The Dartmouth Review 10.3.2008 Volume 28, Issue 2 (PDF)

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Volume 29, Issue 2
October 3, 2008
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God and Man
at Dartmouth

What’s Inside:
• Interviewing Peter Kreeft • Richard Crocker and Tucker • Religion’s
Role in the Liberal Arts • Professor Hart’s Religious Conversion •

Page  The Dartmouth Review October 3, 2008

TDR Exclusive Interview: Peter Kreeft
By William D. Aubin
Editor’s note: Last spring, Boston College’s Peter Kreeft
visited Dartmouth to give a talk honoring St. Catherine of
Siena. Professor Kreeft teaches philosophy at Boston College
and is the renowned author of over 45 books, including a
Handbook of Christian Apologetics, Christianity for Modern Pagans, Making Choices, Fundamentals of the Faith,
and Making Sense out of Suffering. He sat down with The
Dartmouth Review at that point to discuss the role of religion
on a college campus.
The Dartmouth Review: What has been your experience
as someone who is both a professor of philosophy and a
Christian? What do you believe is important for your students and readers to take way from the confluence of faith
and analytical thought?
Kreeft: They have to see for themselves that the two are allies and not enemies. They have to see that they’re more like
two wings of a bird than they are like two armies meeting for
either battle or treaty. Both religious faith and philosophical
reasoning come from the same source, namely the human
mind, the human heart, and human curiosity. They have to
see the common origin of both in asking fundamental questions, and the common goal of both in finding truth.
TDR: You teach at a Catholic university, an experience that
for a variety of reasons the students and faculty at Dartmouth have eschewed. What do you believe is the benefit
of a Christian undergraduate experience?
Kreeft: Well if you’re a Christian, this is a part of your life
and a part of your philosophy, and a college education is also
part of your life. You have philosophical reasons for choosing
it. There’s a natural joining of those two things over those
four years. It’s not necessary; you can get those two things
separately, but why not bring them together if they’re both
so important? If you’re a Christian and you want a college
education, why not go to a Christian college? The onus of
proof is not on the one who would justify a Christian college;
the onus of proof is on the one who would question it.
TDR: What should be the ideal role of religion in a liberal
arts education at an institution like Dartmouth, one that
has modified its official mission from its original Christian
founding?
Kreeft: A secular institution can’t claim to have religious
eyes because it doesn’t, but it has to study religion as it studies everything else, in a fair and objective way: as it studies
literature, as it studies art, as it studies science, as it studies

—Boston College—
history. It’s one of the major features in human history. It’s
the thing that has motivated most of the people most of
the time to do the most passionate things that they do, so
it can’t be ignored. On the other hand, it can’t be studied
in a different way than other academic studies are studied;
it must be studied objectively and fairly.

Mr. Aubin is a sophomore at the College and a Managing
Editor of The Dartmouth Review.

TDR: Something I know you have discussed in your lectures and writing are the pitfalls of religious pluralism, as
we understand the concept in modern America. What do
you think of efforts and institutions that toss around terms
like “pluralism” and “multi-faith”?

out the answer. The most passionate public issue in the late
50s and early 60s was civil rights, and the Democrats were
arguing, on the basis of a natural law ethic, that segregationist laws had to be changed. Republicans were saying no, it’s
economically unfeasible. Today, the most passionate issue
is abortion, and euthanasia, and now it’s the Republicans
who are arguing on the basis of natural law that these things

Kreeft: My problem with pluralism is that it doesn’t exist.
People who mouth the word
most loudly are the farthest
from being really pluralistic.
They develop institutions and
curriculums that have to hew to
the party line of deconstructionism, relativism, feminism, etc.
I have no problem at all with
real pluralism; I think the ideal
university would be radically
pluralistic, a microcosm of the
whole world.
TDR: Debates between atheists and Christians are in vogue
on college campuses today, yet
there does not seem to exist a
single case of conversion one
way or the other that has resulted from such events. What
is the benefit of engaging in
theological arguments from
your point of view, as a Christian apologist?

—Peter Kreeft teaches philosophy at Boston College—

Kreeft: When you wash clothes, you first put them in a
hamper, and a hamper is not an airtight environment; it’s
got little interstices where the air gets in. So you have to
air the dirty laundry first before you put it in the washing
machine. A debate airs the two sides out and exposes the
logical problems of both sides. It doesn’t do the actual
work of converting, but at least it gets the data out. It’s an
educational enterprise.
TDR: Faith on college campuses: do you see a generation
that is becoming further removed from religious faith or one
that is returning to spirituality after the departure started
in the 1960s?

are wrong, and the Democrats are arguing against. So I
guess academia naturally goes to the lowest ethical level.
Professors should be expected to support moral monsters
and tyrants.

Most of the tyrants of the 20th century had a lot of professors behind them. Pol Pot, the great Southeast Asian master
of genocide, studied under Jean-Paul Sartre. John Dewey
lauded Stalin. There was a Harvard sociologist who studied
Hitler’s executioners. She paralleled level of education with
willingness to support Hitler, and she thought there would
be an inverse relationship; there was a direct proportion.
The more educated you were, the more you tended to favor
Hitler’s work and volunteer to do it.
TDR: St. Catherine of Siena, the woman whom you honored with your lecture today, lived in a time of conflict and
made great sacrifices, the likes of which are entirely foreign
to most people living in the West today. What does the rise
in creature comforts mean for faith?

Kreeft: Both. I think it’s moving in two opposite directions. People are opposing religious faith more adamantly
and regaining it more adamantly. So instead of a neutral,
conformist’s ‘Let’s all get together and not argue’ situation,
we’ve got a more polarized situation, as illustrated by the
theist-atheist debates. I guess that’s healthy; light
and darkness, good and evil—both show their true
colors when you let them shine in contrast. College
has always been a place where people go to lose
their faith because if that’s what you want to do,
you’re repressed when you live at home. You can
do it at college. But it’s also a place where you can
go to find faith for yourself. It maximizes freedom,
so you can expect that both of those choices are
going to be found there.

Kreeft: It’s temptation—to worldliness, to laziness, to
selfishness. Temptations, when overcome, strengthen you;
when given in to, they weaken you, so it’s up to us which
way it goes. Human nature being what it is, most of us
succumb to temptation most of the time, so statistically
the poorer you are, the more likely it is you’ll have a strong
religious faith, the richer you are, the less likely. But that’s
not necessary: it’s up to us.

TDR: You’ve written that neither economics nor
politics will exist in Heaven, as they are the creations
not of God but of man. That said, do you believe
either major political party in the United States
has pushed an agenda that is closer to God’s law
than the other?

Kreeft: No idea. I have no crystal ball. I hope it will be like
the early Church. I hope we’ll have a willingness to fight, to
sacrifice, to suffer if necessary. That comes from a moral and
intellectual clarity. We certainly need it. The compromises,
the cultivation of creature comforts, the desire to conform
and be accepted has dominated American life for a century.
It’s time for a change – time to stand up and be counted.

Kreeft: Well, no one of them is ideal. On some issues
I tend to think that the Democrats have traditionally been closer: on ecology, on suspicion of war;
but on the most important issues, namely abortion
and individual responsibility, rather than trusting
everything to the government, I think the Republicans are clearly closer to classical Christian political
thought than the Democrats are today. I remember
a survey in 1958, of the thirty most prestigious universities
in America, asking the faculty, ‘Did you vote Republican or
Democrat in the last election?’ Eighty-five percent voted
Republican. The same study was repeated a few years ago,
with almost exactly the same figures in reverse, somewhere
in the eighty percent range were Democrats.

