Rumblings On Fraternity Row

Anyone who thinks that all Dartmouth students are happy with the College hasn't talked to a fraternity brother lately. Led by Dean Edward Shanahan, the administration has taken a hard-line approach that jeopardizes many houses and has the Row buzzing with power tools and complaints.

The renovations and resentments are responses to Minimum Standards, a set of fraternity regulations imposed last summer in conjunction with the College's plan for a new "cluster" system. "The document," as many administrators call it, governs everything from hanging curtains to monitoring parties. Among other things, it requires fraternities to fireproof their houses and install fire-detection systems, repair battered walls and build libraries, show surprise inspectors they can keep their houses clean, formalize their leadership and rush policies, curb alcohol abuse, and serve the community at large through service projects and "cultural programming." In addition, required policies have to be instituted this fall and all the house improvements which will cost fraternities from $30,000 to more than $100,000 each must be completed by July 1985.

Deans and faculty members are cheering. For years, they've been disturbed by heavy drinking, a lack of social alternatives to fraternities, and a dearth of fraternity-inspired cultural events and intellectual commitment. They've argued that students study intensely only for better grades, that they squander valuable thinking time by partying on weekend nights, and that they peek into faculty offices only to clarify a point made in class or to elicit a prescription for higher grades. With fraternities toeing an administration line, they see a cure for Dartmouth's well-publicized ills through the promise of a more vital Dartmouth experience where all share the educational commitment.

Fraternities, as one dean puts it, are "inhumane" in their selection process. Their large parties serve only a segment of the many dimensions of the Dartmouth community; and worse, the biases they generate harden the minds of brothers, dampen the spirit of co-education, and factionalize the College. The deans see fraternities as places to escape, not places to learn and grow.

The issue is not merely change; it is the speed of change. When former Assistant Dean of the College Lee Levison told fraternity representatives in May that the deadlines for all three stages of building renovations would be moved back a term because the College audits came in late, Dean Shanahan was quick to revoke the extension.

Resentment and fear are anything but new to Fraternity Row. In 1978, at the tail end of the wildest period in fraternity history at Dartmouth, the late Professor Jim Epperson, alarmed by the hard drinking and anti-intellectualism he saw in fraternities, led a drive to abolish them. While his proposal was rejected, it put fraternities on the defensive.

Fraternities don't deny the need to make repairs. Since the raucousness of the sixties was glorified in "Animal House," most brothers agree their houses could use facelifts. What they resent is the imposition of extensive building requirements that they had little say in formulating and the fact that most houses can't afford, let alone meet, the Minimum Standards deadlines. While deans claim the new rules have fraternities' interests at heart, brothers see Minimum Standards as a veiled move to push them either into bankruptcy, College ownership, or banishment the only options for houses that fail to meet the deadlines. As for the long list of social requirements, brothers feel that the administration is playing "parent" and fast making Dartmouth a kind of prep school in the process.

It's no secret that the administration would like to oust a few houses whose parties in past years have resulted in excessive drunkenness and a good deal of bad press. In its efforts to pull the strings on fraternities, the Dean's Office has already proposed fraternity ownership to the Trustees. It's also no secret that some of the houses on the Dean's Office black list face the largest repair bills, something most students feel that the Dean's Office foresaw.

Minimum Standards, non-fraternity members agree, is more a leverage mechanism than a helping hand. As they see it, houses in hot water will be forced to accept College ownership or fold, with all houses being forced to "make positive contributions" to the residential life system along the way. As for dorm plans, many non-fraternity members share the unease of fraternity brothers. With visions of professors setting social options, dry parties, and stilted get-togethers in their minds, many are skeptical of residential life plans. They, too, wonder if they won't be reliving prep school before the year is out.

Fraternity brothers resent the Minimum Standards policy requirements for the same reason they're loathe to turn over their leases. To them, the regulations make a token of their say in house matters. They didn't ask for the new rules, and Minimum Standards was imposed without their consent. When deans claim the Interfraternity Council had a hand in drafting the requirements, fraternity brothers are quick to disagree: The IFC, they say, had no choice. When the Committee on Student Life was wrapping up the residential life plans two springs ago, deans told IFC officers their system would be changed regardless of student opinion. They could sub- Mit a proposal for Dean's Office revision within a month or let the deans write the rules themselves. With little time to enlist the help of all fraternities, IFC officers had to draft a document in one vacation session. But after they'd submitted their prescription for long-term change to the College, the Dean's Office and the Trustees rewrote the rules and moved up the deadlines.

The Dean's Office turned a deaf ear to fraternity complaints and refused to negotiate what the Trustees had ordered. Fraternity brothers were outraged. They saw little hope of a meeting with the Trustees whose once-a-term weekend sessions are too packed to allow hearings for every disgruntled voice of the College. When IFC president Chris Stoffel 'B5 got the chance to talk to a few Trustees this spring, he was told what no fraternity brother wanted to hear: meeting building requirements, controlling parties, hosting lectures, and running service projects won't ensure that any fraternity will be around three years from now. The news led many brothers to suspect that the College aims to let them empty their bank accounts to refurbish their houses, then disband them and face few expenditures to transform the houses into the special dprms and student centers the deans would like them to be.

