VOL. CLXXIX NO. 14
FRIDAY, JULY 22, 2022
HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE
Sian Leah Beilock to serve as 19th First-Year Trips to resume president of Dartmouth College overnight component for the first time since 2019
NAINA BHALLA/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
BY kristin chapman The Dartmouth Staff COURTESY OF THE OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS
BY the dartmouth senior staff The presidential search is over: The Board of Trustees has elected Sian Leah Beilock, a cognitive scientist and the current president of Barnard College, as the next president of Dartmouth College, the College announced on Thursday. Following College President Phil Hanlon’s retirement in June 2023, Beilock will become the 19th president and the first woman named to this position in the College’s history. “It is an immense honor to join Dartmouth, one of the nation’s most storied institutions of higher learning, and I am even more deeply moved by what lies ahead,” Beilock wrote in the announcement. Beilock’s selection, which comes on the heels of the College’s 50th
anniversary of coeducation, was an “enthusiastic and unanimous” decision by the Board of Trustees, according to Board of Trustees chair Elizabeth Cahill Lempres ’83, Th’84. Beilock, a University of California, San Diego alum, received her doctorates in kinesiology and psychology from Michigan State University. She spent 12 years at the University of Chicago, working as a psychology professor, the vice provost for academic initiatives, the executive vice provost and an officer of the University. As the eighth president of Barnard C o l l e g e, B e i l o c k i m p l e m e n t e d initiatives that strengthened its STEM research and teaching programs. In addition, Beilock led campus-wide health and wellness initiatives, while also focusing on student diversity — according to the announcement,
almost half of Barnard students identify as women of color. Beilock’s work as a cognitive scientist includes 120 peer-reviewed publications and two books. She received the National Academy of Sciences Troland Research Award in 2017 for her work on anxiety and perfor mance in high-stress situations and is also a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Psychological Association. The Dartmouth Board of Trustees led a six-month presidential search, which was composed of 18 members across faculty, staff, students and alumni. In addition, Spencer Stuart, a leadership advisory firm, assisted the committee with the search for a new president. Beilock will assume the presidency on July 1, 2023.
Q&A with foreign volunteer in Ukraine Zachary Jaynes ’21
MOSTLY SUNNY HIGH 92 LOW 61
BY Adriana James-rodil The Dartmouth Staff
NEWS
OH BATS! MAMMALS RETURN FOR UPPER VALLEY SUMMER PAGE 2
OPINION
NOVICOFF: DARTMOUTH DID RID OF LOANS PAGE 3
ARTS
‘PHOENIX RISING’ COMES TO HOP PAGE 4
SPORTS
THE CHEAP SEATS: THE MINOR LEAGUE DESERVES LOVE PAGE 5
MIRROR
LEARNING TO DO LESS: A REFLECTION PAGE 6 FOLLOW US ON
@thedartmouth COPYRIGHT © 2022 THE DARTMOUTH, INC.
After Zachary Jaynes ’21 graduated from Dartmouth, he said he planned on taking a gap year prior to applying to the Peace Corps. After seeing images from Kyiv, Jaynes — who served in the U.S. Army for four years before enrolling at the College — decided to become a foreign volunteer for the International Legion of Ukraine. Upon arriving at the training center for the Ukrainian International Legion, he was pulled aside to work for a small unit of the legion under the Ministry of Defense. Through written responses, The Dartmouth conducted an interview with Jaynes to discuss why he chose to volunteer in Ukraine, his experience on the front lines and how to best support Ukraine. What is your role currently in Donbas? ZJ: I’m currently a team leader on a small reconnaissance unit of foreigners working under the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. I have been in Ukraine since early March and in the Donbas since early April. You are a Dartmouth alum — from the Class of 2021 — serving among a group of volunteers fighting in Ukraine. Why did you decide to volunteer, and what were some of your considerations before making your decision? ZJ: I was spending the year after graduating from Dartmouth traveling while I was waiting to apply to the Peace Corps in order to become a teacher. When Russia attacked Ukraine on February 24, I was hiking to Everest Base Camp in Nepal and had just visited a Buddhist monastery where I planned to spend a month on a meditation retreat after the trek. When I arrived at a tea house the next day, I checked my phone and it was flooded with images coming from Kyiv which shook me to my core. I read what was essentially
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s SOS for all “citizens of the world” to aid in the defense of Ukraine, and I knew in that moment that I couldn’t hide out in the Himalayas trying to find my own inner peace when so many millions were having theirs shattered by indiscriminate shelling and senseless slaughter. While trying to figure out how best to help, I came across an article about Ukraine’s International Legion calling for foreign volunteers with combat experience. Prior to Dartmouth, I served four years in the 75 Ranger Regiment, where I was deployed to Afghanistan three times. Although I told myself after I left the Army that I was done with war and never wanted to touch a rifle again, I also knew that my experience was one of the most valuable things I could contribute at the time. I had wrestled with these questions of war and peace throughout my time at Dartmouth. This seemed like the moment to put everything I had studied into practice where I felt it could have the most direct impact on the ground where it mattered most. What was your journey to Ukraine like in April — did you receive any help from other volunteers, the federal government or from external organizations? ZJ: I was in Nepal when the invasion happened, so the first thing I did at the start of March was head back to Kathmandu and try to arrange a meeting with the Ukrainian Consulate. The consulate put me in touch with the military attaché in India to whom I sent my military records. After a short Zoom call, I was given a contact in the International Legion in Western Ukraine who set up my transportation from Poland. I flew stateside from Kathmandu to grab a bag of my old Army gear and arrived in Warsaw the first week of March. When I walked across the border from Poland to Ukraine I passed what seemed SEE Q&A PAGE 2
From Sept. 1 through Sept. 7, the Class of 2026 will embark on First-Year Trips, which will include an overnight portion for the first time since 2019, according to FirstYear Trips director Jack Kreisler ’22. Kreisler said the decision was made due to improved public health circumstances and a belief that the overnight component of Trips provides an opportunity for incoming students to bond with their class. “I think that overnight time is really valuable to building friendships, and group formation, and feeling like you belong and [like] you have a group of people, so that was a priority for us,” Kreisler said. “At least at the moment, the current public health situation is telling us that that is an okay choice to make, and so we’re excited about doing that.” This decision follows two years without an overnight component on First-Year Trips. The program was not run for the Class of 2024 in 2020 due to the initial wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. A modified version of the program ran for the Class of 2025 in 2021 without the overnight portion of trips so that students could stay in Hanover in case they tested positive for COVID-19. Kreisler explained that there are a few new logistical updates to Trips this year. The Trips’ schedule has been reconfigured so that students will no longer arrive to campus on staggered dates, as they did prior to the pandemic iterations. On Aug. 31, the majority of the Class of 2026 — aside from incoming students who participate in First Year Student Enrichment Program or other preorientation programs — will arrive on Dartmouth’s campus and “cycle through” their First-Year Trips and New Student Orientation experiences in four different sections, Kreisler said. Students who opt-out of Trips will arrive on Sept. 4. In addition, students will spend their last night of Trips at Moosilauke Ravine Lodge or the Skiway Lodge. In 2021, Tripees had programming at either Moosilauke or the Ski Lodge — although they did not spend the night — while prior to the pandemic, the culminating celebration was typically