I asked myself the question, “Why?” And I think I figured

TDR: What trends will characterize Christian faith in
America and the world in the decades to come?

TDR: What can the Catholic Church do specifically to repair
its image with the adolescents of America? What can be
done to overcome the stigma young adults sense because
of the recent scandals?
Kreeft: I’m tempted to answer that question either as a
philosopher or as a strategist. But there are no effective
answers there. The effective answers are to be found in a
place like Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity houses.
Visit those people and there’s no argument left against being
a Catholic. They are the happiest and most saintly people in
the world, and there’s no argument against that.
TDR: Thank you, Professor Kreeft.

n

October 3, 2008 The Dartmouth Review Page 

Editorial
Founders

Greg Fossedal, Gordon Haff,
Benjamin Hart, Keeney Jones

“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win
great triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than
to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy
much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray
twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”
—Theodore Roosevelt

Emily Esfahani-Smith
Editor-in-Chief

Weston R. Sager
President

Michael C. Russell, A.S. Erikson
Executive Editor

William D. Aubin, Michael G. Gabel
Managing Editors

Mostafa A. Heddaya, Tyler Brace
Associate Editors

Nathan T. Mathis
Publisher

Nicholas P. Hawkins
Vice President

Catherine D. Amble
Photography Editor

James T. Preston Jr., Maxwell L. Copello
Sports Editors

Nisanth A. Reddy, Michael J. Edgar
Web Editor

John M. Morris
Archivist

Contributors

Kathleen Carmody, Michael R. DiBenedetto, Matthew
D. Guay, Cathleen G. Kenary, Ryan Zehner, Elizabeth
B. Mitchell, Brian C. Murphy, David M. Shrub, Lane
Zimmerman, Ashley Roland, Erich Hartfelder, Brian
Nachbar, Andrew Lohse, Michael Randall

Mean-Spirited, Cruel and Ugly
Legal Counsel

The Review Advisory Board

Martin Anderson, Patrick Buchanan, Dinesh D’Souza,
John Fund, Jeffrey Hart, Laura Ingraham, Mildred Fay
Jefferson, William Lind, William Rusher,
R. Emmett Tyrrell, Sidney Zion
Guage
Cover photograph by Catherine D. Amble.
Special Thanks to William F. Buckley, Jr.
The Editors of The Dartmouth Review welcome correspondence from readers concerning any subject, but
prefer to publish letters that comment directly on material published previously in The Review. We reserve
the right to edit all letters for clarity and length.
Submit letters by mail or e-mail:
editor@dartreview.com
The Dartmouth Review is produced bi-weekly by
Dartmouth College undergraduates for Dartmouth
students and alumni. It is published by the Hanover
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Please send all inquiries to:

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Ending the Secularist Crusade

The history of Dartmouth College is a religious history,
as any person involved in campus religious life is quick to
point out. Dartmouth was founded on an evangelical impulse
by Eleazar Wheelock. He had a mind to educate and convert
the local Indian natives to Christianity. Wheelock, whose
stormy sermons would provoke his audience to tears, worked
with Samson Occom to pursue these goals. Occom was a
Mohegan Indian who converted to Christianity during the
heat of the Great Awakening. Occom admired Wheelock’s
vision for Dartmouth College, then called the Indian Charity
School. In 1769, a formal charter christened the place as
Dartmouth College.

But these days, very little
remains of Wheelock’s grand
religious vision. Since the retirement of President William
Jewett Tucker in 1909, for
whom the Tucker Foundation (devoted to morality and
spirituality) was named, the
religious imperative of the College has waned. Indeed, it has
moved decisively in a secular,
if not anti-religious, direction.
Tucker, interestingly, was the College’s last ministerial
president.

Though we don’t expect the next College president to
be a minister, it would be nice if he was not openly hostile
to religion, as so many academics and administrators on this
campus seem to be. One college Dean alleges that these
days one third of all professors on campus are atheists or
agnostics, and some are anxious to let their open-minded
students aware of their convictions. One professor in the
religion department told an enlightening story to illuminate
this point on the first day of her religion class. She was
explaining to the class her use of “B.C.E.” and “C.E.” for
dates, as opposed to “B.C.” and “A.D.,” which of course
line dates up according to their relationship to the birth of
Christ.

She told the class that she was lecturing at a local church
one day, and in the course of her lecture she used dates followed by “B.C.E.” or “C.E.” instead of “B.C.” and “A.D.”
When one of the Christian men in the parish asked her why
she used the secular variant, she replied—and it was a rather
hostile reply, as she recreated it there that day in class—
“We’re not living in a Christian world anymore. The United
States isn’t a Christian nation.”

This is the mindset of at least one of our religion professors, and this hostility to Western religion and tradition
penetrates the academy as a whole. For reasons that seem
strange, maybe even Freudian, religion departments tend
to attract the most anti-religious and rabidly liberal of all
professors on college campuses. (Speaking of rabidly liberal, just a few months ago, a Review editor happened to
overhear another Dartmouth religion professor, in a mad
rant, blame the Holocaust on America, or at least the half
that is Republican—but we’ll save that story for another
editorial).

Such hostility towards religion, especially Western
religion, runs contrary to the mission of any liberal arts institution. Professor Kevin Reinhart, a prominent member of
the religion department, puts it best when he says, “I think
that the study of religion is one of those areas of study that
is indispensible for the liberal arts education.” No part of
the human experience has been untouched by the influence
of religion, after all—and if a liberal arts education is meant
to teach students about the human experience against the
backdrop of the Western world, religion must play a part in
that education. Religion, Professor Reinhart explains, “is the

domain where humans have tried to be aware of themselves
as humans.”

The idea of human dignity is one of the most basic,
helpful ideas we get from religion, and it informs not only
theological debates but also political and public policy-oriented debates. From abortion, to Guantanamo, to stem cell
research: without a sense of what human dignity is and where
its intellectual origin lies (I’ll give you a hint: not Darwin),
then you are just parroting for or against what you read on
the New York Times’ editorial page, no matter what side of
the issue you fall on.

At Dartmouth, we are,
whether we like the term or
not, part of an “intellectual
elite” more akin to the chattering classes of this nation
than to the contemplative
monks in a monastery. We do
a lot of talking, a lot of “community organizing,” and a lot
of doing, but we fall short on
understanding—on wisdom.
The College, though it no
longer has a mission to convert
its students to Christianity, still dons the label of a liberal
arts school.

Part of a liberal arts education is the study of religion,
from which we learn what human dignity is and how to
cultivate it with understanding and ultimately wisdom. In
short, the study of religion makes us wiser people. The studies of philosophy, literature, art, and history are all part of a
liberal arts education, but they, in some ways, are secondary
to the study of religion. Those former disciplines want to
understand the human experience through narrower senses,
while religion wants to understand it in its most cosmic
sense.

Professor Marlene Heck, who teaches in the Art History
department and is married to Professor Reinhart, explains,
“To study religion is to study history, culture, geography,
language, philosophy, art and architecture, and it opens
into important exchanges regarding political principles and
scientific possibilities.”

Instead of teaching students anything relating to this,
though, the College is knee-capped by the imperatives of
Political Correctness. Freshman orientation is a good gauge
of the College’s teaching agenda. This year, as always, orientation was a week-long procession of mandatory events
that were more keen on sexual awareness talks and panels
on G-BLT (Gay-Bacon-Lettuce-Tomatos) than on spiritual
life. And until recently, the last institutionalized center for
moral and spiritual life on campus, the Tucker Foundation,
was growing increasingly secular in its community service
aims, now divorced from any transcendental purpose. Once
upon a time, the Tucker Foundation served as a center for
religious reflection and good works to honor the aims of
President Emeritus William Jewett Tucker. Under previous
deans, that mission fell to the wayside.

