The Dartmouth 11/11/2022

BY TAYLOR HABER The Dartmouth Staff

This article was originally published on Nov. 9, 2022.

As voters across the nation head to the polls today, Dartmouth students and administrators have sought to increase voting awareness and accessibility on campus. Campus organizers have conducted voter registration drives, provided information to those seeking to vote either in New Hampshire or absentee in their home state and arranged student

Election Day shuttles to polling stations. Non-partisan organizing efforts have been largely conducted through Dartmouth Votes, a voting awareness initiative founded in 2020 and coordinated by Dartmouth Student Government, the Rockefeller Center for Public Policy, the Collis Center for Student Involvement and the Ofce for Student Life according to student government president David Millman ’23. This year, the bloc partnered with the All-In Challenge — a national collegiate voting initiative — to raise student civic engagement, Millman said.

According to Millman, student government has three guiding mandates: advocacy, initiatives and communication. Election awareness programs — to which student government has provided between $5,000 and $6,000 this year — fulfll all three, he added.

“A healthy community engages at all levels of civic life, and we have a role in trying to use our resources to educate and inform and encourage people to vote,” Millman said.

Millman added that the majority of

Student union rallies for higher wages, improved mental health policies

BY JACKIE WRIGHT The Dartmouth

On Thursday, the Student Worker Collective at Dartmouth organized a rally at which leaders of the SWCD, union members and representatives of other local unions called for a $21 per hour base compensation, increased pay for late-night work and improved sick and mental health pay policies for Dartmouth Dining student workers.

Held in front of McNutt Hall at 1 p.m., the rally had approximately 150 people in attendance, according to SWCD chair Kaya Colakoglu ’24.

“The rally was to raise awareness of where we are in terms of the bargaining process amongst the general campus population, to further involve student workers in the process and invite them to join the bargaining sessions,” Colakoglu said.

According to Colakoglu, the union has been in negotiations with the College in eforts to reach a contract since this spring. Today, the union met with the College in a bargaining session with a special emphasis on the $21 wage, according to Colakoglu and several others at the rally.

“We will be presenting a comprehensive vision of what that $21 wage would look like on campus,” Colakoglu said before the bargaining session.

BY EMILIA WILLIAMS The Dartmouth

This article was originally published on Nov. 8, 2022.

On Nov. 3, the Rockefeller Center for Public Policy hosted a discussion on coeducation and the College’s integration of female students with former state senator Martha Hennessey ’76 and Jenny Kemeny ’76, both members of Dartmouth’s frst matriculated class of women. Also present was former Dartmouth government professor Lynn Mather, who co-founded the women’s studies program.

The event, which was also livestreamed, was held in the Filene Auditorium. About 45 people attended the discussion in person, and it was moderated by co-president of Dartmouth Women in Law and Politics Jennifer Lee ’22.

In 1963, the frst female undergraduate students enrolled in a summer term at Dartmouth, and from 1968 to 1972, approximately 230 female exchange students participated in classes during the traditional academic year.

Kemeny spoke about her father — former College President John Kemeny — and his role in bringing coeducation to Dartmouth. In November 1971, he announced “The Dartmouth Plan,” which would bring female students to campus without decreasing the number of male students in the process. That fall, following a student petition, Dartmouth’s Board of Trustees voted for full coeducation, and in September 1972, 177 woman frst-year students and 74 woman transfer students matriculated to the College. In order to account for the lack of housing or funds to build more facilities, President Kemeny proposed that the campus would operate on a year-long schedule by incorporating sophomore summer and more offcampus study programs.

Not only did President Kemeny believe that women would have important jobs in the future, but he was

also motivated to address the declining number of applications to Dartmouth by opening up the school to female students, Kemeny said. She recalled her father’s 1972 convocation speech, the frst speech addressing a coeducational class, which he began with the words “‘Men and women of Dartmouth’” — to which the crowd “went wild.”

