Letters to the Editor

The Fraternities

Dartmouth fraternities have always been synonymous with one word: party.

But there's an old expression: The party's getting rough.

And there's an old song: "The party's over."

Glencoe, III.

[The party isn't over - yet. See "The College"in this issue for a report on last month's Trusteemeeting and the fraternities. Ed.]

When I saw the movie Animal House, I thought that Faber College was a caricature. But now that reputable news organizations have reported that the Dartmouth faculty is trying to abolish the fraternities and that fraternity members are rallying to defend themselve I am uncertain.

I suppose I'll need to wait for a decisive event before I make up my mind. No doubt the movie promoters will be glad if a large battle like the one portrayed in Animal House were to take place in Hanover. However, I would prefer that the fraternity members reach an agreement with the faculty. A genuine college should write its own script.

Milwaukee, Wise.

For an educational institution even to consider abolishing fraternities is frightening. Extracting a pound of fraternity flesh from the student body is a poor way to preserve the blood of civilization coursing through its veins. Classes like Government 13 teach us to question pat agitational-propaganda lines like "Reform is no longer a remedy." It is hideously ironic to use this line and the short-sighted plan that goes with it in defense of Dartmouth's purpose to train leaders Of tomorrow.

Instead, the College must take specific steps toward elimination of its specific campus-wide problems. Equal access would relieve sexual strains throughout the College. A task force should be created to deal with problems of racial segregation and to find solutions to discrimination throughout the College community. More programs of mutual interest to people of different backgrounds should be developed to encourage social as well as academic intermingling. Social alternatives must be developed on campus, preferably through a new student government and the College Center. Counseling for alcohol and drug abusers would be more effective than pretending these problems would disappear with the fraternities. Finally, individuals who violate College and criminal regulations must be caught and punished, rather than casting the blame on an entire system. These are only some of many possible longrage approaches to widespread problems. More can and must be sought.

"Civilization" has never been protected through destruction. Our teachers have trained us instead to dissect, analyze, and interpret, then to test hypotheses and solutions. Which example should the College set for its leaders of tomorrow?

Etna, N.H.

I watch with mounting concern the recent moves of the College to abolish fraternities. Human nature being what it is, students will obviously form their own social groups, cliques, secret societies, or what-have-you, officially sanctioned by the administration or not. The social maturation process is as important as, and is closely allied with, the intellectual maturation of a student. Emotional traumas of the maturing process in college caused by not being accepted by this peer group or that will still occur. This is a fact of life and the sooner a student learns to cope with these facts, I feel, the better.

All "persons" of Dartmouth are not equal in beliefs and in their social acceptance of one another and generally tend to socialize with their own kind. Perhaps I am wrong, but I think this is quite true in the outside world even today. To abolish fraternities as social havens for students seeking a respite from an increasingly complex world of education is to deny them their freedom of choice of association with whom they desire. It is also a depersonalization of the individual college experience.

"Anti-intellectual" charges are levelled at fraternities and probably with good reason. If "intellectualism" is the end product of Dartmouth education and could be tallied by Dartmouth graduates' later achievements in life, perhaps this is a way to decide whether fraternities are harmful or not to the general purpose of Dartmouth's goals. I suggest the statistics of grades, divorce, graduate school degrees, corporation high-level positions, alcoholism, flunkouts, etc., or whatever other parameters could be devised to measure "success" between fraternity and non-fraternity graduates be published in the ALUMNI MAGAZINE in order to decide the question. It could be quite sobering for both sides of the issue.

Royal Oak, Md.

The fraternities are confounded, ripped from a school that should have good fraternities. I would like to suggest one reason why the fraternities started getting grungy, or whatever the case may be.

To feel good and keep spruced up, you have to have high self-esteem. When I was at Dartmouth I scored a 783 verbal CEEB SAT. That means I should have rung up a good record at Dartmouth and felt good about myself. But I only felt good at Harvard, because the relatively easy grading of the Harvard College faculty left the students with a feeling of self-esteem.