held at one of the lodges. K re i s l e r s a i d t h at i n c o m i n g students have the option to pick from 30 different trips this year. He added that although Trips are optional, the vast majority of the Class of 2026 signed up. “Every incoming student is invited — we are going to have around 90% of the incoming class participate this year, which is in line with the past few participation rates from prior years,” Kreisler said. Kreisler said that this year, there are approximately 400 student volunteers who will help run Trips. According to First-Year Trips associate director Brandon Zhou ’22, these student volunteers include Trip Leaders, Croolings — volunteers who support and help with the logistical side of trips — and the 19 members of the Trips Directorate, which include positions such as Croo Captains and Trip Leader Trainers. Colleen Moore ’25, who will lead a cabin camping and cooking trip, explained that Trip leader training requires that leaders attend three Outdoor Programs Office seminars — focusing on mental health, group dynamics and risk management — as well as two longer training sessions with Trips Directorate members. “I was surprised by how rigorous the training schedule was, but I think it’s all worthwhile,” she said. Moore added that she felt inspired to become a Trip leader because she “adored” her own Trip leaders. “I looked up to my Trip leaders [and] asked them for advice all throughout my freshman year, and I really want to be able to give that to the ’26s,” Moore said. Matt Koff ’25 is a Crooling for Hanover Croo, which greets students in front of Robinson Hall as they arrive on campus and passes out food and equipment for Trips. Koff said that he was interested in becoming a Crooling because it seemed like a fun way to welcome the Class of 2026. “Thinking about Croo specifically, a lot of people I know have had an experience where there’s one person on Croo who they remember super well — from just dancing around, being loud or just talking to them — and I would love to be that person for as many people as possible,” Koff said.
PAGE 2
FRIDAY, JULY 22, 2022
THE DARTMOUTH NEWS
Oh Bats! Mammals return for summer, The Unspoken 14 reports made to Safety and Security Challenge of Ledyard
LILA HOVEY/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
BY arizbeth rojas The Dartmouth Staff
OLIVER DE JONGHE/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
BY daniel modesto The Dartmouth Staff
As students enjoy outdoor activities on campus this summer, many have reported a return of bats around campus. According to residential operations associate director Bernard Haskell, Safety and Security has received around 14 reports of bats in residences this term, noting that they have been found in academic buildings, College-owned residence halls and Greek houses. Monique Cummings ’24 said she saw a resting bat at an open-to-campus event at Chi Delta sorority, noting that she could not fully tell it was a bat until she looked closer. “I thought it was hilarious. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal because I knew it wasn’t going to fly around because it was all huddled,” she said. Cummings said that the members of Chi Delta responded “very quickly” and evacuated people from the house, calling Safety and Security in order to remove the bat. Chi Delt summer president Z Li ’24 said that the bat sighting at her sorority’s house was the only time this term that they have dealt with bats and noted it was not unique to her house. “[Haskell] said that bats are a pretty common issue, not just in [Chi Delta] but in all buildings, in Greek houses,
especially in the summer,” Li said. “I don’t know too much about bats, but there are more of them in the summer. So it’s definitely not just a Chi Delta issue.” In order to protect members living in the house, Li said that Chi Delta closes access to the attic, since “the highest likelihood of bats comes from the attic.” She added that there has been a lack of preventative measures from the College, saying that the College’s tone regarding bats is instead “reactionary.” The bat sightings are not unique to this year. According to Haskell, bats are a present feature in the summer, noting that he is a “bat-lover” because they eat bugs. “We live in New England. The bugs are a pain and the bats do wonderful things for them,” he said. According to biology professor Hannah ter Hofstede, eight species of bats live in the state. The big brown bat is very abundant” compared to the little brown bat, which she attributed to a fungal disease with a high mortality rate among little brown bats. During the summer, female bats form maternity colonies and give birth to pups. During the day, bats rest, while in the evenings, bats look for nourishment through insects. According to research from the University of New Hampshire, humans should not touch bats because some may potentially carry rabies.
The New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Service notes on its website that following contact with a potential carrier of rabies, the exposed area should be washed with soap and water. Ellie Rudnick ’23 said last summer, she received a series of rabies shots following two encounters with bats in Hanover. When she went to Dick’s House, she said she was told that she did not need the shots but went ahead with the series after consulting with her primary doctor. Rudnick said that other friends living off-campus also dealt with bats last summer, along with a friend living in a dorm this spring. Given that bats are a common occurrence in the summer, Hofstede said that students should appreciate bats, as they are often “underappreciated in terms of their role in nature.” “They’re kind of mysterious. But they’re basically the birds of the night, so they are eating an enormous number of insects,” Hofstede said. “There have been many studies showing how much economic benefit they give to agriculture by eating all of these agricultural pests, [so] they’re important in forests for the same reason — they play a really important role in every ecosystem.”
Zachary Jaynes ’21 shares experiences on-the-ground fighting in Ukraine FROM Q&A PAGE 1
like a mile of tents and makeshift shelters for refugees. It was unlike anything I had seen before: women and children with what seemed like everything they had left in their backpacks, small fires everywhere to ward off the freezing March morning. I also saw women and children with their pets walking west, and men with their duffle bags walking east. Eventually I ended up at the training center for the International Legion, but, without going into specifics, I was pulled aside to join a small unit working under the Ministry of Defense. All my help came from the Ukrainian government and Ukrainian volunteers.
and vehicles, or, in some cases, to clear a Russian trench system or to defend a Ukrainian position from an attack. If there’s a mission for that day or night we’ll go over to the house where the Ukrainian reconnaissance team we work with lives and start planning. If we have a mission for the day, my team will load up in a truck and drive out to the trenches where we usually work out of and walk towards the Russian lines from there. Most of our operations are at night, so I usually fill my day with reading novels and the news or practicing my Ukrainian with Pushka, my cat, on my lap while listening to the shelling in order to gauge how the war is progressing in this area.
What were some of the biggest surprises for you upon arriving in Ukraine? ZJ: The incredible generosity and solidarity of the Ukrainian people still surprises me to this day. I’ve lost count of the number of бабусі (grandmothers) who have come up to hug and kiss me and tell me about their son who’s also fighting. Ukrainian volunteers all across the country help make homemade meals for soldiers on the front, and almost every bunker in the country has camouflage netting knitted together by civilians with donated clothes. Every Ukrainian I’ve met has opened their house and their heart to foreigners like me. For that, I will be eternally grateful.
