SOPHIE BAILEY AND ANNIE QIU/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2020
THE DARTMOUTH FALL ISSUE
PAGE 2
Table of Contents
EDITORS’ NOTE
Remote international students face unique challenges
2
COURTESY OF CARIS WHITE AND ANDREW SASSER
Caris and Andrew
Remote international students face unique challenges By MAYA KEMPF-HARRIS
“As students I don’t think it should
The Dartmouth Staff
communications regarding ongoing international students also face
Fang said. “That’s not reasonable. of information.”
students. While institutions like the
international student from Athens, Greece, also said she felt that Dartmouth could be doing more to have a sort of structure … whereas
infor med, some inter national students feel the College should do more to include them in the
wished Dartmouth would include more information for international
A number of recent U.S.
with undergraduates, and said she
rule that would limit the admission
have raised concer ns among
learning.
seven hours ahead of Dartmouth,
international students are facing. “No one was even acknowledging that international students exist,
and understanding,” and have granted extensions for deadlines if
Avrantini said. She added that comments along the lines of, “we
Fang also said that she felt that
facing some unique obstacles and
though she noted that receiving
U.S. Immigration and Customs EDGAR MORALES/THE DARTMOUTH
from remaining in the United she was able to get class materials
Avrantini said that for her, the
Though Fang and Avrantini amicus curiae brief in a lawsuit that
enrolled international students from
Susan Ellison wrote in an email statement that her office is “in regular contact” with international
classes.
about government rule changes and
“[The lab materials] weren’t something that [were] needed
have also led both Avrantini and Fang
of the things that made her choose to
Avrantini said that she chose not because of the struggles she has faced
Canada said that Dartmouth hasn’t Avrantini said that outside of events like Center for Professional
“Online classes were hard enough
went to Dartmouth,” Avrantini said. “A lot of international students choose to go to the U.S. for college
for international students. At these them in the news, but said that “sharing infor mation about a “I’ve been receiving emails from said that she wished the College communicated more information international students.
international students and exchange visitors.” In addition to concerns about
like Greek houses and rush events,”
taking classes.”
interested in rushing, but it made
College should be doing more to international students face. “I think from an institutional
RACHEL PAKIANATHAN, Editor-in-Chief ELIZABETH JANOWSKI, News Executive Editor CARIS WHITE, Issue Editor
PRODUCTION EDITORS SOPHIE BAILEY, BAILEY Design Editor
LYDIA YESHITLA, Publisher MATTHEW MAGANN, MAGANN, Production Executive Editor
throughout the summer,” Fang said. “And it was the week before classes that [international students] are
ANDREW SASSER, Issue Editor
BUSINESS DIRECTORS JASMINE FU & TARA KRUMENACKER, KRUMENACKER, Advertising and Finance Directors
GRANT PINKSTON, PINKSTON Templating Editor
of onslaught of changes started with “Whenever I’m thinking about
SUBMISSIONS: We welcome letters and guest columns. All submissions must include the author’s name and affiliation with Dartmouth College, and should not exceed 250 words for letters or 700 words for columns. The Dartmouth reserves the right to edit all material before publication. All material submitted becomes property of The Dartmouth. Please email submissions to editor@thedartmouth.com.
that the College acknowledges which
about visa status, which isn’t the best caused.”
THE DARTMOUTH FALL ISSUE
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2020
PAGE 3
On Native land: Reflecting on Dartmouth’s Indigenous history BY Meghan Powers The Dartmouth
The “cheap and cheerful version” of Dartmouth’s founding story, if you ask professor Colin Calloway of the Native American Studies program, goes something like this: Eleazar Wheelock established Moor’s Indian Charity School in 1754 in Lebanon, Connecticut with the ostensible purpose of “Educating Such of the Indian Natives, of any or all the Indian tribes in North America,” as written in the school’s charter. This education included reading, writing and the usual liberal arts selection, but had a particular emphasis on “instructing them in the Knowledge & Practice of the Protestant Christian Religion.” As demonstrated by Wheelock’s star pupil, Samson Occom of the Mohegan tribe, the Wheelock curriculum prepared its recipients for life as missionaries and ministers, according to Calloway. When Wheelock decided to move into the realm of higher education, Occom went to Great Britain to raise seed money, which he achieved through giving nearly 200 sermons in about two years. He made £12,000 between his sermons in England and Scotland. With this money, in 1769 in Hanover, New Hampshire — following much debate regarding the location. In 1771, Occom criticized the the real, less cheerful history of Dartmouth. Calloway referenced a letter to Wheelock in which Occom accuses him of creating an “alba mater,” or “white mother,” whereas he had promised to create an “alma mater.” While the College’s earliest graduating classes comprised only a handful of students, by the turn of the 19th century the College had graduated only three Native students. By its own founding standard, Dartmouth had failed. Myranda Fuentes, an institutional research specialist at Rauner Special Collections Library, noted that when Occom spent two years abroad raising money for Dartmouth, he didn’t know where the money would said that Occom, who belonged to the Mohegan tribe, did not know the College would be built on Abenaki land. “[Occom had] reason to believe that his people [would] benefit move to New Hampshire sort of assure[d] that that [wasn’t] going to happen,” Fuentes said. “Samson Occom and E l e a z a r Wheelock specifically have a falling out about the location of the school because the location of the school determines who gets to benefit from the school.” While few Indigenous students benefited from the College at all in the beginning, Wheelock’s decision to move the school to New Hampshire meant that Occom’s tribe wouldn’t be among them. Occom’s name is all over the College today, and by historical measures he earned recognition as a Dartmouth co-founder, but he split from Wheelock early in the College’s history. Their fractured relationship was an early symptom of Dartmouth’s departure from its original mission. Fuentes noted that when people mission,” it is always a loaded question. Does this question American students from tribes in Dartmouth’s vicinity? Is graduation an accurate measure of success for an education? Often, she said, these questions arise from a Eurocentric worldview. “We have to approach [subjects like these] not because we’re choosing to, but because the frameworks that we work in are Anglo-European conceptions of what it means to be an Indigenous person,” Fuentes said. responses to the question of “Who is Dartmouth for?” but any complete answer will have to hold space for the vast cultural diversity comprising the word “Indigenous,” according to director and assistant dean of the Native American Program and
NAINA BHALLA/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
Dartmouth Hall, like the rest of the College, sits on unceded Abenaki land.
