Dartblog

So what is going on here? Some background:

Erstwhile Dean of the College Tom Crady explicitly sought to lighten the enforcement of the alcohol laws by Safety & Security so that the College’s efforts would be in line with the policies at most other institutions. He had written his Ph.D. dissertation on alcohol enforcement at undergraduate institutions. Crady told me that, curiously, the biggest barrier to change was the staff members in his own office. This latter point might explain the stop-and-go implementation of any new SEMP/AMP policy and the delays in the reform of the student adjudication board. Crady said that he had also planned to work with the H.Po on enforcement.

President Kim has commented that he would seek to relax the environment around alcohol on campus so that safety would be the primary goal of Dartmouth’s Safety and Security force, and that students’ educational futures would not be jeopardized by over-zealous enforcement of the laws.

The new Dean of the College, Sylvia Spears, has been circumspect on the subject. The only clue to her thoughts might be that alcohol enforcement at the University of Rhode Island — the institution from which she has obtained all of her degrees — seems to mirror Hanover in hostility.

Dartblog posted extensively on the subject in the fall. Read the eight posts in order: the first here, the second here, the third here, the fourth here, the fifth here, the sixth here the seventh here and the eighth here. Did we stir up a hornet’s nest by negatively comparing H.Po. to municipal forces like that of Middlebury, Vermont?

I doubt it. My sense is that all of the above factors pushed a rigid officer of the law in a direction that he did not want to go, and now he is pushing back. With what goal? To declare his independence? To strike back at students that he perceives as spoiled? To encourage to Town to buy out his contract?

Who knows? We are in for several eventful months.

Oh, and have a great Winter Carnival.