What are some of the biggest challenges that you’ve faced — on an individual and collective level? ZJ: The biggest challenge is just the daily grind of this attritional war. There are hardly any major advances or attacks, just the slow shelling day after day which wears you down physically, emotionally and psychologically. Everyday there’s news of another one of your friends who got hit, of another soldier you know who got unlucky or simply too shellshocked to keep functioning, of another apartment building or school that got hit and the images of the innocents deliberately targeted in order to add to the emotional and psychological drain this war is, by design, turning into.
What does your day-to-day routine look like? ZJ: It’s cliche to say there’s no normal day-to-day, but I’ll try to give some examples. Right now, I’m on the line in the Donbas where I’ve been fighting since early April. Most of our missions are either reconnaissance or direct action. With direct action missions, we usually take out a Javelin and some other anti-tank weapons to hit Russian armor
As a foreign volunteer, how do you work with Ukrainian fighters? Have you found any difficulties? ZJ: My team is very small and composed entirely of foreigners, one of whom speaks fluent Russian. I’ve been practicing my Ukrainian every day and although it’s still far from fluent, I know enough to communicate basic battlefield orders and understand basic instructions. Overall, working with
COURTESY OF ZACHARY JAYNES
Ukrainian soldiers has been relatively easy. They’re all extremely excited to have foreign fighters alongside them and are usually patient with the language barrier. I’ve helped treat and evacuate casualties, both military and civilian, under fire with Ukrainian soldiers, and we were all well trained enough to take care of a seemingly complex and extraordinarily stressful task like that with relative ease together. What would you suggest people do in order to support Ukraine? ZJ: The first thing everyone can do is simply keep Ukraine in the news however you can. It may seem small, but keeping Ukraine trending on social media and on our front pages is a sure way to keep the political pressure to continue supporting and arming Ukraine. This is a war of attrition and Vladimir Putin is counting on people outside of Ukraine to lose interest and for countries to stop sending aid — which Ukraine can’t survive without. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
Although infamous among local police for its dangerous nature, the Ledyard Challenge is a popular Dartmouth summer tradition. As legend has it, the Ledyard Challenge began in the early 90s after four students plunged into the Connecticut River, naked of course, and ran back across the Ledyard bridge. While two of the streakers managed to get away, the remaining two were not as lucky and were arrested by Hanover Police. The challenge originates from supposed loopholes in the laws of neighboring states New Hampshire and Vermont. Because public nudity is illegal in New Hampshire, but not in Vermont, and stripping is illegal in Vermont, the streakers strip in New Hampshire, swim across the Connecticut and race back from Vermont naked. Broken down, phase one is stripping, phase two is skinny-dipping, and phase three is the naked dash across state lines. My introduction to the challenge came one summer night during FYSEP summer sessions. Overlooking the Connecticut River, my friend and I could see about a dozen sophomores attempting the Ledyard Challenge. Some were halfway across the river and others were still stripping when Safety and Security officers broke up the scene. We had no idea what we had just witnessed. On the winding path back to campus, a girl caught up to us and asked if we were headed to Sig Nu. Looking over at my friend, we silently agreed to honor the frat ban but take her most of the way. Although I had anticipated a cold reception from upperclassmen, the girl was chatty and friendly. Seizing the moment, I asked the million dollar question: “So, what were you guys doing back there?” Giddy, she turned to us and explained the lore behind the Ledyard Challenge. She said it was her third or fourth time completing it, she could not remember which. As we neared Webster Avenue, I realized the only Greek letters I knew were from my calc AB class. Elated from our first “real” night at Dartmouth, my friend and I walked back to our dorms, mentally swimming in Greek symbols. Restless in bed that night, I decided I would complete the Ledyard Challenge during my sophomore summer. Students complete the challenge at any time the water is warm enough, but I felt like it was a quintessential sophomore summer activity. Almost a year out from that hazy memory, some of my thoughts on the challenge have changed. Like every freshman, I was inundated with a million traditions or challenges I just had to take part in to get “the full Dartmouth experience.” Some traditions are harmless, like rubbing the Warner Bentley bust nose for good
luck and staying up till midnight for a campus-wide snowball fight. Other traditions have been outright banned, like attempting to touch the bonfire and throwing tennis balls on the rink during hockey games against Princeton. Finally, some unofficial traditions are illegal, dangerous or both. Go figure, Dartmouth Seven and the Ledyard Challenge. In 2005, a Bulgarian student from Trinity College named Valentine Valkov drowned while taking part in the Ledyard Challenge. He was on campus in the summer to participate in a program at the Tuck School of Business. Following the tragedy, another student said the College was fortunate to not experience accidents like that more often. The reports from the accident read exactly like what I had seen that summer night a year ago: After a night out, a few friends decided to complete the famed Ledyard Challenge. Suddenly, I realized that scene I witnessed could have played out a lot differently. It was clear the girl we encountered had been drinking, just like Valkov had been. However, from the popularity of the challenge, it seems that more of the student body knows about the challenge and not enough know about Valkov’s story. Others, like myself, may be under the false impression that the Dartmouth bubble is some impenetrable field where nothing bad can happen. The decision to take part in the Ledyard Challenge is a calculated risk. The issue is that sometimes that calculation is influenced by outside factors, including peer pressure. According to a Valley News article, Valkov had told others he was afraid of the water because he was not a strong swimmer. Yet, after drinking at a bar he joined a group of friends in attempting the challenge. As long students continue to partake in the Ledyard Challenge, there is a collective responsibility to mitigate its dangers. If anyone expresses any amount of hesitation to the challenge, it is no one else’s place to egg them on —it is that individual’s decision alone to make. Importantly, that decision cannot be made under the influence of any amount of alcohol. Swimming across the Connecticut River is challenging enough on its own, but swimming across while intoxicated is a prelude to disaster. Being off campus this summer, I am only beginning to understand how silly some of these traditions are. Don’t get me wrong, I love most of them, but there is no need to complete each one to get a bona fide Dartmouth experience, whatever that is. The Dartmouth experience is everyone’s for the making. You can feel just as connected to the College’s history by throwing a snowball at midnight as you can streaking across the Ledyard bridge. I might still complete the challenge, I might not, but when I make that decision I’ll be sure to assess the risk carefully before I dive in.
