Dartblog

As part of her plan to ramp up enforcement of the underage drinking laws and reduce sexual assault, Dean of the College Charlotte Johnson has proposed that Safety & Security officers conduct unannounced walk-throughs of Greek houses and dormitories. As we have noted, she instituted this feature into fraternity life at Colgate, despite a great deal of criticism from students there.

Her proposal has elicited an almost universally negative reaction from Dartmouth students, and also from the alumni advisors of Greek houses. The advisors met with members of the Dean’s office last month. Here are several excerpts from the minutes of their meeting:

Herb: Sig Ep doesn’t support random walk-throughs and it seems that many chapters feel the same.

Geoff: The relationship with safety and security has been built over many years on trust and we do not want to break that relationship down now.
Mike: This will be a disaster and push us back to the dark ages and houses will end up being de-recognized and then the parties will go on there and the college won’t be able to step in…

Geoff: Finding out new policies on the front page of “The D” is not the way that this group should hear about policy changes. We used to give input on policy changes…

Mike: We have tried a lot of these reforms before but this is all the wrong timing (announcing reforms in the summer) and I think it is nuts.
Richard: Why can’t all of this wait until the Fall?
Mike: I can’t see any common sense in any of this - it is taking us back 15 years…

Dimitri: I would like us to take a vote on whether we all agree with this or not. Here is my suggestion:

“The advisors are wary of unannounced walk-throughs that would send a message of distrust to the students and potentially develop an adversarial relationship with Safety and Security and the Dean of the College. Advisors also want to be informed of any policy changes ahead of time so that they may provide input.”

12 male advisors voted for this statement
4 female advisors did not vote

The meeting’s minutes note the breakdown of voting between men and women. However, they did not observe that all four of the abstaining voters are employees of the College: Lynn Gaudet ‘81 (Director of Alumni Leadership); Kaitlyn Sheehan (Finance and Administration); Ann Malenka ‘80 (Director of Administration & Special Projects); and Kristi Clemens (Assistant Dean of Undergraduate Students).