Dr. Wheelock's Journal
Divers Notes & Observations
TRADITIONALLY, THE HIGH point for fall foliage is Columbus Day, and sensing that perhaps they should do something special for the quincentenary, the leaves outdid themselves in autumn splendor. A bit more drab was the celebration on campus, actually more of an un-celebration of the various plunderers, profiteers, and exploiters who followed in the Admiral's wake, some of which is already chronicled, after a fashion, on the walls of Baker's Reserve Room, in the Orozco murals. Mural-wise, among the study groups and teach-ins (by far the most crowded of which was a "conversation" by bestselling authors Michael Dorris and Louise Erdrich '76) was a tour of those by Walter Beach Humphrey '14 an Thayer's Hovey Lounge. The Hovey murals picturize the lyrics of the formerly popular campus song, "Eleazar Wheelock," currently out of favor because it is—we think rightly so—offensive to Native American students.
TO REMIND YOU THAT SUCH insensitivity is not confined to the Hanover Plain, we were so irked the next evening by the incessant roars of 50,000 tomahawkchopping Atlanta fans intoning their war chant that we almost missed the Braves' last-of-the-ninth explosion that won them the pennant. (With a blow by a young pinch-hitter whose centuries-ago forebears, ironically, might have included those Caribbean islanders who wondered who were those men in that strange boat tying up to their dock.) Sticking for a minute with our patronymic, however, we were piqued to learn, on a tour through the Hood Museum's handsome Panathenaic exhibit of early Grecian amphora, that to each winner of one ancient chariot race went not "500 gallons of New England rum" but 1,400 gallons of olive oil.
MORE THAN 50 CLASSES converged on Hanover in mini-reunion conviviality to observe Dartmouth Night weekend. Quarterback Jay Fiedler '94, who last week had answered a Valley News reporter that indeed he was distantly related to the late and beloved Boston Pops conductor, orchestrated a con brio 39-27 rout of a determined Yale, and with the concerted help of a sextet of talented receivers set a Dartmouth single-game passing record of an unbelievable 419 yards.
Since we're on the subject, we heard numerous suggestions around us in the stands, not for the first time, that the Dartmouth marching band: first, learn a few new numbers, and second, abandon their tasteless attempts at between-the-halves humor and do some playing and marching instead. Painted on the bass drum were a couple of four-letter words that struck a new low. Lending another note of embarrassment at the game was a score of exhibitionism-deprived freshmen weaving through the Yale band on the field to which our unkind and ungentle personal reaction is always: How did that Eagle Scout, football captain, vale-dictorian with the 1500 SATs get aimed down and these immature buffoons get accepted?
Also most distressing: a bonfirebuilding ruckus. Several fraternities that last year had declared their independence from the College were beginning to reaffiliate, as a result of meetings with Dean Pelton over regulations they had felt were overly restrictive, and particularly over an awaited new College alcohol policy. Most fraternities had experienced their most successful rushing season in years. Unaccountably, two nights before Dartmouth Night a bingeing band armed with baseball bats and bags of vomit, supposedly intent on enforcing the "tradition" to prevent the freshmen from building the bonfire and to protest the deans' policies, wound up in a violent free-for-all against both the campus and the Hanover police. The dean suspended construction of the bonfire until Friday morning, and within hours of the incident he delivered a strongly worded message that "the College must determine through discussions with student leaders and others
whether this part of the Dartmouth Night program will be continued in future years." If we may be included among the "others," our vote is that the fraternities had certainly not chosen the best way to combat the rowdy (well, make that macho) image held of the College in many quarters of the nation. For a start, storming the bonfire should quickly join such things as freshman beanies and clay pipes at Commencement as just another nonsurvivor, in Wordsworth's words, of a "creed outworn."
PERHAPS THE DISASTROUS event was a reaction to the suggestion by Student Assembly head Andrew Beebe '93 that all fraternities and sororities consider going co-ed, eventually. Those at Middlebury and Bowdoin have been required to do so. Bee be himself wrote in The
D that it won't be a cure-all but a contribution to understanding—and that in turn could only promote a more mature interaction between the sexes. Or would it only rob us of those youthful, joyful indulgences that, as the Old Testament says, cover us "with contempt instead of glory"?
No bigger than a man's hand are the clouds which announced that Dartmouth's new no-alcohol dorm had more applicants at the beginning of the term than it had openings. Or that the pub established at nearby Keene State's student union had closed because too few students were drinking there. Or that despite all the alarums and incursions, Dartmouth has moved from eighth place to seventh, in U.S. News's rankings of the best colleges and universities.
Despite two minor fires in a week of undetermined origin, Tuck's new Byrne Hall will be able to meet its February opening and May dedication dates. It has become a frequent observation that the $10 million building, which will house classrooms and a new dining facility for Tuck's increasing graduate student body, is aptly named.
The campus dullyrecognizes Columbuswhile students committheir own atrocities.