FRIDAY, JULY 22, 2022
PAGE 3
THE DARTMOUTH OPINION
GUEST COLUMNIST: MARC NOVICOFF ’22
CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST: ANNA ROODNITSKY ’25
Dartmouth didn’t get rid of even half of The College’s ratio of students to mental health providers is abysmal and it shows student loans for undergraduates
While Dartmouth gets glowing coverage about “eliminating student loans for undergraduates,” future students will graduate with only 27% less debt than the Class of 2021. Dartmouth undergraduate students will never again have student loans — or at least that’s what you’d think reading last month’s headlines. Associated Press: “Dartmouth to eliminate loans for undergraduate students.” Bloomberg: “Dartmouth is getting rid of student loans for undergraduates.” NBC News: “Dartmouth College is eliminating student loans and replacing them with scholarships.” ABC News: “Dartmouth to eliminate loans for undergraduate students.” CNN: “Dartmouth College eliminates undergraduate student loans and replaces them with scholarship grants.” New York Post: “Dartmouth to eliminate loans for undergraduate students.” The Dartmouth used the same language: “Dartmouth to eliminate loans for undergraduate students.” The problem with these headlines is that they are extremely misleading — incorrect even. Some Dartmouth students will still have loans this year. Some Dartmouth students will have loans next year. The Class of 2026 will have student loans. Under the announced policy, every class that will ever graduate from the College will still have hundreds of students graduating with student loans. According to Dartmouth’s most recent figures, 34% of the Class of 2021 took out student loans, with an average loan amount of $23,217. That puts the total debt of the graduating class of 1,144 students at $9,030,484 from the 384 students who took out loans. According to the College’s joyful announcement of its new policy, “approximately 450 Dartmouth undergraduates have financial aid offers for the upcoming 2022–23 academic year that include loans. Replacing federal and institutional loans with larger grant awards will eliminate as much as $5,500 in required borrowing for each student per year.” Mathematically, 450 undergraduates who must take out loans equals around 113 students per class. “As much as $5,500” per student per year is as much as $22,000 for each of those students by graduation. In total, 113 students having up to $22,000 less debt is a total debt reduction of $2,475,000 for each graduating class. To put it all together with the $9 million of student debt from the Class of 2021, this change in Dartmouth policy, hailed as “eliminat[ing] loans for undergraduate students” actually eliminated only about a quarter — 27.4% to be exact — of student loans for undergraduate students. So, while Dartmouth gets glowing coverage in news publications across the country, 72.6% of the debt it saddles its students with remains. Dartmouth did not eliminate student debt for undergraduates. What Dartmouth actually did was announce that students would no longer get loans in their financial aid packages, and those would be replaced by scholarship grants. But most student loans at Dartmouth are not taken out because the student is instructed to by their financial aid award. Most student loans are taken out because they cannot afford the amount of money Dartmouth makes them pay. This is a key distinction. Starting this fall, it will cost $83,802 to attend a single year of Dartmouth College — approximately 124% of the median income in America. If a student is eligible for $50,000 in financial aid, that student and their family are expected to cough up the other $33,802. If they can’t because, for example, nobody’s mortgage changes when their kids get into college, they will take out loans. That is how students end up with the vast majority of their student loans, not through “required borrowing.” Because the College is need-blind, economically
speaking, the Class of 2026 should be similar to the Class of 2021, except with no loans on their financial aid awards. Therefore, the Class of 2026 will graduate with 27.4 percent less debt than the Class of 2021: about $6,555,484 for the Class of 2026 vs. $9,030,484 for the Class of 2021. Given the trend of the endowment’s growth, they’ll likely graduate with millions of dollars of debt from a school with an endowment greater than $10 billion. If that sounds ridiculous to you, that’s because it is. The problem of student loan debt is easy to solve, and even easier to pay for. The issue is that the Dartmouth administration has no interest in solving it. First, Dartmouth needs to stop obsessing over its perception of “demonstrated need,” which is clearly not accurate if hundreds of students are demonstrating they have more need by taking out loans. There is no reason to take out loans that is anything else but “need.” Nobody takes out loans for fun. The College should institute a policy in which a family that cannot pay for the difference between $83,802 and their financial aid can appeal to get more aid. These appeals should be encouraged. Then, upon receiving these appeals, Dartmouth should simply give out more aid to those families. The cynics and skeptics among you might be wondering: won’t some parents just take advantage of this and pretend they cannot pay? I am not so sure, but the College will know if it has been too generous in this regard if the total amount they give out after appeals far exceeds $6,555,484, the amount of debt the Class of 2021 had minus the amount of “required borrowing” that is being eliminated by the policy change. They’ll know if they were too stingy if they give out far less. Admissions is need-blind, so each class should have roughly the same additional need every year, which we know is around $6,555,484 after loans in financial aid packages are eliminated. Here are a few ways you could pay for that $6,555,484: 1. Increase the College’s $1,126,000,000 annual budget by 0.58%. 2. Decrease administration and development salaries and benefits by less than 10%. Those salaries and benefits already dropped 6.3% this year, and I didn’t notice the administration getting a lot worse (that would be a hard thing to notice!). 3. Take it out of the $8.5 billion endowment, optimistically assuming Dartmouth could survive with an endowment that is 0.07% smaller. 4. Make a new fundraising campaign specifically for this. Dartmouth raised over $276 million last year — just use 2.4% of it so that Dartmouth students do not have debt anymore. Multiple people gave more than $6 million individually last year. Next year, call one of them the Glorious Debt-Canceler or whatever and give them a big plaque in the Class of 1953 Commons. Donors like that! I don’t really care which of these solutions Dartmouth chooses. Here’s the important part: nobody should be graduating in debt from a school with $8.5 billion lying around. Perhaps incoming College President Sian Leah Beilock can accomplish this miniscule and easy goal in her first year. If she cannot, then we should let some randomly selected students run the school for a change — they’d do a better job than the current administration.
The 10-week term structure is no excuse for Dartmouth. Students need access to long-term mental health care on campus.
