Dartblog

How curious:

For those of you drawn to forbidden things, here’s the column as it originally appeared:

Why would The D withdraw such a mild-mannered column?

Addendum: An alert reader offers an explanation:

Addendum: The D is now admitting that the intial column that it published was plagarized:

Correction: May 10, 2013

Editor’s Note: The original version of this article included material that was taken without attribution from Slate magazine. Several portions, including all references and quotes of public reaction to Collins’ coming out and wording of the argument, were copied in substantial form from “See If I Care,” published on May 3 and written by Josh Levin.

The Dartmouth has a strict policy against plagiarism and we apologize to Josh Levin and Slate magazine for this significant oversight.

Phil Hanlon is working in the background, even as Folt & Co. flounder about. He has announced the appointment of Bob Lasher ‘88 as Senior Vice President for Advancement — that’s fund-raising, PR and alumni relations for those of you who speak English the old-fashioned way. An alum, no less! That’s good news.

To the Dartmouth community:

With Commencement and Reunions fast approaching, I would like to introduce a new member of the senior leadership team that will work with me when I begin my term as president on June 10.

Effective July 1, Bob Lasher ‘88 will become Senior Vice President for Advancement, reporting to me. Bob brings to Dartmouth significant institutional strategy and development experience at organizations in fields ranging from education and the arts to science and research, most recently as the Deputy Museum Director of External Relations at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Bob’s track record, energetic and engaging style, and passion for Dartmouth’s mission make him a great choice to lead our alumni engagement and philanthropic efforts. With the support of our strong Advancement team, he will help ensure that we have the resources required to continue to deliver an outstanding, affordable education to our student body and attract and retain world-class faculty.

Please join me in congratulating Bob on his appointment.

Best wishes,

Phil Hanlon ‘77

Curiously, Phil signs his letter only as Phil Hanlon ‘77, no title, nada. I guess when you know who you are, you don’t have to trumpet it to everyone.

Addendum: From the College’s press release:

At the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA)… Lasher directed institutional strategy and development around the museum’s $610 million expansion campaign. In this leadership role, he managed the campaign strategy, including philanthropic support, trustee engagement, membership, marketing communications, visitor services and community engagement. Prior to SFMOMA, he served as the Director of Development and Strategy at the San Francisco Symphony. Previously, Lasher directed fundraising at leading scientific and research organizations, including the L.S.B. Leakey Foundation and the National Geographic Society, as well as the University of Virginia’s School of Architecture.

I figure that the quiet start of the next capital campaign is about a year away. Will the College shoot for $2.0 billion, after Jim Wright’s $1.3 billion campaign that ended in 2009?

The writers at The D are so excited about the choice of Geoffrey Canada, former CEO of the Harlem Children’s Zone, to be the College’s Commencement speaker that they have forgotten how to write the English language:

How many blocks are the kids using?

Makes him what?

Let me see if I have this straight:

On April 30, Dartblog ran a post noting that COS had not published its annual report for the last two years.

On May 8, The D ran a story noting that COS had not published its annual report for the last two years. The paper quoted Assistant Dean for Campus Life Kate Burke as to the fact that “the lack of recent annual reports is a result of the Undergraduate Judicial Affairs office being ‘in transition.’”

On the same day, I commented that Burke’s justification that UJA was “in transition” was a totally inadequate explanation for why two years of reports have not yet been released.

And today, The D senior staff editorializes that Burke’s explanation is not to its liking, too:

This response is simply unacceptable. No transition can excuse two years of inaction. Over the last few years, there has been significant turnover in many parts of the administration… Nonetheless, administrative positions have not simply been left empty; they have been replaced by interim hires. One could reasonably expect that procedural actions, such as the release of annual COS reports, would still occur on schedule. In spite of this, members of the Classes of 2014 and 2015 have not seen a single COS annual report issued about the time that they have been on campus. It seems nearly farcical that a time of transition is put forward as an excuse for irresponsibility on a major task.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. The whole thing would be funny if we didn’t all agree that the rot inside the Dartmouth administration is broad, deep, and spreading.

