M. Lee Pelton
Dean of the College
YOU MAY WONDER how I, human punch line of fraternity pranks, nutty roommates, psychoanalytic theory, and my own dubious gene pool, kept myself out of Parkhurst for four years. With the generous tally of personal failures I racked up at Dartmouth, especially toward the end of my time there, surely one mistake, one avoided act or slip of the tongue, should have sent me to a disciplinary committee in the building where Dean of the College M. Lee Pelton '58A exerts his gentle reign. I have wondered about this often.
Dr. Pelton came to Hanover during what was my senior year, 1991, from his post as dean at Colgate University. I had the luck of asking him one good question for this magazine when he came to campus: "Describe the kind of Friday night you'd like to see at Dartmouth five years from now."
One part of his answer foreshadowed the new residential life opportunities now available for both students and professors. "I see a wide range of possibilities for engaging students and faculty outside classes—'stretching the classroom,' to put it metaphorically," he said. "This could mean courses taught in residential facilities, including fraternities and sororities. I could envision academic programs arranged by residence or arranged along some residential structure." He talked about community, about role models, about students finding intellectual stimulation outside of the classroom.
Right away, Pelton's presence on campus felt different from his predecessors'. Characterized as "The Listening Dean" by The Dartmouth and student groups who observed him riding his bike across campus and participating in student meetings and freshman trips, Pelton engaged students intellectually and socially. He invited winter skaters on Occom Pond to his home for cocoa. He hosted semiregular readings and discussions. "Since I've been here, the number of students who come to me to discuss academic life, versus social life, has risen dramatically. I enjoy seeing that," he says.
Many of the goals Pelton set have come to fruition: a re-emphasis among students on intellectual community; continued respect for free speech during a decade when codes about "hate speech" have been heavily debated; and continued inquiry into, as he puts it, "the competing interests of this thing we've been calling 'diversity.'"
His most ambitious goal has involved the residential life of students. The idea that professors might live in frats and dorms seemed highly unusual when Pelton first spoke of it in 1993. Indeed, Pelton's critics said they considered it a strategy crafted by a "fratbuster." But the experiment in the East Wheelock Cluster—in which a professor or a professor couple lives with students, leads the dorm's academic and social life, and serves as an adult resource—seems to be working. More than half of the students in the class of 2000 chose the East Wheelock Cluster as their top choice. Residential life has moved to the top of the agenda at recent meetings of the Board of Trustees. If met with continued positive response, the mentors-in-residence concept could eventually appear throughout the campus.
It would seem that Lee Pelton is not making Dartmouth Dartmouth so much as he is making it more like other places. But all Dartmouth deans—be they Craven Laycock 1896, Pudge Neidlinger '23, or Thaddeus Seymour '49A—have reflected the changing nature and complexity of the place. (Laycock headed up both the dean's and admissions offices; today's Dartmouth has admissions deans, faculty deans, associate deans, assistant deans, not to mention provosts and vice presidents.) If anything, Lee Pelton's vision brings Dartmouth students back to a smaller, more intimate community of an earlier era- a community of debating clubs, one-on-one chats in professors' homes, access to teachers, learning outside the classroom. Dartmouth hallmarks all.
