Reluctant Consumers

After little more than a year of tenuous existence, the Dartmouth chapter of the New Hampshire Public Interest Research Group (NHPIRG) is now virtually defunct due to lack of student support. In its prime, the group, part of a nation-wide consumer-advocate organization in the Nader mold, lobbied for such issues as the limitation or ban of disposable bottles in New Hampshire. It also studied the effects of placing a maximum-security prison in the state and sponsored talks at the College on consumer issues and mental health and tax reform.

The chairman of the Dartmouth chapter, Clifton Below '78, blamed his organization's troubles on the way it was allowed to collect student fees. NHPIRG wanted to use the College billing system to levy $2-per-term fees automatically from all students, with the possibility for later refund only if individual students asked for it. Below said this method would raise sufficient money to pay a permanent staff, which would insure that the group did not "disappear" during vacations or when key student leaders took leave terms.

What the College allowed was the use of its billing system to collect on a voluntary - not automatic - basis and only if NHPIRG could gather the support of one-third of the student body in two consecutive terms. According to Professor Frank Smallwood, who was vice president for student affairs at the time, this complicated procedure was designed to "protect the integrity of the billing system and still give this organization a fair shot." There were worries that many other private campus organizations would want to use the automatic billing plan if it was granted to NHPIRG and that its "negative-checkoff' aspects were contrary to consumer-protection philosophies.

Unveiling the portrait of Dartmouth's 13th President in Hanover in November: artistEverett Kinstler (left), donor Kenneth Montgomery '25 (center), and John Kemeny. ThePresident himself painted the mathematical diagram in the background of the work.