Dean Tom Crady: The Practical Approach to Alcohol on Campus

Tom Crady has been dean of the College close to a year. He talked with the Alumni Council about “Alcohol at Dartmouth: Context, trends, and considerations in developing a workable policy.”

Crady, who wrote his PhD dissertation at Iowa State on alcohol and fraternities, has a refreshingly practical approach to the difficult subject of alcohol on college campuses. Many aspects of effective alcohol policy are counterintuitive. Dry campuses, for example, have higher binge drinking rates (56 percent vs. 42 percent) than non-dry ones. The higher drinking age has led binge drinking to go up. Banning kegs often leads to greater use of hard liquor. Students like substance-free dorms so they can drink elsewhere and not have people throwing up in their halls. And putting responsibility back in students’ hands seems to work better than unenforceable rules. With these things in mind, Crady wouldn’t mind seeing a national discussion on bringing the drinking age back down from 21 to 18.

When he first arrived, Crady studied the data on students’ health, including alcohol, drugs, eating disorders, and depression.

In general, 60 percent of Dartmouth students have had experience with alcohol in high school; 80 percent drink at Dartmouth, which means that 20 percent don’t.

Taking this data, and seeing what works and what doesn’t, he is trying to craft an alcohol policy that is “safe, realistic, and enforceable.”

Happily, binge drinking seems to be down a little, from 57 percent in 2004 to 44 percent in 2008.

Crady feels that the College’s Good Samaritan Policy, under which a student in a risky situation can call for help without fear of punishment, is “absolutely crucial” in avoiding dangerous situations. Without it, Crady feels, we “might have had a death.” It is also helpful to have Dick’s House on campus. And it is also important that the College policy is for first offenses to result in discussions, not permanent records. “When you have 1, 2, 3 and you’re out,” says Crady, “You’re almost guaranteed to have a death on campus, because students have such a fear of getting caught.”

An effective alcohol policy will also include educating the students on risk and liability. “Kids don’t know New Hampshire laws about serving peers,” says Crady. If a person signs for a keg, for example, he or she can be liable for what happens to someone who partakes of it. New Hampshire law also allows police officers to charge a person with possession of alcohol based on the alcohol in his or her bloodstream.

Crady feels that “environmental management” is the best management approach to the issue, such as consideration of the physical situations that lead to binge drinking, and having a space in which students can have a get-together that doesn’t involve alcohol.

In a dinner program, Karen McKeel Calby ’81 received the Dartmouth Alumni Award.

President Wright spoke on the many things going on at Dartmouth, noting that 14 percent of the entering Class of 2012 are first-generation college students and 8.5 percent are international students.

International Students at 8.5 Percent of the Class of 2012; Applications Rising
The Alumni Council heard from Rebecca Munsterer, who oversees international recruitment as senior associate director of Admissions. She graduated from Colby College in 2001, then got her master’s in creative writing at Dartmouth in 2004. Her master’s thesis was a TV documentary on college admissions.

Dartmouth is now one of just eight schools in the country that has need-blind admissions for international students. They’ve seen an increase of 28 percent in international applications, and they are expecting more increases in the future.

Stephen Silver, director of International Student Programs in the Office of Pluralism and Leadership, helps deal with life and issues for international students when they arrive. Three students talked with the Council about their experiences.

Kevin Jackson ’10 is an economics major from Venezuela and the president of the International Students Association (ISA), which has grown very active, putting on events and expanding its voice in the community.

Helen Chow ‘09 is from Hong Kong. Even though she’d spent two years in high school in Wales (at a United World College), Hanover was a culture shock and at times a lonely place. The art studio became her outlet.

It actually hindered Helen somewhat that she appeared to be quite comfortable at Dartmouth. “Because I don’t have a pronounced accent,” she says, “people assume I’m American. But the fact is that I don’t know some of the things I’m supposed to know, like the difference between Republicans and Democrats, NASCAR and NAFTA.” She had a meaningful spring work trip to post-Katrina Biloxi, Miss., and a Copenhagen exchange term. When she pledged Sigma Delta, she said, “I realized why people confuse me with other Asian women on campus. I looked at the other 39 pledges, all Caucasian, and they all looked the same to me.”

Kevin Mwenda ’10 is from Nairobi, Kenya. He, too, went to a United World College for two years in high school. His was in Victoria, B.C. Before that he had gone to boarding school in Kenya. He also experienced culture shock, and–even after having been in British Columbia–surprise at the cold. He joined the ISA and took to heart its buddy system. At different times in high school he wanted to be a doctor, engineer, dancer, or any number of other things. In Kenya he would have had to decide early. At Dartmouth he had settled on an environmental economics major, but he very much values the liberal arts experience he’s had.

Dartmouth is in good shape for adapting to Tom Friedman’s flat world.

Trustee Nomination Process
The current process by which the Alumni Council nominates three candidates for trustee elections (with other candidates’ eligible through petition) has been in place since 1990. The elections are conducted by the Association of Alumni, whose function is to hold these elections and an annual meeting of the association. (A small technicality: the elections yield a “nominee” for trustee, who is then “elected” by the board of trustees.
The board has never failed to elect an association nominee.)