The point to be made is obvious - Dartmouth chooses to castrate its students rather than giving them the reward of the efforts the students make in study. I should know - I received one of the all-time low passing marks when I was at Dartmouth, yet now when I take a graduate record exam I score in the upper 90 per cent usually. And an institution that insists on castrating its students instead of boosting their morale is predestinate to have a student body whose lack of self-esteem is reflected in sloppy clothing and fraternity "high jinks" like the grave desecrations that occurred during 1965 or 1966, I think. It's all in the Daily Dartmouth. Men of Dartmouth, set a watch to improve student morale and relieve the castrating pressures of a cruel grading system.

Great Falls, Mont.

The Epperson "Vox"

The ALUMNI MAGAZINE should be commended for printing Professor James Epperson's trenchant and prescient editorial, "The Future Is Before Us" (December 1978, p. 72).

Mr. Epperson's efforts have inspired me to write an essay of my own. It is called The PastLies in Back of Us.

I am forwarding the title with this letter, and plan to enclose the body of the text under cover of future correspondence.

Saratoga, Calif.

Professor Epperson's position, as represented in his column, seems really quite emotional and unbecoming of a man of his presumed stature. In his own terms, he defines for us the raison d'etre of the liberal arts college in this country. He then observes that several individual fraternity members engage in childish behavior and promote an anti-intellectual system of values which he finds disruptive and a serious threat to the fragile academic environment. He concludes that fraternities must go. Once they leave, a Utopian Dartmouth would somehow appear and flourish. Banishing fraternities is likened to returning the Ring to Mt. Doom in the Land of Mordor.

Professor Epperson addresses the subsequent questions of housing, social alternatives, etc., in a rather cavalier manner. "We are," he says, "limited only by our imaginations and our resources." These, of course, have been the only limits to mankind's endeavors since he first appeared on the face of the earth. Is Professor Epperson putting us on? Worse yet, is he serious?

There are far too many people in this world who wish only to destroy what they do not like. Much of the radical political thought which has so appealed to younger people in recent years focuses strictly on the evils of the present system and the need to tear it down. What comes next is always described in glowing, idealistic terms, but how to accomplish it is never addressed. That is considered irrelevant in comparison with the perceived injustices of the present. Professor Epperson follows this approach in his argument, and, frankly, his kind of thinking is far more dangerously disruptive and anti-intellectual than any childish fraternity antics could ever be.

In order to protect society from the transgressions of a few, our activities are increasingly limited, restricted, monitored, forbidden, or what have you. Some of this may be both necessary and desirable, but I suspect that it is often overdone. I remember President Dickey telling a group of my classmates in September 1957 something to the effect that Dartmouth would turn us into men by giving us the chance to be boys. That approach put the responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the student. He understood that the College had faith in his ability to learn for himself, even if he made some mistakes as he grew. It was a good system, for it promoted responsibility and accountability.

This issue will be debated, and the Trustees will do what they will do. In the process, however, I hope that they will be more demanding of people like Professor Epperson. Such naive fervor as is evident in his column has no place in a serious discussion of this or any other important issue at Dartmouth.

Menlo Park, Calif.

I am shocked and horrified to read in your December issue that another gaggle of Dartmouth men - er, persons - has proved totally incapable of decent social behavior. And we all know that decent social behavior goes hand in hand, is, nay, inseparable from intellectual commitment. I therefore trust that the Trustees will take appropriate steps to reprimand the faculty for its unsocial behavior to Visiting Professor Michael Meyer as reported in your December issue.

Immediate steps must be taken to provide the faculty an opportunity to acquire that spirit of, dare I say it, fraternity so necessary to promote "values of civilization, namely, tolerance, social harmony, thoughtfulness, and intellectual endeavor" - Epperson, James A. "The Future Is Before Us."

Portsmouth, N.H.

When I attended Dartmouth, I did not belong to a fraternity, nor did I ever feel allowed to be in one, so I am no apologist for fraternities. However, Professor Epperson's "Vox" column is so replete with - such an embarrassment of - illogic that it calls for rebuttal.

First, he tells us what liberal arts colleges exist for; not what they might exist for, but just what they exist for. In the same mighty first sentence, he tells us what the values of civilization are; not what he thinks they are, or what some of them are, but simply what they are.

He goes on to say that conflict of values "must" not exist in a college (the opposite is true), and the institution must "heal the division." Kind of sounds like putting down dissent.

