Chapter Seven: Life Goes On

As winter term drew to a snowy close, the "end of the Greek system as we know it" hadn't quite caught on with the whole campus. But the phrasing was an instant hit. TRUSTEES TO CHANGE NAME OF COLLEGE 'AS WE KNOW IT': 'DARTMOUTH' will now be called 'DARVARD,' the JackO' Lantern proclaimed. And that's not all, the Facko reported: "NASA scientists announced yesterday that a severe anomaly in the gravitational force of the sun will cause the moon to crash into the earth, resulting in the end of life "as we know it." ("The Moon," the Jacko noted, "could not be reached for comment.")

Students, though, were beginning to comment via official channels. The kid tried to get on the task force headed by Acting Dean of the College Dan Nelson '75 and charged with collecting ideas for social and residential life to present to the Trustees. The kid was disappointed but not surprised to be turned down in favor of freshman class president Josh Warren. Students got together to discuss each of the Trustees' five principles. Fifty students showed up for the first three meetings, but attendance dwindled to a dozen for the last two sessions. Were students already tiring of the issue? I wondered. Not according to some members of Kappa Kappa Gamma

sorority who invited the kid's dad (a professor) and me to a cookies and conversation reception one Friday afternoon. I was surprised and dismayed that these women said that they still didn't think the administration and Trustees really wanted to hear what students have to say. (I was also surprised that the kid had been invited to a semi-formal at the very same house. I thought upperclass women didn't talk to freshman guys.) Whatever your position, we urged these young women, get involved in the discussions. It was the same thing we've been saying to the kid and his friends: If you don't speak up, someone else will.

But maybe the real business of winter term educationalso got in the way of greater participation in the discussions. Although at times the Greek issue seemed to overshadow everything on campus, other things really did happen. Like a lectures series on "Power and the Presidency" by biography luminaries David McCullough, Robert Caro (on LBJ), Michael Beschloss (on Ike and JFK), Edmund Morris (on the Gipper), Doris Kearns Goodwin (on FDR), and David Maraniss (on Bill Clinton). Community mem- bers beat students to most of the seats. (I felt a little guilty taking up space in a couple of the lectures. The kid, I noted, didn't show.) But students could catch the lectures on Dartmouth's cable channel. C-SPAN also taped the series. Watch for it next fall.

The kid had other things on his mind. Sports was one. Too sick all term to play on the coed intramural hockey team he had signed up for, he managed to play in their last game of the season. ("We lost but it was fun," the kid reported.) His friend on the women's varsity basketball team experienced the opposite: having fun but winning. The women claimed the Ivy championship, making it all the way to the NCAA tourney before dropping to Rutgers in their March Madness opener. The women's hockey team iced their way to an NCAA berth, too. Hanging up his skates, the kid looked springward to rugby and, for PE credit, golf.

But first there were exams to get through. The Collis Student Center tried to make reading week easier by offering 150 hours of "non-stop" study space, plus free coffee, tea, snacks, and billiards "to relieve finals stress." And of course before spring term there was spring break. Earlier in the year the kid had talked of the quintessential trek: renting a van and driving to Florida with a bunch of his friends. I wasn't too thrilled about this idea but kept silent. Just before the end of term I asked him about his plans. "The trip's off," he said. "Everyone's broke." Instead maybe he'd go to New York for a few days. "I also need to catch up on sleep," he added, yawning. And I'm thinking, sometimes they really are smarter than we think.

Hoopstersclinchedthe Ivytitle.