In the eyes of the deans, that was fair play. For years, they'd urged fraternities to reform and achieved only superficial change. A few windows were repaired, a few houses were painted; but the system and its abuses remained. Two winters ago, when Psi Upsilon's annual winter initiation ceremony on the golf course ended with two brothers wandering across the ice on the Connecticut and walking into a Norwich home in search of a late-night snack, Dean Shanahan circumvented the established procedure of an IFC hearing and immediately revoked the fraternity's College recognition. To brothers, Minimum Standards drives home the same point: namely, the Dean's Office has no faith in the democratic IFC and its members. As a result, there is now something of a brick wall between the fraternities and the administration.

Ironically, the administration's uncompromising stance has compromised many of its stated goals. It has also erected some barriers for the residential life program. Deans hope the new regulations will move fraternities to trust and work with them more willingly. But because the deans have taken such a tough stance on deadlines, have refused to consider that house damages stemmed largely from years of providing the College social life, and have failed to specify what will constitute "substantial progress," they are likely to find a good deal of mistrust this fall during evaluations. While the administration claims Minimum Standards will strengthen house leadership, it seems to be weakening it. Fraternity presidencies have become full-time jobs and officers elected to lead their houses are finding themselves serving the administration. They're not only required to submit leadership manuals, job descriptions, rush philosophies and policies, as well as alcohol policies and long-range plans, they must update them continually and attend regular meetings on how to run their offices. With course requirements and other extra-curricular demands, many officers are finding less and less time to be with the brothers they were elected to represent, a fact that has dissuaded some of the most capable brothers from seeking office. Administrative heat has also made a brother's ability to ward off the deans the single most important criterion for his election in many houses. It's all part of the administration's scheme, many brothers quip, to make governing their houses so tough that fraternities will have to let the College in on the process.

While the administration sees Minimum Standards as a way to get fraternities to help bring the community together, its approach has had a divisive effect. The issue is so central and wellpublicized in The Dartmouth that it's difficult not to take a side: The campus has split between those crying "Foul!" and those clamoring for the Dean's Office to "Stick it to 'em!" At the same time, the issue of how to respond to Minimum Standards has bred infighting among brothers and sharpened divisions within the fraternity system as a whole.

While the administration sees Minimum Standards spurring fraternities to serve the whole campus with creative events, the programs it's saluting aren't as wholehearted as they may appear. Fraternities' current commitments to culture are largely survival tactics; and while fraternity lectures and string quartets are gaining headlines in The Dartmouth and applause from the deans, they're drawing few non-fraternity members. The deans' praise has stirred little pride among the brothers. Fraternities have also been applauded for strong alcohol and rush policies that their officers had to concoct in the wee hours to meet tight deadlines arid that, even now, many brothers know nothing about.

Many alumni may wonder why, if the rules are such a problem and fraternities are so opposed to them, brothers haven't protested en masse outside Parkhurst Hall or sent a swarm of redalert letters to the Alumni Magazine. The reasons may spell problems for the future. The new rules forced fraternity officers to scrounge for dollars; and the tight deadlines have kept them scampering like worker bees ever since. Their dilemma is, they're too busy to lead disgruntled brothers in revolt and they're afraid that if they do, they'll only put the system in deeper jeopardy.

The recent dealings with the Dean's Office have added to the cynicism on Webster Avenue. Many brothers are down On the IFC. They feel it sold out when it agreed to draft a Minimum Standards proposal in the first place. They also feel it's become a lame-duck discussion group whose only purpose is to relay new mandates through representatives to individual fraternities. Many upper-class brothers, who remember days of complete autonomy and who've seen parties outlawed and officers pressured in recent years, have, as a result, soured on Dartmouth. It's not uncommon to hear one of them say, "I can't wait to get out of this place."

Their cynicism is spreading; so is their commitment to toe the line in public and cross it in private. In the words of Assistant Dean of Residential Life John Jennings, "The cluster system will never work unless everybody becomes personally committed to it." One day on the Row will tell you that it may take a long time.

Two years ago, President McLaughlin told a convocation audience that "intellect, leadership, and judgment are best nurtured in an environment that permits mistakes." Deans and professors may hold some truths about study habits and social life; but, he pointed out, students have to make mistakes, discover their own maxims, and structure their own lives, for that's what they come to Dartmouth to do. It's about time, the fraternities say, that the College captured the spirit of the President's speech.

Fred Pfaff 'B5 is a creative-writing major from Stamford, Connecticut. A member and resident of Sigma Nu Delta, he is one of the Magazine's Whitney Campbell interns and has written for ADWEEK magazine and reported for Fortune magazine.