Most political activism that I see from others on a regular basis consists of angry social media. This has given me an appreciation for the discussions I had during my time at Dartmouth; that level of intellectual engagement is much harder to find out in the real world. Yet it is one thing to talk about political principles and it is another to act upon them. This is what makes the Free State Project so intriguing to me.

The Free State Project (FSP) is a political migration of sorts, founded in 2001 as a movement of libertarians to New Hampshire in order to secure liberty and freedom in the Granite State. They have been collecting signatures of those who will commit to move to New Hampshire in the next few years, and if they reach their goal, they will have a politically engaged bloc that comprises approximately 1% of New Hampshire’s population, and 3-5% of the state’s electorate. The FSP is bold and imaginative in a time of stagnant political debate in this country. It is progressive in nature, yet draws from a deep American tradition of migration. As long as Americans are still willing to uproot their lives and move across the country for their principles or ambitions, one cannot despair for our future.

The Free State Project was founded by Jason Sorens, a Yale graduate and Professor of Political Science at SUNY-Buffalo. The organization is currently led by its president Carla Gericke, a political refugee from South Africa. Jason and Carla agreed to answer a few of my questions. I am pleased to share their story with Dartblog’s readers.

Competing for first place in the gullibility sweepstakes along with the World Bank and UNC, Iowa State University has chosen Kim henchman David Spalding ‘76 as its next business school dean. No kidding. Just goes to show that the Ivy League name still means a lot in this world. Spalding’s first act has been to change the school’s mission statement to the following:

And after a while, you can work on points for style
Like the club tie and the firm handshake
A certain look in the eye, an easy smile
You have to be trusted by the people that you lie to
So that when they turn their backs on you
You’ll get the chance to put the knife in

That pretty much clears the decks at the College. Oh Charlotte, Chaaaaarlotte.

As investor Warren Buffett has repeatedly noted, “You never know who’s swimming naked until the tide goes out.” And so it goes with Dartmouth administrators when they venture beyond the Hanover Plain — soon for Carol Folt and Jim Kim; already for Silvia Spears — and now for Stuart Lord. This space raised its metaphorical eyebrows in March of last year when Lord hurriedly left the Presidency of Naropa University after only a year and a half on the job. Was he qualified to be a president? At the College he had bounced from job to job:

Stuart Lord left the College in 2009 to become President of Naropa University, after serving over a nine-year period variously as Dean of the Tucker Foundation, Associate Provost, and interim Vice-President for Institutional Diversity.

After being Naropa’s President (Academic staff:164; Undergraduates: 402; Postgraduates 617), Lord will now take up the executive director position of Boulder, Colorado’s Emergency Family Assistance Association, where he will help the 23 employees on the EEFA staff and numerous volunteers fulfill the organization’s mission:

EFAA helps those in our community where immediate needs for food, shelter and other basic necessities cannot be adequately met by other means…

Valid goals to be sure, but, ahem, a bit of a step down for a vigorous 54-year-old in the prime of his professional life.

In the case of Silvia Spears, she went from being the head of OPAL (then ten staffers, now fifteen) to Dartmouth’s Interim Dean of the College (total budget at the time: approximately $64 million) to the director of New England College’s newly launched Doctorate in Education program. She lasted nine months in that job. She is now the Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion at Emerson College, a post little different from her earlier role as the head of OPAL.

Academic headhunters will get the message at some point. Dartmouth is hardly a breeding ground for high-quality administrators — just the opposite. But then, anyone who has been in Hanover over the past fifteen years could confirm that point.

A Dartmouth graduate student, Ani Xu, complains that she was given a date rape drug, and when a friend protected her and took her to S&S for treatment, she was accused of underage alcohol consumption and obliged to participate in the Town of Hanover Diversion program at a cost of $500 — despite the fact that she was drugged rather than intoxicated. She complains that the Town and the College refused to test her for the drug, which she believes would have exonerated her:

In the last month, my health and well-being was compromised. That night, although still in speculation, I was given a rufilin drug. Luckily a friend was able to get me home without any further potential assault. However, when campus security and paramedics were called, my stomach was pumped and I wasn’t taken to the hospital. Instead, I was given a long lecture about drinking. The next day I was told my BAC was 0, and that I was never transported to the hospital. I was also told that there was no way of testing for traces of the rufilin drug in a person’s system, despite another individual who had also just asked.

