Rush Delayed

New Rules to Cut Greek Membership.

Following a directive from the Board of Trustees, the College administration has anounced plans to move the Greek rush process to spring term of the sophomore year one year later than under current rules. Dean of the College Edward Shanahan said the restrictions will take effect in 1991, beginning with the class of 1993. The deans estimate that student membership in Dartmouth's extensive Greek system will diminish by 25 percent.

In a resolution passed in 1987, the Trustees said the rush delay should bolster social alternatives to fraternities and reduce the social dominance of the 31 organizations that compose the Coed, Fraternity, Sorority System (CFS). Rush was last moved in 1971, from sophomore fall to freshman spring, in an effort to accommodate the Dartmouth Plan.

"It is clear that the CFS system has made considerable progress in recent years and continues to provide personal support and social support for many students at Dartmouth," states an official statement released from parkhurst. "Nevertheless, the Board and administration remain convinced that the system's overall structure of which size is a major component impedes the institution's ability to develop a residential experience that accommodates and builds on the Coeducational and diverse character of Dartmouth today and fosters the personal maturity and growth of our students both socially and intellectually."

The policy change comes a little more than a year after the Trustees endorsed the principle of delayed rush. Members say they synthesized a year's worth of campus dialogue before making the decision. Shanahan stressed that sophomore rush marks an important shift in the status of fraternities at Dartmouth, but he emphasized that the move is not an attempt to eliminate the system.

Some house presidents voice fears that organizations might fold as a resuit of the College's decision. "I think it's going to be hard for some of the smaller houses and the minority houses," said Laurilyn Goettsch, summer president of CFS and of the Delta Delta Delta sorority.

The problem, according to many of the Greek presidents, is money. Without the rent and dues income generated by sophomore members, some organizations may not be able to make ends meet. "For a lot of houses, the sophomores are the core group of the house," said Sigma Phi Epsilon summer president Mike Kennealy '90. "A lot of houses are going to go under finan-cially."

Shanahan said the administration will assist the most vulnerable houses in implementing creative ways to stay afloat. What the College's financial role will be in this effort is unclear, however. The impetus for generating ideas must come from the students, the dean said.

The Board and the administration, according to Trustee Ronald Schram and Shanahan, are convinced that a reduction in the size of the fraternity system will improve non-alcoholic social options at the College. "The issue," Schram said, "is getting a campus that is more in balance in terms of its social alternatives."

Suits Filed

The College faces suits filed this summer in New Hampshire state and federal courts by three student staffers of the Dartmouth Review. The three, suspended after the College found them guilty of harassing a black music professor, claim the Col-lege violated their right to free speech and discriminated against them because they are white. Meanwhile, the Department of Education was investigating a civil rights complaint against the College filed by the students with the National Endowment for the Humanities. The New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union earlier turned down the students' recalled quest for help after reviewing the case. The latest suits were announced at a Washington, D.C., news conference attended by Sen. Gordon Humphrey (R-NH), Sen. William Armstrong (R-Col), Rep. Bob Smith (R-NH), Mary Ellen Bork, several former Review staffers who now work in Washington, and the students' New York lawyer, Harvey Myerson. College spokespersons the suits "frivolous," noting they mark the third time in two years Dartmouth Review staffers have sued the College. (The courts favored the College in both previous suits.)

Who Are the '92s?

Admissions officers won't know the precise nature of the class of 1992 until matriculation, but they say in coming freshmen will number close to a record 1,100.

The increase results in part from the spaces vacated by the unusually large class of 1988 (945 graduates) and from the availability of housing made possible by construction of the new, 237-bed Wheelock cluster of dormitories. The class also contains an increase in women, who account for 44 percent the result of a concerted recruiting effort.

Perhaps more important than the numbers are the individuals. Faculty members and coaches say there are some especially strong standouts in this class, including:

• An artist (and children's book author) whose county commissioned her to do a 45-foot mural.

• A composer who works with synthesizers and has taken courses in this discipline at Stanford.

• A Presidential Scholar who specialized in theater at a Northwestern University summer program for gifted high school juniors.

• A high school ail-American women's soccer forward.

• A Presidential Scholar who doubles as an offensive lineman. He turned down Harvard, Stanford and Berkeley for Dartmouth.

This month marks the debut of a unique segment of the freshman class: 62 Presidential Scholars. Last spring, as part of an effort inspired by President Freedman to bolster the intellectualism of the student body, the College offered 187 of its top applicants a free trip to see the College. Those who subsequently chose to attend Dartmouth were named Presidential Scholars.

The class's brainpower does not rely exclusively on this chosen few, however. Dean of Admissions A1 Quirk '49 estimates that 90 percent of the '92 s ranked in the top 10 to 15 percent of their high school class, with a median combined SAT score of roughly 1,330 a figure that has remained constant over the last few years, he says.

In Brief

According to the College's annual report, Dartmouth's net assets at the end of fiscal '88 were $784.3 million.

Not happy: The extended family of Chi Heorot express their feeling about delayed rush.