He asserts that "fraternities" perpetuate bad values; not people, but "fraternities." "Every" thoughtful member of the Dartmouth community admits these problems. Note the "every." Is there a blushing member of the Philosophy Department who never heard of general semantics?

Next he comes up with a real lulu. Coeducation "means social equality; sororities are separate and therefore unequal." And therefore, obviously, separate dormitories, even rooms segregated by sex, must be separate and unqual. I hope Professor Epperson will address the faculty on this other important instance of "inequality."

The point is, irrationalities that call for "thoughtfulness" are not that different from other irrationalities. If the spokesman for the Dartmouth faculty will abuse the English language with the logic of a toothpaste commercial then I say fraternities are not the only thing wrong at Dartmouth College.

New York, N.Y.

The ad hominem attack on Professor James A Epperson in the letter of Ralph K. Smith '46 [in December] was in particularly poor taste.

Professor Epperson has constructed and expreśed with power and conviction a persuasive argument for the abolition of fraternities at Dartmouth. I'm sure his opinion is shared by a large number of the faculty. There is much to be said both for and against his position.

Whether he attended San Francisco State or an Ivy League college has nothing to do with the case. I am sure he is an outstanding teacher and scholar or he would not be a member of the Dartmouth faculty.

Newport, R.I.

Four-point Program

1. That 83 faculty members among 120 present (69 per cent) out of 320 in total (26 percent) voted 67-16 to abolish fraternities (4.2:1) makes me wonder where they are...at? And so does the Concord Monitor.

2. I hope the Trustees will review the design of the two buildings to be built facing the campus (Crosby and College Halls) to ensure they will not become as architecturally out of place as Hopkins Center.

3. "Affirmative" Action should be to hire and promote the best teachers regardless of sex, race, ethnic origin, or religious belief.

4. The dorms of Dartmouth also deserve their fair share of the proceeds from the Campaign for Dartmouth.

Thank you for the opportunity to express my thoughts on these important issues.

Medina, Wash.

South Africa

Last week, when my December issue of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE arrived, I started at the front as usual and began to read through it. Under "The College" section your editorial "Withdrawal Symptoms" got special attention and has prompted this letter. The subject of divestiture is no stranger to me.

My experience stems from active and personal participation in some of the alumni and administration activities in my own back yard at Michigan State University. I am fortunate to be able to be of help from time to time in its programs and do feel that because of being offcampus, I can be a little more objective in some observations and decisions of my own.

At the December 1978 meeting of the board of trustees of the university it was voted unanimously to proceed with divestiture, as affirmatively voted earlier in the year, with all prudent haste. I am sure you can visualize the millions of dollars that would have to be reinvested, the blizzard of paperwork that would be created, and the very doubtful bottom line of a new portfolio equating with the old one.

Several questions, however, are more important than that: 1) How do you filter out of a corporate gift those monies that come from South Africa per se? 2) If you tell your finance officer not to make any investments in corporations doing business in South Africa, how can the college or university accept contributions from alumni who happen to hold in their portfolios stock in, e.g., Dow, GM, Bristol-Myers? 3) Why is it necessary to make fund-raising for the college or the university more difficult than it is by deliberately restricting investments either before or after the donor decides to give to the college or university?

I am not in favor of apartheid. Never have been nor expect to be in the future. I do favor the Sullivan Principles, nevertheless, because I believe they will work. Rome wasn't built in a day and neither will apartheid disappear in a day. Furthermore, the Sullivan Principles are encouraged by some of the most influential black leaders in South Africa.

There is a great deal more that I can say about divestiture but the above is enough. If Dartmouth does vote for it, the headache will start small but it will grow unbelievably. It will also cause some serious thoughts among the alumni about their financial support.

Lansing, Mich.

The November issue has just reached me today, January 3, so that I have no chance to place a response below the utter trash contributed by a Clinton Gardner purporting to be a graduate from the Class of 1944. I do hope, however, a copy of this can be furnished the Trustees prior to their February meeting.

