Dartblog

Dean of the College Charlotte Johnson, who was known for her bullying ways at Colgate, kept her velvet gloves on during Tuesday nights’ Dean’s Forum — she said that she “appreciated” almost every student question — but she did not budge on any position. When students asked her about the new rule that withdraws funding for Green Team monitors at unregistered parties, she left no doubt as to who was in charge.

A little background. The Green Team is supposed to have been a student-based initiative. When it was announced a year and a half ago, The D described it as follows:

The program — which is entirely student led and run — is its own entity and is separate from the administration, Student Assembly and the Social Events and Management Procedure, according to Akrami [Cyrus Akrami ‘11, co-chair of the Student Assembly Alcohol Crime and Reduction Committee]. A pilot version of the program will be funded by the Office of the President and future funding will be based upon an evaluation of the program’s success, he said.

And President Kim later lauded the fact that the Green Team is run by undergraduates:

Kim pointed to the Green Team initiative as an example of a successful student-led initiative to reduce the harmful effects associated with drinking.

“Preliminary data suggested that [the Green Team] is having a very positive impact,” he said. “We are looking forward to sharing that innovation here at Dartmouth with other schools.”

However, on Tuesday when a student noted this point, and asked how the College could unilaterally withdraw funding for the monitoring of unregistered parties, Dean Johnson responded that the Green Team was a “partnership” between students and the administration. Now Johnson, who was a lawyer in Detroit not too long ago, understands the honest meaning of that term; it doesn’t include one partner having the final say on matters and the other partner having no voice. However that is how Dean Johnson interpreted it. Her use of language mirrors Jim Kim when he talked about non-existent “data,” or Carol Folt when she discusses, well, anything.

Johnson followed on with the assertion that the College wanted to avoid an “over-reliance” on the Green Team — which she referred to as “one piece of the compliance package.” She said that she did not want unregistered parties to take place with only a single type of external monitoring. Of course, given that unregistered parties are bound to take place, perhaps Johnson believes that no monitoring at all is a better solution than just the presence of the Green Team.

What a sad, empty performance from an administrator to whom the College is paying a salary well north of $200,000/year.

Addendum: Alesy Iturrey ‘14 and Charlotte Cipparone ‘12 each had a thoughtful column on these issues in The D recently.