Letters to the Editor
Faculty Versus Fraternities
What an unhappy way to commence a day: boarding the commuter train, settling back with the New York Daily News, and opening it to a banner headline, "The Poison Ivy League - Faculty: ban Dartmouth frats"!
The article states that "the anti-fraternity move is led by James Epperson, 43, an associate professor of English, who says fraternities are 'anti-intellectual hotbeds of alcoholism, misbehavior and values that have no place in institutions of higher learning,' " and concludes with the note that "Epperson, by the way, is not a Dartmouth man. He is a graduate of San Francisco State College."
Early in 1947, an evening forum concerning fraternities at Dartmouth was held in a jampacked 105 Dartmouth Hall and broadcast on the College radio station. Dean Neidlinger was the moderator, my classmate Howie Samuel advocated very substantial changes in (or elimination of) the system, and I was the spokesman for the Interfraternity Council. In the course of that forum we reviewed, one by one, the stated objectives for fraternities set forth in the charter or bylaws of the national Pan-Hellenic Association, and found those goals to be worthwhile. We then examined the extent to which Dartmouth fraternities adhered to those principles and were achieving (or trying to achieve) each of those goals, and found that, on balance, the fraternities were doing a creditable job and fulfilled a worthwhile purpose at the College.
Of course, there were some negative aspects, and some abuses, which will always occur somewhere on any campus. I doubt that the "alcoholism and misbehavior" are any worse today than at that time; I further doubt that. Animal House depicts Dartmouth fraternity life today any more than it would have then.
That forum was, I believe, the starting point for the excellent leadership displayed by Dartmouth in terminating recognition of fraternities which practiced any form of racial or religious discrimination.
In the 31 years since then, I have found "values" from fraternity associations at Dartmouth of which Mr. Epperson could have no knowledge. Some of my closest friends today (with whom I work in service to Dartmouth) are fraternity brothers; many others are men with whom bonds of friendship and respect were formed through spirited interfraternity competition.
Has Mr. Epperson contacted a substantial number of alumni - indeed, any alumni - in the course of research as to the values, after graduation, of fraternity experience at Dartmouth? Has he considered the stated goals of the fraternity system and the efforts of Dartmouth fraternities to achieve them in the ob- jective manner which we employed in 1947? Does he think that in seeking to attract outstanding individuals, year after year, to constitute its undergraduate body, Dartmouth competes with San Francisco State, rather than with Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Cornell?
Men of Dartmouth, set a watch, lest the old traditions fail!
New York, N. Y.
[A report on the faculty's vote and theaftermath appears in this issue. In the "Vox"column Professor Epperson discusses possi-bilities for the future. Ed.]
I tend to think that there are more important matters on my agenda than engaging in a fight over the fate of Dartmouth fraternities. However, the faculty vote to close fraternities is too devoid of rational logic to allow it to remain on record without objection.
Aside from my own memory of fraternity life, which, of course, does not address the hard issue of the influence or lack thereof that fraternity life has on the College community as a whole, the faculty consensus illustrates an unintelligent response to the perceived crisis. Assuming that the fraternity existence at Dartmouth is an Danti-intellectual hotbed of alcoholism and misbehavior," a position with which I take exception, the behavior of fraternity members is the behavior of many individuals and that behavior reflects the. attitudes and morality of those individuals. To characterize fraternity life as immoral is to indict the prevailing attitude of fraternity members - half the student body. Given the proud tradition of the Dartmouth admissions practice to admit potential community leaders as well as intellectually accomplished people, the accusation that Dartmouth's students will engage in intolerable behavior when allowed to form associations with their fellow students causes severe misgivings about the type of person attracted to Dartmouth.
Since approximately half the student body joins.fraternities, students do not feel compelled to join a fraternity in order to maintain self-respect. Rather, those students who choose to join fraternities do so in order to be afforded the opportunity to conduct a social life and to express their social behavior in terms of an uninstitutional and unstructured social environ- ment vis-a-vis the College as an institution.
Could it be that whatever problem is perceived on campus is the result of and a reaction to the' pressures borne by students to achieve the grades to gain admission to grad school? The development of a person is multifaceted and, therefore, physical as well as cerebral. Perhaps the energy of the faculty should be spent on training minds in the classroom and offering choices to the students outside the classroom rather than attempting to serve as the final arbiter of the manner in which students are allowed to socialize. I submit that whatever problem exists on campus is indigenous to the students themselves. Therefore, the abolition of fraternities will not cure the problem, it will merely alter the way in which it is manifested.
New York, N. Y.
The Face on the Cover
That was a catchy cover on your October issue (people and umbrellas at a football game), though I imagine some readers will complain that what isn't black is colored.
Your covers have caused so much controversy lately that for your own peace of mind you should consider borrowing a technique used by the Campaign for Dartmouth: $1.3 million lets a donor name the College Center, $800,000 an academic chair. So let your readers pay cash for the kind of covers they want to see, even pictures of themselves. What's a vanity college without a vanity press?
Chicago, Ill.
But Something's Missing
I believe articles should generate controversy, but William Morgan's "Beauty and the Beasts" is maddening. Why is it "borrowing unimaginatively" when the arches of Hopkins Center echo those of the Vienna Opera House, but "identifying Dartmouth with its Pre-Revolutionary past" when Baker Library copies Independence Hall?
Mr. Morgan may not find Hopkins Center architecturally exciting, but there are those who do.
In any case, Stuart Bratesman's accompanying photographs are breathtaking in their originality and beauty.
Hanover, N. H.
The new architecture at Dartmouth is often beautiful, especially as seen through Stuart Bratesman's lens. But something has been lost.
