Every once in a while, a bureaucracy comes up with a policy that, while sounding good in the short run, looks nonsensical over the long term. Last Tuesday, The Dartmouth ran a story highlighting the classic bureaucratic response to the failure of a policy.
The article was on power usage at Dartmouth, and how it has been decreasing everywhere except for the dormitories. Woody Eckles of the Office of Residential Life, was quoted as saying that the big reason that the dormitories were using more power was that people are buying the halogen floor lamps which use either 300 or 500 watts, five to six times more than normal lightbulbs.
A few years ago, Dartmouth College made a conscious effort to cut down on its energy costs. The new steam tunnel is part of that long-range goal, as is the "Vox Clamantis in the Dark" stickers that you see on lightswitches around campus.
As part of this effort, the ORL replaced all of the normal lightbulbs in dorm rooms with fluorescent bulbs which were supposed to provide the same amount of light at a much lower energy cost.
Every student has lived in the dorms at one point or another, and every student can tell you that, in addition to the annoying little humming noise that the florescent bulbs make, the rooms are not adequately lighted.
I lived in Morton last year, and when we turned off our halogen lights at night, the room was barely lighted enough to walk through it, much less read by it. I have friends who never, ever turn their overhead light on -- it is too much trouble. They come in their rooms and turn on their desk lamp or their floor lamps, or, as is common, they leave them on all the time.
Apparently, these lights degrade with time, and do not get replaced often enough. Students, unwilling to take the time and effort to replace a lightbulb that works, however badly, go to West Lebanon and shell out $40 for a lamp that will keep their rooms well-lighted for four years. And the energy costs just go up and up.
This is not the students' fault. This is an academic institution, and, as such, well-lighted rooms should be a priority. However, because of a short-sighted decision made a few years back, only those students who have the $40 and access to transportation get adequate light, and energy costs have risen to boot.
I'm not saying that Dartmouth should switch back to standard lighting, just that ORL should look into ways that the average room will not be so dim, without raising energy costs. Because whatever Dartmouth students are not, they are not dim enough not to find lights for their rooms, and they do not get the electricity bill at the end of the term.