Many of us have heard of the “duck syndrome” at Dartmouth: It’s week five, midterms are crashing into you, stress from extracurriculars has piled up, looming deadlines approach, the fear of finding that internship for your next off term peaks and quite frankly, you sleep more in Baker-Berry Library than in your dorm. And yet, you must appear calm above the surface of the water, a graceful duck making its way smoothly around the pond. If someone were to peek underneath, however, they would see webbed feet frantically paddling away. That’s how much energy the duck must exert to keep from drowning. Nobody would know from its appearance that the duck is just barely remaining afloat. Sound familiar? Unfortunately, the “duck syndrome” is an all-too-common experience for both Dartmouth students and college students nationwide. According to the Clay Center for Young Healthy Minds, 73% of college students experience some sort of mental health crisis during college. I have found that some Dartmouth students have very little experience with seeking treatment for issues like anxiety and depression. High school was a time that kept us so busy that many never considered seeking medical care for mental health. I would know — as someone who took a medical withdrawal my freshman fall due to chronic depression, I found myself not only forced to pay attention to an aspect of my health I’d been ignoring for years, but also shocked at the lack of infrastructure for mental health services at an Ivy League institution. Even after the wake-up call of a year of tragedy for the Class of 2024, it became clear that there was no way that the College could provide me with the medical care I needed to improve my mental health. This institutional failure meant I had to make the extremely difficult choice of taking a withdrawal during my very first term. After two terms off, I came back to campus for spring 2022 to begin my freshman year. During my six months recovering at home, I was lucky enough to have providers that were invested in my full recovery, supporting me every step along the way. Coming back with a new perspective on mental health, it deeply saddens me to think that the care system here at Dartmouth seems to be analogous to slapping a Band-Aid on a broken limb. I found that many of my friends on campus shared this sentiment. When requesting counseling, students have to go through a process called “triage” — essentially, a scheduled phone interview with a counselor to discuss why you need them and what sort of help you’d like to seek. My first experience with one of these triage appointments was back in fall 2021, and it can be summarized as me explaining to the counselor that I woke up every day numb and hopeless only for her to tell me to “try journaling about your feelings!” To serve the student body population of approximately 4,000 undergraduate students, the College currently has only seven counselors on staff. That means for every 571 students on campus, there
is one counselor. Additionally, the College has two psychiatrists, but meeting with one of them requires a lengthy referral process, and the first available appointment could be a month out. These ratios of providers to students are absolutely abysmal, and they inevitably result in overworked staff. It’s clear that many students are dissatisfied. The Dartmouth’s senior survey of the most recent graduating class, the Class of 2022, shows that an overwhelming “91% of seniors reported being either somewhat or extremely dissatisfied” with the College’s allocation of resources to support the mental health of its students. The system is set up so that struggling students have to navigate an overwhelming maze just to secure one quality in-person appointment with one of the counselors. Many simply give up. What’s worse is that Dartmouth seems to believe that after every term students hit the reset button on their mental health needs. If a student does manage to secure a few appointments during a term, the next term they essentially have to start the entire process over. On the Dartmouth Health Services website, the College bluntly explains that “in order to meet significant student demand and use its resources most effectively, the Counseling Center utilizes a shortterm therapy model.” There’s pressure placed on the student that they are expected to expedite their treatment to a timeframe of less than a 10-week term. The website also explains that “if longer term counseling is needed, the counselor will help a student find a referral to a therapist in the community.” Tell me, what is the point of counseling and therapy services on campus if, at the end of the day, most students will just be told to seek help elsewhere? Now the student has to worry about insurance, arranging new appointments and going through another exhaustive process, all on top of their existing struggles. To me, there’s no point in even trying to establish a relationship with a counselor on campus if they’re just going to kick me out by next term because of the “significant student demand.” It’s a process that seems designed solely to outsource liability when crisis strikes, not to prevent crises from happening in the first place. Dear Dartmouth, it’s clear. We’re struggling. A lot. We desperately need help. Though College President Phil Hanlon has launched a partnership with the JED Foundation — a nonprofit focused on bettering students’ mental health and preventing suicide — we are still not near the level of intervention we need. Instead of conducting more surveys that point out the obvious — that many students are suffering — we need an adequate system of professionals to serve as a powerful support system. So Dartmouth, please stop buying face masks and coloring books for “de-stress” events hosted by house communities. The College has the power to dissolve the stigmas regarding mental health treatment by adequately taking responsibility for students’ needs, and it should act on that power.
ANSWERS FROM LAST WEEK’S CROSSWORD
Marc Novicoff is a member of the Class of 2022. The Dartmouth welcomes guest columns. We request that guest columns be the original work of the submitter. Submissions may be sent to both opinion@thedartmouth.com and editor@ thedartmouth.com. Submissions will receive a response within three business days.
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FRIDAY, JULY 22, 2022
THE DARTMOUTH ARTS
‘It was superlative’: Award-winning Silkroad Ensemble, Rhiannon Giddens perform ‘Phoenix Rising’ at the Hop
KATELYN HADLEY/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
BY madeline sawyer The Dartmouth Staff
Thirteen Silkroad Ensemble artists performed “Phoenix Rising” with artistic director and Grammy Awardwinning musician Rhiannon Giddens on Tuesday at the Hopkins Center for the Arts. The ensemble — composed of artists with diverse backgrounds and unique musical experiences — perfor med a program of 10 pieces, including new commissions, reimagined arrangements and two world premieres. The works drew inspiration from the North of Scotland, folk music from the American South, Japanese court music and Iranian folk music. Many audience members were enthusiastic about the performance, participating in a vocal call-and-
response led by Giddens and vocalist Mazz Swift at the beginning of the performance and giving a standing ovation at the end, prompting an encore by the ensemble. “It was superlative. There’s no other way to describe it,” Aileen Gillett, an audience member from Claremont, N.H, said. “I haven’t been to a concert in a number of years now because of COVID. What a way to come back. This kind of a show is just unbelievable.” The Hopkins Center for the Arts’s Spaulding Auditorium is a familiar venue for Silkroad Ensemble. The group first performed there as an ensemble in 2001, but some of its artists have since returned to give individual performances. Kojiro Umezaki, the ensemble’s shakuhachi player, also received a master’s degree in electroacoustic music at Dartmouth.
During the performance, Giddens and tabla virtuoso Sandeep Das ex p re s s e d t h e s t ro n g p e r s o n a l connection they feel to Dartmouth. Giddens told the audience that she feels “such a special connection to this venue,” calling the performance a unique way to continue their tour. Das spoke fondly of performing and teaching various classes at Dartmouth over the years. The musicians put on a dynamic show, and their arrangements ranged from soulful and moving to upbeat and celebratory. “I liked the quieter things,” audience member Da-Shih Hu said. “I thought the sequence around ‘Goin’ Home’ and then the pipa solo were so wonderful, moving and atmospheric.” Some audience members said they appreciated the variety of
pieces featured, which appealed to a broad array of preferences while simultaneously forming a cohesive program. “My favorite was ‘Cut the Rug,’ the last one that was part of the perfor mance,” Larissa Sharff of Cornish, N.H, said. “I just really liked the sound, I liked the way that everything came together.” Silkroad Ensemble’s music combines tradition and innovation, as can be seen in the lively and powerful pieces that comprise “Phoenix Rising.” “We have been breathing life into older repertoire, yet we are also playing new repertoire,” ensemble harpist and composer Maeve Gilchrist said. “In all of this, we are carrying through the energy and excitement that Silkroad has always embodied and bringing it to new works.” The ensemble aims to celebrate cultural commonalities through their work, doing so in part by grounding their music in cultural collaboration. “‘Phoenix Rising,’ to me, is a continuation of energy, and it also has so many layers. There is the energy of new members alongside the long-time members of the ensemble,” Giddens said. “The stage is shared by musicians from all different cultures, pulling together multiple conversations, but in a different place and time and energy in our country. It’s Silkroad, but it’s Silkroad for 2022.” In addition to the touring ensemble’s performances, the group leads social impact and educational initiatives, such as music programming for students in low-performing schools, refugee artists, the incarcerated and emerging musicians. These educational music programs are central to pursuing Silkroad’s vision for a more equitable and just future. “This world-class ensemble leverages incredible music to impact positive change, both through our music and through all of our social impact and education programs,” Giddens said.