The analogy in his letter to Nazi Germany is excellent except that it is correctly a description of his own lies and deceptions. Everything he has said about South African blacks can be said about every other black African country plus the entire Soviet-dominated world. In them no one has any rights at all. What little voting exists is a fraud. Recently Kaunda ran in a single-party election, voters to say only yes or no. Doesn't this sound like one of Hitler's plebiscites?

I urge the Trustees to pay no attention to the hogwash from Gardner, the Upper Valley Committee, or from the few misguided students involved.

I have lived nearly 60 years outside of the U.S. I believe I can see the world outside the U.S. reasonably clearly without being disturbed by that mysterious haze that appears to descend on the 50 states and frequently inhibits clear thinking.

Hong Kong

A Solution

The current unpleasantness between the College and the sociology professor who claims discrimination in the denial of tenure suggests the implication of a problem that goes beyond sex.

I was first introduced to the social sciences by Leon Burr Richardson in his freshman chemistry amphitheater. The size of the class provided no immunity from Leon Burr and I was unprepared one morning to explain the chemical reaction involved in the cleansing action of soap. My answer was defensively very long and, as it turned out, very imaginative. First, Leon put his glasses down on the soapstone, then his mouth fell open, and before he turned red he interrupted me, "Mr. Dix, you would do well in the social sciences. We don't know what actually takes place in the cleansing process of soap."

By junior year the sociology majors were very much in evidence in campus discussions with their vocabularies, erudition, and enthusiasm for the new worlds they were about to conquer; but that summer I discovered that the new discipline had not been recognized by some pretty prestigious colleges. It was years later that I discovered the significance of department status, and this brings us to the problem with Professor Joan Smith.

What is sociology and why should there be a tenured sociology professor? Professor Inkeles of Harvard answered the first question in a book carrying that title. I had become interested as a consequence of research in my own field and the request to handle my subject with undergraduate classes in this discipline. I had already read their text and traced the origins of sociology to Herbert Spencer (reference History 9 and 10). I had also had some conflicts with the physical-reality ignorance of representatives of the profession assigned to committees investigating serious national problems. Sociology today bears little relationship to the broad philosophical and natural science perspective of Herbert Spencer.

Sociology and its social sister pretenders to science have accomplished very little except to splinter the philosophical integrity of higher education and isolate physical sciences on one side and the humanities on the other. Dartmouth could contribute to higher education by resolving its discrimination problem by denying future tenure in this discipline and turning the educational process in the direction of the survival of the whole society, concentrating on the lessons of history, and subordinating public opinion polls and sophist ideologies.

Grand Rapids, Mich.

Dam Folly

Belated thanks are in order for a fine September issue. That issue came south as I headed north to graduate school, so I have just gotten the chance to read it. The articles by Professor Hines and Dan Nelson '75 convincingly revealed the folly of that dam Dickey-Lincoln while also recounting the many pleasures of Whitewater canoeing.

Reading Dan Nelson's story brought back warm memories of my ten summers in Maine and three trips down the Allagash and St. John rivers to Fort Kent. Perhaps a six-day canoe trip is the only way to convince Senators Stafford and Muskie, among others, of the St. John's value.

I wish the article on Professor Eberhart had mentioned the hard work that he and his wife have done to save Pond Island in Maine. The July 21st issue of the Maine Times carried an article on their attempts to purchase the island and turn it over to the National Audubon Society for preservation.

By the way, people on the cover of the magazine do not bother me; just don't squeeze out our class notes.

Little Rock, Ark.

Second Thoughts

In an article in the September 1977 issue of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE, I presented my views on the alleged conflict between representatives of the traditional-literary and the scientific-technological "cultures." To bring the article up to date, I would like to mention that I spent a large portion of the last few months recuperating from the paralyzing effects of a stroke at a well-equipped and competently staffed local hospital. While thus occupied or unoccupied in surroundings which brought me in constant contact with the practitioners and the products of modern medical science and technology, I did some rethinking about some of the topics of my ALUMNI MAGAZINE article. For one thing, I realized that the two cultural groups mentioned above have very different attitudes about the whole medical enterprise.

