<p>Actually, SFGate is the public/free site for the Chronicle … but you can insert Ben Bradlee quote from All the President’s Men at this point if you like: “Go sell it to the San Francisco Chronicle. They’ll print anything.”</p>
<p>I thought this might be of interest to those of you who are interested in how Dartmouth is currently addressing drinking on campus.</p>
<p>[Dartmouth</a> College tackles binge drinking - Metro - The Boston Globe](<a href=“Dartmouth College tackles binge drinking culture - The Boston Globe”>Dartmouth College tackles binge drinking culture - The Boston Globe)</p>
<p>DartDad and ATS:</p>
<p>I see: When a fraternity boy urinates on a woman’s head, that means it’s time to denigrate the San Francisco Chronicle. Unfortunately, that approach is emblematic of what usually happens when one points out a Dartmouth flaw.</p>
<p>Dumbo11: Your apologetics are what we’ve been hearing for decades: “A few bad apples,” “Society at large has problems,” “No college is perfect,” “Yale (or some other college) just had a bad incident”, etc. What this shunting aside of legitimate criticisms aims to do is delay yet again confronting Dartmouth’s systemic problems, the ones that have been clearly identified and pointed to by College presidents and College faculty now for decades. The difference is that some isolated incident at Yale or elsewhere is just that: Isolated. At Dartmouth, the problems are structural. They are repeated over and over through time. </p>
<p>I can all but guarantee that this coming academic year, if not by the end of Summer term, there will be several more ugly incidents on campus involving drunkenness, misogyny, racism and/or sexual assault, and the epicenter of the vast majority will be located in the Greek system. In fact, I would put big money on it. That is an institutional problem, and it needs to be fixed.</p>
<p>WhatsNext: That article shows how deep-seated and during Dartmouth’s problems really are. That’s exactly the point I’ve been trying to make here.</p>
<p>Well DA, we are going to have to agree to disagree. I know a very different Dartmouth than you.</p>
<p>In any case, the point here is made for CC readers:</p>
<p>If you think going to a college where an activity of many of the boys is forming packs in which they regularly get so drunk together that they vomit, Dartmouth might be for you. If you think going to a college where academics are primordial and your fellow students fully respect intellectual pursuits and varying voices aren’t suppressed by a campus culture of conformity, you might want to look elsewhere.</p>
<p>From the Boston Globe article above: “[T]here is palpable anger about Dartmouth’s public image.” And it’s not just the image, but the concrete undergraduate experience that thousands of us have been through.</p>
1 Like
<p>Perhaps it is time to let DartmouthAlum have the last word. Go ahead and respond to this. The rest of us who know a different Dartmouth should stop bothering to respond. </p>
<p>My reading of the Boston Globe article is that Dartmouth is no different than lots of colleges because underage binge drinking is pervasive. It was way back in the late '70s when I attended MIT and I have yet to hear of a college where it isn’t a problem. My understanding of the Boston Globe article is that Dartmouth is trying to be at the forefront of the solution. Blaming it on the fraternities is a simplistic reaction to a deeper problem. My D who is an incoming freshman at Dartmouth is eager to learn more about the Green Team. She has already had the “pleasure” of witnessing underage binge drinking in our neighborhood with alcohol supplied by parents, at high school parties, and at parties at her boyfriend’s college. Sidestepping vomit was necessary at all of these. This is not a problem that is unique to Dartmouth and to denigrate a school for something that is endemic in our culture is misguided and misleading.</p>
<p>
It is true heavy drinking is an issue at all schools … however that does not mean the level of the issue is the same at all schools either. Research Mini has highlighted indicates a higher level of binge drinking correlates with smaller, rural, whiter, richer, big Greek presence colleges. I do not know if the issue is bigger at Dartmouth or not … but as lover of highly selective colleges in college towns (schools with lots of the correlated attributes) if any of my kids are seriously considering Dartmouth (along with lots of other schools) I’d hope they look into it.</p>
<p>@DA</p>
<p>Being that I live close to SF, I find it hard to understand that SFgate could not go across the bay bridge and dig up a similar story at Cal. Again as stated by many this type of behavior is not just isolated to Dartmouth but pervasive throughout male greek culture and DA, it is a problem, but I also have been witness to non-greeks that have urinated off college balconies but fortunately did not hit someone.</p>