The new dean of Tucker, College Chaplain Richard
Crocker, is in a unique position to revitalize and renew the
role of religion and religious studies on this campus. He has
also expressed his wish, in conversation with The Dartmouth
Review, to reincorporate elements of faith into the service
that Tucker is committed to, and to reassert the moral and
spiritual dimensions into the good work that the organization
does. For these reasons, The Dartmouth Review is excited
to congratulate Dean Crocker on his recent promotion, and
we wish him the best of luck in driving the role of morality
and spirituality back into the public conversation on this
campus.

n

By
Emily
EsfahaniSmith

Inside This Issue
Will Aubin interviews Professor Kreeft
The Week in Review
Will Aubin discusses the new appointed trustees
Mostafa Heddaya examines Dartmouth’s religious life
Mike Russell gives a brief history of TDR
Michael Randall on the farce that is freshman orientation
Anfin Erikson reviews Cancel Your Own Goddam Subscription
Professor Hart discusses religion and his time at Dartmouth
Barrett’s Mixology & The Last Word

Page 2
Pages 4 & 5
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Pages 6 & 7
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Page  The Dartmouth Review October 3, 2008

The Week In Review
Keggy Kidnapped, Kops
Klueless

Keggy the Keg, Dartmouth’s favorite anthropomorphic
alcohol vessel, has been missing since some time this summer, according to his handlers, the Jack-O Lantern staff.
When several members of Jack-O returned to campus for
pre-Orientation, the mascot was not in its normal location
in 205 Robinson Hall. Only the external shell had been
taken; the harness had been left behind, rendering the
costume useless, and precluding a surprise appearance
by the thieves on Homecoming or other events. Some
readers will remember that Keggy has been stolen in
the past, but the previous incident was accompanied by
photographs of the keg bound and gagged, with one eye
replaced by a drawn-on shiner. In that instance, Hanover
Police also had the benefit of a ransom note with which
to start their world-class forensic investigation. This time,
however, there has been no word from Keggy’s captors.
Anyone with information is urged to call the Jack-O staff
(609) 651-7431, Safety and Security (603) 646-4000, or
the Hanover Police (603) 643-2222 so that the campus
can begin a return to normalcy.

More Sustainability Than
We Know What to Do
With

Dartmouth College has been awarded an A- from the
“Sustainable Endowments Institute.” Though TDR applauds
efficiency and conservation of all kinds, this news item begs
a few questions, the first few being “What is the Sustainable
Endowments Institute?” and “What does sustainability really entail?” For any readers who have had the proverbial
girl-across-the-hall come into your room and turn your
lights off to save a few watts of energy when you were in the
bathroom, you’re as skeptical as we are. Maybe we’re not
on the environmental “inside,” but to TDR, Dartmouth’s
‘sustainability’ is evidenced by its longevity since 1769;
maybe we misinterpret the question.

Our reporters have uncovered an interesting example of
the College’s dedication to conservation: in the Sustainable
Living House in North Hall, there is a non-operational vending machine full of snacks festooned with a sign declaring that
vending machines are wasteful. The irony of this situation
has apparently escaped the “Sustainable” zealots (but not
the young gentleman who wanted one of the Hershey bars
that has been rotting in there for who-knows-how- long, and
definitely not the starving children in third world countries).
Couldn’t there be another way to do this? And about the
lights, we at TDR subscribe to the ancient maxim: “If I’m
paying $50,000 a year to go to this school, I’m going to leave
my goddamn lights on when I’m in the bathroom if I feel

like it.” What’s next, a carry-in-carry-out policy at Home
Plate?

a computer for legal work, he said, presumably to clear his
name from earlier “misunderstandings.”

GFU Raises the Dialogue
of Race in America

Corporate Recruiting
Woes


Somebody at George Fox University just kicked the
2008 election up a notch. On September 25, a custodial crew
came across a likeness of Barack Hussein Obama, strung up
in a fishing-wire noose. The effigy was accompanied with a
sign reading “Act Six reject,” referring to the school’s new
scholarship program that mainly targets local minorities.
Naturally, the talks of a “race war” won’t be going away too
soon.

Of course, we could consider that these sort of “hate
crimes” have cropped up on college campuses before.
Such as when an African American professor at Columbia
awoke to find a noose hung on her doorknob...an incident
conveniently timed to draw attention away from the mounting plagiarism charges against her. Or when black students
at Ole Miss drew racist epithets and nooses on the doors
of other black students. These incidents, once uncovered,
are usually praised as “raising the dialogue about racism”
on campuses—they couldn’t just be backdoor racial fearmongering!

We could also consider that Democrats are the only
ones talking about race this election. Sometimes, Barack
Obama claims the Republicans are playing the race card.
Some liberal pundits proclaim that if Obama were to lose
the election, there would be full-scale riots. Republicans
haven’t (and don’t want to) come near race, so the lefties
create the tension for us. Sound familiar?

Now, this latest incident at GFU could very well be a
real one. But recent memory suggests a rather hefty grain
of salt should be applied before talk of riots continues.


This past week, Career Services held its Career Fair
in the Hopkins center. For the first time in years, however,
several prominent institutions that are usually represented
were nowhere to be seen: Lehman Brothers and Bear
Stearns, of course, were among them.

For many Dartmouth seniors who are graduating in
2009, the recent turmoil in the financial market hits very
close to home: many seniors were counting on securing
those illustrious well-paid jobs at investment banks. Several seniors, who spent last summer working at banks like
Lehman and Goldman Sachs, have either had their fulltime offers rescinded, or are waiting to hear back. Even if
places like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase still exist
as banks—now commercial rather than investment banks,
however—the uncertainty of the market translates into
fewer job offers for Dartmouth students.

Now, students who were relying on corporate recruiting
to get a job have to start looking elsewhere. According to
several seniors polled by The Dartmouth Review, “looking
elsewhere” means graduate school, working at law firms,
working for corporations, working in government, or pursuing the consulting end of corporate recruiting rather than the
banking end of it. Though job prospects are uncertain for
the class of 2009, what is certain is that the entire corporate
recruiting culture, which dominates career discussions at
Dartmouth, will change in the coming years.

New Hampshire Known
For Industrious Sex Offenders

A Newmarket Man has been banned from the University
of New Hampshire campus after reportedly attempting to
recruit concubines and brides among the female students.
Bert Allen is a registered sex offender, but did not let that
datum prevent him from posting a two-page flier at the school
library seeking young women to sign lifetime contracts to
become wives or concubines. In return, the flier promised
gifts, vacations, tuition aide, and other benefits, campus police
said. Authorities sent Allen a letter conveying their intention
to arrest him for trespassing if he steps foot onto the UNH
campus again, but Allen explained that the whole thing was
in fact a “misunderstanding.” He was at the library using

PETA’s Progressive Ice
Cream Solution

In their most daring defense of our bovine friends since
the South Park Cows were forced to abandon their mascot,
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) recently
issued an open letter to Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream urging
them to use human breast milk rather than cow milk in their
ice cream. The statement stressed the cruelty of taking milk
from cows, especially with the use of current automated milking
machines. Apparently, these machines would be more appropriately attached to lactating humans. PETA acknowledged
that the idea would be difficult to implement, and did not
offer any suggestions as to how Ben and Jerry’s could procure
thousands of gallons of breast milk. Even though humans have
been doing it for ten millennia, a top PETA official observed
that, “It’s pretty absurd for us to be drinking the milk of cows.”
The news is made even more scintillating by suspect rumors
that longtime PETA activist Pamela Anderson could serve as
a celebrity sponsor for the breast-milk campaign.

