At any time between the hours of 11 a.m. and 1 a.m. (except from 3-5 p.m.), I can walk into the Class of 1953 Commons and get a delicious sandwich featuring fresh mozzarella cheese. I can even add sumptuous extras such as feta spread to create a perfectly nuanced sandwich that is both delicious and fully financed by DBA. Even at 12:45 a.m. Even on Saturdays. It's awesome.
I didn't have this liberating temporal flexibility before Spring term. Eight weeks ago, my gourmet sandwich craftsmanship was at the mercy of Homeplate's despotic hours of operation, and I was more often than not forced to cheese my sandwiches with the lower quality, part-skim, sliced deli mozzarella that is but a harelipped bastardization of its fresh father.
My point is that considering the '53 Commons is still in the throes of an intensive renovation process, and considering the FoCo/Homeplate status quo resembled an upscale sleepaway camp from the 1970s, the Class of '53 Commons is fucking awesome. And it'll be infinitely better when it's actually functioning as intended next fall.
Due to what I see as dramatic improvements (including the divorce of fries, wings and pizza from grill lines) in Dartmouth's main dining hall, I have been shocked by the outrage and contempt that most of my fellow students have expressed for the renovated '53 Commons. Of course, a large element of this dissatisfaction concerns the lack of a regard for student input in the transition to a new dining meal plan (which, considering that Dartmouth forces students to buy into these monopolistic DDS dining plans, is pretty fucked up). However, a lot of the outrage seems to stem simply from the very nature of change.
Let's face it considering the fact that Dartmouth likes to think of itself as a top-tier undergraduate school in just about every respect, the old Thayer Dining Hall sucked. Yet, I've seen visiting alums come close to crying upon catching sight of the new '53 Commons, calling it "a nightmare" and wondering "what in God's name were they thinking?" Similarly, students' reactions to the '53 Commons is emblematic of an aspect of Dartmouth culture that is incredibly resistant to change. Call it adherence to traditions if it makes you feel more comfortable, but in my mind they are almost the same thing.
Take a look at Dartmouth's alma mater. Although Dartmouth finally let go of a long-standing tradition of sexism by being the last Ivy League school to go co-ed in 1972, it wasn't until 1988 that the alma mater was changed to include references to both sexes, including the song's title itself (which was originally "Men of Dartmouth"). The alma mater's original lyrics, in which the students of Dartmouth are referred to as either "men," "sons" or "brother[s]" in 11 different lines, reflects Dartmouth's strong tradition as a school for men and only men.
The fact that Dartmouth's alma mater has been (slightly) changed to reflect an understanding that women are as capable as men does not mean that tradition is dead in the song. Upon recital of the line "lest the old traditions fail," students never seem to fail to honor the tradition of stamping their feet with a granite-like rhythm. But what is the significance of this stomping tradition in relation to the line in the song? Having asked nearly everyone I know, the only thing I know with certainty is that it is a tradition that is somehow commenting on the notion of tradition at Dartmouth. Perhaps the stomping represents an awareness among liberal-minded students that some traditions, like single-sex education, should fail. Or maybe it is simply a means of emphasizing the importance of maintaining tradition at Dartmouth, whatever it may be. But more than anything, the stomping seems like a tradition that is maintained for the sake of tradition, without much thought as to why we do it.
I can only speak for myself CONDESCENSION ALERT: DON'T KEEP READING IF YOU DON'T WANT TO DEAL WITH A PREACHY SENIOR SHARING HIS SENTIMENTS (but then why would you be reading this issue of the Mirror in the first place?) but my four years at Dartmouth have certainly changed how I view myself and the world around me. (Good job, Dartmouth!) I think back to my freshman Fall, when I actually ran around the fire during Homecoming, not because I liked to run (I didn't), not because I liked fires (they're fucking scary) and not because I thought there was any fun to be had in such an activity (there wasn't), but because it was tradition. I fucking burned the hair off the left side of my left calf because of a stupid tradition that doesn't make any sense to me.
Today, I say fuck the fire. I haven't seen it since my freshman year and I have no regrets about its absence from my life. I've changed, and I'm so thankful that I have. Given all the change that Dartmouth has made in our lives for better or worse perhaps we owe it to the school to give the change back and make Dartmouth the school that we want it to be now, not what alumni want it to remain. Then, when we discover at our 20th year reunion that the newly renovated Courtyard Caf at the Hopkins Center no longer serves chicken tender clubs, we can all throw bricks through the windows of Parkhurst. Because fuck that shit chicken tender clubs are the best and that will never change.
