While the release of the highly anticipated steering committee recommendations occurred right on schedule on Monday, the national media attention some expected has largely failed to materialize.
After the Trustees first announced plans to overhaul social and residential life last winter, campus images of 800 students rallying at Psi Upsilon fraternity or marching to the lawn of College President James Wright were televised across the country and the globe, and multitudes of print reporters captured the commotion in Hanover for many newspapers.
But this time around the College has not become the center of a media circus and it has produced a more subdued reaction from students.
"I think the report wasn't as controversial as many people thought it might be [because] it strikes a balance of compromises on the different values on campus, and that's tempered response both in the media and in the Dartmouth community," committee member Kyle Roderick '99 said.
Whereas last year's announcement came as a complete shock to the Dartmouth community with its timing immediately preceding the traditional Winter Carnival weekend, the report distributed on Monday had been scheduled for release since Fall term.
"We might see more media attention in the spring when the Board makes a decision, but in the next two to three months of community discussions of proposals and ideas, it's likely to be more of an interest [here] than it might be to other news programs," Dean of the College and committee member James Larimore said.
ABC's World News Tonight broadcast a ten-minute segment on the controversy last year, and smaller stories were aired on CNN, MSNBC, National Public Radio and the British Broadcasting Corporation.
This year, televised coverage was limited to Headline News and New England Cable News, and newspaper reports were shorter, and less-prominently placed.
Larimore said his impression from quickly glancing at this week's related news stories is that there are some factual errors, but that the most basic part of the story is right -- the committee delivered the report and recommendations to the Board and the community.
"The impression I had was that some reporters had projected their own interpretation on the recommendations, and there are some references to residential colleges that are completely incorrect," Larimore said. "The committee did not recommend residential colleges as a model for Dartmouth."
The Associated Press put two stories on the news wire Jan. 10, the first of which appeared at on the wire 12:18 p.m., about five hours after the report was made public, and another one written in the evening.
Similar to last year's publicity that capitalized on the "Animal House" image, both AP articles and an article in The Boston Globe re-established the connection of Animal House to the College. The later AP article refers to Dartmouth in its lead as "the school whose extracurricular debauchery inspired the movie Animal House."
Roderick said outsiders' image of Dartmouth was discussed during a session when Dean of Admissions Karl Furstenberg spoke before the committee about documented interviews of students who were admitted to Dartmouth but matriculated elsewhere partly because of social stereotypes at the College.
The Globe article's only photo is a picture from the movie in which beer is dumped on a fraternity member. The accompanying headline and lead also reference "Animal House."
The 1978 fraternity comedy, created by Alpha Delta alum Chris Miller '63 is partly based on his experiences at AD while he was at College. Although the conception of unrestrained and barbarous revelry portrayed in the movie has separated from the reality of Greek life at the College, the stereotype seems to be unshakable.
"We did discuss how the view of the school affects incoming classes," Roderick said. "We had to take that into account that people think [of those stereotypes]."
The evening AP article focuses expressly on the College's alcohol culture and aims to reduce the influence of the Greek system, including stricter alcohol policies and the removal of taps from basements.
Two affiliated Dartmouth students are quoted as expressing their support for keeping their houses.
The USA Today ran a short piece entitled "Dartmouth's Greek life survives for now" that focused mainly on the impact of the report on the Greek system, saying that most houses will incur changes in order to meet new standards.
The article, however, erroneously states that rush would be pushed back "from a prospective member's freshman year to the Winter term of sophomore year" when in should have stated rushed will be moved from Fall term of one's sophomore year.
The article in The Boston Globe was the most comprehensive story written in response to the report to date. While it does outline some proposed changes to the Greek system, the article covers other aspects of the report, such as residential clusters, freshman housing, attracting more minority students and those "high ability" students who chose to attend elsewhere because of the College's social life.
The panty raid last term and ghetto party during the fall of 1998 are also mentioned in the article.
The first AP article is brief, and mostly contained snippets of the recommendations, especially those pertaining to proposed alterations of the Greek system. It quotes Larimore on the elimination of the traditional pledge period.
According to Larimore, the press' coverage of Dartmouth is part of a trend over the last 10 years when the public has had a greater interest in higher education issues such as in rising costs, financial aid, the quality of campus life and in recent years, the use and abuse of alcohol among college age students.
"Dartmouth as a prestigious, nationally renowned campus is always in the public eye, and the Initiative announcement last February caught attention of reporters around the country," Larimore said.
