Priorities
LAST spring Professor Roger Masters summarized the priorities of Dartmouth students as: "to get drunk, get laid, and play softball on the green." Since that time other campus soothsayers have echoed Masters' disparaging assessment. Naturally these assertions have sparked heated debates in the marble corridors of this hallowed institution, placed smug smiles on the faces of those outsiders who believed as much all along, and sent the sober and responsible student body into an uproar. Masters, wrote one irate student in The Dartmouth, had made a gross and misleading generalization: he had the order of priorities all wrong. The true goal of a Dartmouth student was, first of all, to get laid. Everyone laughed and settled back into the imperative of the moment.
Masters, with a professorial tendency to simplify complex issues for group consumption, sadly glossed the truly subtle rites of a Hanover spring. A Dartmouth student does not, for example, go out and try to get drunk. This extraordinarily bad form leads only to silly dances with unescorted lampshades and long mornings of remorse. Dartmouth students would equate this objectification of an otherwise pleasurable activity with the high-anxiety environments of our brethren to the south. Drinking here in Hanover is only an adjunct of a whole subculture, where the goal is to engage in spirited hi-jinks - from marching through campus buildings with large legs of lamb and medieval costume to leaving a mummified - though live - body on the reserve desk in Baker Library with the explanation that the squirming figure is a project for an anthropology class.
Drinking merely serves to break down the barriers of propriety, so the celebrants can enjoy the pranks without calculating their effect on long-term career prospects. Dartmouth students rarely drink alone. Rather they drink in packs and then prowl about in search of fun and games. Everyone has a favorite fun-and-games story, ranging from untying the halter strings of a diverted young woman's loosely-fitting cocktail dress to relocating a victim's entire dormitory room - furniture, personal effects, and all - in a snowfield. Not only will boys be boys, girls will be boys, or something along those lines. Sigma Kappa, Dartmouth's pioneer sorority, recently rated the allure of their Dartmouth brothers - a panel of judges held up large cards with scores ranging from 1 to 10, Olympic style - as the unwitting victims strolled into the dining hallMen have no monopoly on drinking either: judging from the scores, the glazed look in the eyes of the Sigma Kappas was not the result of smoldering passion.
There is more to being a Dartmouth student than alcoholic escape from adulthood. For one thing, you have to look the part. Hanover is a self-contained youth-culture, where beauty and health take on inflated importance. Getting a tan and staying in good physical condition - no mean feat after long nights of carousing - are approached with intense determination. On a plear sunny day, as one uncharitable source explains, you can see Dartmouth women stretched out like beached whales at various campus locales, while on rooftops male sunworshippers oil their baking bodies with disconcertingly narcissistic appreciation. But the tan is only the beginning. Careful wardrobe selection is equally critical. Insensitive observers have characterized Hanover couture as, quite simply, deliberate decrepitude. Few outsiders realize the simple elan of battle fatigues and pilfered high school athletic uniforms - Dartmouth's unisex fashions. But the look is the reflection of an attitude: a defiant mixture of panache and disdain for "style" that becomes a style in itself. This insouciance is far better expressed through ripped gym trunks and protruding boxer shorts than pressed khakis, polo shirts and well-polished Weejuns.
Part of what people see in Hanover is the product of certain expectations - based on past experiences with rampaging Dartmouth men. An old friend's father less- than-fondly recalled the time Dartmouth men pushed a baby grand piano off the second floor balcony at his Harvard club. From then on, he asked me warily if I wanted a drink the moment I walked in the door. Another friend, a Dartmouth senior, encountered stiff anti-coed sentiments from an old family friend - until she took the unenlightened gentleman out to the kitchen and sang all 17 verses of a particularly graphic rugby song for him. Visitors to Dartmouth often expect an exhibition complete with not-so-noble savages and convulsions on the floor.
Fortunately, many of these would-be voyeurs are disappointed. Masters' canard and its many imitations exemplify reductionism at its worst. Such flippant epigrams insult the many serious and talented individuals associated with the College whose priorities extend beyond hedonism. From star athlete to diligent scholar, Dartmouth encompasses an entire spectrum of approaches to life. But this diversity seems to hide quietly, waiting to be discovered by the intrepid. The pervasive atmosphere of springtime Dartmouth is frankly one of juvenile Utopia, where even the most fantastic fantasies of hyperthyroid youngsters can be lived with unrestrained exuberance. Perhaps it is this spontaneous celebration of youth and vigor that gives Dartmouth students - as a group - their undeniably unique charm. A carefree, albeit cultivated, state of mind banishes more serious concerns, if only for a moment. Some consider this a tragedy: evidence of the insensitivity fostered by sylvan isolation. I remain to be convinced. Dartmouth's isolation is a venerable fable, and the heedlessness of Dartmouth students is merely a superficial pose. Like education, growing up is a process, not a goal.
The challenges posed by the post-college world are formidable to say the least, and Dartmouth graduates have traditionally responded to them successfully, even admirably. Perhaps they do so because of the child-like zest and energy they retain - the balance between serious and frivolous pursuits. In the face of internal and external pressures it is easy to become very old at a very young age. Such pressures wear down the healthy vestige of childhood in all of us. Hanover provides for many a blissful Huck Finn existence, and there may well be a certain pragmatic value in this relaxed atmosphere. If the child is indeed the father of the man, Dartmouth is probably an outstanding cradle.
