The Undergraduate Chair
FOUR years. I suppose that is not a long time as time goes. But it seems like a long time when it is packed with surprises and changes.
It was four years ago that I overheard the father of a fellow freshman point to a black and say, "You mean they let them in here?" Perhaps it was a joke or a mistake, but it sounded chilling.
It was only a year or so ago that the blacks formed an organization, the AfroAmerican Society, and they rocked Dart- mouth by proving that they, at least, were not afraid to vent some passion for what seemed a good and worthy cause. Passion that had been alienated from this campus for so long - except for the water fights and the snowball riots.
It was four years ago that I was shocked by the violence a handful of drunken students displayed by destroying an old car in what was apparently a rite of spring.
It was less than a week ago that students here pledged to fast indefinitely to move the administration to consider means of getting ROTC off the campus.
It was four years ago that Canada was a place you went to on an extended road trip. Now some go there to leave the country and escape the alternatives of being forced to be a part of a cause they don't believe in or being put in jail.
It was four years ago that one or maybe two people picketed against the military during their parade. This year upwards of 200 participated in an orderly demonstration.
Four years.
The shadow of Columbia has lengthened over this college. It is reported that a member of the administration returned to campus after the weekend of the nationwide Peace demonstrations and breathed an audible sigh of relief to find that the campus was still peaceful. The story may not be true, but its point is.
Columbia is a school that has been split wide open by all the dissensions that rumble through Dartmouth. The dissension is everywhere: students mocking the Trustees, the 200 marching against ROTC, the twenty blacks whose orderly demonstration frightened a South African away from giving his scheduled talk in the scheduled place, the increasing disrespect for parietals.
This is not to say that what happened at Columbia will happen here. It probably never will.
But it is to say that undergraduates now want to be taken more seriously. Not all, of course. Many still enjoy wallowing in a state of dependence, but more and more are angered by the constant policy of deferring all the decisions to men who just don't seem to know.
After all, adults may be shocked by a demonstration against ROTC, but they should consider the fact that the war and American foreign policy are playing around with the students' futures and the students' lives. Adults may like the "protection" parietals give to their daughters' virtue, but it is their daughters' ability to form commitments and make decisions that those parietals are playing with.
What is written above does not, of course, represent the views of all the students. Some aspects of this college haven't changed and indeed there are many (I would hate to hazard an estimate) who believe the lack of change is fine.
The incident involving the speaker from the South African embassy is a case in point. He was invited to Dartmouth to give an Experimental College talk on apartheid and to engage in discussion with the students. When he came there were about fifty people in attendance. They were mostly white indeed the blacks were notable for their absence. He began to talk and quickly got down to some basic issues.
The audience seemed to relax. Here was a man who was not going to sidestep issues and who seemed to promise a lively discussion. After about ten minutes, there was a commotion at the door of the fraternity where the talk was being held. In came about twenty blacks, most carrying medium-sized placards with slogans written on them.
They marched around the audience once and appeared to be ready to sit down and listen. The speaker announced that he wasn't there to participate in a demonstration and headed for the door. Few people seemed to believe him and an embarrassed silence hung heavy upon the spectators, both white and black.
Suddenly a spokesman for the AfroAmericans broke the silence by asking him to stay and promising that they would listen in peace. They just wanted to make a statement (apparently the demonstration was their statement).
The speaker was intent, in fact, on leaving and he did so as the Afro-Ams called after him asking him to come back.
No matter how you react to this incident, your reaction was matched in the small audience. Many people got over the initial stunning effect of the exchange and they gathered into small clusters to think it over. One called out to Wallace Ford '69 (an outspoken member of the Afro-Ams) that the demonstration was one of his typically irresponsible acts. A fight nearly ensued but both whites and blacks cooled the two.
Some left in indifference. Others discovered that the guest speaker had agreed to continue in Cutter Hall and went there. Many approved of the demonstration and criticized the speaker for leaving. After all, they said, what did he expect - happy listeners who would absorb all he had to say and never raise an objection?
After a while, they began to disperse.
It was a small incident but it is significant for two reasons. It showed the increasing willingness of some to demonstrate and others to approve of those demonstrations. And it revealed a growing polarity between those inclined toward activism and those inclined toward the opposite path.