Fast forward again to a week later - Campus security and Hanover police burst into my apartment. They charge me with underage drinking and possession of alcohol. The latter is absolutely not true in any capacity, multiple witnesses can attest to that. More importantly, I was drugged, not drunk. Furthermore, each different source gave a varying versions of what transpired, with the police saying I was taken to the hospital, the hospital claiming I was never there, and the campus security claiming they’d check into the drugging, etc. In any case, I was told that I was to either go to court or complete an alternative alcohol education program. Despite being utterly unconscious, the officer that filed a court case against me insisted that I responded when he told me about this alternative programming and that it was my fault I didn’t remember…

My issue is that my friend called the officers to come and help me, because she noticed I was drugged. And in response it is being turned completely around so that the blame is placed squarely on me - not to mention the suspect turn of events including: being told that drug testing is impossible, being told that my being unconscoius was my fault, being told that I had posession of alcohol when I didn’t, etc.

Ani is trying to raise money on Indiegogo to cover the cost of the Diversion program and some of her legal expenses.

Addendum: The D has a full report on the story.

President Obama will announce tomorrow that Dartmouth’s Dean of the College Charlotte Johnson will be appointed to head the federal government’s Department of Health and Human Services. The agency, with an annual budget of $982 billion, would be a significant promotion for Johnson from her present responsibilities at the College, but Obama believes that the jump is no more significant for her than the increased role that former President Jim Kim is facing at the World Bank or Carol Folt will soon confront at UNC.

In light of this additional high-profile appointment for a Dartmouth administrator, Chairman of the Board of Trustees Steve Mandel has proposed that the College be inspired by the State of Virginia’s motto: “Birthplace of Presidents.” Henceforth, the traditional “Vox Clamantis in Deserto” will be replaced by “Birthplace of Bureaucrats.”

Addendum: Dartblog has been unable to confirm a persistent campus rumor that President Obama will soon appoint Kate Burke, Assistant Dean of the College for Campus Life, to command the United States detention facility in Guantánamo Bay.

Addendum: While on the topic of Kate Burke, The D has picked up my post noting that COS has not published its annual report for 2011 and 2012. The explanation?

The lack of recent annual reports is a result of the Undergraduate Judicial Affairs office being “in transition,” Kate Burke, assistant dean for campus life, said in an email. She added that full updated reports will be issued before the end of the summer.

So that’s why? Now I get it. Of course, no specific detail of what “in transition” means was asked for by The D’s reporter, and none was offered, except that Burke noted that Nathan Miller will leave his post as director of Undergraduate Judicial Affairs in another seven weeks. Once again, the administration comes through for me: lots of people doing little or no work. Maybe they have all been tied up in important meetings for the past two years?

May 8, 1945.

These folks are very professional in their public relations efforts. They have taken the time to tell their story; the tears flow at the faculty meeting:

A D story on April 25 quoted Association of Alumni and former Alumni Council President John “J.B.” Daukas ‘84 as stating the following about Carol Folt’s decision to shut down the College two weeks ago:

Alumni Association president John Daukas ‘84 said that though he supports discussion of racism, sexism and inclusivity, the Dimensions show protest was “outrageous.” He was appalled that College administrators “coddled” the protesters by canceling classes for a day.

“We are 100 percent behind respect for community and respect for people expressing their views,” Daukas said. “But the Dimensions protestors displayed childish, self-absorbed behavior — like they were throwing a tantrum.”

He said many alumni contacted him to express disappointment in administrators’ management of the issue.

“Interfering with Dimensions weekend and hurting Dartmouth’s ability to attract minority students and other qualified candidates is inexcusable,” he said. “Administration totally mishandled this and knuckled under to this kind of extortion, and it shows a lack of leadership.”