Hennessey spoke of some of her “not so good” experiences as a woman in the frst coeducational class at Dartmouth. She cited hostilities like male students throwing rocks into women’s dorms with notes telling them to “Go home” and putting dead fsh in women’s mailboxes.

“I was surprised when Dartmouth male students displayed hostilities towards women — not all men of course — but enough of them did,” she said. “A group of men would sit with numbers as women would walk into Thayer Hall ... and try to rate them as if they were Olympic scorers.”

Hennessey acknowledged the Dartmouth culture that her class stepped into and how, combined with the sexism that female students faced, it created a unique set of challenges. She recounted some of the things that female students were “regularly reminded” of.

“Girls should be just one of the guys, don’t rock the boat, don’t stick out, don’t give men any reason to make the College feel that they made a mistake in admitting women,” she said. “Bad things happen everywhere, why should Dartmouth be any diferent?”

Although Hennessey described many of her most negative experiences as a woman in a historically male space, she added that she has still “loved” Dartmouth — “warts and all.”

“I believe that in our hearts everyone wants this College to be the best it can be,” she said. “[But] I also know that institutions do not thrive by avoiding difficult conversations or shunning opportunities for change.”

Hennessey concluded by giving advice to women currently at the College.

According to an email statement from associate vice president of business and hospitality David Newlove, base wages were last raised in Oct. 2021, at which point student cafe workers started at $15 an hour with $3 an hour of credit towards meal plans. Student snack bar and market workers started at $13 with a $2 an hour meal plan credit, according to Newlove.

In the winter term of 2022, all Dartmouth Dining workers’ pay increased to the overtime rate of one and a half times their base pay shortly after the SWCD went public with its intention to unionize. According to the College at the time, the change was a response to high levels of COVID-19 on campus.

“During the pandemic, all DDS employees including student workers were given a 1.5x (overtime) increase in pay while working jobs on campus. This program ended June 18, 2022, coinciding with [the] College’s aggressive and efective vaccine program,” he wrote.

ColakoglusaidthatthecurrentDartmouth student wage is “outdated,” noting that some establishments in town pay employees $20 per hour. The current minimum wage in New Hampshire is $7.25, according to the state department of labor.

“Aside from that, there’s the fact that throughout the pandemic with the hazard pay program which bumped our wages above $21, the College has demonstrated that it can sustain that pay for at least the majority of a given year without needing to incite any specifc structural changes within the dining establishments,” Colakoglu said.

According to Newlove, student workers on campus currently receive pay for their scheduled shifts when they are in isolation or quarantining for COVID-19. In addition to this policy, the union is proposing both generalized sick pay and mental health pay policies that would allow student workers to take time of for both physical and mental health issues.

Under the mental health pay proposal, workers would be entitled to a given number of hours per term to take of to ensure their emotional well-being based on their hours worked per week, according to Colakoglu. For example, employees would receive two hours of mental health pay for a term in which they work less than eight hours a week. Those working between eight and 16 hours per week would receive four hours of mental health pay per term, and those working more than 16 would receive six hours.

The SWCD is also trying to raise the

“At that time we were fnishing our shift at 2 a.m. I would arrive at home at 2:15 and go to sleep at like 3 a.m. The rest of your following day would be terrible,” she said. “People who get the shift, they are actually warriors. That shift is awful.”

Miyazato said that she has worked since her freshman fall to pay for the College’s mandatory health insurance and to send money back to help her mother in Brazil to support her brother as he starts college. Many students also work to aford travel expenses to visit home and cover other living expenses, according to Colakoglu.

“Novack is a really good environment, but if I could I would decide not to work. I would prefer to go to the [Dartmouth Outing Club], doing hikes, having fun. This is the kind of stuf I’d like to do, it’s not like it’s our choice,” Miyazato said.

Janet Schafer, a former organizer with the United Auto Workers Union and an attendee of the rally, noted the importance of raising wages to make it easier for students to return home.

“If you listen to a lot of these students, they’re saying, ‘I want to go home, I want to see my family,’” she said. “The university can aford to do this, and they should. They should make people’s lives better.”