member of the Pueblo tribe of Pojoaque Sarah Palacios. “There’s no one way to be Native,” she said. Still, an origin story is a powerful thing. “It’s interesting [and] weird,” Calloway said, “that a lot of the with its representation of Native people — you know, mascots and clay pipes — really emerged on the campus during that time when there weren’t Indian people here. But I suppose that every institution, like every country and people, wants an origin story.” Calloway posited that the caricatures and symbols that r i d d l e t h e C o l l e g e ’s h i s t o r y are, paradoxically, the result of Dartmouth seeking something of its roots. “It’s been argued that one of the reasons that was happening, particularly in the 19th century, is that people were upset and concerned and anxious about immigrants,” Calloway said. tendency to look for things that represented distinctly American origins,” Calloway said, which led to the co-opting of Native American culture at Dartmouth and other institutions, e v e n extending to the world of professional sports. “Indians who we re b e i n g dispossessed, despised, killed off, herded onto reservations, now became a more congenial symbol of Americanism. … But it’s a really interesting phenomenon that these symbols of Indian-ness get co-opted … at a time when there are no Indian people [at Dartmouth],” Calloway said. And so Dartmouth saw, for much of its history, a white-knuckled defense of an Indigenous history almost before it even began. A “trickle” of Native students made their way through the institution existence, according to Calloway, but until the rededication to its mission under for mer College President John Kemeny’s tenure in the 1970s, the College’s commitment to Native American recruitment and education was almost non-existent. Under the Kemeny administration, “there [was] a renewed commitment to bring Indigenous people in and to let them be themselves within the Dartmouth community,” Fuentes said. At Dartmouth, rededication meant a focus on the recruitment o f I n d i g e n o u s s t u d e n t s, t h e creation of the NAS program and the establishment of the Native American Program to give these students a system of support. “Societal barriers had created blocks that were not providing equal access to certain institutions,” Palacios said, and the mission to confront those barriers head-on can action movement of the 1970s.
In the two years that Palacios has been director and assistant dean of NAP, she has sought to create a mission statement for the program. A key part of that, according to Palacios, is emphasizing that there is Native American students. “Each incoming class is usually composed of over 80 different tribes, tribal nations, Indigenous communities — both in the U.S., as well as more globally,” Palacios said. Now, over a thousand Native American students have graduated from Dartmouth, and the College’s increasing engagement with its past has opened doors for institutional confrontation of other difficult truths. all the way down to ground level. The dynamics of land transfer throughout the colonial period were murky at best, according to Calloway, but regarding Dartmouth specifically, the land was never transferred to New Hampshire Gov. John Wentworth before he granted it to Wheelock. This means, Calloway said, that the College sits on Western Abenaki land, which is, to this day, unceded. That fact underlies every story told about Dartmouth. “It’s a little bit like the Europeans create a board game and write the rules, and Indian people get to play but they can’t ever win,” Calloway said. “Acknowledging step, but then what? … Is it that simple or is there some kind of bill that’s come due? Should there be
some kind of compensation or some kind of way of restoring justice? And what would that look like?” As Calloway put it, “not only were injustices done, but some of us have
moved, the administration asked if the NAP would want to “cleanse the space,” according to Palacios. However, she said that NAP has
injustice.” On the other hand, Abenaki culture is still alive at and around Dartmouth. F u e n t e s described the myth of the “vanishing Indian,” which explores the dynamics of displacement. The land upon which Dartmouth sits was taken from the Abenaki people, but that d o e s n’t m e a n that the tribe vanished. Two hundred and
a case like this, Palacious said that, “the respectful way” of going about the cleansing is to “defer to the ways of the people whose land we are occupying.” N A P has created an expanding network of celebration and support for Dartmouth’s Indigenous community in its 50 years o f e x i s t e n c e, and the NAS department, as d e s c r i b e d by Calloway, “gives a student, a faculty member, a college or a country access to a
Dartmouth is still around, and the people whose land it was built on are too. “Just because you forgot,” Fuentes said, “doesn’t mean Indigenous people aren’t here.” The 2018 removal of the Hovey murals — which depicted a myth of Dartmouth’s founding in which Wheelock celebrated with visibly inebriated Native American men and half-nude women — is just one example of this complicated dynamic. When the murals were being
There are many conversations that lay ahead in Dartmouth’s ongoing effort to reconcile its present with its past, and, Palacios argued, these conversations “need to move beyond and be bigger than just the Native community at Dartmouth.” Part of what NAP does is increase the community’s visibility in contemporary spaces, she said, “because it’s hard for people to advocate for and care about people they cannot see.”
2021 LAW AND ETHICS FELLOWSHIP SESSION 1: DOES THE FIRST AMENDMENT PROTECT UNETHICAL BEHAVIOR? (SONU BEDI, JOEL PARKER 1811 PROFESSOR IN LAW AND POLITICAL SCIENCE, HANS ’80 AND KATE MORRIS DIRECTOR OF THE ETHICS INSTITUTE) SESSION 2: HOW SHOULD BUSINESSES RESPOND TO SOCIAL MEDIA OUTRAGE DIRECTED AT WHAT THEIR EMPLOYEES DOOFF DUTY? (VIKRAM BHARGAVA, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, SANTA CLARA UNIVERSITY)
SESSION 3: SHOULD THE SUPREME COURT OVERTURN ITS PRECEDENCE ON RELIGIOUS EXEMPTIONS IN A PENDING CASE THIS TERM? (VINCENT PHILLIP MU OZ, TOCQUEVILLE ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF RELIGION & PUBLIC LIFE, UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME)
SESSION 4: WHAT DOES DIGNITY MEAN UNDER HUMAN RIGHTS LAW WHEN A STATE STERILIZES INDIVIDUALS WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT? (NIMU NJOYA, LECTURER IN POLITICAL SCIENCE, WILLIAMS COLLEGE)
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2020
THE DARTMOUTH FALL ISSUE
PAGE 4
Abolish the Greek system? A decades-long debate repeats itself B y KYLE MULLINS
The Dartmouth Staff
At the turn of the millennium, former College President James Wright and the Board of Trustees proposed an end to the fraternity and sorority system “as we know it.” Fifteen years later, College President Phil Hanlon said that without meaningful changes to the Greek system, the College would have to “revisit its continuation on campus.” Yet a walk down Webster Dartmouth is alive and well — if a bit subdued this fall. What happened? threat to their social scene, vocalized Greek communities and drafted and implemented changes to the Greek system intended as compromises with the administration. And in both instances, the College administration backed down. The Black Lives Matter protests this summer and debate over nonbinary inclusivity in sororites this spring have brought yet another round of scrutiny to the Greek system — though, notably, no new initiatives have been announced by the College in response to renewed calls to examine Greek life’s troubled history. Years of disagreement Greek life at Dartmouth has been the subject of campus debate and scrutiny surrounding alcohol, sexual misconduct and inclusivity for decades. Records in Rauner Special Collections Library, for example, on Dartmouth Fraternities.” The panelists — one supporting Greek system retention, one supporting abolition and one supporting revisions — were asked whether chapters with “discriminatory charters,” or those that had policies prohibiting Black students from joining, should be eliminated and whether they “believe in the Dartmouth fraternity system.” rules from 1946 “governing the entertainment of female guests and the use of alcoholic beverages,” warning fraternity members that relationships with women should be “maintained in accordance with the accepted moral code of our society” and that beer and liquor consumption should be “judicious.” These rules had to be followed if fraternities wished to reopen postWorld War II, during which they were closed due to a lack of residents, according to an article in the 1986 Aegis yearbook. 1978 brought a faculty vote expressing support for the abolition of theGreek system. In response to the vote, the Trustees ordered the review of houses based on qualities such as “behavior,”“attitude” and “physical plant,” and multiple houses were threatened with derecognition or probation for violations. A code of “minimum standards” — covering the acceptable height of the grass on fraternity lawns — was later imposed on houses. “The options were clear — we could either move to abolish them or bring them back to a positive mode,” then-College President David McLaughlin told the Christian Science Monitor in 1985. The article noted that some of the problems, such as the deterioration of houses