The strength of these views is particularly notable because the Association of Alumni and the Alumni Council can always be counted on to line up foursquare behind the administration on any issue. Its votes are virtually always unanimous, and it does not debate much of anything at all — a few years back, after I attended several sessions and asked pointed questions, the AC put forth a new policy limiting public questions to Councillors.

President Daukas has always hewed to the party line, no more so than when he opined during an Alumni Trustee election that Trustee candidate Stephen Smith ‘88 (right) brought no diversity to the Board because Smith, like then-sitting Trustee Todd Zywicki ‘88 (left) was just another law professor teaching in the State of Virginia. Smith was then on the faculty at UVA (he is now at Notre Dame), and Zywicki was and is at George Mason. Of course, the argument is ridiculous on its face, not to mention the obvious fact that the Board is packed with white men holding MBA’s and possessing not the slightest professional background in education; they are on the Board due to their large donations.

The AC’s Trustee Nominating Committee also distinguished itself two years ago after the Class of 1961 organized a 50th reunion year effort to nominate former Dean of the Faculty Mike Gazzaniga ‘61 to the Board. The Nominating Committee, which routinely boasts about the exhaustiveness of its searches, did not take the time to even make a phone call to Gazzaniga, before nominating more big donors as Trustees.

The AC will meet in Hanover on May 16-18. Will the Council have something to say about the College’s recent shutdown? And, by the by, will it react in any way to the proposal in the Strategic Plan to change the College’s name to Dartmouth University? About the only thing that is sure is that the assembled boosters at the meeting will congratulate Carol Folt on her appointment as UNC’s Chancellor, and thank her for her service to Dartmouth. The vote on that statment will be unanimous and the applause will be sustained.

An article by The D’s editor-in-chief Jenny Che last Monday elicited a full and frank exchange of views on the paper’s comment policy, but both Che and the commenters seemed unaware of recent history in this area. Up until about January 2012, The D had a two-step policy on comments: if you used the Dartmouth Name Directory (DND) or one of three other filters that obliged you to identify yourself with a verifiable password, then your comment would be posted instantly and without moderation on The D’s website. If you chose to post anonymously, then your thoughts would be reviewed — and delayed — before publication.

This two-step policy was ended without so much as an announcement, and The D subsequently adopted an informal policy of putting up few, if any, comments on articles much before lunchtime — by which time about half of the day’s readers have already visited the site. I currently put up the occasional comment, but I am obliged to do so anonymously, after a string of my comments were blocked when I posted them under my own name.

The D’s previous policy was a good one: it contained an incentive for people who had the frankness to post under their own name, and yet it allowed others who did not want comments attributed to them for whatever reason to have a forum for their views.

This space has never allowed comments, a decision that was made originally by Dartblog’s founder, Joe Malchow ‘08, when the blog was created in 2004. Joe’s and my shared understanding is that the signal-to-noise ratio of comments is very low, and, given the strength and contentiousness of our opinions, we were likely to attracted organized efforts by administration loyalists that would overwhelm any intelligent conversation among commenters. The Dartmouth Review’s once-active blog was the object of such unwanted attention five or six years ago.

That said, our e-mail addresses are freely available on this site, and we often print comments from readers as addenda when they pass the test of logic and data accuracy.

The D should simply re-activate the comment modes that it had on its site until about 16 months ago. If you comment under your name you get to be first in line; if you don’t have that desire, you have to wait. Seems fair to me.

Addendum: The D should inform the world that the search function on its website is out of order. When you do a search, you will get results, but they will not include information from D stories published in the last few weeks. Editor-in-Chief Jenny Che kindly informed me that the best way to search past issues of The D is via Google. Enter the following:

However, even Google has difficulty in finding stories from at least April and May.

Three weeks ago this space ran a post entitled Will No One Defend Romance? I am now led to believe that someone will:

From: Womens Forum
Date: Sun, May 5, 2013 at 9:20 PM
Subject: Women’s Forum and Men’s Forum: What is Love?
To: CAMPUS-EVENTS

Hello Dartmouth!