As an international student, Miyazato, like many of her peers, said that she is allowed to work a maximum of 20 hours per week in keeping with on-campus employment requirements. She added that this means that she is dependent on wage levels to make more money, as opposed to taking on more hours.

In addition to the matter of necessity, according to Miyazato, there is also the question of whether current wages are adequate for the labor workers exert — especially in busy dining locations like Novack. When she worked at Novack, Miyazato said that she frequently burned her hands. In rush hours, she would often use her hands to take hot food out of the oven instead of using the spatula because it took too much time.

“I used to be in the bakery part and I got so many burn scars. It was crazy. It is crazy,” she said. “I don’t know if it was worth it, $12 [per hour] for burning my hand every single day.”

For Colakoglu, in addition to the tangible goals of raising wages and providing sick and mental health pay, the union more broadly aims to empower student workers.

“Unions are not organized to merely affect incremental change in working conditions, but they are organized towards a world in which workers are no longer separated from the fruits of their labor — a world in which workers have a say, and even the sole say over their working conditions, and a world in which no one who works two or three jobs a week, and is still struggling to make ends meet,” Colakoglu said

College spokesperson Diana Lawrence wrote in an email statement to The Dartmouth that the College declines to comment on “specifc aspects of negotiations between Dartmouth and the SWCD.”

“Dartmouth and the SWCD have met several times since the SWCD was certifed as the student dining workers’ representative, both via Zoom and in person,” Lawrence wrote. “Dartmouth is meeting regularly with the SWCD this term in an efort to reach a contract as soon as possible. Negotiations have taken place with a positive spirit of cooperation and understanding. Dartmouth looks forward to reaching a signed agreement.”

ZOE OLSON/THE DARTMOUTH

In the run-up to the 2022 midterm electons, students spread voter awareness and Dartmouth Student Government arranged for buses to transport students from campus to the polling staton at Hanover High School.

This article was originally published on Nov. 8, 2022.

wage for late-night shifts to roughly $27 an hour. The exact number would depend on individual workers’ normal wages, as the union’s proposition would raise pay on a percentage basis, according to Colakoglu. Mayumi Miyazato ’25, who works at both Cafe@Baker and Novack cafe, alongside other campus jobs, said she worked at Novack Cafe and took the late night shift for two weeks before changing shifts during the fall term of her freshman year.

JACKIE WRIGHT /THE DARTMOUTH

Dick’s House administers more than 2,000 u shots to community this term

BY ANGUS YIP The Dartmouth Staff

This article was originally published on Nov. 10, 2022.

The Dartmouth College Health Service has provided approximately 2,000 community members with fu vaccines this fall at Dick’s House as well as via pop-up clinics at the Class of 1953 Commons, according to Dick’s House campus outreach nurse Jedidiah Peterson.

Geisel School of Medicine professor Justin Kim said that there has been an “early surge” in fu cases this year at the College. According to Peterson, Dick’s House usually expects a spike in fu cases late in the fall term, but added that the number of cases this year has been “more than average.”

“Right as the cold weather hits, people move indoors and on campus it’s more complicated because we’re bringing people in from diferent places,” Peterson said.

Peterson noted that this fall, Dick’s House delivered the majority of the more than 2,000 fu shots at scheduled clinics advertised through campus listservs and the Medi-Quick pop-up clinics every Tuesday at ’53 Commons throughout the term. The Medi-Quick program was frst created in 2017 and allows the College Health Service to ofer various health services to community members at diferent locations across campus.

Peterson said that nearly 400 doses have been delivered through to the popup clinics, adding that the program is “especially popular” among graduate students.

Kim said that individuals should be vaccinated annually because previous fu vaccines may become “out of date” as the fu virus mutates over time.

“Flu viruses mutate in two ways — some mutate in small ways every year, which is why we need a new vaccine every year,” he said. “Every so often, we get a major shift in mutations, which results in more serious strains like the H1N1 pandemic [from 2009 to 2010].”