Stinson’s: Your BBQ HQ
Serving all your barbecue and pong needs
(603) 643-6086 | www.stinsonsvillagestore.com

October 3, 2008 The Dartmouth Review Page 

Indian Football Week Three
By Maxwell L. Copello

The Indians (0-2) opened at home on September 27
against seventh-ranked University of New Hampshire
(4-0). The Wildcats are a perennial challenger to the
Division I-AA (Football Championship Subdivision)
championship and have owned the Granite Bowl trophy
for eleven straight years. The Wildcats have defeated a
Division I-A (Football Bowl Subdivision) team in each
of the past two years: Northwestern (Big 10) in 2007 and
Army in 2008. This is not an excuse for the Indians’ sloppy
play and crushing defeat, but it is an attempt to put what
happened on Memorial Field into perspective.

The Wildcats amassed 525 yards of total offense with
a balanced passing and rushing attack. UNH gained 310
yards in the first half and had a commanding 28-0 lead.
The Indian defense stepped up in the second half, but
the offense could not get it going and had only 238 total
yards, 146 coming in the second half.

The Indians came out a little slow, and as Coach
Buddy Teevens described, “a little wide-eyed.” The class
of 1979, winners of the 1978 Ivy League Championship,
were there to root on the Indians but the team that Coach
Teevens led to the promised land did not bring luck to
the current squad of players.

The previous week, Dartmouth fell to Patriot League
power Colgate University in Hamilton, NY. The final
score was 34-20 but the Indians were in the game until

Mr. Copello is a senior at the College, Sports Editor of
The Dartmouth Review, and Nose Guard for the Indians.

the final moments, being tied at the beginning of the
fourth quarter.

Highlights of that game include junior quarterback
Alex Jenny throwing for a career high, 343 passing yards.
Jordan Scott (RB, Colgate), however, ran for 239 yards
and stole the show from Jenny. Senior Phil Galligan
also had a career day, making ten catches for 146 yards.
Senior Eric Paul also had a big day, catching five balls
for 87 yards. On defense, junior Peter Pidermann led
the squad with 12 tackles, while senior Maxwell Copello
forced and recovered a fumble while teaming up on a
sack with sophomore Buddy Benaderet, senior Rehan
Muttalib and junior Marlon Alebiosu.

There were many good things to take from the loss.
Coach Buddy Teevens was quoted as saying: “We showed
an ability to move the ball today.”

But with over 500 yards of offense, two turnovers
and a blocked field goal in the red zone, UNH crippled
the Indians. On a brighter note though, freshman Foley
Schmidt, a place kicker from Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota, was named Ivy League Rookie of the week. He
went 2-2 including a 39 yard attempt and hit both PAT
attempts.

Dartmouth opens up Ivy League play at Franklin
Field against the University of Pennsylvania (0-2) this
Saturday. The Quakers have slipped recently from their
position among the elite in the Ivy League but hope this
season will help them regain their crown. The Indians
defeated Penn last year in Hanover 21-13, and they hope
to continue their success against the Quakers and open
up Ivy play 1-0.


In other big news around the Ivy League, Harvard
and Yale, 1 and 2 in the pre-season polls, both lost in
their first week of Ivy play. Harvard lost to Brown and
Yale dropped their opener to Cornell.

Side note: Soccer
Men’s:

The seventeenth-ranked Dartmouth men’s soccer
team picked up their second loss of the season to Sacred
Heart in Fairfield, CT. The Indians had 14-4 shot advantage, but Sacred Heart’s late first half goal was enough to
trip up the Indians. On 9/28 the Indians returned home
to take on San Diego State University at Burnham field.
Senior Craig Henderson fired a free kick from 20 yards
to give the Indians their fifth victory of the season (5-2)
and hopefully enough to maintain their seventeenth-place
ranking.
Women’s:

The women’s soccer team dropped to 4-3, 0-1 Ivy
in Sunday’s match against Brown at Burnham field. The
conditions were not perfect for the match as torrential
downpours plagued the beginning of the second half
causing tough conditions for the remainder of the game.
The Bears had not defeated the Indians in their last 13
meetings. Dartmouth played again at Burnham field on
Wednesday night when they hosted Boston University
and will continue Ivy play Saturday at Princeton. n

Dartmouth’s Five New Trustees


By William D. Aubin


“Five distinguished Dartmouth alumni have been elected
to the Dartmouth Board of Trustees. These individuals bring a
breadth of skills and perspectives that will further strengthen
the Board’s capacity to steward and support Dartmouth’s
mission.” So began Ed Haldeman’s letter to the Dartmouth
community on September 6. An ordeal that began with the
Governance Committee’s decision to increase the amount of
appointed Trustees while keeping the amount of alumni-nominated Trustees constant in the summer of 2007 has resulted in
an apparent compromise: the addition of five Charter Trustees
instead of the originally intended eight. Along the way, the
Association of Alumni voted to sue the College to maintain
parity, while the College’s motion to dismiss the suit was
itself dismissed; then, President James Wright announced his
intention to resign in June 2009, and a new slate of Association of Alumni executive board candidates was elected by a
solid majority of alumni after that slate promised to dismiss
the suit. The heated discussion of the merits of parity versus
diversity on the Board of Trustees seems to be moot for the
time being. So who are the five new men and women that
Haldeman & Co. has decided are the best possible stewards
of the College’s mission?

Jeffrey Immelt ‘78, CEO of GE, Harvard M.B.A., and

Mr. Aubin is a sophomore at the College and a Managing
Editor of The Dartmouth Review.

board member of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, seems
to coincidentally top the list of every College press release on
the subject. Besides his experience as president of Phi Delta
Alpha, his role in the unveiling of the delightful-sounding
“Ecomagination” program at GE will no doubt interest the
sustainability-minded Dartmouth community; the company
had evidently been getting some flak for its role as the fourth
largest producer of corporate air pollution in the U.S. and for
various lawsuits concerning toxic dumping. Hey, NBC went
green for a whole week last Earth Day, so I guess they’re
making up for it.

Sherri C. Oberg ’82 was a member of Kappa Kappa
Gamma in her years at the College, and is involved with a
whole slew of Dartmouth boards and committees as an alumna.
She was president of Dartmouth’s Alumni Council, among
other things. It does seem a tad peculiar that her main qualification is being president, CEO, and director of Acusphere,
Inc; there’s nothing wrong with pharmaceutical executives,
of course, but this particular company’s stock lost more than
97% since 2003, and was recently warned by NASDAQ that
it was in danger of being delisted. One hopes that Oberg is
a bit better with colleges than pharmaceuticals.

John A. Rich ‘80 also comes to us from the wonderful
world of healthcare, and is the chair of the Department of
Health Management and Policy at Drexel University’s School
of Public Health. He has devoted his life to the study and
promotion of public health, with a focus on black men in
urban areas. His resume portrays a man who is eminently
qualified…but not necessarily for his new job on the Board.

His experience, of course, will make the Board much more
diverse; the College has never had a public health researcher
who focuses on urban issues on its Board before.

Steven Roth ’62 was “a driving force behind the creation
of the Roth Center for Jewish Life at Dartmouth,” according
to the College’s press release. He has served as a member
of the Board of Overseers of Tuck, a member of the Alumni
Council, and various fundraising committees. He is chairman
and CEO of the Vornado Realty Trust, a New York-based real
estate investment trust. His experience managing tens of billions of dollars worth of buildings will come in handy here
at the College, where everybody knows that more buildings
equals more prestige.