and leadership vacuum caused by 10 weeks terms, stemmed from the adoption of the 12-month academic calendar, which forced the houses to be open year-round, straining their resources. In 1992, a task force reporting to the Dean of Students formalized
students could rush and explicitly barred students from living in unrecognized Greek houses. Debate throughout the 1990s in The Dartmouth, the Valley News, the Dartmouth Review and the progressive campus publication “bug” criticizing the Greek system for abetting sexual misconduct, “rampant bigotry” and elitism — or defending the system and rebuking critics’ arguments. Student Life Initiative calls for Greek reforms Wright was inaugurated as Dartmouth’s 16th president in the fall of 1998. Less than six months later, the announcement by Wright and the Trustees of a new direction for the Greek system embroiled Dartmouth in turmoil that made national headlines. “The Greek houses didn’t have any warning that this was coming down the pipe,” Anne Mullins ’00, who was president of Kappa Delta Epsilon sorority at the time, said. “The news made it around campus, as I’m sure you can imagine, like The announcement of the “Student Life Initiative,” which Wright said would lead to the end of the Greek system “as we know it,” among other changes to residential life, was seen as an existential threat by Greek leadership. It came the same week as Winter Carnival, and in response, Greek leadership canceled all planned events for the weekend, Mullins said. A pro-Greek rally on Psi Upsilon fraternity’s lawn replaced the traditional “keg jump,” and students gave speeches promising a defense of the social spaces they held dear. “People were angry,” said Dean Krishna ’01, a member of Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity who served as Student Assembly president. “… [There was] that feeling [that] maybe they don’t understand us, this came out of nowhere.” What made the student outrage strange, noted Janelle Ruley ’00, was that Wright’s letter to campus had said that the Greek system would be ended “as we know it,” not entirely. This only meant that the administration intended to make them “substantially coeducational,” as Wright put it in his letter to campus. Ruley, who supported abolition of the system, said that she was “surprised” that “what probably was intended to be innocuous Mullins said that the vast majority of campus was against the still-vague plan, including self-proclaimed “GDIs,” or “God-Damned Independents” — unaffiliated students. “There were a lot of students “but who had friends in the Greek system and who liked going to events hosted by Greek organizations.” Krishna said that the outpouring of anger on campus may have caused the administration to Simultaneously, Greek leadership shifted to “calmer” opposition,
drafting letter s and working internally. Over the following year, a College task force drafted proposals that reformed, but did not fully coeducate or abolish, fraternities and sororities on campus. Recommendations included the removal of house bars, strict alcohol policies to attempt to discourage the practice of “booting and rallying” — vomiting up excess alcohol in order to continue partying — the hiring of non-student bartenders for registered social events, a moratorium placed on the formation of new Greek houses and rush was pushed back until sophomore winter. “By and large, people understood there was a need for change,” Krishna said, adding that “the boot and rally culture really had no place in modern society at the turn of the century.” While opinion was split on the initiative overall, a poll conducted by The Dartmouth in November of 1999 suggested that students were open to reform in the areas of “alcohol and gender relations.” The faculty, on the other hand, felt it did not go far enough, voting again to support abolition of the Greek system in February 2000. Overall, the initiative would aim to “eliminate the historical dominance by the [Greek] organizations of Dartmouth social life” by shifting to a less residential, more coeducational model, according to the steering committee’s report released in January 2000. Permanent bars and taps were removed from houses in the fall of 2000, and other elements of the Student Life Initiative — including the inception of all-freshman dorms, the role of undergraduate advisors and the construction of additional dorms — were implemented in the following years. But most of the changes did not materialize. In 2002, the a d m i n i s t r at i o n re p l a c e d t h e minimum standards from the 1980s with a requirement that Greek houses submit yearly “action plans” that detailed how the houses would meet the principles of “scholarship, leader ship, brotherhood and sisterhood, inclusivity, service and accountability.” Rush’s move to winter was reversed, as was the moratorium on new houses. In 2012, The Dartmouth Editorial Board, in calling for a “reassessment” of the Greek system, referred to the Greek portion of the SLI as a “failure.” Another round of changes The spotlight returned to the Greek system when Andrew Lohse ’12 made a series of serious hazing allegations — including vomit omelettes, kiddie pools of bodily abuses” — against Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. Though they were and the independent blog Dartblog in January 2012, the charges against Lohse’s former fraternity eventually made their way to a cover story titled “Confessions of an Ivy League Frat Boy” in Rolling Stone magazine that spring. new round of scrutiny,” former Phi Delta Alpha fraternity president and member of the Alumni Council Taylor Cathcart ’15 said. He characterized his time at the College as a “slow bleed” for the Greek system, a period that saw more walkthroughs, stricter enforcement
of rules and more houses being put on probation. That is not to say that houses had not made changes prior to Lohse’s allegations. 2011 saw upgrades to houses, the creation of a bystander intervention program and a new process for addressing sexual misconduct claims in sororities. But the graphic nature of the Rolling Stone article and the negative publicity it generated for the College began to spur action, Cathcart said. Faculty members spoke out about the need to end hazing, the Greek Leadership Council created a universal sexual assault policy that required education sessions and increased penalties for those found guilty of sexual assault and student activists noted a positive trend in campus discussions surrounding sexual misconduct. The GLC also implemented the freshman “frat ban,” which bars freshmen from entering Greek houses for at least six
