I come from a town built around a state university of around 25,000 students. All-hours coffee shops, bagel joints and sports bars dominate the landscape for several blocks around the university; and groups of students are common in cafés and late-night movie theaters across town. Students want to go off-campus to study and relax, and hundreds of businesses turn a profit giving them venues to do so.

My experiences with other colleges have been similar: the area around campus is specifically designed to draw students out, particularly at night. The lone exception to this rule is Dartmouth. Of course, I’ve never been to another small-town rural college—one whose school motto refers explicitly to being in the middle of nowhere—and I suspect this makes all the difference. A full-scale nightclub, skating rink, or bowling alley would look ridiculous in the middle of Hanover, and would almost certainly go out of business; and there is a limit to the number of restaurants or cafés that such a small student body could support. Dartmouth is a small liberal arts college, not a large state school or research university, and Hanover is a tiny rural enclave, not a large town or city. Dartmouth cannot reasonably expect to provide the same vibrancy of off-campus options for its students as can other colleges; we knew this when we settled on Dartmouth after Yale deferred us.

Nevertheless, Hanover could do better to provide some late-night options for Dartmouth students. It is a sign that EBA’s can turn an enormous profit making food out of melted-down action figures, simply by virtue of being open late and delivering. Other restaurants should follow suit. A coffee shop that fulfilled the function of a coffee shop—giving people a place to hang out late at night—could be enormously profitable. Likewise, the Nugget Theater should start showing movies later than 9:00; I’ve never been to a show at the Nugget because it is always closed by the time it occurs to me to see a movie. Given the extremely high wages paid here, finding a late-night workforce would almost certainly not be a problem for Hanover businesses.

So much for what Hanover businesses should do to make this place awesome. The Wright administration, for its part, could spend less time promoting on-campus alternatives to the Greek system. These proposed alternatives are nice (although fantastically wasteful), but are not ultimately viable, because they have the same desperate flavor as a camping trip in your living room. Although it is a useful resource, Fuel is symptomatic of this problem. (A dance club in Collis? Home of the Student Activities accounting department?) Administrators should begin to focus on helping students find feasible off-campus social options, instead of further promoting an unhealthy, hermetically sealed campus. Perhaps Dartmouth could institute and publicize a regular schedule of free weekend buses to nearby big cities. This might flop completely, of course, but it’s worth a try.

Also, the administration really should get around to breaking the Dartmouth Dining Services stranglehold on students’ dining options. By providing a powerful disincentive to students who might otherwise patronize Hanover businesses, DDS stunts the development of a student-friendly Hanover economy. The result is a town with three expensive restaurants on Main (for the occasional dinner with alumni and parents), but few options for students on a budget. Administrators should drop the DDS protectionism, and stop subsidizing a mismanaged, money-losing enterprise that holds students hostage at the expense of legitimate area businesses. If they do so, the Hanover dining scene will become much more recognizably collegiate; the Hanover social scene in general might follow suit.

Students’ contributions to this model of change can be twofold. First, we should make our voices heard by writing angry editorials about DDS in the Dartmouth—and, in fact, I feel that we have represented ourselves adequately in this arena. Second, we should all make an effort to patronize local businesses, even, possibly, at the expense of fully draining our DBA. (Let’s all make an effort to buy the lowest-priced meal plan next term.) (That meal plan now costs $2600.)

Dartmouth’s social focus on dismal fraternity basements really is unhealthy—but it is currently the best social option that students have. Any normal college would automatically solve this problem by expanding out into the town around it, but Dartmouth is fettered by DDS, and the lack of much of a town to expand out into. Both of these problems have potential solutions, though; and Dartmouth students badly need some off-campus options. The move off-campus would reduce the focus on the frats, improve students’ quality of life, and enrich Hanover businesses, simultaneously accomplishing the aims of the Wright administration, the student body, and whichever evil genius founded EBA’s. It is long past due.