Diana Taylor ’77 is the managing director of Wolfensohn
& Company, L.L.C., and former New York State superintendent of banks. She has experience with a variety of high power
public and private organizations, including investment banks
and various regulatory positions in New York government.
Today she is probably best known as the special friend of
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. And of course, she
has served on some Dartmouth fundraising committees.

So we have five new Trustees, men and women that
have proved their caliber in the rough and tumble world of
managing, earning, losing, and dating tremendous amounts of
money, and one who knows an awful lot about public health.
We at The Review are excited that the sitting Trustees picked
the five most qualified alumni to manage an undergraduate
institution available, and are exceedingly glad that the alumni
as a whole weren’t given the chance to screw it up.
n

Page  The Dartmouth Review October 3, 2008

Tucker’s Refound Mission:
Mostafa A. Heddaya

Following Stuart Lord’s recent resignation, College
Chaplain Richard Crocker was promoted to be the dean of
the Tucker Foundation. Crocker, who officially succeeded
Lord as dean of the Tucker Foundation on September 15,
has spent the last five and a half years as College Chaplain.
At its founding in 1951, Tucker was charged with the mission of preserving and promoting the spiritual and moral
elements of campus life—at that time, this implicitly meant
the religious life of campus. Instead of remaining faithful to
its founding purpose, the foundation has moved increasingly away from its mission, instead embracing secular,
ideologically inclusive goals, like community service and
leftist activism. With the ascendance of Chaplain Crocker
to the deanship, the Tucker Foundation, according to the
Chaplain, will work to restore Tucker to its original mission.
In light of these changes in the Tucker Foundation, TDR sat
down with several figures involved with religious life at the
College to examine Dartmouth’s cultural and pedagogical
relationship with religion.

To understand why Tucker moved away from its original
mission, it’s important to first examine why college campuses
are secular today. In 2005, Student Body president Noah
Riner ‘06 famously provoked an avalanche of outrage when
he dared briefly to mention Jesus Christ in his Convocation
speech for the class of 2009. Riner spoke about character
and, in passing, mentioned the example of Jesus Christ:
Jesus is a good example of character, but He’s also much
more than that. He is the solution to flawed people like
corrupt Dartmouth alums, looters, and me.
It’s so easy to focus on the defects of others and
ignore my own. But I need saving as much as they
do.
Jesus’ message of redemption is simple. People are
imperfect, and there are consequences for our actions.

D opinion pieces to find proof of this tension. All too often, Jewett Tucker, the namesake of the Tucker Foundation,
professors abuse the privilege of the lectern by preaching an was the last ministerial president of Dartmouth. Changing
intellectual orthodoxy that categorically denies the value of academic attitudes regarding the blending of religion and
religion as anything more than the subject of sterile academic education caused a nationwide move to secularize higher
education. This movement resulted in the eventual creation
inquiry.

With religion so besieged, the Tucker Foundation, the of the Tucker Foundation. Crocker elaborates:
very organization created to foster religious life at Dartmouth,
Things change, the academic specialties changed and
seems uninterested in creating campus-wide dialogue and
the whole road to president changed.
debate on religious issues. Thus, reliThe Tucker Foundation was created
gious education at Dartmouth has been
by President Dickey and charged
relegated to an institution unwilling to
with continuing the moral and
shoulder its burden, placing a proper
spiritual work of Dartmouth Colunderstanding of religion beyond the
lege. It doesn’t specifically mention
scope of a Dartmouth education.
religion, but at that time, it was sort

President John Sloan Dickey
of understood that this would be
exorcised the religious element from
the religious center of the College
Parkhurst in 1951 by founding the Tucker
as well…I think the College has a
Foundation. Charged with “educat[ing]
historical connection with religious
Dartmouth students to think and act as
concerns that is important for the
ethical leaders and responsible citizens
College to continue to affirm. I
in the global community through service,
think
it’s important for us to affirm
character development, and spiritual
it broadly; it’s not a narrow concern,
exploration,” the Tucker Foundation’s
it’s not that there is a particular point
essential purpose was to foster religious
of view which is going to be upheld
life at Dartmouth.
or inculcated in students. But the

As both college chaplain and dean
religious concern has been such
of the Tucker Foundation, Richard
an
integral part of Dartmouth ColCrocker is the first person to hold both
—Dean Crocker—
lege
for so many years that it is both
positions concurrently in a number of
historically
and morally a component
years. According to Crocker, the posiof the granite in your brains.
tion was originally split with the hiring of Scott Brown as
However, things have changed. We are a much
Tucker dean in the mid-1990’s. Crocker explains, “[Brown]
more pluralistic institution, certainly, and our student
was not a clergy person, there was a sense that the college
body and culture is much more secular, and by our
administration wanted Tucker to become an organizer. He
culture I mean New Hampshire and the Northeast,
was a Dartmouth alum, and had worked at Harvard Businot the nation as a whole. Many students come here
ness School…and after three years concluded for a variety
from a pretty secular background. Our figures from
of reasons that this was not working for him.”
the freshman survey indicate that about a third of the
students have no religious affiliation. And we recognize
that there is a huge amount of the faculty here who
are not just secular, but secularist in their orientation.
So it’s an uneasy balance at times, but it is a balance
and I’d say that because there is one third without a
religious orientation, there are two thirds that do have
one, and they worry about their faith; we have a huge
variety of faiths that people feel strongly about. If the
College did not take that dimension of students’ lives
up, it would be greatly affected.



Under Freedman, the Tucker Foundation was created
with a new “religious” agenda in mind—activism. Though
initially, it was created to to be the moral and spiritual
center on campus, it was also a center devoted to serving
the community. Lately, this latter part of Tucker’s mission
has been emphasized at the expense of the former. Crocker
continues:

—The Tucker Foundation, founded in 1951, for the pursuit of a moral and spiritual life—

He gave His life for our sin so that we wouldn’t have
to bear the penalty of the law; so we could see love.
The problem is me; the solution is God’s love: Jesus
on the cross, for us.”


Needless to say, the campus was in an uproar for weeks
following Riner’s speech, proving that the academy’s hostility
to religion is alive and well. Far from being an isolated event,
Riner’s run-in with the secularist apparatus at Dartmouth
is a commonplace occurrence, and one would have to look
no further than awkward classroom exchanges and Daily

Mr. Heddaya is a sophomore at the College and an Associate Editor of The Dartmouth Review.


Not wanting to openly announce their desire to secularize Tucker, the Freedman administration tapped into
its ever-inventive lexicon of bureaucratic euphemisms: “A
word that I remember hearing was that they wanted Tucker
to be ‘entrepreneurial;’ I’m not sure what that means but
that’s the word I remember hearing,” Crocker said.

Dartmouth was founded “to encourage the laudable
and charitable design of spreading Christian knowledge
among the savages of our American wilderness.” The history
of religion at Dartmouth, thus, is in many ways the history
of Dartmouth herself. Crocker agrees, explaining that “The
history of Dartmouth is undeniable...Its foundation was
steeped in a kind of evangelical Christianity that formed
the very impulse for the creation of this college.” William

Tucker was from the beginning a place where students
who wanted to make a difference—I mean people
who were actually concerned—met to translate their
imagery into something they thought would improve
society. The service program naturally thrived, +and
has been sustained and is very strong and very meaningful in this community. Obviously that’s something
I’m very proud of.
At the same time, making a difference socially has
in the past meant engaging social issues. Tucker was
very prominent in aiding the anti-Apartheid movement
which caused some tension between Tucker’s positions
and its students, and many who gravitated to another
perspective. Tucker was identified with that, and I
think was proud of the fact that the College adopted
its position. Tucker has also been a center for people
who generally have opposed various wars; the Vietnam
War protests were certainly not coordinated by Tucker
but I think it’s fair to say that many Tucker participants,
including staff, were sympathetic to the protestors and
supported them in many ways. And I think it’s true
now to say that we continue to emphasize issues of
social justice—there is no single focus on which all of
us agree, but at least part of my job as chaplain, and
now as dean, is to raise concerns about moral issues
and some of those moral issues are also social and
political issues and there is a certain tension between
just being the “do good” organization which does good
things, and the organization which provokes.

