HANOVER, N.H.--As the Winter Carnival ice sculptures begin to melt and the most hallowed Dartmouth tradition draws to a close, the remote New Hampshire campus remains impassioned and chaotic.

A series of skirmishes this winter among rival student and faculty factions at the Ivy League college has drawn national media attention, climaxing in yesterday's arrest of 18 demonstrators on the Dartmouth Green see story, page one).

What began as a small but vocal movement protesting Dartmouth's $61 million in South Africa-related investments has embroiled an increasing number of students and faculty in a heated debate over the administrative structure of the college and the broader issues of bigotry and intolerance on campus.

The first visible signs of strife appeared in November. The Dartmouth Community for Divestment (DCD), a heterogeneous group of '60s-style activists, built four shanties in the center of the picturesque Dartmouth Green to symbolize the plight of Black South Africans and to protest the college's South African-related investments.

The DCD, an non-hierarchical organization that decides all of its policy by consensus, agreed that years of forums, speeches, and referendums were not enough. "We had gone through the proper channels, but nobody had opened their ears," says Rajiv Menon, an outspoken member of the DCD.

The Dartmouth administration's initial response to the construction of the shanties was swift and seemingly stern. After the Town of Hanover declared the unsightly structures a violation of town ordinances, Dartmouth Dean Edward Shanahan asked the protesters on November 17 "to remove the shanties from the Green today. If you do not, it will be necessary for the college to remove the structures."

No Response

The protesters did not remove the shanties, however, nor did the college. The administration, bowing to student sentiment and the fear of unfavorable media attention, allowed the plywood symbols to remain for "educational purposes."

Until yesterday--when police and university officials combined to force the removal of the structures--all four shanties were still standing. But even as early as mid-January, the campus was growing impatient about the continuing presence of the unsightly cabins.

"When people see the shanties on the Green, they don't think `divestment' anymore. They think about when those ugly things are going to be taken away," said Joseph Leake, president of the Dartmouth Afro-American Society.

On the day after the nation's first observance of Martin Luther King's birthday, The Dartmouth, the daily student newspaper, called for the removal of the structures because "the shanties have defeated their own purpose."

Before the campus daily came off the presses, however, 12 students took matters into their own hands. The Dartmouth Committee to Beautify the Green Before Winter Carnival (DCBGBWC), equipped with four sledgehammers and a flatbed truck, attempted to tear down the shanties. Calling themselves "environmentalists" and "trash collectors," the anti-shanty dozen planned to donate the debris to local charities "to help provide fuel for heating stoves," according to a statement they handed to policemen arriving on the scene five minutes after demolition began.

"It wasn't like a mob of 12 sledgehammer-swinging students. It was well organized and cooperative," says senior Robert W. Flanagan, a member of the DCBGBWC. "I was very serious about what I was doing. I knew the dangers of letting the situation carry me away." Two women were spending the night in one of the shanties, Flanagan says, but "their safety came first."

Nonetheless, Flanagan and three other vandals were yesterday given indefinite suspensions by the Dartmouth Committe on Standards, the college's disciplinary board. Eight of his cohorts were handed one-and two-term suspensions.

Campus observers called for strict punishment of the DCBGBWC. "If these people don't get severely punished, it is going to be ugly around here," said Jeffrey A. Blatt, publisher of The Dartmouth, last week. Although Blatt denies inconsistency, the campus daily called for the expulsion of the 12 students only one day after its editorial pages had called for the shanties to come down.