Within a year of his inauguration, Hanlon’s newly created Moving Dartmouth Forward initiative began to take shape. Administration members began pushing Greek leadership to take additional action to address issues around alcohol, sexual misconduct and hazing, and the MDF steering committee began considering reforms like the hard alcohol ban and the creation of alternative social spaces. “There was sort of a sense … that, basically, the Greek system was going to need to do something itself, lest they risk the administration coming down with its own set of policies into which we had very little input,” Cathcart said. Pressure mounted from other sources as well. The Dartmouth Editorial Board published a frontpage editorial calling for total abolition in the 2014 Homecoming issue, writing that “our antiquated system cannot be reformed.” The faculty, too, voted in 2014 for at least the third time since 1978 to express support for abolition. Biology professor Ryan Calsbeek, who proposed the motion in the most recent vote, said that his stance against the Greek system was influenced by his negative impressions from his college years and stories he had heard from Dartmouth students. “A lot of my students would talk happened to them at those houses, or things that they witnessed,” he said, citing “really, really overt drunken behavior that led to sexual assaults.” Calsbeek declined to desire that students continue feeling comfortable coming to him in Change eventually took two forms. First, the Interfraternity Council abolished “pledge term,” mandating that new members of Greek houses become full members immediately upon receiving a bid instead of having to go through an initiation process. S e c o n d , G re e k l e a d e r s h i p published a “manifesto” with a litany of proposed reforms in the fall of 2014, including sober monitors, restrictions on hard alcohol, making it easier to expel students convicted of sexual assault, the appointment of faculty advisors and inclusivity and Leadership. The petition eventually garnered over 3,000 signatures, and all the major Greek
/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
governing bodies agreed to its conditions. “The administration seemed happy that we had put the proposal led to, I think, a temporary detente in their crusade to eliminate the Greek system.” W h e n M D F w a s fo r m a l l y announced in early 2015, it contained some reforms that went further than the Greek leaders’ proposal, including a total ban on hard alcohol and mandatory sexual violence prevention education for all students. But like the SLI before it, MDF focused on residential life changes, including the creation of the house system. It did not threaten to end Greek life on campus — Hanlon even praised Greek leadership for the reforms of the previous term. The following years saw the implementation of MDF’s various components, all of which are now listed as “complete” or “ongoing” on the initiative’s website. It also saw the derecognition of Alpha Delta fraternity and SAE for hazing and other violations. Looking to the future It remains to be seen whether the national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and subsequent scrutiny of Greek life on college campuses will lead to substantial changes at Dartmouth. Abolition used to be a fringe position at the College. Just 16 percent of students supported it in 1999, according to The Dartmouth’s poll. Ruley, who supported abolition then, said that when her opinions were made public, and “betrayed.” Her and her friends’ public advocacy was later referred to as “admission of their anti-Greek sentiments” in a subsequent news article. Today, abolition appears to be more mainstream. In 2014, the MDF steering committee reported that support for abolition was the most common feedback it received in its online survey, and a 2014 survey showed that opposition to abolition had fallen to 59% of students, down from 83% in 1999. Calsbeek said that many of the faculty continue to harbor “misgivings” about Greek life on campus. “I think the primary focus is on the well-being of the students,” he said. “When you see them show up in class looking devastated by a long night of hazing or too much drinking or something like that, you see the toll it takes on them academically.” Both Mullins and Krishna said that their views on Greek life had changed since their time at Dartmouth. Mullins, who at the pro-Greek rally in 1999 declared to maintain the Greek system, now believes “the administration may have been onto something.” “I’m a professor now, and my what it was when I was a sorority president,” she said. Mullins and Krishna agreed that the Greek system must do more to address inclusivity. “Having your social scene dominated by single-sex male institutions — it’s the year 2020, and I feel like this can’t go on much longer,” Krishna said, adding that he felt similarly two decades ago and that “change has happened slower than I would have expected.” Additionally, Cathcart, Krishna and Mullins all emphasized the need for communication between the administration and Greek leaders about changes to the system. “The way the conversation was started [in 1999], unfortunately, students went on the defensive,” Mullins said. “I think, maybe, we could have had a more meaningful discussion about alcohol, diversity [and] hazing, and instead it sort of turned it into a tactical exchange with the administration, with Greek houses focused on survival.” Cathcart, who emphasized his support for the continued existence of the Greek system, agreed that there is still work to be done on alcohol, sexual misconduct and inclusivity issues — but said that Greek houses are not the only places on campus that need to grapple with those. “If the administration shows a willingness to actually partner with the fraternities, which they have yet to show in the last 15 years, then fraternities can be a force to drive social inclusivity, racial diversity and socioeconomic diversity on campus,” he said. “[The SLI] certainly did spark a conversation, which was good,” Krishna said. “We should always be questioning whether our seemingly sacred institutions are the way that things should be.”
THE DARTMOUTH FALL ISSUE
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2020
PAGE 5
Gap-year students reflect on decision to take time off BY JAYMIE WEI
The Dartmouth Staff
This year, many Dartmouth students have revised their ideas of what a college experience should look like. As the pandemic continues to upend plans, some students have opted to remain away from campus until the situation improves. From spending time in the great outdoors to caring for toddlers, learn during this academic year. One student, Zanna Gulick-Stutz ’23, has successfully avoided online class since the beginning of the pandemic. She took skiing while living with a friend in Teton County, Idaho. Over the summer and into early fall, she worked as a raft guide in Bend, Oregon. Now, after road-tripping throughout the western U.S. she has holed up in Lander, Wyoming, where she is taking a Wilderness EMT class. “I decided to do this as a way to continue working towards a goal and being in an educational environment,” Stutz said. “I can be in an in-person, hands-on place here — when that’s not available at Dartmouth right now.” After the course, Stutz said she will be heading to Salt Lake City, Utah to work as a ski patroller at Solitude Mountain Resort. She is excited to apply her newfound skills at “a bigger mountain that’s not in New Hampshire.” While Stutz has been using her time Alexander Fell ’23 seized the opportunity to extend his summer internship at a He was originally planning to return to Dartmouth in the fall, but due to the College’s COVID-19 restrictions, he working. Fell described his day-to-day work as a mix between investor relations and analyst research. While he started out the internship working remotely from home, he has since moved to Los Angeles to he said he gets to wear a lot of hats and has a say in investing decisions, which has been exciting for him. “I love what I’m doing,” Fell said. “Meeting cool founders, interacting with the hottest movers in the tech space. … [It’s] super cool to be a part of that environment.” Fell has not yet declared his major, but
of study doesn’t matter as much as work experience. He said he feels “really lucky” to enjoy his full-time job, and that he doesn’t need a Dartmouth workload to consume his time. “I felt like I was learning on the job, so