The old Hanover Inn had a porch so oriented that some rocking chairs had a direct view up the central axis of the green to Baker's south door and tower. Now only the privileged who dine on the terrace in summer have it.
Most exciting it used to be to stand mid-way of Tuck Mall (there were fewer cars then) and look first at the west facade of Baker Library and then turn around and gaze west over the Vermont hills.
We have gained a new Inn and a Murdough. We have lost two of the finest vistas in the area.
Norwich, Vt.
Fair Harvard
I have an interesting story about our friendly rivals from Cambridge.
We seldom miss a Dartmouth football game and cannot remember ever having anything but very poor seats for a Harvard game in Cambridge (or Allston). Perhaps we have on some forgotten occasion, but we have come to regard the colonnades as a second home.
This year we submitted our application with two other alumni. Because of trouble assembling stubs, etc., this was not mailed until September 28, the day before applications were due, and the mail service failed to get them to Hanover on time. They were returned stamped "late application," with tickets for six of the worst seats in the stadium. A request submitted separately to "sit with" was not honored for two tickets for another applicant, who was at the other end of the field. All of the above is standard procedure and only disappointing, not surprising.
What was surprising was an announcement in Mass Lawyers' Weekly of a special promotion offering any number of tickets to any attorney for themselves (sic.), their family, (sic., sic.), their friends or their associates, and free parking at the Harvard Business School lots. Asking price - "$5 instead of the standard $8 price" (actually $8.50 with the handling charge not assessed here).
This sounded like a Lampoon prank, so on October 17th I sent my daughter to Harvard where she purchased, for $20, four seats in a fairly good location.
These seats, then, were sold 1) in a location at least as good as our regular class section; 2) 19 days after I submitted my late application; 3) at a discount of 41 per cent; 4) with no need of affiliation with either Harvard or Dartmouth; 5) with no limitation as to number; 6) with reserved parking.
Clearly, we have been mugged.
May I suggest that at the 1980 Harvard game in Hanover, Dartmouth reserve unto itself the east stands, fill the west stands with every Boy Scout in New Hampshire for a quarter a pop, and give the Harvards the end zone seats. Fair's fair.
Andover, Mass.
Immorality Re-invented
Bill Conway '79, in his "Undergraduate Chair" column in the October issue, has made the same mistake that was made by the young man who, last year, thought he was original when he invented a device that, when attached to an axle, enabled a vehicle to move smoothly along a road. It was a shame that someone had to tell him that the wheel had been around a long time, only he didn't know it.
Mr. Conway deplores a "degenerative tide" among young American adults "verging on a loss of ethical values." He gave several examples of deplorable behavior, and said that it was the steady change for the worse that bothers him. He is, of course, to be commended for condemning widespread immorality.
If he did a lot of research, he would find, however, that a similar letter has been written by some idealist in every generation of Dartmouth students. They are impelled to express their dismay when they first discover how imperfect human beings actually are and have been since the Garden of Eden. Neither the "kind of immorality" that Mr. Conway has increasingly observed, nor its extent, is new to the national or the college scene. The number of incidents may have increased, but that may merely reflect the increase in the number of people around and the opportunities to misbehave. It would not be surprising to discover, if a scientific study were made, that the proportion of people and students who disregard moral principles is actually less today than at any time before. We must keep on seeking improvement, simply because some people are immoral, not because they are worse than they used to be.
I find it an odd coincidence that the Chronicle of Higher Education for October 16, 1978, has a letter in similar vein, deploring the pervasive ill-effects of recent government immorality; it is signed by "Richard Conway."
Washington, D. C.
[Our Conway is not related to the Chronicle's Conway. Ed.]
Three cheers for Bill Conway!
Rye, N. Y.
A Better Way
The full-page advertisement promoting the Dartmouth Time-Sharing System (DTSS) in the October issue of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE contained one statement that is so misleading it must be corrected. The statement was that DTSS "can offer general-purpose computing to more than 500 simultaneous users...." The fact is that so far no DTSS has ever been subjected to a load greater than 250 simultaneous users. No one can say for sure because no one has actually tried to do it, but I doubt very much that the current version of DTSS Using current hardware could provide a reasonable level of response to as many as 500 users.
Of course, the statement said "can," not "does." If one prefers to use the strict interpretation, then the statement is still misleading. DTSS is an evolving system. As long as improvements continue to be made in the system, I really don't see that there is any limit to the number of simultaneous users DTSS will be able to support at some time in the future.
In any case, a much better statement would have been: DTSS has supplied general-purpose computing to more than 200 simultaneous users. 1 don't know of any other system that can make that claim.
Hanover, N. H.
Debt Repaid
Many of your readers may not be aware of the existence of a fund at Dartmouth known as the Dean's Discretionary Fund. This fund, as the name implies, may be used by the dean for any reason and at his sole discretion.
Very recently a check for $1,000, in memory of L. K. "Pudge" Neidlinger '23, was received for inclusion in this fund. The donor, an alumnus, had been an undergraduate during Pudge's deanship. One Christmas the dean (Pudge) gave the donor $50 to enable him to get home for the holidays. With the check for $1,000, the donor wrote that he "had always wanted to appropriately repay the debt."
While this was an unusually generous expression of gratitude, there may be a considerable number of other Dartmouth alumni who were undergraduates during Pudge's tenure as dean who would like in some way, however modestly, to perpetuate his memory through contributions to this fund. The desire to participate in such a fitting memorial must surely be shared by a number of Pudge's contemporaries and friends.
New York, N. Y.
The ALUMNI MAGAZINE welcomes comment from its readers. For publication, letters should be signed and addressed specifically to the Magazine (not copies of communications to other organizations or individuals). Letters exceeding 400 words in length will be condensed by the editors.
