he Student Life Initiative, or the SLI, is difficult to describe briefly. On its face, it is a strategic plan that is intended to improve the non-classroom experience of Dartmouth students. But the SLI is complex and often changes dramatically. Its goals range from the very broad (improving campus gender relations), to the very specific (providing a Halal-Kosher dining hall), from the long term (building new social spaces), to the already accomplished (removing tap systems from Greek houses), and from the harmless (the new dance club “Poison Ivy”), to the controversial (changes to the Greek system).

The origins of the SLI are enigmatic, but it seems to have come directly from President James Wright and the Board of Trustees. On February 9, ’99, when Wright introduced the SLI, he did so abruptly, informing the Boston Globe of its details before breaking the news to students and faculty. His comments to the press suggested his desire for major structural changes to the Greek system at Dartmouth. At this stage, the SLI introduced the following five principles to guide our community: “there should be greater choice and continuity in residential living and improved residential space; there should be additional and improved social spaces controlled by students; the system should be substantially coeducational and provide opportunities for greater interaction among all Dartmouth students; the number of students living off campus should be reduced; the abuse and unsafe use of alcohol should be eliminated.”

Students, unaffiliated and Greek alike, reacted angrily, rejecting the SLI as oppressive. President Wright was vilified. Greek leaders cancelled events associated with Dartmouth’s annual Winter Carnival, and an army of students marched on the Carnival’s opening ceremonies, wearing Greek letters or shirts reading “Unaffiliated… but I support the Greek System.” Some alumni donors pledged to stop giving if the SLI threatened the Greek system.

Wright and the Trustees may have intended the SLI to be more aggressive and moderated their goals in response to this reaction, or they may have overstated their case at the outset. Either way, by the end of Spring ’99, the specific proposals of the SLI were gentler than they had seemed in Wright’s original statement. The Trustees pledged to devote “significant resources” to implementing these principles. In mid-February, the College formed a task force of students, faculty, and administrators that would eventually present recommendations to the Trustees. In April ’99, the Committee on the Student Life Initiative was established, co-chaired by Trustees Susan Dentzer ’77 and Peter M. Fahey ’68. Composed of undergraduate and graduate students, administrators, faculty and alumni, this committee was directed to receive and review feedback on the 5 principles; encourage further discussion amongst the Dartmouth community; consult experts; and based on that information, propose new approaches to both residential and social life based upon the principles.

This phase of the SLI was quieter. The vast majority of students seemed to work under the assumption that any threat the SLI had posed to campus life had ended. Requests from the task force for comments and recommendations went unanswered in most cases. Highly publicized panel discussions with the task force were only sparsely attended.

During this phase, many short-term SLI measures, including the administration’s decision to subsidize student tickets for athletic events and Hopkins Center performances, the construction of outdoor basketball courts, and the creation of the Big Green Bean CafÉ, were implemented. These measures reinforced the sense among students that the administration had backed off from its initial plans. Students generally approved of the measures without enthusiastically supporting them.

In January 2000, the SLI task force released a report that disabused students of any notions that the SLI would just disappear. Although the report did not recommend the immediate end of the Greek system, it did support significant changes, including designing stricter “minimum standards,” shifting rush from sophomore fall to sophomore winter, eliminating pledge periods, and restricting residence in Greek houses to seniors and officers.

Besides addressing the Greek system, the task force recommended major changes to residential life. The committee was excited about the idea of “common houses” in every residential cluster to provide cluster-centered social spaces. The task force recommended first year housing on a trial basis, and the construction of new residential and social spaces. The report also included a detailed plan to fight alcohol abuse.

The Trustees authorized the implementation of most of these recommendations on April’, 2000. In the past sixteen months, the administration has instituted new programs and begun planning construction projects. Again, this progress has been neither controversial nor particularly exciting. Collis has expanded its hours, the College has become more aggressive in programming weekend events, and there has been an increased focus on coordinated programming among unrelated social organizations.