The nominating process has led to various problems, including the “churn and burn” of excellent, qualified candidates who agree to run, possibly lose, and come away understandably discouraged. As the nomination process has become politicized, it has also become expensive. Even a basic mailing costs thousands of dollars.

The new proposal from the Association of Alumni is to put forth one candidate (or two, if there is no petition candidate running), with each alumnus casting one vote for their preferred candidate. The objective is to have head-to-head contests, majority victories, and a “one person, one vote” system.

Alumni must vote to approve this new mechanism by a two thirds margin. Please make a point of taking part in this referendum.

As a practical matter, if this process is not approved, the trustees will turn the duty of running elections over to the College. The trustees don’t want to do this, and the College doesn’t want to get into the business of running elections, but the current system is untenable.


Wearers of the Green Video: Watch It

Associate athletic director Bob Ceplikas ’78 and Northeastern University athletic director Peter Roby ’79 —with help from football coach Buddy Teevens ’79 and women’s hoops coach Chris Weilgus—talked about the Dartmouth Athletics Wearers of the Green.

(Teevens noted that he was embarrassed by the winless football season. His boss, AD Josie Harper, said Buddy will turn it around in 2009. Apparently, this fall’s Big Green was a young team that was beset with injuries.)

The Wearers of the Green (www.alumni.dartmouth.edu/wearers) was founded in 1984, with inductions held every five years. To be honored as a Wearer of the Green, a Dartmouth College student, alumnus, or coach must be an All-America selection; an individual or team national champion; an Olympian; a major league professional; a member of an athletic hall of fame; a First-Team All-Ivy member three or more times; an Ivy League Player of the Year in a particular sport; a member of a winning crew in either the International Rowing Association or Eastern Sprints; or a recipient of the Kenneth Archibald Prize, the Alfred E. Watson Trophy, or the Class of 1976 Award.

The council watched a moving video on what it means to be a “Wearer of the Green,” which you can access at www.alumni.dartmouth.org/wearers.

More than 160 students, alumni, and coaches will be inducted on Saturday, May 16, at the Westin Copley Place in Boston (reception 6-7 pm, dinner 7-11 pm). President Wright will speak. Alumni are encouraged to attend. You can register at www.alumni.dartmouth.edu/wearers.

The Alumni Council saw the beautiful new Biondi baseball complex, featuring great new stands and artificial turf (including a brown artificial turf infield “dirt” area).

The council then toured the spanking new Floren Varsity House, which features a lavish auditorium, impressive team meeting rooms, a new football locker room and a new weight room for varsity athletes that will open up the old weight room in Alumni Hall to the rest of the student body, including club and intramural athletes and those just wanting to do their squats and bench presses.

Dartmouth YouTube Channel
Jon Murchinson ’92, who works in communications at Google, introduced the council to the Dartmouth YouTube channel. Though it’s not officially launched yet, it’s up and running and already looms as a fantastic vehicle for telling Dartmouth’s story. Unlike the regular YouTube, which is limited to videos of 10 minutes or fewer, the university sites are allowed to upload videos of any length, making it possible to show entire lectures, presentations, concerts, and so on.

The College, along with other institutions around the country, now has the challenge of figuring out how best to use this incredible tool. (Hint: after the U.S., the country with the most hits on the channel so far is China.)

Alumni Liaison Committee
The Alumni Council helps communicate alumni opinions to the board of trustees. The Alumni Liaison Committee (ALC) has formalized that function by establishing a process by which all alumni input is tallied and sent along to the trustees. All alumni councilors are asked to forward input from their constituents to alc@alum.dartmouth.org with the general subject matter placed in the header field (e.g., academics, admissions, alumni governance, athletics, and so on).

Last year’s input was compiled in a report and delivered to the trustees, who say it is extremely valuable and helpful. “We really pay attention to the feedback we’re getting,” said Ed Haldeman ’70, chair of the board of trustees. (See further comments below.)

Comments by Trustees Ed Haldeman ’70, Jose Fernandez ’77, and Al Mulley ’70
Ed Haldeman said he was pleased to welcome the five new trustees, with their diverse expertise, all of which will be put to use in guiding the College. Noting that 21 trustees are Dartmouth alumni (additionally, the trustees include the president of the College and the governor of New Hampshire, for a total of 23), he said that, “Working together, in my five years as a trustee, this is the best board we’ve had.”

“Facing budget issues,” he said, “we are going to have to make budget cuts. Our goal is for student life and academic programs to remain unchanged.” Haldeman reiterated that they are working on reducing the operating budget by up to $40 million over two years.

Jose Fernandez, speaking for the Facilities Committee, mentioned that it is good to have new trustee Steve Roth, a commercial real estate expert, on the committee. They have decided to do the following in light of the budget tightening:

• Complete the projects that are under way, notably the Class of 1978 Life Sciences Building, the work going on at Tuck, and the new baseball complex, funded by the Biondi family.
  
  
• Delay other projects, notably the Visual Arts Center, Buchanan Hall at Tuck, and the renovation of the West Stands of Memorial Field. “Instead, we’ll just deal with the immediate maintenance needs on the West Stands,” said Fernandez, “which will save about $10 million.
  
• Complete the planning of projects that still need funding, including the 1953 Commons at the medical school.
  
  
• Defer construction of the parking lot on Route 120 and the renovation of Thayer Hall.