The Undergraduate Chair

ATTEMPTING to ease the transition from a wartime to a peacetime Dartmouth, the then new President John Sloan Dickey initiated a 1946 faculty review of College rules. One result of the faculty's report was an extension of parietal hours to 7 p.m. Twenty-three years later, in the greatest revision of social regulations since the faculty report, the College Committee on Standing and Conduct last month in effect abolished the muchdisliked social regulation of when men could have dates in their rooms.

Calling for the faculty Committee on Organization and Policy to "take steps to initiate a review of this important question of policy," the narrow majority of four students and one faculty member held:

That a prior parietals punishment of College Reprimand (a simple letter of censure which does not go into a student's permanent record) had "taken the force from" the regulations," leaving "as a residue an hypocrisy that served only to postpone any serious reconsideration of the parietals issue";

That only a "small minority" of violations are tried and that apprehensionn "is often a fortuitous matter";

That "the provenance of the parietals regulations did not include the interests of the subjects of those regulations, and is in any case a generation old."

While the College made clear that instructions to campus police ordering the apprehension of any student violating parietals remained for the time unchanged, the CCSC, final undergraduate judiciary save for the Trustees, determined not to punish any further cases of parietals transgression.

The student body was understandably elated at the de facto abolition of parietals, which have been a source of

continuing controversy in recent years. Equally understandably, soon-to-retire Dean of the College Thaddeus Seymour, himself a member of the four-man dissenting CCSC minority, was disturbed by the committee's action. Said Seymour to the CCSC's closed meeting on the issue: "Gentlemen, you're playing with dynamite."

Three student members of the committee looked to the undergraduates to remove the firing cap. In a public statement on their decision, Joseph W. Campbell '69, Lynn Breedlove '70, and Karl Steinmanis '70 said: "Whether the dormitories and fraternities can maintain reasonable living conditions in view of our decision is a question that only the students can answer. We feel confident that sensible regulations can be developed and administered by existing living unit judiciary bodies. The College need not and should not meddle extensively in these matters."

Lest the Old Traditions . . .

The parietals decision came hard on the heels of Dartmouth's one-week experiment in coeducation. Nearly 1000 women, only 850 of them officially accounted for, virtually inundated the Hanover plain late in January. Visiting classes (the girls were given an hour-by-hour schedule of course meetings) or sitting in the Hop snack bar, the women were a welcome addition to the otherwise isolated Winter Term life.

While reactions of the undergraduates to "Coed Week" were almost unanimously favorable, not all the girls found Hanover to their liking. Quite a few took off for home within a few days after registration. On her first day in the Hanover wilderness, one Wellesley junior expressed a view prevalent among those who later left early. "I'm a believer in the 'Dartmouth animal' after three blind dates," she said. "Dartmouth boys look at dates differently than M.I.T. or Harvard boys."

Nevertheless the majority of the women stayed and, presumably, enjoyed the experience. The Dartmouth, which had earlier voiced its desire for a coordinate women's college near Hanover instead of a coeducational Dartmouth, was so moved by Coed Week that it uncharacteristically reversed its editorial stand. "It has become evident, from external sources such as the Princeton Report and from the changing mood on campus, that Dartmouth must become coeducation," it said. "It is our opinion that the sooner the better."

... Fail

Foley House (formerly Delta Upsilon) ushered in Coed Week with the announcement the late rush had yielded two female pledges. Virginia Feingold and Barbara Wood, both "special students" in drama studying in Hanover for a year, have become full "brothers" of Foley and "will pay their dues like the rest of the brothers in the house," explained House President George Stauffer.

Earlier this year, Dean Seymour had rejected the pledge of another special student, Lynn Lobban, who wanted to sink Chi Phi. "Of course you're not eligible," he explained to Miss Lobban at the time, then helped work out an honorary membership for her, thus, hoped the Dean's office, forestalling further trouble. The two new Foley House "brothers" refused to cooperate, however, and didn't mention their plans in advance.

Hell, No

Dartmouth Students for a Democratic Society, which has lately had to learn to roll with the punches, last month won a "victory" over the United States Air Force. Warned by the College Committee on Standing and Conduct that further obstruction of military recruiters would result in suspension or separation for the students involved, SDS planned a "non-obstructive" sit-in at Parkhurst and Fairbanks Halls during the scheduled appearance of an Air Force recruiter last month.

No sooner had the SDS made clear its intentions (and invited the recruiter to participate in an open forum on recruitment)) than word came back that the Air Force had decided to stay off. the Dartmouth campus for the time being. In conversations with Harold N. Moorman, assistant director of the Office of Student Counseling, and two SDS members, Sergeant Daniel Donahue reported he had been ordered to stay out of Hanover "until further notice."

SDS celebrated their victory by handing out jelly beans outside Parkhurst Hall. Along with the gift, students were given a copy of "The Fable of the College Kangaroo Court Committee (CKCC)," an unsubtle reference to the CCSC, which punished four SDS members for their role in the December "obstruction."

Whatever the outcome of future recruitment attempts (the Army OCS recruiter who was the victim of the December obstruction planned to return late last month), the College has reiterated its stand that obstructers will be punished. In a statement backing up the CCSC's January decision, the Faculty Committee on Organization and Policy said: "Dissenters may maintain a physical presence around a building provided that the normal activities of the occupants (including recruiters) may continue."

'Gear'

As usual, the Winter Carnival center-of-campus ice statue was nowhere near completion and the Carnival Council was levying its annual threat to tear the half-built monster down unless undergraduates showed some gear and did some work. The voice in the wilderness didn't fall on deaf ears, and Monday night before Carnival a number of overage but gearful men of Dartmouth filled their wheelbarrows and buckets full of snow. Among the participants was Secretary of the College J. Michael McGean, College Information Director Robert B. Graham, Assistant Director of Financial Aid Jay C. Whitehair, and none other than John Sloan Dickey.

"We never had these statues in my undergraduate days but I've worked on 24 of them now," President Dickey said as he packed slush on this year's statue, a fire-breathing dragon depicting the "Flaming Dartmouth Animal." The example of the administrators didn't escape the students, who put in enough time to finish the statue - though just barely.

Changing of the Guard

Like death and taxes, the changing of directorates at the College's news media inevitably occurs, heedless of the trials of the moment. Taking over at America's Oldest in 1969-70 are: George A. LeMaistre '7O, editor; Donald E. Hess '70, business manager; Earl W. Zubkoff '70, managing editor; Charles G. Thegze '70, executive editor; James "K. Ruxin '70, associate editor; and Dennis R. and Marc A. Jolicoeur, both juniors, as cosports editors.

Heading up WDCR's 100-man staff are Paul M. Gambaccini '70, general manager; Stuart G. Zuckerman '70, president; Winthrop Rockwell '70, program director; Kenneth M. Jones '70, sales director; Donald Balcom '70, comptroller; and Carl T. Strathmeyer '70, chief engineer.

A fire-breathing dragon, fueled with a tank of Pyrofax gas in his innards, provideda novel center-of-campus snow statue for the 59th Dartmouth Winter Carnival.

Miss Ellen Hogan, a brunette from Fairview Park, Ohio, was this year's Queen ofthe Snows. She was the Carnival date of Gary Day '69, to whom she is engaged.