads, appears a huge myth and hoax on the order of last year's Great Banana Hoax.
The penalties for possession of pot are steep but few get caught and risk appears worth taking. Indeed the strictness of the penalties arouses a good deal of concern among both pot smokers, and non-pot smokers on this campus. Even The Dartmouth, which is not noted for any pro-hippie leanings, called for a reevaluation of the whole penalty scale.
Pot is smoked in private - usually with a few people gathering together and sometimes along with the burning of incense (an in thing these days) to kill the strong and distasteful smell.
As for other drugs, very few make their way to Hanover. To be sure, somewhere on this campus is a student with LSD, somewhere there's one with a little mescaline, but they usually blow their little minds apart without the benefit of public knowledge or approval.
In the popular imagination, marijuana just doesn't seem to be the threat to happiness, life, and limb that the laws make it out to be. Indeed it is surrounded by a whole horde of popular rock songs which herald its virtue (people tell me that any song with the words "high," "mary" or "jane" can be considered suspect - indeed one source went so far as to include the very popular "Puff, the Magic Dragon" in this category).
From my standpoint, it appears as if the Ivy League may be feeding a vocal minority of conservative, three-piece-suit pot heads into the system.
Turning to less controversial matters, the coed experiment held earlier in the term was adjudged a success socially as well as educationally. The girls did, in fact, go to classes and the majority of them appeared to enjoy the experience. Dean Seymour was caught up in the general enthusiasm and he led off a forum held toward the end of the five-day period with the words, "The question is no longer whether Dartmouth should go coeducational, but when and how." The whens and hows are being worked out in an increasingly concrete way, and one proposal is to exchange 230 Holyoke girls for 230 Dartmouth students for one whole year. The idea received general approval at the forum, but technical difficulties remain - difficulties such as the difference in liquor regulations at the two schools, the problem created by the fact that the two most suitable dorms on Dartmouth's campus are separated by what would remain a boys' dorm, and the problem of parietals at the "boys' dorms" at Holyoke. These problems are not, however, unsolvable.
Another problem involving dormitories grew up as Carnival grew near - the problem of taking a dorm for a weekend residence for dates. This year, the system of selecting a dorm was altered from rating dorms according to damage reports to selecting them on a lottery basis. The first dormitory, French Hall, to be taken under the new system fought vigorously - even to the point of threatening to quit the Interdormitory Council - but to no avail. This type of fight has been going on ever since the idea of taking dorms first came up but it is getting more bitter every year. Although, once the weekend is over and the boys move back in, tempers cool off and the issue is forgotten again - the very fact that dorms are taken remains, in the minds of many, an indication of the ineffectiveness of student government and a lack of concern on the part of the official College.
Along similar lines, the student representatives on the Undergraduate Council's judiciary committee clashed bitterly with the Faculty Committee on Administration over the proper penalty for a parietals violation. The two groups were meeting in a joint session - each side has five members, but a faculty representative, Dean Albert I. Dickerson, is the chairman and could cast a tie-breaking vote. The students sought a double warning, the faculty members probation, and in the end Dickerson voted for probation. The case was of particular interest because the difference in proposed penalties means that the student involved will, according the The Dartmouth, lose his scholarship and the option of participating in College athletics.
Call it new morality or anything else you wish, but students are becoming tired of being told they may be with a girl in certain places at 1:59 a.m., but not at 2:01 a.m.
In the realm of campus fashions and other trivia, it should be briefly noted that sideburns and mustaches (Beatlesstyle) are an unheralded in-thing, beards are moderately active, and short hair (despite the vocal dismay coming from all the barbers) is still definitely out. Down this same alley, for all those who remember such things, it should be noted that the elder Trott, who dispensed free sermons with his haircuts, has retired ("To finish my book") and so yet another fixture of Dartmouth sinks slowly into the sunset.
In the realm of literature, spurred by the visit of five spokesmen for the "new journalism," a group on campus has decided to launch their own underground newspaper — the Grafton County Inquirer. The announcement was made with a great deal of above-ground publicity. The first issue has yet to appear but it is expected soon.
After failing to appear over Houseparties, the Jack-o-Lantern fielded two issues this term - the first was mediocre but the second one was acclaimed by all.
Another success was registered by Paroles, the unofficial literary magazine, with its Carnival magazine. Distinct rumblings were heard from the offices of the official literary magazine, Greensleeves, but nothing has appeared from that quarter since almost a year ago.
Both The Dartmouth and WDCR changed hands over the Carnival weekend amid banquets and festivities but both, true to the time-honored saw, stay very much the same despite the yearly changes.
Carnival Queen Barbara Jean Harris, from Oakland, Calif., ready for a dogsled rideat Saturday's ski jump event. Tri-Kap brothers of her date, Dick Anderson '68 brought her to Carnival as a surprise to him with queenly results.
Gold's Fool, 35-foot statue for the Winter Carnival theme of Klondike Kaleidoscope, couldn't be missed on campus.
A group of Klondike Beatles took top honors in the fraternity statue contest.
"Gold's Fool's Rush" won the dormitory snow sculpture prize for Gile Hall.
Dartmouth cross-country skiers before the start of the Carnival race, won by Middlebury. L to r: Hans Mehren, Larry Gillis, Sandy Cameron, and Steve Williams.