“My goal is to be a part of a musical conversation where we respect where we are all coming from and find the points at which all of our musics naturally converge. I want to be a part of something that is greater than the sum of its parts.” While this is Giddens’s first season performing with Silkroad Ensemble as artistic director, she performed with the ensemble numerous times in the past. Giddens succeeded cellist and humanitarian Yo-Yo Ma, who founded the ensemble in 1998 and stepped down after leading the organization for 20 years. “We were looking for somebody who is both global but also understands the tradition of American music,” executive director Kathy Fletcher said. “We needed to find somebody who could lead the organization into the next iteration and started looking at artists that had worked with Silkroad, that understand Silkroad, that have the same kind of passion for social impact that Yo-Yo Ma has.” After Giddens flew to Boston and performed with Das, a current member of Silkroad Ensemble, she was chosen to succeed Yo-Yo Ma as leader of the ensemble. “Just talking to her, researching her, listening to her music…she is really the perfect person to lead us into Silkroad 2.0,” Fletcher said. The title “Phoenix Rising” refers to the new period that the ensemble has entered. Under Giddens, the organization has been restructured and its vision has evolved, she said. “We have a lot of silver linings from the pandemic because all of a sudden, we were all grounded,” Fletcher said. “It gave us the opportunity to really think about restructuring the organization to be a world-class ensemble that uses the power of the arts to impact positive change in the world and really think about who we’re accountable to, how we can be systemic allies with people of color and an anti-racist organization.”
Review: The Dead & Company’s concerts at Citi Field perfectly conclude summer tour with electric nostalgia BY Eleanor Schifino The Dartmouth Senior Staff
The Grateful Dead have been the soundtrack to all my best memories — the ride to and from school every day, my dad singing “Brown-Eyed Women” to me while making pancakes every Sunday morning, driving to Atlanta for my first Dead & Company concert in 2017. I have been a Deadhead since birth; both my parents are avid fans and have been playing their music since before I could walk. Now that I’m grown and my parents’ love for the band has evolved into my own, riding about six hours on the Dartmouth Coach to New York to see Dead & Company — the Grateful Dead legacy band featuring icons Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, along with John Mayer, Oteil Burbridge and Jeff Chimenti — was an easy sacrifice to make. On July 15 and 16, Dead & Company performed the final shows of its summer tour at Citi Field in New York, pulling in masses of Deadheads from across the east coast. While I had expected these concerts to be phenomenal — you don’t build up a reputation like the Dead’s with subpar skills — there was something extra special about the environment at Citi Field. The two performances were both incredible yet so different; they delivered such a rare experience that I felt a part of history just by witnessing them. The concerts flawlessly achieved what Dead & Company is meant to do: pay homage to a beloved band while bringing together generations of fans to celebrate the Grateful Dead’s rich history. The unmatched environment of a Grateful Dead concert begins even before the first note. For example, Shakedown Street is not just a Grateful Dead song, but also a pre-concert tradition — starting in the 80s, vendors have packed into the venue’s parking lot for hours before the concert begins. There, they sell just about anything you can imagine: the expected printed
shirts, hats, food and drinks, but also unexpected glasswork, woodcarvings, paintings and more. Regardless of the varying products, everyone was tied together by an intense love for the Grateful Dead. The community built around this band is welcoming and inviting, and no matter your age, background or experience with the band, these hippies are genuinely just happy to have you there. If the first day of Shakedown Street was busy, the second was packed. Flooding from earlier in the day didn’t faze a soul; people were barefoot in ankle deep water, wholeheartedly selling their products with smiles on their faces. The electric energy and pure joy emanating from the concertgoers was the perfect precursor to the concert, building up excitement and elevating moods before the real treat even began. The Friday concert began with an enthusiastic introduction from Andy Cohen, leading into an epic start with “Bertha,” one of my favorite songs. The performers then transitioned into “Mississippi Half Step,” setting an upbeat tempo that carried through the whole concert. The first set of the concert featured many other fan favorites:“Sugaree,” “Tennessee Jed” and “Don’t Ease Me In” had me out of my seat and swaying like a professional Deadhead. Somehow, though, the second set surpassed the first. Returning with “Althea,” the group revived my energy and got me excited for the rest of the concert. From there, the show only got better. With a monumental performance of “Terrapin Station” flowing into “China Cat Sunflower” to “I Know You Rider,” the men on stage felt like gods to me. I have never doubted their icon status, but this particular run of songs proved the group’s prowess. “Drums/ Space” provided a much-needed winddown from the high-energy songs that preceded it. Ending the night with an encore of the upbeat “Sugar Magnolia/ Sunshine Daydream” was an atypical
COURTESY OF JOHN WAGNER
finish but held a promise of what the next day would bring. Going into Saturday, I thought that Friday’s concert would be unbeatable. I was wrong. The Dead & Company opened with “Playing in the Band” leading into “Uncle John’s Band,” then finished the introduction with a powerful cover of “Dear Mr. Fantasy” with a “Hey Jude” reprise. Totaling almost 40 minutes of pure jam, this explosive and highly unusual start to Saturday’s concert was an immediate indicator that I was about to witness something special. And the song choices did not go unnoticed;“Playing in the Band” and “Uncle John’s Band” felt like a celebration of what they do, acknowledging their lifetime of achievements as they started the final performance of their tour.
John Mayer’s talent especially shined through with his performance of “Brown-Eyed Women,” in which he delivered a vocal performance that truly validated his place up on that stage. His performance sounded effortless, as the instrumentation and vocals seamlessly blended for a perfect rendition of the iconic song. As a brown-eyed woman myself, I was particularly glad to hear this one live. Continuing the trend of performing with epic proportions, the run of “Scarlet Begonias” into “Franklin’s Tower” into “St. Stephen” before rounding it out with “William Tell Bridge” and “The Eleven” was powerful. While the entire concert was phenomenal, the way it ended was my favorite. The performance of “Deal” was an unusual encore — the group tends to prefer a more mellow ending — but
the reprise of “Playing in the Band” to end the tour felt symbolic. There was an element of storytelling with this song choice, creating a sense of finality as they bookended the concert the same way they started. The Grateful Dead’s music is ripe with emotion, with each song connected to some memory that always makes me smile. This emotional, joyous feeling is shared by all the group’s fans and explains why the Dead & Company elicit such a rare devotion in their fans — they provide a unique nostalgia that is hard to match. Overall, Dead & Company’s performances at Citi Field were special, perfectly celebrating a beautiful legacy of music whose relevance is untested by the passage of time. Rating:
FRIDAY, JULY 22, 2022
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THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS
SPORTS
The Cheap Seats: Doesn’t the minor league deserve our love? BY LANIE EVERETT The Dartmouth Staff
Eight years ago, former Miami Marlins player Aaron Seene filed a lawsuit against Major League Baseball to support better working conditions on behalf of all minor league players. Among other factors, the complaint emerged from the major salary discrepancy between the MLB and its minor league affiliates. According to Front Office Sports, as of 2022, MLB Players make an annual average of $4.41 million, while the average salary of a minor leaguer paid can be anywhere from $4,800 to $14,700. Last Friday, Seene’s call to justice was answered in the for m of a settlement that will immediately pay out $185 million to a class of approximately 23,000 players, pending approval from a judge. The settlement, filed in the U.S. District
Court of the Northern District of California, is just the next step in the reorganization of the minor leagues after their takeover by MLB about two years ago. Previously, the minor leagues were run under the Professional Baseball Agreement, a framework that controlled all interaction between the MLB and the minor leagues. In 2020, all minor league issues, including working conditions of minor league players, became the complete jurisdiction of the MLB. The next year, Major League Baseball altered the structure of the minor leagues, offering 120 affiliates 10-year licenses and dropping 40 teams in the process, a reduction pivotal in improving the wages of minor league players. Although the immediate payout will only be roughly $5,000 to $5,500 for each of the players in the class, according to the New York Times,
minor leaguers and advocates agree that this settlement is a step in the right direction. Under the agreement, the “MLB must formally notify all clubs that they can no longer prohibit teams from paying players [including minor league players] during spring training, extended spring training or any work period that is not during the championship season, which includes the regular season and playoffs.” The settlement comes as a major victory for many minor league players who have previously been denied their complaints to better healthcare, housing and payment. Most of all, the settlement has the potential to eliminate clubhouse dues, which are paid by the player out of pocket to help fund their teams’ facilities and staff member wages. This action would also help a number of minor league players move above the federal minimum wage.