<p>And there you have it, an alum, @DA, who had a negative experience at the college 20 years ago and hasn’t been there recently, who now trolls a website designed for parents and students, encourages all minorities, jews, and serious students to stay away from Dartmouth because everything he or she reads on the internet supports the “fact” that bad things only happen at Dartmouth. Is this a secret yearning to keep Datrmouth all male and all white? Stay tuned! I will certainly confront my student about his story that he couldn’t be happier as a minority and non-drinking science major. I should have sent him to the hundreds of other colleges where bad stuff never happens. He is at CalTech right now and says the parties there make Dartmouth parties look like kindergarten. Who needs cheap beer when you can make anything you want in a lab? Has anybody looked away from their computer screens lately to see what is happening outside in the real world? Yes, Go ahead and have the last word @DA and slam the rest of us parents and students who disagree with your Internet view of Dartmouth. Reporting live from cyberspace, now back to reality.</p>
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<p>From the posts I’ve read, I’d say that DA’s point isn’t so much that bad things happen only at Dartmouth but that, because of the frats and drinking, pretty much every single thing about Dartmouth is bad -an opinion that I vigorously disagree with. Heck, there were even complaints that its alumni hadn’t won enough Nobel prizes.</p>
<p>Not to mention slamming D because an <em>interim</em> president served a short term. :rolleyes: As if that were not kind of the <em>definition</em> of “interim.”</p>
<p>This site is amusing.</p>
<p>I’m sure prospective students who might land at CC have no desire to hear the perspective of an institution’s alumni.</p>
<p>I guess one needs to get back to campus regularly to understand that the federal government’s Department of Education this summer has initiated an investigation into the way the College handles sexual assault.</p>
<p>As for the Nobel Prize issue, it is a concise way to illustrate that on the academic/intellectual front Dartmouth punches below its weight.</p>
<p>And, maybe everyone would be happier if Dartmouth faculty had the last word, in the form of a letter they wrote during the winter of 2012:</p>
<p>“Greek organizations operate and in some cases are constituted directly in opposition to the values the College holds dear.”</p>
<p>Dartmouth Alum-</p>
<p>Dartmouth Alum
I have been scrolling through this post and am appalled by what I see. Being able to attend an Ivy is such a privilege, and here you go trashing it over the internet. I have dreams of going to Dartmouth, and to see a former student from the 80s (30 years ago, by the way) coming back with such distain upsets me. Do you know how many students there are busting their butts to be able to attend such an amazing college? Have some respect and a little bit of gratitude that you were able to go where so many could not.</p>
<p>Darn. College couldn’t even make the Princeton Review list of the top 20 party schools. [Top</a> 20 party schools in the United States- The Family Room - MSN Living](<a href=“http://living.msn.com/family-parenting/the-family-room-blog-post?post=8ec201a5-68db-43a2-93e9-8868ab697e1e]Top”>http://living.msn.com/family-parenting/the-family-room-blog-post?post=8ec201a5-68db-43a2-93e9-8868ab697e1e) Phil, you gotta do something about this.</p>
<p>ThinkingTooHard:</p>
<p>Exactly: Thnk about it: A student works hard in high school, only to show up on the campus of a nominally Ivy League institution and find that social life revolves around packs of boys getting drunk and vomiting in grubby basements; and then imagine that student checking in on their alma mater decades later and finding that all the dysfunction not only is still there, but possibly has become worse than ever. I’m not sure where the “gratitude” you mention should come into play in this scenario.</p>
<p>Oh, now it is “nominally” Ivy League.</p>
<p>Really, get a grip. It’s Penn you are thinking of. :D</p>
<p>Impressive negative attitude DartmouthAlum, I finally agree with you, any student who hopes to be bitter 30 years out of college like you should certainly pass on Dartmouth. Attention prospective Dartmouth students, please apply elsewhere because this could happen to you. You might end up trolling this website seeking revenge as part of your daily life. Also, please note that no other college or university has binge drinking issues or students that might have racial, religious or sexual orientation preferences that differ from yours. You’ve been warned! Stay away! Do not apply! Go elsewhere! Thanks, DartmouthAlum, your message is clear! We get it! Feel better now? :)</p>