The moment we have all been waiting for is here. College President Phil Hanlon will address the Dartmouth community today at 8:30 a.m., presenting the results of the Moving Dartmouth Forward process and laying out his plan for how the College will address binge drinking, sexual assault and inclusivity. According to a campus-wide email sent Wednesday night from Bill Helman, the chair of the Board of Trustees, President Hanlon’s plan was unanimously endorsed by the Board. One can reasonably expect them to have a significant impact on Greek life. As such, the timing of the announcement is either remarkably tone-deaf or a deliberate attempt to depress the turnout of the students who may be most affected.
Nearly every Greek organization traditionally sets aside Wednesday nights at 10 p.m. for their meetings, an opportunity for the entire membership to assemble in each other’s company. While meetings can be a time to address administrative necessities, their primary function is often social. Many meetings — though not all — facilitate drinking. Furthermore, given the relative ease of avoiding 10As, Wednesday night becomes a prime time to party. Whether alcohol-fueled or not, Wednesdays tend to be late nights, especially for Greek students.
Obviously, if students believe that attending President Hanlon’s address is important, they can and should prioritize it over a night out on Webster Avenue. It really is not so hard to take a night off — and in fact some of us could use just that. I do not suggest that President Hanlon has created some kind of impenetrable barrier to prohibit Greek students from attending his address, nor should we ignore the fact the plan will be available after the address on the Office of the President’s website for all students to read. Those who wish to engage with administrators on this issue are free to do so.
There is no denying, however, that the timing of the address will discourage student attendance, particularly those who will likely have a direct stake in the proposed changes. At 8:30 in the morning, there is little chance of anyone spontaneously deciding to attend. I imagine that few fraternity brothers are likely to be lounging over breakfast and decide, “You know what? Let’s go to that address.”
It is not necessarily Hanlon’s responsibility to bend to the whim of every student, especially students who cannot be bothered to prioritize being informed and engaged with the community over another game of pong — but President Hanlon chose to address the community. He easily could have chosen to merely post his plan online, or perhaps appended a set of remarks to a campus-wide email. That, however, would not have been enough. We all understand that this is a significant moment — that it could be an inflection point for Dartmouth’s history. We want the College President, the officer in charge of the school’s long-term vision, to stand up and explain his plan of action.
That is why the timing of the address matters. If the timing were simply a coincidence, then administrators are surprisingly tone-deaf about the day-to-day lives of students. True, not every student is affiliated with Greek life, but there are enough affiliated students that someone in Parkhurst ought to know one of the simplest and most universal elements of the system. If no one who saw the plans for this address knows about Wednesday night meetings, then they are out of touch with the majority of campus.
If, on the other hand, the address was purposefully scheduled to depress Greek turnout, then it is a disappointing show of bad faith. Perhaps this would be understandable. We only need to go back a few years in Dartmouth’s history to College President Emeritus James Wright’s Student Life Initiative to remember that changes to student life that are poorly announced risk facing student resistance. But if President Hanlon wants students to respond reasonably to his plan then he should treat us as though we are capable of responding reasonably.
I sincerely hope the Moving Dartmouth Forward plan will be productive and helpful, and I acknowledge that social life needs reform of some kind. Such reform might be unpopular, but scheduling an address at a time when the members of the community most likely to disagree with you are less likely to attend is not a real solution.