“I definitely know of some players who have spent nights in their car where the dates didn’t line up with their road trip and Airbnbs,” a Pirates’ minor leaguer said. Many player s who expressed concern with their working conditions or supported Seene did so anonymously, as they feared their teams might ostracize the players who filed public complaints. Although the MLB has supplied $450 million dollars to signing bonuses, meals and college tuition assistance in the last year, advocates for the minor league do not plan on stopping until respectable conditions for minor leaguers are reached. On Friday, the Advocates for Minor Leaguers stated that they “will not be satisfied until Minor Leaguers have a seat at the table to negotiate fair wages and working conditions, as is the norm across professional sports.”
ZOORIEL TAN/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
Many people may disagree that the minor leagues are a valuable profession, as only about 10% of minor league players reach the MLB, according to the blog Chasing the Dream. However, as professionals and stimulators of the American economy, don’t they have a right to be paid adequately in order to support themselves and their loved ones? The minor leagues play a significant role in the development of professional baseball players, as nearly all start their career in the minors, based on findings by Pro Baseball Insider. Moreover, not only do the minors act as a ladder to advance the best of the best, but when players are struggling in the major leagues, the minor league can also serve as a pathway to regain confidence and return to the level of the MLB. Finally, minor league teams can provide small town communities with a professional sports team to rally behind — and the teams truly care for their devotional fans. One of the most famous minor league teams today, the Georgia-based Savannah Bananas (similar to the Harlem Globetrotters in basketball), have made a profound impact across the globe. Their trick-oriented style of playing, complete with choreographed dances and ornate costumes and even the occasional pair of stilts, has earned them an especially loveable reputation — and the players love putting on a show for fans. Although not all teams resemble the Savannah Bananas, each team provides an immeasurable source of entertainment to the towns they call home, and supplying these teams with better working conditions would allow for this mutually beneficial relationship to continue for years to come. As the MLB continues to make provisions for minor league players over the next few years, fans of American baseball must recall the importance of the minor leagues and the players that continue to contribute to the major league system. Without the minor leagues, the MLB would not be the same. We should treat our minor leaguers accordingly, with the respect and the compensation they deserve.
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MIRROR THE DARTMOUTH MIRROR
FRIDAY, JULY 22, 2022
Learning to Do Less: A Reflection on Slowing Down STORY
By Solenne Wolfe
I’ve never been great at time management. Like many people, I lie in bed at the end of the day thinking about what I could have done better — more efficiently — and running through the list of tasks I have yet to accomplish. Dartmouth’s quarter system puts an incredible amount of pressure on the limited amount of time in a day, squeezing one semester’s worth of the usual college timeline — lecture material, parties, laundry loads — into only ten weeks. I tend to miss the mark on time management, feeling like I’m losing touch with friendships or hobbies in the face of pressure to do it all. Coming into this summer term, I was hoping to fight the usual anxieties that come as a result of mismanaged time during weeks one through four. With the right intention, I felt like it was possible to spend my time doing exactly what I wanted to do, and to not commit to anything that felt like an obligation (outside of my existing obligations – lectures, on-campus jobs, the ever-growing piles of dirty clothes). I wanted to participate more in my Greek house’s activities and to spend more time with my friends. Just as I had resolved to become the epitome of productivity this summer, I came down with the usual upper respiratory virus in the middle of our second week on campus. It started as a sore throat, which morphed into a Strep scare. The morning I was supposed to complete the fifty-mile bike ride in the Prouty, I ended up in the urgent care center. A few days later, with worsening symptoms, I sat under bright fluorescents at Dick’s House, willing myself to stare straight into the office lighting as a nurse took vials of my blood to test for Mono. After the first day of blood work, I came home from Dick’s House and laid down for a classic college student ritual: the power nap. Waking up six hours later, having slept through classes, a Zoom meeting and lunch plans, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I would never in my life get enough sleep. The fatigue that had been creeping up on
me all morning had become an everpresent part of my days, and I couldn’t exactly keep track of when I started to feel so tired. Part of my uncertainty stemmed from the fact that I had always been somewhat sleep-deprived, so it wasn’t exactly surprising that I felt tired. Who among us can say that they get the recommended amount of sleep a night? Who feels ready to jump out of bed on a Thursday morning and conquer their 10A? When have I ever woken up without the desire for just a few snooze cycles? Two weeks later, results from the lab showed that I had shown chronic deficiencies of iron — a condition known as anemia. The disorder means that your red blood cells are not able to produce enough hemoglobin, a protein which transports oxygen to your organs. Essentially, anemia means your organs and tissues cease to function as they should. Standing up means blacking out for a few seconds, completely losing sight of your surroundings and feeling like a set of ringed knuckles are grinding down on your skull. Severe stomach aches and pains are normal, as the iron supplements taken to level out the blood’s iron content are brutal on the small intestine. More than anything though, what gets to me about the disorder is the exhaustion. What I used to accomplish in just a few hours, I can no longer do without a few hours of sleeping in between. Waking up, going to the gym, having breakfast and going to an appointment saps all my energy. Friends with the disorder warn me of days that they have spent completely immobile, weakened to the point of being bedridden. The other day, after going back to Dick’s House for more blood work, I left the appointment intending to bike to the library but ended up lying on the pavement outside of the entrance instead, unable to stand up for a few minutes. Given that so many Dartmouth students crave just a few more hours
ELAINE PU/THE DARTMOUTH
in the day, I’m embarrassed that I can’t even make use of my full day. My formerly colorful Google Calendar, the only constant in weeks of back-to-backto-back-to-back obligations, is full of white space now — time spent in bed recuperating from basic daily tasks. The free fall into making no plans — for fear of not having enough energy to go about them — makes me feel like a hermit, completely unplugged from the flow of campus life. I haven’t gone out in weeks and my sorority’s social calendar seems more like a tack-on to the list of things I won’t be able to do. My New Age parents tell me that I am taking care of myself, that I need to listen to my body and do breathing exercises for the pain. It’s hard advice to take when so much of the better judgment here seems to go against that — work hard, play hard, sleep when you’re dead! We talk of self-care mostly in a joking manner, self-care being the third game of pong you say
yes to on a Wednesday night knowing you have a midterm the next day, or self-care being skipping class to nurse a hangover. Moving away from this neoliberal definition to understanding self-care as an individual responsibility to oneself is not that easy in practice. Turns out, self-care doesn’t mean making sure that everyone is fond of your “self,” and instead means making sure that there is enough of your “self ” to even give to anyone around you. I wouldn’t wish a chronic condition on anyone, and I know that I’ve got the best of it with a condition that can be treated with diet and supplements. It’s not easy to unlearn the idea that self-care means waking up early to go to the gym, and instead it could mean eating more because my body is literally shutting down its functions in the absence of enough of the right food. I think there is a lesson here, though, in what I am learning for my “self.”