On one hand, a member of the scientific-technological community is almost certain to possess the deeply ingrained belief that man is capable of understanding the functioning of the human organism and that a likely consequence of such understanding would be our ability to intervene in the operation of our bodies in such a way as to make corrections for any malfunctions. The humanists, on the other hand, tend to be wary and suspicious, if not outright hostile, about human attempts to modify the operation of our nature- or God-given bodies. Of course, this critical attitude does not always go to the extreme exemplified by Ivan Illich, who wrote a whole book (Medical Nemesis: The Expropriation of Health) in which he tried to convince the reader that much of what ails us is caused by the modern medical establishment.

Still, I would expect a true representative of the humanists' cultural camp to be extremely reluctant to ask even for something as innocuous as a tablet of aspirin, even if he or she were suffering from a terrible headache. Why? Because even aspirin is a product of modern science and technology, i.e., a product of the "enemy's" camp. Also, it removes the headache by interfering with the workings of the "natural" system.

Hanover, N.H.

A Kinship

Father James B. Malley S.J. '43 is a good man at bridging gaps. While I attended Georgetown University Law Center, I had occasion to receive the good counsel of Father Malley though I am a Presbyterian Protestant by profession of faith. After a family tragedy I went to him instinctively, and his Christian love was a source of great strength. I did not know until reading the ALUMNI MAGAZINE that we shared the Hanover experience as brothers 25 years separated. His ability to "bridge gaps" comes from a conviction that there are no unbridgeable gaps because all men are brothers.

East Lyme, Conn.

[A profile of Father Malley appeared in theNovember issue. Ed.]

Morals Then and Now

Tim Taylor's well-written article, "Crime and Punishment," in the December issue says that the undergraduate today misbehaves "little differently from his ancestor." He does not know whereof he speaks! Unfortunately, there is, indeed, a large and very serious difference. From the somewhat better prospective of a 37 year graduate versus that of Mr. Taylor, an undergraduate, the difference is the motivation between those past and present.

Mr. Taylor's example of the "misappropriation of college property" in the past is "one stuffed zebra . . . acquiring the habit of appearing in 'incongruous places.'" This same euphemism, misappropriation, appears in the present as "ripping off a dorm couch." The former appears to be a prank; the latter is just plain stealing with intent to benefit financially, and therein lies the moral difference.

Mr. Taylor states, "In the area of vandalism, modern efforts sometimes seem slight by comparison." Not by a damn sight! One only has to look around the campus to see how vandalism has increased tremendously in the last 10 or 15 years. The vandalism of the past that Mr Taylor describes was "to gain entry," to demonstrate unpopularity, and to provide an incentive to complete a construction. This vandalism at least had some objective. Today, an extremely high percentage of vandalism is done simply for its own sake and the hard-to-understand psychological reward it brings to the vandal.

Of course, there is still the "drunkenness, riotous behavior, and disorderly night walking" so marvelously described in the 1782 code of behavioral laws. What Mr. Taylor fails to see is the moral decline in today's attitudes toward stealing and vandalism.

Sunapee, N.H.

Enlightened Demolition

I am writing in regard to a picture on page 33 of the December issue. The old wooden wing of Crosby Hall is being torn down with windows, blinds, and even spotlights still in place. The building must have had many recoverable items which a more enlightened, or poorer, community than the Upper Connecticut River Valley would have put to use. It would be nice to find the parts of Crosby Hall continuing to function rather than filling the town dump or lighting the night sky briefly.

Could a procedure not be found which would overcome possible legal or economic arguments, to allow local people to do salvage work? I envision an institution being created akin to the ubiquitous garage sale. On a national level the value of the goods put back into use would be considerable.

Madison, Wisc.

[Before demolition of the wooden wing, many ofCrosby's interior fixtures were salvaged andsold to individuals in the community. Perhapsthe specter of impatient administratorsproviding "an incentive to complete a construction" prevented such work on the exterior. Ed.]

The Speech Department

In a recent James Res ton column in the New York Times (12/13/78), he postulated that the unique public appeal of Teddy Kennedy is largely attributable to the fact that he "has developed into one of the few really eloquent public speakers in American political life." Not only in politics but in virtually every facet of our lives, the eloquent and effective speaker has a demonstrable edge. Whether it is a doctor, a lawyer, a salesman, a business executive, an athlete, a teacher, the ability to speak clearly and persuasively, to organize thoughts into coherent speech, is a valuable asset.