The same polarity was revealed during the ROTC demonstration when one demonstrator's sign was ripped from him and another was menaced for playing a clarinet in a mocking fashion during the proceedings.
The polarity will grow greater. After all, most of the activists can be picked out because they generally look different. They have longer hair (not all, of course, but a surprising number). It is all wrapped up in the desire to do "their thing."
Perhaps, for the health of the College community, this polarity may be the most dangerous aspect of the growing activist movement. It is this polarity which strains relations between students and which could confuse any meaningful attempts to bring the leaders and the administration closer together on crucial issues.
Bat the polarity will always exist.
Amidst all the changes, many students are interested only in the next hour-exam or the next beer party or the next road trip. They object that the activists are tut a noisy minority who are trying to ness things up for everyone in the College. They say that SDS is irresponsible and sows nothing but dissension. They uphold the sanctity of the classroom, the sanctity which precludes most things outside of polite questioning and silent listening. Some believe that the College should be a place withdrawn from the world and dedicated to abstract learning. Once all of us have been dumped upon the world, then we can demonstrate and shout to our hearts' content.
I would not presume to say which side is correct. Nor would I presume to say that I am unbiased in attempting to put forth both sides.
It seems that there comes a time to get up from the beach towel, to ignore the frisbie, to even forgo the next date to say something in a forceful (not violent) way. Be it revulsion at the idea of inequality or the horror in the face of war or even the belief that one's love life is a sacred thing which should not be tampered with.
There is a time to stop listening passively and to shout angrily. A time to switch from wondering whether the Puritan Revolution in England was caused by economic conditions to wondering if America's foreign policy might stand to gain from a complete review. A time to stop enjoying the pageantry of an ROTC parade and realize that these men are part of a process which trains people to kill.
And if in the process pushing and shoving result, if some people are inconvenienced, is it any worse than the hideous pushing and shoving of army training or the inconvenience of added taxes to finance a war?
GREEN KEY Weekend came and went with full obedience to all the sacred traditions except snow. There were thousands of girls, the chariot races on the Green, groups heading off campus for an all-night carouse, and coeducational sunbathing whenever the chance came.
It was dampened somewhat by the fact that the freshmen lost their second annual trek to Lake Morley for their own party through their disinterest. But no one seemed to really mind.
Preceding it was the normal routine of Fraternity Hums (which Tri-Kap won for the third year in a row), Wetdown (which drew a very sparse audience), and the undergraduate elections (which revealed some surprising results).
Students, in a show of disrespect for the institution of student government as it now stands, voted a non-existent person into one of the seats of the new Student Senate, and one class elected two candidates who promised to abolish their offices.
The election results did not really change anything. The sponsors of the non-existent man withdrew him from the race soon after the results were announced. They said that they had achieved their purpose and decided to disrupt proceedings no longer. The two class officers who promised to abolish their offices did not do so, claiming technicalities about the breakup of the class treasury (which had been promised to charity) as the reason for their change of heart.
There is still talk of massive changes in student government, changes made in an attempt to bring it closer to the student and to give it more effective power. But then again, at this time of year, there is always such talk.
Spring produced its usual routine of activities. Sunbathing abounded. There were water fights all across the campus - although this year they were smallscale. Dates are more plentiful during the late spring and many students have taken to inviting girls to Hanover for a week or more as the girls' schools began closing in early May.
A Jack-O-Lantern, a Paroles, and a Blackout were published with varying amounts of interest and praise. The SDS and the Conservative Society helped to saturate the campus with one-sheet appeals and "position papers" about ROTC. And, to top it all, there was a brilliant (if at times chaotic) mixed media show in Spaulding Auditorium. The student show included wild color and light displays, rock'n'roll music, and poetry readings.
Spring also brought its traditional feeling that one should be someplace else. One does not have to walk very far from the room to hear some other student holding forth about his desire to travel here or there, or his wish that he wasn't in school. By fall that wish will probably be reversed, but spring still is the time of year when the largest number of students voluntarily leave (before finals).
By the time this appears, it will all be over. Four years.
John Myers '69 (left) and Jonathan Mark '69 as the twin brothers Dromio in ThePlayers' final production of the regular season, Shakespeare's "Comedy of Errors."
