An unscientific and generally uniformed look back at the stories that captivated us.
- Windows are for jumping! Defenestrations abound.
It all started on an innocent evening in April. An innocent freshman at an innocent Chi Gam party, with an innocent penchant for the ridiculous, decided to innocently jump out of a window after innocently getting blacked out. As the police tried to revive him, a fellow partygoer innocently urinated out of a window in their direction. Soon, the buzzword was "defenestration," and copycat freshmen were dropping like Thads -- one even from a third floor dorm room in the Choates. After classes and classes of the same old mundane academic blah, there was finally a class with an identity: the Class of 2008 would forever be known for getting seriously hammered and throwing themselves out of windows. Not since the Class of 1897 became famous for its contests of seeing who could self-administer the most ether-based inhalants before attempting to catch live ammunition in their teeth fired from across the Green had a Dartmouth class been so courageous to adopt such a bold character.
- The FurstenBowl?
In the first issue of The Dartmouth of 2005, the story broke that Karl Furstenberg was not popular in high school. A letter surfaced that he had penned to Swarthmore College President Alfred Bloom after the Pennsylvania school cut its football team, in which he called Dartmouth's football team "a sacrifice to the academic quality and diversity of entering first-year classes." Alumni freaked out, as did some student athletes. There was a panel discussion about a month later featuring Furstenberg apologizing to a football player. The apology didn't do much for the player, however, as he, at the sacrifice of Dartmouth's academic integrity, had no idea what "mea culpa" meant. Furstenberg also apologized to President Wright for being so weak and was later seen mowing the lawn of the President's House on Webster Avenue.
- Theta Delt, Tri Delt freed from charges of criminal hazing.
After a serious investigation stemming from some behavior deemed inappropriate during their pledge terms, the two houses walked. Theta Delt, relieved to be trouble-free, immediately screwed up again and was facing serious charges when a grand jury indicted the fraternity on five felony counts of serving alcohol to minors, each count carrying a maximum fine of $100,000. By the end of the year, TDX escaped the charges with a plea bargain, pleading guilty to three misdemeanor charges instead, and therefore reverted their slogan to "Everybody else plays checkers, we play chess" from the temporarily adopted (and future possibility) "Everybody else plays checkers, we aren't recognized by the College. F***."
- Vanessa Carlton performs for 381 at Spaulding Auditorium in the Hop, Programming Board revels in monster success!
After years of suffering from what many see as a lack of relevance and purpose, as well as being out of touch with the student body's desires, PB showed what six figures of Student Activity Fees can do with the biggest and best concert ever! Nobody ever questioned them again.
- Fraud at Panda House.
In 2005, Chinese restaurant and Hanover staple Panda House was charged with credit card fraud and forced to close. This is really more of an "honorable mention" caliber story, especially in relation to the Dartmouth campus. However, I want to bring it up for one important reason: it shows that restaurants in Hanover are not untouchable. This should bring hope to anybody who hates EBAs as much as I do. I'm sick of their enjoying undeserved prominence in the Upper Valley just because they're the only delivery place around that has options and is open late. There's a problem with the options, though: none of them are any good. EBAs, I hate you. Your food is overpriced. Your service is slightly below mediocre at best. And your large pizza is not large at all.
The shakeup at Panda House means only one thing for you, EBAs -- you're going down, too. My initial plan was to get a job at EBAs and do the same thing that Panda House got in trouble for. But then, I decided that I didn't really know how to do that in a way that I personally wouldn't get in trouble. So I decided to write this instead and hope that one of you, the readers, is adept enough at credit card fraud to get away with it personally, but bad enough to shut EBAs down for good. Once the Great Satan has left, a new restaurant will take its place, with either better food or lower prices, and I will be its prophet. Hopefully, I will also stop persuading delivery men wandering around frat houses at 2:30 a.m. that I, in fact, made that order and that looking for somebody else is a lost cause.
- Pete Roller!
Wherever he goes, well, the news goes! What's next for this campus man?!? What's next for us?!? A new year brings promises of more time for us to be around such a supercool guy. Roller Rewlz!
- Brian Martin has a big stupid mouth, Hildreth crushes young ducklings in the palm of her hand to express anger.
The story went something like this: Student Assembly wanted to surprise us with 34 brand new blitz terminals. The problem with the secret plan? Brian Martin's big fat stupid mouth. SA President Julia Hildreth heard that Martin had alerted The D to the coming blitz terminals and was livid. She forced Martin out of the VP of Alumni Affairs office he had taken just a week previously. Words were exchanged, feces was tossed and somebody's head got put in a gas-powered wood chipper. But, just like the year 2005, the story passed and the blitz terminals lived on to live glorious lives of spreading pink eye and giving some freshman dude free reign to look up library books on one of the two terminals at the Hop while I'm standing in line. Thanks, Julia Hildreth, for ruining my day.
- Hard Guy move #84: The Good Samaritan Self-Call.
In May, the Social Events Management Procedures committee (SEMP) devised a new alcohol policy and revamped the Good Samaritan policy, which the College approved. The changes in the alcohol policy were a step in the right direction, allowing for more autonomy and discretion in the Greek houses. They still cheat anyway.
- Alumni rage against the machine: write-ins continue success in trustee elections.
In 2005, Todd Zywicki '88 and Peter Robinson '79 both obtained the required 500 petition signatures by the Feb. 23 filing deadline, and were elected to the Board of Trustees as write-in candidates, finally showing once and for all what it is that Dartmouth alumni want to stand for: ambiguous and/or misplaced anger, football, Greek life and various forms of conservative d-baggery.
- Unbeknownst to many theologians until 2005, Noah Riner is Jesus.
We're sorry for doubting.