it, and get the full Dartmouth experience the year after,” Fell said. John Dwortz ’23 also decided to temporarily forgo school for a full-time he has been nannying a two-and-a-halfyear-old boy with learning disabilities. Instead of writing papers, he has been spending his time watching ocean documentaries, making grilled cheese and discovering hidden talents. “[I’ve learned that] I can actually pick poop up with my bare hands,” Dwortz said. “I’ve learned that I have a horrible singing voice but a great voice for lullabies. I’ve learned that I should read audiobooks for a living, because this kid is out the second I start reading Winnie the Pooh.” Dwortz also explained that he felt academically directionless his freshman year. He hasn’t yet chosen one subject to dedicate himself to, and he spent the remote spring and summer terms taking classes for fun. While he acknowledges that other people are able to put their heads down and power through online class, he knows that he is not that kind of person. “People are f—ing racing to get through [school],” Dwortz said. “For me, it would be racing towards, I don’t know when. And I ran in high school — typically, you wouldn’t start a race without knowing how long it is, because that would be really annoying.” Dwortz added that going into his second year at Dartmouth, he felt like he was there to get a degree instead of a toddler has helped him regain a sense of purpose. “[Picking a degree] feels so false, just really phony,” Dwortz said. “I don’t feel that way when I’m cooking this kid lunch.” While some students are feeling the pressure to pick a major, others have yet to begin the college experience in earnest. Renata Hoh, who deferred enrollment and now plans to begin college with the Class of 2025, cited mental health as her primary reason for delaying her matriculation at Dartmouth. An international student from Salvador,
SOPHIE BAILEY/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
Brazil, she was worried that online class would be exhausting and that she wouldn’t get the support she needed. She also believes she would miss out on valuable peer interactions outside of the classroom. “I really like to be around people and to meet new people — that’s something that I really value in education,” Hoh were attending online classes.” Since March, Hoh has been staying in Sao Paulo with 13 other girls in a republic — a student housing option similar to American sorority houses. She enjoys being around people her age and getting to watch movies or go on weekend excursions with them. Hoh said she has been keeping herself busy. She does public relations work for SuperMentor, an online site that helps Brazilian students who are applying to school in the U.S. She also works for Garotas Podem!, educating 12 girls about female empowerment and gender equality, and Aplica! Prep, the company that gave her a scholarship last year, by recipients. Hoh is also using her time to learn programming and calculus to prepare for college coursework, as well as engaging in relaxing activities like painting and drawing. She knows that while it’s important for her to have projects to
occupy herself during her gap year, she likes doing the work on her own time, as opposed to rushing through the educational system. “We go from elementary school to high school and then to college and then to work,” Hoh said. “Especially because there are girls here who are already it’s very good to have this break from all those responsibilities.” As an upperclassman, Breanna Glover ’22 knows the feeling of rushing through her education and not being in control of her time at Dartmouth. She describes her attitude toward school, extracurriculars and her sport as “Type A.” “I’ve just done everything that I thought I was supposed to do in the order in which it was supposed to be done,” Glover said. “It took a lot of reframing my perspective to be at a point where I okay.” Being a three-season athlete and therefore exempt from the sophomore summer requirement, Glover took the she decided not to enroll in classes. She and spends her time pursuing a fellowship through the Dartmouth Center for Social Impact, two research positions with the College and a part-time online tutoring
job. While Glover now intends to take a gap year, she still sometimes questions her decision. does that make me less of a person? Am I being too easy on myself ?” she asked. These are the questions that impacted Glover’s decision to take a gap year. However, Glover and many other students have found that there’s value in just taking some room to breathe. In Glover’s own words, “giving yourself time and space can be really powerful.” Given that COVID-19 is still raging across the U.S. and many parts of the world, and that the Dartmouth winter term is expected to be similar to the fall, more students may be considering taking a break from school. From her cabin in Wyoming and over spotty Wi-Fi, Stutz said that she has been recommending the gap year to those who have reached out to her. She thinks it’s great that more people are considering taking one amid the uncertainty that is school during COVID-19. “You don’t have to be doing something get to] look at a chunk of time and be like, ‘Hey, what’s important to me? What do I value? What do I want to dedicate myself to learning?”
Seven weeks in, town and students evaluate reopening plan BY COALTER PALMER
The Dartmouth Staff
The atmosphere was uneasy ahead of the College’s fall reopening. Amid a nationwide spike in COVID-19 cases, a number of peer institutions had abruptly reversed their reopening plans, sparking apprehension from alike as over 2,000 students prepared to descend upon campus. Less than two weeks before students were slated to arrive in Hanover, tensions mounted as over 150 professors called for the College to keep its operations entirely remote, back with a counter-statement that garnered over 1,000 student and alumni signatures. Ultimately, the College opted to proceed with its plan. Now, nearly eight weeks into fall largely hailed Dartmouth’s reopening as a success. Since July 1, the College has reported only 10 positive tests — or 0.03% of the 35,562 tests it has administered. Students, too, have voiced appreciation for the chance to return to campus — yet some have shared frustration with the College’s and town’s strict enforcement of COVID-19 policies. Hanover braces for impact Hinsley recounted a “tremendous amount of fear” among Hanover residents as the College went ahead with its reopening plan. “The Dartmouth experience [students] were returning to … on Sept. 1, was, of course, radically different than when they left,” Hinsley said. “And the amount of concern for the citizens — I don’t think people were aware of how much fear there was, and still is, in the community.” Hanover town manager Julia column in The Dartmouth over the summer decrying the “irresponsible behavior” of students living off campus in Hanover — likewise expressed reservations over the campus. She said she believed many students “weren’t necessarily going into quarantine or being tested upon arrival” and recalled one student telling her that they didn’t believe they needed to start quarantining
until all of their housemates arrived — an interaction that spurred a
Dartmouth’s initial quarantine period, Hinsley said he responded to a large gathering of students on the Green. This particular gathering, he we manage reducing the potential of said, provoked “a lot of concern and fear” within the Hanover community. each other and to the community,” College spokesperson Diana Lawrence declined to comment In the timeframe between the further on Hinsley’s claim, citing privacy concerns. and Dartmouth Health Services’ Hinsley also noted that, because ramping up its testing protocols Dartmouth’s plan had put students for on-campus through a students, Hinsley screening process said that he went “Obviously, Hanover prior to arrival, door to door, high school students and because having socially can’t be expected to the g athering distanced o c c u r r e d c o nve r s a t i o n s comply with College four days into with students guidelines, but the quarantine — a who had just point at which a r r i v e d a n d town seems to expect he said the data communicating to enforce those was “in [their] the town’s favor” — the same guidelines on expectations to risk of this large them. Hinsley Dartmouth students.” gathering had emphasized that i n n e a rl y a l l reduced. But interactions he this event still has had, students “ jeopardized” have been polite and have complied the College’s ability to have an with his requests. As students began to arrive on campus, some of the town’s original apprehensions began to subside. on town’s policies Over the past weeks, some students College’s execution of its plan to have also noted an emerging double bring 2,200 undergraduate students standard in the town’s treatment of back to campus, with Hinsley calling the plan “comprehensive” and Kevin Donohue ’21, who has lived saying the students’ return to campus has “gone quite well.” “It’s amazing to watch a plan — [developed by] dedicated and brilliant people who are committed to the institution and to the situation — work,” Hinsley said. “I’m beyond pleased that it has worked as well as it has, and it has worked beyond my expectation.” Griffin noted that the town has not dealt with many “really serious violations” of its 10-person gathering ordinance. She added that the College and town’s collaborative implementation of the “Community Expectations” agreement contributed to Hanover and Dartmouth’s low incidence of COVID-19. At the same time, Hinsley said that the beginning of the term On one occasion four days into