During this period of moderate change, the focus of community concern over the SLI has shifted back to the future of the Greek system. Unlike the initial reaction to the SLI among students, though, the most recent response has pitted students against each other. For the first time, a significant portion of the student body has supported an overhaul of the Greek system. Students had criticized the Greek system before, but previous conflicts among students were brief and contained within small segments of the community.

The shift in the public treatment of the Greeks began as a result of an incident involving Psi Upsilon fraternity in February 2001. A woman walking past the fraternity reported hearing several brothers shouting “ Wah hoo wah! Scalp ‘em!” (a cheer from when Dartmouth’s mascot was still the Indian). When the woman confronted the brothers, they allegedly altered their chant to “Scalp those bitches” and shouted insults at her. The incident focused attention on the role of fraternities and sororities in perpetuating racism and sexism on campus.

This new development was the last straw for a group of upperclasspeople that were fed up with the administration’s failure to improve campus life. During a visit by the Board of Trustees, the group rallied outside of Parkhurst Hall to advocate a list of demands, including a better Women’s Resource Center, a Korean language program, and a commitment to an “anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-homophobic” College.

Most striking was the activists’ new attitude toward the SLI. The protestors treated the SLI as an opportunity for positive change that the administration was wasting. For many students, particularly younger students with no memory of the SLI’s unpopular origins, this approach became a new way to engage the administration. In addition, unaffiliated students who were uncomfortable with the Greek system suddenly acquired vocal support.

This support intensified in the spring, when the administration permanently derecognized Zeta Psi fraternity for creating a house newsletter, the “Zetemouth,” which joked about a brother’s “date rape techniques” and used the names and pictures of several Dartmouth women in a demeaning manner. Although there was conflict over the severity of Zeta Psi’s punishment, there was also widespread disapproval of its behavior, as well as a consensus that this kind of activity was not unusual in Greek houses.

The reaction of many affiliated students was similar to their initial reaction to the SLI. Greeks complained they were being “generalized” and that their opponents were using the Zeta Psi and Psi U
psilon incidents as an excuse to hurt the system as a whole. The difference was that the Greeks suddenly included liberals in the student community among their enemies. The faculty’s reiteration of their long-held opposition to single-sex, exclusionary social organizations following the incidents meant that they, too, were part of the anti-Greek conspiracy. The administration, with its apparently harsher enforcement policies and its recent decision to initiate “walk-throughs” of Greek houses by Safety and Security officers, affirmed their own role in the plot.

With this conflict still brewing, it has become necessary to ask: how much of this vast left-wing conspiracy is mere paranoia? Based on the history of the SLI, the answer is nearly all of it. Yes, the administration and the faculty would like to be rid of the embarrassment that is the Greek system at Dartmouth. But since the initial statements by Wright, no action has been taken that suggests that the administration intends to eliminate the Greek system. Instead, the administration has insisted that the Greeks regulate themselves more strictly, hold themselves to higher standards, and avoid constantly dragging the reputation of the College through the mud.

The greatest threat to the existence of the Greek system is the Greek system itself. Every time a fraternity or sorority makes an ugly spectacle of itself, the tendency of the system to close ranks and lash out at the community with paranoid accusations only reinforces anti-Greek attitudes among students and faculty members.

The solution to this cycle of self-destruction is for the Greek system to start acting like part of the Dartmouth community, not separately. Instead of fighting a public relations battle, they should open themselves to honest, progressive change. Most importantly, they should accept the SLI as part of the future of the College and make real contributions to the direction of social life at Dartmouth for the next decade. Until that happens, it will be the Greek system, not the administration, that is really conspiring against our Dartmouth community. w

For more information on the specific policies incorporated in SLI, visit http://www.dartmouth.edu/sli.

Dartmouth’s fraternity and sorority system is an anachronistic, elitist, and corrupt institution that provides a convenient haven for the College’s worst elements and allows the perpetuation of distorted gender, race, and class interactions.

But, to pervert the words of Daniel Webster, “there are those who love it.”