October 3, 2008 The Dartmouth Review Page 

Morality and Religion at the College

Instead of organizing events that brought religion into
public conversation at Dartmouth, the Tucker Foundation
found itself in a bizarre position as a pseudo-activist body—a
position not far from where it is today. Crocker says:
In the last few years, Tucker has become much more
“centrist” than it was ten or twelve years ago. Students
who have had concerns about the morality and rightness
of the Iraq war gravitated toward Tucker and certainly
found a home and support in their concerns about that.
At the same time, Tucker has not been leading like
‘Ministers Against the Iraq War’ who issued statements
of caution or concern about that war publicly, pretty
moderate but still definite statements about it. I think
there’s been a lot of concern at Tucker about gender
equity and we have also helped to sponsor the “Class
Divide” project, in fact we originated it, supported it,
and held workshops. So the set of values that Tucker
espouses are centered on questions of social justice,
though we understand that people can take different
perspectives on that subject.

religion, its claims, its effects. This is an opportunity
that really needs to be pursued: to hang out and have
respectful, substantial, discussions about religion with
people who aren’t like you—religious conversations
if you are not religious, non-religious ones if you are;
engage Jewish and Muslim peers if you are Christian,
and so on.

I think that religion is a serious part of academic discourse, in some sense, because it’s such a huge part of
the world. And it’s funny to see it underrepresented
in an academic setting, in my opinion. I had a friend
who had trouble trying to write his thesis on T.S. Eliot,
because he felt like when he went and talked with his

I

n 1951, Tucker was charged with the mission of preserving and


But the very discussion
promoting the spiritual and moral elements of campus life—at
advocated by Professor Reinhart is jeopardized by the that time, this implicitly meant the religious life of campus.
overwhelming amount of
hostility religious students
advisor, they discouraged him from taking a religious
already feel when discussing their faith in the public sphere
route with it.
at Dartmouth.

This attitude is often underpinned by the adversarial
Beyond being a simple bureaucracy for handling the
position some professors take when a student broaches mat-
ters of faith in the classroom. In order for students to have various components of religious life and organizing service


In spite of Tucker’s drifting focus, the College
has observed increasing levels of student involvement in religious groups. Over the last ten years, the
number of students declaring no affiliation has risen
steadily according to Crocker, from 26% to 33%, while
the number of students involved in religious life on
campus has also grown. However, the former group is
substantially more vocal than the latter, and religious
practice is often vilified both inside and outside the
classroom. Crocker explains that this is both the result
of certain attitudes toward religion and the pedagogical process:
Students are in the position of the development and
establishment of their identity. We are in a culture
in which certain Christian assumptions have been
dominant.
To reject those, at least to criticize them, is a
part of becoming an educated person. It’s all a part
of education. But I think that the rejection of certain
evangelical Christianity at Dartmouth is popular.
I think that’s largely due to political reasons. Ever
since Ronald Reagan, we’ve had an identity of certain
political stances to religious stances and many people
want to consider them the same and want to reject
them both.


Given this hostility, it seems bizarre that the Tucker
Foundation has chosen to pander to those who are unwilling to broach a topic due to the perception of intellectual
taboo. Kevin Reinhart, professor of Religion, adds that:

—Rollins Chapel, where Chaplain Crocker gives an ecumenical service each week—
honest and meaningful religious dialogue outside the classroom, the stigmatization of religious belief in the classroom
must end. Andrew Dete, president of the Campus Ministry
Council at the Catholic Aquinas House, comments:

To put yourself out there as religious, and to identify
yourself in that way here, is frowned upon...
We talk so much about diversity, but it ends
art of my job as chaplain, and now as dean, is to raise up being this undifferentiated pluralism: i.e.
concerns about moral issues, and some of those we’re all kind of the same. I wish people
that belonged to different religious groups
moral issues are also social and political issues.
would express that point a little more…I
don’t think we should shy away from public
The most important variable [in religious life at Dartshows
of
religion.
mouth] is what a student brings to the College. For a

P

person who is churched (or mosqued, or synagogued)
college is a chance to reflect on their faith, deepen it,
make it less simple, less conventional, less suburban,
more complex, and self-aware. For those not churched,
college is a chance to consider one’s stance toward


The problem, however, is more than a simple and
detached cultural stance. Professors and college administrators actively reinforce the stigma surrounding religious
expression. Dete continues:

trips, Tucker seems to have forsaken one of the traditional
elements of fostering religion on campus: religious introspection.

Last spring, the Tucker Foundation hosted a debate
between Dinesh D’Souza and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong
on the topic of religion and morality. This event, which according to Dean Crocker was actually organized by D’Souza
himself, seems to be the correct approach to returning a
frank discussion of religion to the academy. That this event
more or less fell into the hands of the Tucker Foundation
when they were approached about hosting it is no less than
appalling—these types of events seem central to the mission
of the Tucker Foundation.

Although community service is certainly good, Tucker’s
day-to-day functions aren’t essential to the pedagogical
mission of the College. Large, campus-wide lectures and
debates will bring Tucker out of the shadows of irrelevant
fringe activism and make it a defining Dartmouth institution.



n

The Dartmouth Review

Vigilantly Crusading Against
Technology Since 1980
Meetings Every Monday
Email editor@dartreview.com for more information

Page  The Dartmouth Review October 3, 2008

The Dartmouth Review: A History
By Michael C. Russell
Editor’s note: For the benefit of the freshmen, below is a
brief history of The Dartmouth Review. Upon reading this, if
freshmen are interested in joining ranks with us, but missed
our freshman open house, stop by our office for our weekly
meeting: 6:30 p.m., Monday nights, 38 South Main Street
(behind Ledyard Bank).

on Washington and took up important positions in the Reagan
Administration. Of these, current Trustee Peter Robinson
’79, who was always a close friend of The Review’s, is known
most prominently for his role as a presidential speechwriter.
He wrote the immortal words Reagan spoke at Brandenburg
Gate: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
Home at Dartmouth, The Review had several seminal
moments.