he sees a “dichotomy” in the way the town has treated Dartmouth students relative to non-Dartmouth students. He noted that he has heard reports of Hanover High School students practicing soccer without face coverings, in addition to “frequently” seeing high school-age students walking around his neighborhood without masks. “Obviously, Hanover High School students can’t be expected to comply with College guidelines, but the town seems to expect to enforce those same guidelines on Dartmouth students,” Donohue said. Donohue added that he has witnessed “unequal enforcement of the rules.” “It may have made sense of the beginning of all this, when Dartmouth students were coming from all over the country. But now that we’ve all been here for a month
and a half, it doesn’t quite make sense anymore,” Donohue said. Meanwhile, Hinsley defended the town’s management of the situation and treatment of Dartmouth students. “I’m not targeting Dartmouth students,” he said. “But I am targeting
beer cans and cups all over the yard, christmas lights, loud music and a ping pong table with a dozen beer cups still on the [surface].” According to Hinsley, many of these houses have had to be placed in quarantine because of exposure to COVID-19. “I’m thinking I was on the target there,” Hinsley said. Donohue said that this spring and summer, he heard about students getting “slapped on the wrist” for code violations, and called these consequences “fair.” This fall, with the town “clamping down” on restrictions, off-campus students seem to be adhering more closely to guidelines, Donohue said. Addie Green ’22, who lives downtown Hanover on a regular basis, said that she has noticed a are enforced when comparing where she is to Hanover. “I think Lebanon has been way more relaxed, in the sense that although they have similar rules, I don’t think they’re enforcing them as strictly as Hanover,” Green said. “My roommates and I are pretty good at following the rules as far as masks go, but I’ve noticed that in Lebanon, when I go into grocery stores, or I get takeout, everywhere I go there will be people without masks.” Green noted that while she has heard of instances of other households hosting “larger gatherings,” she thinks most students living offin response to the pandemic, as well as due to being “nervous” about losing on-campus privileges. “For the most part, I think people are sticking to tighter circles and not throwing parties,” Green said. Lebanon residents Karen and Tom Lanzetta ’74, who own a property in Hanover that they rent to students, said they were “happy” that Hanover “seems to pretty closely.” According to Tom Lanzetta, the town sent him and
his property manager a notice that detailed the steps he should take if tenants hosted gatherings of more than 10 people. These steps included needing to provide student names and information to the town, as a part of the town’s emergency public health ordinance. “They are concerned about housing for students in the community. And they’re making sure that we’re following their protocols and rules,” Tom Lanzetta said. In addition, according to Karen Lanzetta, the notice requested that the landlord share their residents’ contact information with the town in the case that a resident tested positive. In contrast with the town’s communication with residents, however, Lanzetta remarked that he hoped Dartmouth would be more proactive in communicating updates on the College’s situation not only to students, but also to community members. out information,” Tom Lanzetta said. “It would be nice if there was a little bit of push to get out daily or weekly communication about what’s happening at Dartmouth.” “An email once a week would be a nice, neighborly thing to do,” Karen Lanzetta added. For example, Tom Lanzetta said that he at one point wasn’t sure whether Dartmouth students could travel on weekends and then return to campus. Lanzetta soon found out about Dartmouth’s rules for weekend travel, but said “it would have been nice to have known that ahead of time.” In the interactions he has had with students when visiting downtown Hanover, Tom Lanzetta said that he has been “impressed” with student adherence to Hanover’s mask ordinance and gets the sense that students have been “responsible.” As the winter months approach, College will have to confront a new set of challenges. “It’s going to get trickier as things have to come indoors,” Griffin said. “Being able to hold so many of the events outdoors has been a real luxury … but once you start looking to bring more than 10 people together indoors, we’re going to get far less tolerant of those kinds of gatherings.”
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2020
THE DARTMOUTH FALL ISSUE
PAGE 6
A deep dive into Dartmouth’s judicial system By HANNAH JINKS
The Dartmouth Staff
As an unknown number of students continue to be sent home for violating the College’s COVID-19 policies, the spotlight on Dartmouth’s judicial system has burned particularly bright. Since the College was founded, the policies and procedures of this system have undergone dramatic changes. Disciplinary action through the years Originally, Dartmouth’s founder Eleazar Wheelock served as the College’s sole judicial authority, adjudicating on any and all rule infractions, according to College archivist Peter Carini. Wheelock only allowing readmittance to Dartmouth if they chose to “beg on one knee” and “confess to their sins,” he said. Under administrations following Wheelock, faculty came to play a role in the disciplinary process, but the tradition of expulsion with the possibility for reinstatement continued through College President Nathan Lord’s tenure, which ended in 1863. Many expelled students were never readmitted and Carini said that as a result, the attrition rate for some years stood around 50%. “If a whole bunch of students did something terrible, which they did a lot in those days, then they would all get kicked out and the class would come and beg for their readmittance, and then the administration would use it as an opportunity to get them to agree never to do ‘x’ again,” Carini said. “For instance, [they would
Dartmouth Hall and smash all the windows, which is something that actually happened.” Following Lord’s administration, students were no longer uniformly expelled for breaking rules, but the College still had no formal review process for years to come. College records from 1897 indicate that College President William Jewett Tucker created the “Committee of Administration,” an all-faculty committee that reviewed infractions for mal judicial system. Carini explained that Tucker’s mission had been to “make Dartmouth a real college,” adopting the modern traditions and policies of most other colleges and universities as opposed to the College’s antiquated approach to governance. The judicial system today is far more complex. According to Katharine Strong, director of the Office of Community Standards reviews a report and determines whether a reported student violated the Standards of Conduct. Cases that call for potentially severe disciplinary suspension or expulsion — are either heard by the Committee on Standards or the Organizational Adjudication Committee, depending on whether or a student organization. Less severe cases are heard by an administrative Dartmouth’s Standards of Conduct stipulate that “certain types of misbehavior will result in temporary or, where appropriate, permanent
revocation of membership” in the College community. There are nine standards listed — including the College’s Hazing Policy, Sexual and Gender-Based Misconduct Policy, Alcohol Policy and Academic Honesty Principle. Strong wrote in an email interview that there are exemption or immunity policies in instances of Title IX and hazing violations — a student reporting sexual misconduct or hazing, for instance, will not face disciplinary action by the College for ingesting alcohol or drugs. This does not mean, however, that the reporting party will not be charged by local authorities. SinceCOVID-19,the“Community Expectations” agreement — a mandatory contract signed by all on-
reserves the right to “take appropriate action to mitigate public health risks,” according to the email.