The men and women affiliated with the Greek system at Dartmouth are not better, worse, or even different from “the rest of the community”. It is difficult to make any generalization about them as a group, other than to say that they have chosen to support a system with less flexibility and a less reliable moral compass than the fabled granite of New Hampshire.

I think that Dartmouth’s faculty is right to call for the College to deny the Greeks recognition on account of their arbitrary single-sex nature and arbitrary exclusivity. We could argue about how arbitrary these elements are, but it is clear that the Greek system makes no effort to comply with the non-discrimination policies of the College. Athletic teams, a cappella groups, and (with all due respect to W.R.I.G.H.T.) restrooms all have legitimate justification for their exclusivity. Greeks only exclude in order to maintain the social composition of their organizations, and that is contrary to the stated goals of the College.

However, I have heard that the Greek system could survive without the support and recognition of the College, and while I question the unsettling paranoia with which my pro-Greek friends make their argument, I respect their right to choose where and with whom they live on this campus. Even though my ideal Dartmouth would not have a fraternity and sorority system, for the administration to dismantle it would tear this community apart. The administration has every right to derecognize discriminatory organizations, but it would be less justified in eradicating them completely.

Instead, most of the responsibility for addressing the system’s problems belongs to the Greeks themselves. Two years ago, in response to the introduction of the Student Life Initiative, the CFSC, the Inter-Fraternity Council, and the Panhellenic Council all made statements to the effect that the system had flaws, needed reform, but should continue to exist because of its service to the community and its commitment to brotherhood and sisterhood.

The reform I am talking about is not a restructuring of the Greeks’ representation along the lines of Sigma Nu’s proposed “Dartmouth Greek Council.” It is closer to the less publicized parts of Sigma Nu’s proposal, which called for increased internal and alumni oversight of its practices and a renewed commitment to leadership and service. The Greek system is in desperate need of external input and oversight. The greatest weakness of an exclusive and secretive organization is its natural tendency to let blind loyalty cloud its judgment. I think one part of the solution would take the form of regular, institutionalized opportunities for community criticism of individual organizations’ behavior toward the public. A second part would be a Greek commitment to confidential audits of their private practices by independent, private sources. In both cases, the community would have to trust the members of the organizations to consider the results of this external oversight, but the affiliated members of this community deserve the same trust as everyone else.

As for students who are unaffiliated and dissatisfied, it is past time for us to stop waiting for the administration to act on our behalf. We must start insisting on action directly from the Greeks, starting with a firm stand against gender discrimination and the objectification of members of our community in both fraternities and sororities. Start confronting ignorant attitudes with passionate arguments instead of accusations. Communicate unacceptable incidents to other students, boycott misbehaving organizations, and dissuade underclassmen from joining fraternities and sororities that are resistant to progressive reform.

We are not violating the sacred sovereignty of Greek organizations if we simply insist that they stop dragging the reputation of our College$mdash;$mdash;the reputation that we will carry with us for the rest of our lives—through the mud.

The administration must do two important things to support this process. First, it must stop creating the appearance of a conspiracy to utterly destroy the fraternity system. Unless it has the courage to simply state its goals clearly and call for the end of the system, the administration has no right to harass Greek organizations with the underhanded tactics they have allegedly been employing since the advent of the SLI. Secondly, the administration must provide a viable alternative to the Greek system immediately.

By “viable”, I mean an alternative that might tolerate the unsupervised availability of alcohol and one that does not include karaoke. Dartmouth students, at present, cannot both refuse to support the Greek system and stay in the social mainstream, and this makes it difficult to take a principled stand against the system’s abuses.

Finally, we must all step back and realize certain truths about this college. First, we are a community. The tendency of students to put the term in quotation marks, as if it were some kind of idealistic dream, is saddening. Secondly, the plight of the fraternities does not mean that Dartmouth College is going to Hell in a handbasket.

The “old traditions” we shout about have nothing to do with our social lives, and everything to do with education, pride, and common experiences. We can survive without the fraternities, and, if necessary, we can survive the fraternities. There is nothing wrong with this college that students, faculty, and administrators cannot fix by doing the right thing and encouraging others to do the same.