This Monday, Women’s Forum and Men’s Forum will be hosting a joint discussion on LOVE in all of its wonderful manifestations: romantic, filial, and platonic. Come share your thoughts on love between people of different genders, races, religions, ages… you name it!

Delicious Lou’s desserts, cake, and ice cream will be served.

Time & Date: This Monday, May 6th @ 6pm
Location: Casque and Gauntlet (the house next to Dirt Cowboy)

The RealTalkers are not the only people on campus to target tour groups. Yesterday several broad-shouldered young men in flashy clothing surreptitiously walked close to this reporter’s tour, and without so much as an introduction, they began quietly singing/chanting “Dartmouth, Dartmouth, Dartmouth, We Love Dartmouth, Dartmouth.” The tour guide attempted to ignore them, but despite her best efforts, she could not help but pause her delivery and grin widely. A second, more experienced tour guide informed us that the gentlemen in question were coming from “Derby.”

After the tour, I asked the second guide what Derby is. He said it was a “big campus event.” “Put on by the College?” I inquired. “Yes,” he responded. “Is it a fraternity event?” I slyly asked. “A sorority,” he answered. I then suggested that, being on bicycle, my son and I might ride over to see it. He stated, “You can’t. It’s in a backyard.” In fact, we could, and did. No more attractive collection of flamboyant hats and gossamer sundresses is to be found in the land. Congratulations ΚΔΕ.

Addendum: As Bruce Wood recently commented, a Dartmouth tour is notable for its lacunae. Groups do not visit a dorm room (“there are so many different types of dorm rooms that none are representative”), the inside of the Class of 1953 Commons dining hall, or Webster Avenue — which we passed without so much as a nod. The words “fraternity” and “sorority” are never intoned, though a brief comment about “Greek Life” is offered in passing. Guides mention the admirable openness of parties at the College, without noting that 70% of upperclassmen are in houses.

Addendum: A student writes in with a comment.

Dear Joe,

Thanks as always for your in-depth reporting. As a former tour guide (I started having more and more trouble advocating for a College I knew was leaching me for every penny and then wasting so much of my tuition), I will defend the reasoning to not show dorms on tours. How could I show someone a two-room triple with a private half bathroom in Russel Sage as a “typical” Dartmouth room, when they could end up with a tiny one-room double in the decrepit Choates, or a palatial two-room double in the new McLaughlin cluster? There really is no room that is representative of even just the Freshmen housing experience. Perhaps, though, the College should consider offering a separate housing tour to give prospective students a better idea of the range of housing available on campus. This just is not feasible in the scope of a general admissions tour.

Please avoid using my name, for fear of reprisal. Thanks!

Somehow, every other school that we have visited managed to show a dorm room or two. Guides usually had us visit a mid-range dorm, and they added a caveat that there are many nicer and less nice dorms on campus. Dartmouth could do the same for the time being — though let’s hope that Phil Hanlon has plans to demolish the Choates and the River Cluster, and then replace the Choates with nicer accommodations. As I have written in the past, if the College managed the on-campus student population with any skill, it would improve residential life for everyone.

Addendum: A newly minted alum adds a comment and a question:

Dear Joe,

It was interesting to read about the new tours—when I gave tours and trained guides last year, we stood under the Rocky overhang and talked about the Greek System/Webster Ave. It boiled down to three points: you don’t rush until Sophomore year, events are open to campus, and something like “there’s a lot more to Greek life besides drinking” that emphasized community service. Afterwards parents asked the usual questions.

Were the new arts or life sciences buildings part of the tour?

During our tour, our charming guide pointed to the Class of 1978 Life Sciences Center from in front of Dartmouth Hall, a distance of several hundred yards, and we were told as we crossed the Green that the Black Visual Arts Center (which I now call the BVAC) is situated behind the Hood Museum.

As regards tours describing fraternity life from below the porte-cochère at Rocky, proof positive of that fact can be found in a much beloved Jack O’Lantern video, Drinking Time, from a few years back.

The space particularly appreciates the Jacko staff’s choice of the theme music from the Clint Eastwood movie Kelly’s Heroes to accompany the clip.