adherence to the College’s quarantine and mandatory testing policies — has been strictly enforced. Unlike in the usual disciplinary process, accused students are “handled expeditiously” by the Dean of the College Kathryn Lively or her designee, with no appeals process. As reported by The Dartmouth, an undisclosed number of students have been sent home this fall, and some students have protested
party will be suspended for an increasing number of terms. For those providing alcohol to others, there is no warning but rather immediate suspension from campus. Several fraternities and sororities have faced repercussions for serving hard alcohol since the implementation of the ban — just last year, Zeta Psi fraternity was suspended for the summer and fall terms, and Alpha Phi sorority was suspended for the fall. Before the ban, there was no formally recognized distinction between the College’s beer and wine policy and its hard alcohol policy — several infractions would ultimately lead to College probation, a sanction that limits on-campus involvement but does not involve the removal of a student from campus. With such severe punishments, many worried the hard alcohol ban inadvertently deterred students from seeking out emergency medical attention — a conundrum that the “Good Samaritan” policy, implemented in 2017, sought to overcome. Strong explained that the policy protects students who need Safety and Security’s emergency assistance from disciplinary action by the College. The policy is put to use fairly often. From 2016 to 2019, there have been 352 “Good Sam” calls to Safety and Security, according to data from the Student Wellness Center. However, getting “Good Sammed” does not shield students from other repercussions. Students are expected to complete BASICS training, an alcohol-use education program, and
In an Oct. 20 email from the Student and Presidential Committee on Sexual Assault, undergraduate IX exception to the Community Expectations agreement, which grants amnesty to students reporting sexual misconduct who may have violated COVID-19 policies. Although a reporting student would not face disciplinary action, the College still
Alcohol violations become focus of judicial reform While the on-campus judicial presence has shifted significantly since the pandemic, considerable changes to campus culture have previously taken place as a result of policy amendments. In 2015, as part of the Moving Dartmouth Forward initiative, the College instituted a hard alcohol ban, prohibiting the possession, consumption and distribution of alcohol above 30 proof, Strong wrote. The “likely conduct response” to owning or drinking hard alcohol is merely a warning, but for any
Although the College’s judicial process is separate from local and federal authorities, students can still face criminal charges for violations of College policy if that policy overlaps with the law. According to the College’s 2019 annual Clery report, which discloses all crimes that were
comes out in those incidents and says we stand with survivors, I don’t think the message is going to come across to students that this is a place that doesn’t tolerate sexual violence.” any reported sexual misconduct is resolved by the Process for Resolving Complaints against Students pursuant to the sexual misconduct policy. According to Title IX coordinator Kristi Clemens, complainants may resolve any reported misconduct informally or formally — in other words, infor mal protective or supportive measures, like a “no contact order,” or a formal investigation. a formal report is found not to be prohibited conduct — with 49 of the 170 reports falling under this description — if, for instance, the incident occurred prior to matriculation or was “uncomfortable or harassment, but maybe not sexual harassment,” in which case the report would be referred back to the CSA. According to Cooper, the Title IX regulations, which underwent major change following the appointment of U.S. Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. Cooper said of sexual harassment and assault, to investigate reported conduct, and implemented an “unheard of ” live hearing component. In that sense, Cooper said, the College’s system for resolving reported conduct is unfair, but she said Dartmouth’s Title IX despite the limitations. itself,” she said. “It’s the fault of Title IX as it exists on a federal level. People heartbroken about [DeVos’] new regulations as well, since a lot of what they can do is circumscribed in this federal framework.” Even in the event the conduct was prohibited, no resolution is possible in some circumstances, like if the reported student has already graduated. Non-resolution is not uncommon — 34 of the 121 incidents found to be prohibited conduct during the 2018-19 school year had no possible resolution. Clemens emphasized that the Title either of these scenarios. “We work with that person to say, you know, you’re reporting this to us, and this has clearly impacted you and unfortunately it doesn’t fall within our policy,” she said. “But let’s talk about other ways that we can support you and get some sort of remedy for this situation that has clearly impacted you.”
majority of student crime was related to alcohol: Over 250 students from 2016 to 2018 received a disciplinary referral for liquor law violations, and nearly 40 were arrested each year. The 2020 Safety and Security and Title IX annual reports are normally due on Oct. 1, but due to the pandemic, the deadline has been extended to the end of 2020. The Clery Act requires that the College release daily crime logs as well, which can be requested for viewing in person at the Safety and Security building.
College resource, meaning it is legally bound to share a disclosure of sexual misconduct with other individuals on a need-to-know basis. This does not mean, however, that a student who
Alden said that around a couple crimes are added to the logs each day, and are
— including the Counseling Center and Tucker Center — may not share information without a student’s express consent. Since the transition to remote lear ning last spring, Clemens
and public intoxication. Confronting sexual misconduct past and present While alcohol-related infractions are common, Dartmouth also has a long-running history of sexual 2018 class action lawsuit alleged that the College turned a blind eye to over 16 years of sexual harassment by three former professors in the psychological and brain sciences department — an incident that some argued served as a microcosm of Dartmouth’s impassive campus culture surrounding sexual misconduct. In the 2018-19 school year alone, there were 228 people who 170 formal reports, according to the Gabi Cooper ’21, outreach chair for the Student and Presidential Committee on Sexual Assault, said that the process of overhauling Dartmouth’s problematic culture will be gradual. “When you are working on changing these really big cultural issues, like when you’re trying to enact a cultural shift, it takes time, so I don’t think that I’ll see any noticeable change in my Dartmouth lifetime as a senior,” Cooper said. “When you have continued incidents with professors incorrectly using their power and enacting violence and causing harm in the classroom like we saw … with the PBS lawsuit — unless an example is made of that and the College really
forced to pursue any action, according to Clemens. If a student discloses an incident on-campus private resource, Clemens said she is obligated to reach out to the student with resources but will not follow up if the student does
[active investigations] since it was established,” with, at one point, the of the reported conduct happened prior to the pandemic — and that a lag between an incident occurring and being reported was common — but the volume of requests for a formal investigation was nonetheless “surprising.” None of the reports detailed conduct that had occurred since students returned to campus this fall. “Sometimes I hear from students that they’re nervous about engaging in a formal resolution process because they don’t want to see that person, and they don’t want to see those witnesses and they don’t want to have those awkward moments on campus that make them really uncomfortable and interfere with their education,” she said. “I think that having everybody that made people feel like they could engage in this process.” The extra space is particularly meaningful at Dartmouth, she added, since its small size often unwanted interactions. “I’m not sure our Ivy-Plus peers have experienced this, as well,” she added. “I think this is a uniquely Dartmouth moment.”
THE DARTMOUTH FALL ISSUE
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2020
PAGE 7
Affinity houses and LLCs maintain community virtually BY Caitlin McCarthy The Dartmouth Staff
Many students at Dartmouth Living Learning Communities — residence halls and housing units that bring students together around common academic or cultural interests — in order to build a sense of community on campus. Even in the world of virtual learning, many of these programs are still running. Program member numbers, to previous years, according to the associate director of residential education for Living Learning Programs and academic initiatives Abi France-Kelly. She mentioned that program membership this term was not limited by the number of spaces available in residential areas, but that advisors were able to choose how many students they felt they could handle in a virtual program. “It felt like there were a lot more students who might not have traditionally participated who were able to participate,” France-Kelly said. Asian societies, cultures and languages professor James Dorsey, the faculty advisor for the Japanese Language Program, said that there was “a little less interest in [the LLC] in our virtual times than there were usually when [the LLC] had that living space.” Todd Gibbs, assistant director for health improvement at the Student Wellness Center and one of the advisors for the Thriving Through Transitions LLC, said that 16 students are taking part this year, compared to between 30 and 35 students last year. “I suspect part of that was the desirability of being able to live in the community as opposed to having one more thing that you’re going to Zoom into,” Gibbs said, adding that students in the LLC will be receiving care packages “in the absence of being able to gather and share some
NAINA BHALLA/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
of the resources that we have at the [Student] Wellness Center.” The Shabazz Center for Intellectual Inquiry currently has four students in residence at the house, down from its usual capacity of 25 students, Shabazz Center fellow and history professor N a a b o rk o SackeyfioLenoch said. However, she added that there are 19 students taking part in the virtual programming,
with students still able to participate While many prog rams are running in some context this term, others have opted to take a “Some [communities] are not operating at the moment due to some of the advisors’ inability to do a virtual program or the lack of interest of students opting into them,” France-Kelly said.
