The Undergraduate Chair
PRAISED for idealism, this generation of college students castigates Nixon for the Watergate caper and derides McGovern for the Eagleton affair, all from ivory towers scattered across the country.
But now at Dartmouth, as with every other campus, student hypocrisy is making fissures in that ivory tower. The bookstore, Dartmouth Dining Association, Baker Library, the Honor Principle, dormitories, and fraternities are subject to one, unending "rip-off," the youth epithet for thievery.
Compared to a few years ago when total thefts on campus reached $l00 per month, the campus police now receive reports totaling several thousand dollars worth of student property stolen each month. Last spring the figure reached an unprecedented $l0,000 for one month. In the first three weeks this year, 17 ten-speed, racing bikes were stolen, not just "borrowed" by another student but transported off-campus, presumably for resale. Meanwhile, College property steadily disappears—bureaus, desks, paintings, wallhangings, books, periodicals. Several antique chairs have been stolen from Sanborn House along with an antique table, worth over $500, from Dick's House. None of these losses is recorded in the monthly theft figures.
"I'm sure a good deal of this is done by outsiders," says Proctor John O'Connor, "but any college proctor you talk to today will tell you that the primary problem with students is not radicalism, drugs, or sex . . . it's thievery."
The campus police receive little cooperation in finding the offenders, according to O'Connor. Knowing that a student may get expelled for stealing, a victim often refuses to name persons he suspects of the rip-off, even when he knows who stole his property. And then, of course, missing College property rarely even gets reported.
"The attitude is 'God forbid, don't turn a thief over to the cops, he might get kicked out of school!' . . . Well, I think maybe he should get kicked out of school," O'Connor says.
The Interfraternity Council has begun urging all fraternity members to report losses immediately to the campus police, as well as people suspected of stealing. In the past year, fraternities have become special targets due to the lackadaisical security and easy-going attitude, especially on weekend nights.
Sam Livermore, president of Alpha Chi Alpha, says, "It's amazing the way ripping-off has become so commonly accepted among students. Even personal property disappears. Our people have had clothing taken, food stolen right out of refrigerators . . ."
Shoplifting from stores on Main Street has become "terrible," according to O'Connor, with an average of one person caught per week and taken to the Hanover police. Store owners have prosecuted several students for petty larceny, and over half have installed closed circuit television to watch their customers.
"Young people don't recognize stealing as stealing today. By calling it 'ripping-off' they pretend its not such a bad thing," says Wilbur Goodhue, proprietor of the Dartmouth Bookstore. "It used to be called 'handling' too, but it's still the same—thievery—no matter what you call it."
Student managers of the Dartmouth Dining Association (DDA) estimate that nearly $2OO per day has been stolen in food from Thayer Dining Hall. Paul Moore, manager of Thayer Hall, believes that the ripped-off food costs DDA $40,000 per year, not including the plates, silverware, and salt-and-pepper shakers that walk out by themselves.
"I have all the respect in the world for students because I think the majority are hard-working, honest people," Moore said. "But some have stolen our chairs (at $20 a piece), kitchen carts (at $200 a piece), and even the painting from the wall outside my office."
In response, DDA has established a new checking system so that one must present a meal ticket to enter the dining room, rather than at the food lines. This procedure limits the circulation in Thayer to those who have purchased meal contracts.
Similarly, the College Library is contemplating "a rearrangement of the access to the stacks" to reduce the loss of books, although administrators insist there is no thought of closing the stacks to the Dartmouth community.
Assistant Librarian June Hicks says, "Losses of books have definitely increased over the past few years, along with vandalism. Pictures must be bolted to the wall; we put up a map of the library one day, and the next day it was gone ..."
The number of "tracers" that failed to locate missing books jumped to 984 last year, an increase of 50 per cent from 1969-70. Presumed lost, stolen, or otherwise removed, those books must be replaced.
"We lose many periodicals from the reading room and books from the reference room," says Stanley Brown, chief of Baker's circulation services, "but even more than the replacement cost we worry about the student who needs the material and cannot get it. It's selfish and unjust for one person to take the reference material for himself."
A more disturbing concern remains. On October 2, the Executive Committee of the Faculty, acknowledging the "increasing incidence of cheating and plagiarism at Dartmouth and deterioration in the operation of the Honor Principle," directed the Faculty Committee on Organization and Policy to make a study of the effectiveness of the honor principle.
Originally passed on February 13, 1962, the honor principle was adopted by the faculty after a student referendum had approved the concept. The honor principle reads: "When he enrolls at Dartmouth College, each student accepts this responsibility with the understanding that a man who submits work which is not his own violates the purpose of the College and forfeits his right to continue at Dartmouth."
Only ten years later we have found the ideals lacking.
Dean Carroll Brewster says, "The Honor Principle was passed by the faculty on the assumption that students would report fellow students seen cheating, but this has never happened at Dartmouth, and I don't think it should be expected in a close-knit student body.
"I also think it's unrealistic for faculty members to give tests like closed-book, take-home exams in highly competitive courses. Although the majority of students are honest, there is a substantial minority who do cheat because extraordinary temptation under extraordinary pressure can bring people to cheat. . . . The presence of others cheating demoralizes honest students."
After all this, one must still remember that the rip-off disease has struck most other colleges in the country, with Dartmouth perhaps one of the less- afflicted. At last fall's meeting of Ivy League proctors, John O'Connor cited with some chagrin Dartmouth's total thefts for that period at $17,000. The proctor from Princeton then stood to report his losses for the same period at $77,000.
But facts, figures, and stories aside, why?
Assistant Dean Gary Brooks suggests, "The problem begins with the anti-materialism ethic of today's youth. Sharing of wealth: was the first effect of this ethic, which obviously is good. However, a secondary effect came to be the institutional rip-off where it is okay to take College property because it doesn't belong to anyone. Since the institution is a nebulous thing, it doesn't seem like you're stealing from an individual. . . . Finally it's come to the point where you can rip-off from anyone because everything belongs to everyone anyway, like community property."
Added to this anti-materialism, students have, what this reporter heard over and over again, "too damn much wealth given to them."
True.
With expensive stereos, typewriters, clock-radios, and often cars, today's young people have received much with little personal effort. From this arises a general disrespect for property rights since if one steals, more than likely he steals from a student's parents, rather than the student himself. In these cases, parents usually replace the booty, too often too early. Thus, nobody appears to lose.
Ironically, casual disdain for property, masked as anti-materialism, translates to the rampant rip-off.
"As I see it, the only solution is through a general change in attitude on the part of each student," says O'Connor. "Pretty soon, I expect the honest student to stop accepting the rip-off and to rise up in indignation against these thieves. . . . It will come just as a change of attitude brought the student to accept rip-offs here."
Meanwhile, in the words of Doctor Johnson, "If he really does think that there is no distinction between vice and virtue, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons."
Hallie Marshall, freshman from West Chester, Pa., heads upfield in Dartmouth'sfield hockey win over Colby Junior College. The "Little Green," as The Dartmouth was quick to dub the College's first women's intercollegiate team, finished itsmaiden season with a 2-2 record under the aegis of Coach Agnes Bixler. Victoriesover CJC and New England College followed losses to Keene State and Smith.
Michael R. Hollis, a sophomore from Atlanta, Ga., shown here conferring withPresident Kemeny, is one of almost a dozen undergraduates serving as administrative interns in several offices at the College. Hollis, the only sophomore in theprogram, works regularly as an assistant on the President's staff. Other studentinterns are attached to offices of the Dean of the Faculty, the Dean for StudentAffairs, the Director of Development, and the Budget Officer.
