Sunday, February 24, 2008

Shucking and Jiving

May I here list a set of Dartmouth traditions as candidates to be shucked by the growing list of those jive nihilists who are charter members of the Here and Now Society:

- Graduation ceremonies (with caps and gowns, proud parents, and boring speeches)
- Memorial Field and its football games … particularly the Homecoming Weekend one.
- And while we are at it … Homecoming Weekend itself (and the Dartmouth Night bonfire)
- The Hanover Inn (to be replaced by a fancy Hilton Hotel)
- Old dead white-man majors such as History, Philosophy, English Lit, Religion, etc. *
- Dartmouth Row and Baker Library (to be razed and replaced by high-rise dorms)
- “Dartmouth Undying”
- The Greek system of fraternities and sororities (this time for sure)
- Winter Carnival and Green Key weekends (including ice sculptures and golf course trysts)
- Chubbing and the Dartmouth Outing Club
- “The Dartmouth” and the “Jack-o-Lantern” (oops, already gone)
- The Hopkins Center and Hood Museum
- Membership in the Ivy League
- The Hovey “Indian Maiden” murals (another oops)
- The Dartmouth Skiway
- The freshman trip to Moosilauke lodge
- The Dartmouth Glee Club and the Aires choral group
- The graduate schools … Tuck, Thayer, and Dartmouth Medical School
- The Orozco murals
- Dick’s House (and while we’re at it, the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center too)
- The Ledyard Canoe Club and its Spring canoe trip to Long Island Sound
- Hard science majors such as: Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, Geology, etc. *
- Alumni(ae) reunions
- The school color, green … let’s make it fuchsia
- The Rollins chapel (“Gothic dropped from a great height”)
- Senior secret societies (C&G, Sphinx, F&S, Dragon, Phrygian, etc.)
- Any reference to Samson Occom, Daniel Webster or Eleazer Wheelock
- Vox Clamantis in Deserto

* From a recent Dartblog "[Trustees] indicated that Dartmouth is hesitent to hire new professors in departments that were not popular five or ten years ago because in six years, professors are eligible to become tenured faculty. Dartmouth could then have too many professors for an unpopular department." QED

Are you pissed off yet?