We don’t need to be giving everything our all every hour, day and night. The summer will come and go in a blur just like every other term, but that doesn’t mean we need to give in to the impulse to do it all, to refuse to give up anything. Maybe being completely present in the few meals you share with others is enough, rather than having so many scheduled social interactions that they become social obligations. It’s hard to approach the time we have with present-minded intention when everything down to the parties that we go to are written out in a prescribed schedule released days before, but maybe learning when to say no is a fight worth fighting. You may ask: Where is the joy in doing nothing at all? When we clear our schedules of what we feel obligated to do and just say no, we give ourselves room to say yes to what we actually want to do. And not just to say yes, but to say yes affirmatively.
Dancing Out of My Comfort Zone to a New Routine STORY
By Street Roberts
I auditioned for a dance troupe this summer. At the urging of close friends, I hesitatingly signed up for a Shebalite audition slot, scheduled for the first Sunday of the term. A hot, humid rehearsal studio with hardwood floors awaited me, complete with my own jittery image reflected in the mirrors adorning the walls. I recognized some faces but many were unfamiliar, heightening my anxiety over dancing in a space other than a crowded fraternity basement. My only major performing arts experience consisted of a choir in high school, in which I spent my time mainly cracking jokes and scheming of ways to leave early with my equally
disinterested friends. There were moments when I enjoyed choir, but the choir directors — who had the admittedly difficult task of dealing with an unruly mob of more than 50 teenage boys — left me feeling unmotivated and uninspired. I stuck to high school sports and other activities instead, accepting my lack of skill in the performing arts. But under the guise of a certain carefree, bold attitude that seems to possess everyone during sophomore summer, I thought, “Why not try out for Shebalite?” While some have told me I have some rhythm as a dancer, others have told me I might as well resemble a flopping walrus. Here was an opportunity to best the walruses.
In the summer, many performance groups on campus open their audition doors to the rest of us — less artistically inclined students. Perhaps it is something about the joy of watching a friend struggle at something in which they so flawlessly perform. Or perhaps, less cynically, this act of generosity and inclusion affords the regular performers more time to spend with their friends — while meeting new ones — during the summer. Or maybe the open-door policy exists simply because they enjoy teaching their craft to someone else. Whatever the case, Sheba — after two sweaty, embarrassing rounds of auditions — gave me the opportunity to join Shebalite.
COURTESY OF SHEBA
From the very first rehearsal, I fell in love. Dancing for four or more hours a week gave me an artistic outlet that writing could not provide. The physicality of dancing, the way I moved my body in ways it had rarely moved before and the sense of camaraderie I felt with the people around me excited me. I couldn’t wait to go to rehearsal. I still can’t wait to go to rehearsal. And don’t get it twisted — “talented” is not a word that could be used to describe my dancing. Watching the year-round members of Sheba perform intricate moves so casually during rehearsal dazzled and humbled me all at the same time. Yet the ever-present threat of weekly humiliation gave me more joy than anything I have done in a really, really long time. The mere act of conquering a new dance move, basic as they could be, exhilarated me each and every time. No one ever said you have to be good at your hobbies. And I certainly am not good at dancing. At times here at Dartmouth, there’s a tendency to get “stuck.” Especially after a freshman year in which most clubs were limited and a sophomore fall when I attempted to fit too many activities into my routine, it has been nice to fall into a routine that I love. It’s why I chose to come to this school: the promise of community, of place. And for maybe the first time since arriving at my freshman dorm in Wheeler Hall almost one and a half years ago, this spring, I felt at home on this campus. I liked my friends, I liked what I did. At the end of spring term, I just wanted to keep doing it. But then I joined Shebalite. In those rehearsal spaces, with sweat pouring down my back, struggling to keep up with those in front of me, I realized how much I loved stepping out of my comfort zone. Sure, with anything new, the beginning is scary. You risk humiliation, self-doubt and pain. It can be lonely, humbling and tiring beyond anything you have done before. And sometimes, it doesn’t work
out. You can’t force yourself to love everything. But in those rare moments in which we surrender ourselves to something new, we open ourselves to endless possibilities. Routine is essential: without structure, simple tasks become unmanageable chores. Brushing my teeth every morning prevents the despair and shame that would accompany the yellow teeth of my 50-year-old self. Taking 10 minutes to meditate every day lessens the anxiety that would inevitably implode without that short break. Routine provides comfort in the face of constant change, and without it, the long-term ambitions I have for myself would cease to be possible. Yet too much routine creates comfort, and comfort can create monotony. Though it may seem counterintuitive, incorporating discomfort into my routine is something I’ve found to be crucial to my mental health. It’s what keeps me feeling “unstuck.” Our first dance performance is next Wednesday. I’m already nervous, but I guess that happens when you really care about something, something which has caused unseen muscles to ache in unimaginable ways. Part of me is excited for the reaction of my friends, many of whom would have never dared dream to see me up on a dance stage, shaking these hips like I’m Shakira herself. But the other part of me, a part that is growing each day, cannot wait to continue this journey. I’m thrilled at the prospect of fine-tuning every movement my body makes, of perfecting each twitch of my muscles to fit with the music booming around me. It’s the delight of being so consumed in the moment, so present and alive, that is already making sweat drip down my arms even as I write this. But I choose to see it as excitement, not nerves. And I hope to continue to push myself out of my comfort zone, out into the places where I know I might fail. Those are the places where my body becomes alive.