Pathetic

But some students see the drive in a less enthusiastic light. "The percentage of people, around 10 percent, who voted in the first election is pathetic," said Fleischer. "It's just honest that people don't give a damn about student government."

The administration says it is trying to change that perception with the new cluster dormitory groups, which it hopes will bring students closer together and make them more interested in the actions of their leaders. "Right now, dorms are just places to sleep, like hotels. We hope that [clustering] will give students the facilities to develop programs that will bring more of them together," said the Committee on Undergraduate Life that first developed the housing proposal.

In addition, the clusters--which are intended to promote intra-cluster parties--alone with unified extracurricular activities--may take some of the social pressure off fraternities, which currently dominate Dartmouth social life.

"We recommended reducing the impact and number of frats in the [housing] report," Mather said. That section of the proposal, she added, initially came under heavy attack from students concerned that the college was trying to wipe out fraternities.

"They're just trying to help us out," said George Faux, vice president of the Phi Delta Alpha fraternity. Fraternities were concerned by the tone of the report when it was first released, he explained, but now have come to accept it.

Surprisingly, the most far-reaching change on Dartmouth's horizon commands the least student opposition. In 1972 Dartmouth instituted the Dartmouth Plan for Year-Round Operations, which gave students complete flexibility in scheduling their four years at college. The Plan broke the academic year down into four quarters, students were required to attend school for only 11 of the 16 quarters that would comprise their undergraduate tenure. With the exception of one required summer quarter students could build their vacations around anything from job opportunities to travel abroad or special studies.

"The program is so flexible that less than five percent of all students share the same class-vacation 'pattern', "said Graham.

Confusion

Indeed, it is too flexible. "Many people have felt there's a degree of unsettledness in the system," he added. Students, he said, were unable to form steady friendships that were not disrupted by constant, unsynchronized breaks.

The current reform proposals, already approved by the faculty's executive committee and awaiting a full faculty vote which most expect to be affirmative, will curtail some of the flexibility. Students will be required to remain on campus for their full freshman and senior years, so experimentation in innovative scheduling will be limited to sophomore and junior years. The summer session requirement will remain.

Here, while students know about the issue, "there's not much debate," said George Mannes, the managing editor of the school newspaper. "Everyone basically agrees [with the proposals] as long as they don't take away too much flexibility."

All of this apathy, then, begs the question: where is the center of Dartmouth life? Is it in fraternities that still provide most of the social life in the tiny New Hampshire town? Is it, as Barnett maintains, on the playing fields and in the libraries? Is it in the handful of students that campaign for changes in the structure of campus life? Or is Dartmouth merely in hibernation after the flareups of the sixties?

When asked to describe the Dartmouth student on the basis of her 13 years in the Council of Student Organizations, the oldest worker interviewed at Dartmouth probably answered the question best when she said. "Dartmouth students are just very busy."