The Conservative Union at Dartmouth collected more than 500 student signatures on a petition against the proposal to institute all-freshman dormitories.
In its report last spring, the Committee on the First-Year Experience recommended the College convert three dormitory clusters into "Senior Faculty Fellow Clusters" consisting of freshmen, undergraduate advisors and one faculty member per cluster.
"We welcome proposals but at the same time, there has to be discussion afterwards, and we're against this one," said CUaD member Andrew Bender '96, who organized the petition.
Jim Brennan '96, CUaD's acting co-president, explained the group's motivation to sponsor the petition. "Most of us are against the institution of all-freshman dorms and this was a good way to gauge student opinion and find out what people thought," he said.
The group collected signatures last week and will try to make a presentation to the College's Board of Trustees while they are in Hanover this weekend. "I think we'd like to show them that the students are against this. This is not something that has student support," Bender said.
"To get 500 people to not be apathetic about something, to vehemently disagree, shows a strong base of support," Bender said.
In its First Year Report, the committee recommended the Choates and the River dormitory clusters be given "priority consideration" to become two of the freshmen clusters.
"I don't think they're going to have it in the guidebook that what are commonly considered to be the least attractive housing options, are the ones freshmen are going to be stuck into," Bender said.
CUaD opposes the proposal because it feels all-freshman dorms will segregate the community. In addition, it feels there are distinct benefits to freshmen and upperclassmen living together.
"The administration could use the institution of all-freshman dorms to propagandize freshmen on the vogue of the week," said William Thorne '96, CUaD's acting co-president.
The group was enthusiastic about the petition's broad-base of support. "As it turns out, it really wasn't strictly a conservative issue," Bender said.