Despite the well-established advantages of articulate speech, our educational system treats speech training as a secondary talent not nearly as important as history, comparative literature, or mathematics. Yet, without the ability to communicate, the knowledge acquired in other subjects is lost to the society. How often are we literally turned off by the brilliant speaker who cannot speak.

Dartmouth College has been an important force in education and often applied imagination where others relied upon the old and outmoded systems of the past. Thus, it should be one of the leaders in developing the skills to communicate the wealth of knowledge which it teaches. Regrettably, there are forces now at work at Dartmouth who have neither the vision nor the courage to continue that tradition. Whether, as the result of financial pressures, or for even smaller reasons, certain members of the Humanities Council at Dartmouth have set out to destroy the Department of Speech. Not once but twice in the last two years, the Humanities Council has launched a demeaning and professionally destructive investigation of the value of the Speech Department.

The value of the Speech Department and the unwarranted efforts of certain members of the Humanities Council to destroy the department were brought to the attention of President Kemeny. The exchange of letters is attached. Harrassment by the Humanities Council of the Speech Department continues. At a time when the need for more and better communication between people is more essential than ever before, it is dismaying to see a few misguided department heads at Dartmouth successfully continue their unjustified attacks on the one department at Dartmouth which has teaching oral communication skills as its sole function. Decisive action by President Kemeny to assure the future of the Speech Department is essential and overdue.

Washington, D.C.

[Fred Berthold Jr. '45, associate dean of thefaculty for the humanities, replies: "To my knowledge, no one has yet suggested that all training in public address be discontinued at Dartmouth. It is true, however, that about three years ago, in response to a request from the Department of Speech for a change in its name and some of its courses, the Humanities Divisional Council recommended that an ad hoc committee be established to consider the status and future of the Department of Speech. The report of that committee was not accepted by the majority of the council, and yet another committee was established, with a directive from the dean of the faculty that the issue be resolved before the end of the 1978-79 academic year. The report of the present ad hoc committee has not yet been submitted, but it is expected before the end of January.

The recommendation of the original ad hoc committee, incidentally, was that the Department of Speech be abolished, but that a program in public speaking be maintained. Had the Humanities Divisional Council been as unthinking and ruthless as Mr. Roisman suggests, I doubt if it would have rejected that report or taken the trouble to engage in further consideration."]

Action

Mention was made in the '76 class notes section of a recent issue that Richard Dunfey 76 had been appointed director of the Tilton, New Hampshire, Community Action Center. Your readers may be pleased to note that he has been promoted to the directorship of the Concord, New Hampshire, Community Action Center, which is a considerably larger office.

In what many people take to be the typical Dartmouth fashion, your class correspondent wondered how much community action there is in Tilton. I doubt that Mr. Dunfey knows since he lives in Manchester and was certainly working hard to earn his promotion.

I can tell you, however, how much com- munity action there is in Tilton. During the 1978 town reporting year, more than $82,000 in program services was provided to residents of the Tilton area towns of Tilton, Northfield, and Sanbornton. Among the programs were Head Start, emergency energy assistance, meals on wheels, senior meals, senior transportation, rural home repair, and weatherization. Additionally, the center provided family assistance in over 260 cases.

I can also tell you how much community action there is in Mr. Dunfey's new assignment. Services worth over $250,000 were provided to Concord and area towns, and over 3,300 individuals were provided assistance. Mr. Dunfey is likely to be working even harder in his new position.

Thank you for this opportunity to deliver a short course on Community Action. I leave community action to the more experienced if not more skillful students and alumni of Dartmouth.

Concord, N.H.

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.

[Thomas Laaspere, professor of engineering atThayer School, wrote "Science and TechnologyUnder Siege" in the September 1977 issue. Ed.]

[Mr. Richards' phrase "to provide an incentiveto complete a construction" refers to thestudents of 1789, who, in a "nocturnalvisitation," demolished one of the originalCollege buildings to vent their displeasure overthe laggard progress on Dartmouth Hall. Whatwould have been the reaction if students last fallhad wrecked College Hall to show what theythought about construction delays on the CollisCenter? Ed.]

[Fred Graf is technical services director ofBelknap-Merrimack Community Action. Ed.]