Does your partner... degrade you in public or in private? get angry if you spend time with others? demand you share social media passwords, texts, and phone messages? prevent you from working, sleeping, studying, or taking care of yourself? take your money and not pay you back? insist this is what relationships are like? claim your friends or family are trying to ruin your relationship? blame you for problems in your relationship? pressure you to do sexual things that make you uncomfortable? force you to drink, use drugs, or do things that get you into trouble? destroy your belongings or property around you? undermine your parenting or threaten to take away your kids? provoke you and blame you for your reaction? threaten to share personal information, spread rumors or hurt oneself or both of you?
exploit you because of your sexuality, gender, race, or other identity?
This is abuse. every hour, every day 866-348-WISE chat online at wiseuv.org You are not alone. We’re here for you.
Global Village, the Gender Equity Program Floor, the Sustainable Living Center and the Foley House, adding that “some of ” these programs aren’t “fully operating” as they would in regular years because not everyone is able to live together due to safety concerns. Although the switch to a virtual format has taken away the in-person experience of LLCs and af f i n i ty housing, there may be a “silver lining,” said Sarah M o r g a n , p ro g r a m manager for experiential learning at the Magnuson Center for for the Entrepreneurship LLC. Some of the virtual speakers for the Entrepreneurship LLC have been promoted on the Magnuson Center email list and have been available to the entire campus, Morgan said. Emma Johnson ’24, a member of the Entrepreneurship LLC, joined because she wanted to “meet regularly” with students who had interests in business, and she wasn’t sure if her “passion” for business subjects. Johnson added that the LLC meets once a week as a group, but there are also bi-weekly small group discussion meetings, one of which is held on Saturday mornings to accommodate international students’ time zones. She also reflected favorably on a recent Entrepreneurship LLC meeting where the community acted as a focus group for the alumni inventors of the new “Who’s Down” app. Alex Munson ’24, joined the Japanese Language Prog ram LLC in order to practice the Japanese language in an “intensive environment.” “We’re not actually living in the same place now, so it’s a little
VIRTUAL ESCAPE ROOM GAME
Escape to the Outdoors
Escape to the Outdoors is a fully virtual escape room game featuring works of public art on Dartmouth’s campus. Play on your own with a computer, tablet, or mobile device, or play it with friends on Zoom! Dartmouth community members are encouraged to play in person, following Dartmouth’s Covid-19 guidelines. Use the QR code to find the game at https://www hoodmuseumactivities.com/.
it,” Munson said, but added that he appreciated the experience of meeting virtually with other students in the program once a week to speak Japanese and listen to guest speakers. Although the group is composed of only six students, he said “it’s always a very lively atmosphere regardless of how many people are at any particular meeting.” In order to participate in LLCs and affinity housing, students fill out applications with prompts specific to each community or house. While some groups, like Thriving Through Transitions, are open exclusively to freshmen, other programs allow upperclassmen to join. Certain affinity houses today exist in their own buildings, such as Triangle House, La Casa, the Native American House and the Shabazz Center for Intellectual Inquiry. With the transition to a remote have faced challenges organizing events. However, many of them have adapted their programming to build virtual connections. Shabazz has faced limitations on its normal, in-person partnerships with the Hopkins Center, but the house has been able to invite professors to speak about their work and their backgrounds to the Middle Eastern Studies professor and faculty advisor for the Arabic Language Program El Mostafa Ouajjani said that the program — which is not open to freshmen — is currently holding weekly meetings for the two students in the program. He added that this is down from its normal twice weekly events of dinner and a Moroccan tea hour. MES professor and faculty advisor for the Arabic Language Program Jamila Chahboun said that one week, she led a cooking class where she taught the students how to make Moroccan food, and that a future discussion would focus on Arabic poetry. While there are no current members of the Italian LLC, focus is being placed on “providing multiple events every week” that are open to the entire campus, Italian department student advisor Diana Alvarado ’22 wrote in an email statement. As much as these events do serve to bring students together, students have lost the more informal connections in LLCs that come from living in the same place as one another and using shared spaces. Jason Saber ‘23, a member of the Japanese Language Program who lived in residence with the same LLC last year and is currently living conversations that naturally began However, the virtual programs are still pushing forward. “You can see that people are being very resilient and also very creative and innovative right now,” France-Kelly said of the new programming. The abrupt shift to online is “nonetheless challenging,” she said, but added that “we all adapted the way we needed to.”
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2020
THE DARTMOUTH FALL ISSUE
PAGE 8
Moose, pine trees and kegs: A look at mascot adoption efforts By THOMAS BROWN
for its discontinuation. The Big Green,
The Dartmouth
Dartmouth has never had an Trustees voted to remove the Indian
mascot. Calls arise for new mascot
stemmed from either dissatisfaction with the Big Green as the mascot or were an decades since the Indian mascot was that a decade after the Indian’s enthusiasm for a new mascot seems to The rise and fall of the “Dartmouth Indian”
Timber Wolf. Trailing behind were the the Raider, the Buck and the Moose.
to make the color green Dartmouth’s
VIOLA GATTI ROAF/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
the Wolves or the Moose as Dartmouth’s new mascot. The athletic director at baseball team wore green uniforms
silk ties, boxers and canes featuring the Indian. Review articles about athletics used the Indian to refer to Dartmouth
Jack-O-Lantern introduces Keggy the Keg
he might be on board. was looking for a “tangible item” to be
over liquor. American students against the sale
that fall revealed that the moose was the Indian in a sexual act and the decision
related merchandise.
been little movement or discussion
on a more concrete mascot: the Indian. Chosen for its association with Dartmouth’s founding mission to educate Native Americans, the Indian
North Dakota’s “Fighting Sioux.” The
was born from the desire to make an “underground mascot” that would
One tool current students have
College administration. Richardson would make it much easier to establish
article from The Dartmouth wrote that
Dartmouth’s drinking culture, but stems from the fact that students like to
then almost inaccessible North Woods.” Collis Center and associate dean for
would make it easier “to demonstrate to the trustees that there’s a groundswell
uniforms and College merchandise until American students at Dartmouth, mascot, released a statement declaring
recommendation from the Alumni Council, the Board of Trustees found the use of the Indian “inconsistent with Native American education” and called
the Conservative Union at Dartmouth that term. Richardson said that he doesn’t see mascot. Among the Indian’s most vocal backers was The Dartmouth Review.
of athletic events. “A true mascot is much more visible as an active and engaging ambassador
the College had done a “disservice”
through Commencement and alumni
relating to a mascot in light of ongoing “I don’t even think [the mascot] is on our radar to be honest,” Millman said. “I take a lot of the issues that I hear from students to [SA], and I have not heard administration ever leaning that far into