R

press corps.
However sympathetic the press may have been to the
attacks on The Review, the viciousness that Reviewers
were being subjected to by their own college appalled
many across the country. This “Rally Against Hate” has
been mentioned as the primary reason that Harvard never
considered Freedman as a replacement for their outgoing
president, Derek Bok. Yet, as embarrassing as the moment

So, you’re reading this article and clearly ignoring all the
eviewers approached Cole after class to take a picture of him, but were again
best advice shared with you by your trip leaders, the DOC,
treated to a wild outburst during which Cole broke their camera.
and whatever other undergraduate who sits you down to
explain the ways of Dartmouth. Congratulations, you’ve
The most memorable incident happened during the Winter was for the College, The Review experienced several lean
managed not to listen to them. Regardless of what they tell
Carnival
of ’86. Several students had built a small village years as the staff jumped ship during the “Rally Against
you, The Dartmouth Review remains the only independent,
student-run paper that takes on the inane and ridiculous of shanties on the Green as a way to promote divestment Hate” witch-hunt and only recovered slowly, thanks to the
efforts of students, professors and administrators on this from South Africa (think a more dramatic—and meaningful new found stigma attached to the paper.
—version of the Darfur divestment project). As Carnival
The nineties proved largely uneventful besides the
campus.
approached,
the
shanties,
which
the
town
had
ordered
consistent
thorning of Freedman, who never passed up an
Now, it would be easy to be as dismissive of them as they
demolished,
provided
an
eyesore
for
students
and
returning
attempt
to
make a fool of himself by engaging The Review
are of us (except when the need for outrage is too great to
alumni,
so
several
writers
and
editors
associated
with
The
in
debates
that even when he won, he lost. Politically,
feign ignorance), but they do have a point when they say
Review
founded
the
“Committee
to
Beautify
the
Green.”
Dartmouth
changed little after the rally under Freedman.
that The Review has been setting the campus dialogue, for
The
Committee
went
out
one
night
and
with
sledgehammers
However,
it
experienced a deliberate and effective, albeit
better or worse, since its founding 27 years ago. There is
hardly a controversy or scandal The Review hasn’t been in attempted to bring down the surprisingly sturdy shanties, slow, change from an athletic, hard partying school to one that
still embraced that ideal, but now had many students outside
the middle of reporting on; and sometimes, we’re the ones which resulted in an outburst of campus “outrage.”
The
other,
far
more
ludicrous
anecdote
from
this
era
the social scene “translating Catallus” in the Tower Room,
being reported on.
as Freedman’s “lone scholar” vision required.
Perhaps because The Review was born out of
President Wright’s administration, which followed
controversy it became destined to remain near
Freedman’s,
began inauspiciously with the Student
the center of it. We need to look back to alumni
Life
Initiative,
an attempt to end the Greek System
governance to understand the history of The Review
“as
we
know
it.”
The Dartmouth Review joined the
and its origins. Before the wild electioneering that
uprising against the SLI, though the Inter-Fraternity
marred the past few Trustee and Association of
Council coordinated efforts, which included canceling
Alumni elections, there was Dr. John Steele ’54 who
all Winter Carnival parties, marching on the President’s
ran as a petition candidate for the Board of Trustees
lawn, and the first genuine campus protest movement
in 1980. Dr. Steele ran against the trustee candidate
at Dartmouth. After the administration pulled back
of the administration of then-President Kemeny. Dr.
on their plans to up-end campus social life, they
Steele ran on a platform opposing the various changes
moved toward a safer and more successful agenda that
that had occurred during Kemeny’s presidency, such
primarily involves improving campus facilities.
as: the expelling of the ROTC program from campus,
That said, the launch of the “Lone Pine Revolution”
the neglect of the athletic program, and the removal
began
one of the more venomous episodes of college
of numerous Dartmouth traditions, most notably the
politics
under President Wright’s tenure. Not happy
Indian. When Greg Fossedal, the Editor-in-Chief of
with
the
direction the College was taking, alumni
The Daily Dartmouth, wanted to write an editorial
spoke
out
and
nominated T.J. Rodgers ’70 to the Board
endorsing Dr. Steele he faced an insurrection in
of
Trustees
by
petition in 2004. SLI and President
the ranks of the editorial staff, which resulted in a
Wright’s
desire
to make the College a “University in
successful attempt to remove him from his post.
all
but
name”
were
among the reasons why alumni
Undeterred, Fossedal and three other editors
were dissatisfied by Wright’s administration.
of The Daily D—Gordon Haff, Ben Hart, and
—Warning:
TDR
may
cause
chafing.
Use
two-ply
only—
The Dartmouth Review supported Rodgers and
Keeney Jones—decided to found their own
then
later Peter Robinson ’79 and Todd Zywiki ’88
newspaper, The Dartmouth Review. With the
stems from The Review’s interaction with former professor
as
they
won
their petition trustee elections to the Board.
help of Professor Jeffrey Hart, a friend and advisor to all in of music Bill Cole. In the January 17, 1983 issue The Review
We
provided
a platform for the candidates to get their
The Review family, they raised the funds necessary to print marked Professor Cole and another female professor as two
message
to
alumni,
and we provided a fresh perspective on
their own paper from foundations and alumni around the of the worst professors at Dartmouth. With this review, the
the
debate
to
campus.
Their elections led to several efforts
country. The vocal support of Professor Hart’s longtime latter professor reformed her class, heeding the criticisms
by
the
College
to
undermine
the influence the alumni could
friend and conservative icon William F. Buckley, together published here, while Bill Cole began his vendetta against
with other luminaries of the conservative movement, this paper. Cole rapidly proved that he would not take this carry in electing the Board. This first manifested itself as a
brought financial stability and a national spotlight to our new criticism sitting down. The Review received a call from motion to change the Alumni Constitution and dilute the
endeavor. The Dartmouth Review provided the first platform Cole—that was subsequently recorded and published—in voting power of alumni in electing trustees to the Board.
on any campus in the country for conservative students to which he called the Reviewers racists for attacking him and The new Constitution also created a bizarre new council
speak out against the administration-endorsed change on used what one could call “un-scholarly” language to get his that would have over-represented various “minority groups”
campuses throughout the sixties and seventies.
point across. Following this, reviewers approached Cole within it.
After the new constitution was soundly defeated by
Within its first few years The Review experienced a after class to ask for a comment and to obtain a picture of
alumni,
the administration tried to dilute the voting power
phenomenal growth in its staff and readership, all the him, but were again treated to a wild outburst during which
of alumni once more by expanding the Board, and alumni,
while establishing a firm editorial line in favor of traditional Cole broke their camera.
Dartmouth. Admittedly, this had a great deal to do with
The eighties closed without a major controversy and with in the form of the Association of Alumni, took the College to
timing, for The Review emerged at a crossroads. The rise of The Dartmouth Review as strong as ever. This moment was court for that measure. By attempting to add eight appointed
trustees, the Board overthrew a 117-year tradition of parity
conservatism around the country coincided at Dartmouth short lived.
between Board-appointed and alumni-elected trustees. The
Association of Alumni, after a change in leadership last spring,
Freedman denounced The Dartmouth Review in front of the national press corps. voted to withdraw the lawsuit from court. Alumni fought
last spring’s Association of Alumni election more fiercely
with a belated rise in liberal campus activism. It was
Theodore Roosevelt’s quote has topped the masthead than any previously, as groups like Dartmouth Undying
as if Dartmouth had missed the 1968-memo for campus since the first issue, with one exception. After the issue and Dartmouth Parity sent out scathing press releases to
outrage and activism but was determined to find issues to be had been laid out and was ready to go to press in the fall alumni and ran advertising campaigns to argue their side. On
outraged and active over anyway. From building shanties to of 1990, a disgruntled staffer surreptitiously broke in and campus The Review battled for parity and even made it into
throwing tampons at the foot of the president of the College, replaced the Roosevelt quote with one from Hitler’s Mein a Board of Trustee letter endorsing Dartmouth Undying, in
everyone had a cause and an asinine way of fighting for it, Kampf. Upon realizing, to his horror, what had happened, which they called the candidates for parity “The Dartmouth
and The Review was there at every turn to confront every the Editor-in-Chief went around campus to collect all of the Review’s slate of candidates.”
Although Dartmouth Undying won, the election did see
self-righteous activist.
issues he could find and issued an apology to the campus
increased alumni involvement and brought The Dartmouth
The writers and editors of The Review’s first decade have for having published it.
gone on to become some of the country’s most dynamic
That was not enough to stem the wave of emotion against Review to the center of campus politics again, which is our
conservative writers, such as Dinesh D’Souza and Laura The Review, as its detractors finally had something solid to place when important events play themselves out on this
Ingraham. Less publicly, a legion of TDR writers descended latch onto and attack The Review for. This “rage” culminated campus. With the retirement of President Wright, and
in the “Rally Against Hate,” during which student leaders the search for a new president, The Dartmouth Review is

Mr. Russell is a senior at the College, and an Executive and then-President of the College James Freedman looking forward, once more, to being in the center of a very
n
denounced The Dartmouth Review in front of the national important campus debate.
Editor of The Dartmouth Review.

October 3, 2008 The Dartmouth Review Page 

Orientation: A Pea Green’s Thoughts
By Michael P. Randall

Ah, Orientation—days we’ll always remember, nights
we don’t, or wish we could forget. Parents long left behind,
open houses and “mandatory” assemblies galore, the miasma
and melodies of fraternity basements beckoning like Sirens,
and new neighbors to befriend and annoy and learn from.
Dartmouth’s orientation, like the College itself, presented
myriad possibilities.

Not all of them were desirable or worthwhile, far
from it—I learned more about alcohol from intoxicated
floormates than from the much-maligned “alcohol talk.”
And that’s as it should be. Indeed, our fellow Dartmouth
students themselves are much better teachers than a lecturer whose attempts to be “cool” are painfully transparent.
Dartmouth is about learning from our peers, appreciating
their unique experiences and perspectives, not because
we are told diversity is ipso facto desirable, but because
we value them as people. Regrettably, at times, this year’s
Orientation failed to recognize this, instead manufacturing
pluralism without truly understanding its value.

Overwhelming, perhaps, describes Orientation better
than any other word could: a whirlwind of handshakes and
decorum-laden introductions, navigating through countless
puddles of who-knows-what with people you just met, paging
confusedly through the ORC, and feverishly highlighting
every other event in your Orientation handbook with the
best of intentions. Thankfully, the plethora of resources
here helps mitigate the jarring transition.

The most successful aspects of Orientation, by far, were
those focused on academics. Advisor meetings ranged from
“pretty good” to “highly enlightening,” showcasing for our
class the remarkable concern the faculty has for us. The open
houses varied in quality, but the constant was the energetic,
helpful faculty—and, I suppose, the overzealous students
asking questions like, “So, if I took the A-level exam and
I passed, but I took an AP class but not the exam and we
used a different version of the book (you know, the one with
the picture of the green flasks on the cover) and I’m fluent
in German and I have three cats, one of whom is named
Einstein… do I get credit for Chem 5?” Upon hearing that
one, I grabbed the pamphlet and slinked away.

The first notable “mandatory” event was the “academic
advising and introduction to computing.” This event seemed
out of character for an institution that rightly deplores
waste, as it was a gargantuan waste of our time. I honestly
remember little of what was said; I was Facebook chatting
with the people around me, who were all equally exasperated
that they were losing valuable napping hours. That evening
was the Class of 2012 summer reading lecture, preceded
by President Wright’s dinner. The dinner was definitely an
Orientation high point; the food was superb and both Susan
and President Wright displayed infinite patience by shaking
hundreds of hands. I can’t speak so highly of the lecture,

state in the U.S. Senate. However, as American states are
not ethnically based but are instead arbitrary geographical
creations, I failed to follow his logic.

Because the “alcohol talk” the next evening is hardly
even worth mentioning—“Hey kids! Don’t drink to gratuitous
excess or you might die!”—I’ll just skip that and move right
along. Regardless, the ‘schmobs sauntering down Webster
a few hours later testified to its ineffectiveness. The next

nese Dance Troupe dazzled us with their grace and poise,
to name two particularly salient examples. My neighbors
and I were at least kept awake, which cannot be said of all
Orientation events. Often, however, the show descended
into clichés and it dragged on several minutes too long,
detracting from its intended impact. And, unfortunately,
much of the substance was vapid and excessively didactic.
For example, the Rockapellas, having completed their

—Freshmen respond to the survey question: Which gender are you?—

morning was matriculation, another Orientation high point,
and not just because of its official significance. President
Wright delivered an inspiring address to each matriculation
group, entreating the Class of 2012 to remember our roots
and devote our college educations to service, both laudable
goals. He commanded, and earned, our collective respect.
The “sex talk” later that night, however, threw respect out
the window.

The always gregarious Sexperts kicked off the evening
with a forgettable set of duets imploring us to avoid sheepskin condoms (condom joke: cue mindless laughter) before
introducing the night’s entertainment. Since Sue Johanson
was booked, the ’12s had to settle for the University of
Maryland’s Robin Sawyer. After explaining his credentials as
a specialist in sexual health on college campuses—a career
he chose because you need to pass those damn MCATs to
become a real gynecologist—our illustrious speaker began
fleshing out various definitions of “hooking up” in offensively
graphic detail. Apparently, “random oral sex” counts.

Inevitably, however, Sawyer wasn’t content with making hackneyed jokes
about genitalia as the
audience chuckled
robotically. He upped
the ante by tossing
some chum into the
crowd, lambasting
Sarah Palin with what
must have consumed
every ounce of his
meager creative powers: “Yeah, abstinence
education works – just
ask Bristol!” Predictably, the room full
of hopeful freshmen
ready for change
erupted in cheers. At
least my neighbors
heard me boo.

The next day
featured another
Orientation staple:
—Dartmouth Hall, a sustainability nightmare—
“Experiences.” Despite the bit of PC
however. Mostly a verbatim powerpoint reading which I can
razzle-dazzle
that
it
was,
Experiences
showcased unique
scarcely recall, the lecture featured little audience interaction and a lot of talking. My most striking memory was of Dartmouth students and their finely honed public speaking
the professor’s tenuous assertion that “the Constitution may skills. Though the student speakers and performers spent
have protections for minority-reserved seats in Congress,” hours preparing their well-delivered introspections, it was
which he defended by citing the equal representation of each unclear how representative their “experieneces” were of
the general Dartmouth student body.

Mr. Randall is a freshman at the College and a contributor
Still, the unflinchingly warm-hearted Sam Hayner
to The Dartmouth Review.
electrified the crowd with his offbeat antics, and the Chi-

introduction peppered with references to “social justice”
and “marginalized peoples,” serenaded us with “Bury My
[Bleeding] Heart at Wounded Knee,” a ballad condemning
“energy companies…ripping off what’s left of the reservations.” Apparently, these talented vocalists devote so much
intellectual energy to loathing petroleum interests that they
confused crusading Canadian crooner Buffy Sainte Marie
with someone relevant. All evening, I heard nothing about
religious “experiences” at the college, a distressing omission.
That an event purporting to showcase diversity eschewed
such a fundamental part of student development strikes this
’12 as an ominous harbinger.

A fellow ’12 summed Orientation up for me in two
words: “summer camp.” I don’t think he was far from the
mark. There were no assignments due, no parents to nag,
no responsibilities or obligations holding us accountable.
The word “mandatory” took on a new meaning, namely, “if
one feels like it.”

Our class took advantage of the opportunities for
academic enrichment as well as Dartmouth’s unique social
atmosphere, the two-pronged experience which makes this
community so special. As we leave behind Orientation week,
speckled with gems but mostly mired in hollow, programmed
events showcasing “diversity,” our class embarks on a journey
to discover our campus’ true diversity and the tremendous
value it holds. Our peers are our best instructors, from whose
mistakes we learn, from whose experiences we grow, from
whose advice we become better people. Let us value each
other, then, for who we are, not for what we represent. n