Kim noted that fu vaccines are created by using the previous fu season’s data to predict what the next year’s fu season might look like. He added that the fu vaccine each year contains fve to 10 of the previous year’s virus strains, and always includes the H1N1 strain “to protect people from that very severe variant of fu.”

He added that while individuals can still get the fu after being vaccinated, the vaccine helps to reduce the severity of symptoms.

Preston Lim ’25 said that he received the fu vaccine at Dick’s House in late October, which he described as a “really smooth” process.

“I walked into Dick’s House with no appointment and just had to go to the pharmacy and fll out a short form,” Lim said. “The whole process took 10 minutes.”

He noted that while he was aware of the pop-up clinics at ’53 Commons, he could not attend any of them due to schedule conficts and “would have defnitely gotten [his] shot earlier” if there had been more pop-up clinics.

Peterson said that while the pop-up clinics at ’53 Commons will not continue into the winter, community members can still get walk-in fu shots at the pharmacy at Dick’s House or contact him to set up a fu shot clinic.

“We’re never going to turn of the switch,” Peterson said. “We try to keep [fu shots] as broadly available as possible.”

Peterson noted that there is also “an abundance of resources” in the community for individuals to receive fu shots via chain and local pharmacies, primary care ofces and DartmouthHitchcock Medical Center, which all have programs to distribute vaccines.

Kim said that individuals can utilize many of the same strategies used to protect themselves from COVID-19 for the fu, such as not attending large gatherings when sick and wearing masks when in large crowds.

Peterson added that after the COVID-19 pandemic, individuals are now more used to mitigation strategies such as using hand sanitizer and wearing masks in public.

“It would have been more challenging socially to wear a mask in 2018 or 2019, but now it doesn’t stand out much at all, which might be a silver lining to everything that’s happened,” he said.

Peterson emphasized the difculty in balancing healthy habits during fu season alongside the academic and social pressures students often encounter.

“If your only concern in life was to avoid the fu, it would be easy,” he said. “The trick is for our students to try to balance this with academic and social priorities. Adequate rest, healthy eating and good hydration beneft all three.”

Dartmouth Student Government, campus or ganizers promote voting

student government funding has been used to pay for Election Day shuttles. The two bus routes, which will run from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, will transport students from ten stops across campus, including bus stops by the Rockefeller Center, the Irving Institute, the Life Sciences Center and Baker-Berry library, to the polling station at Hanover High School.

Assistant Dean for Student Life Edward McKenna, who helps to administer Dartmouth Votes, said the initiative has been a “true partnership between administration and students.”

McKenna highlighted the eforts of Millman and student government vice president Jessica Chiriboga ’24, as well as Armita Mirkarimi ’25 and Bea Burack ’25 — two students who independently organized multiple voter information drives.

Earlier in the fall, Mirkarimi and Burack said they had been discussing ways to get politically involved on campus in the lead-up to the midterms. With Dartmouth Votes’ support, the pair began “tabling” — non-partisan voter information sessions in which Mirkarimi and Burack would sit behind a table to discuss making plans to vote with passing students.

Along with other volunteers, Mirkarimi and Burack will be conducting tabling sessions on Election Day on the Collis Center porch from 9 to 10 a.m., 12:15 to 2:15 p.m. and 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.

“For students to take that initiative and carve out that much time…it’s been amazing,” McKenna said.

Burack said that tabling sessions have revealed that while there is enthusiasm on campus for the election, there is also a need for more readily-available voting information.

“The response we often get to ‘Do you plan on voting?’ or ‘Do you have a plan to vote?’ is ‘Yes,’” Burack said. “[But] then if you follow up with that person

and ask, ‘Are you planning to vote in New Hampshire or in your home state?’ I think you immediately start to see that people … just haven’t made the plan.”

Mirkarimi and Burack said the work of former Dartmouth students has been an inspiration to their current initiatives. Burack pointed to the eforts of Vote Clamantis, a now defunct student voting organization which turned out record numbers of College student voters during the 2008 presidential election cycle. Mirkarimi said their current programming is meant to “plant the seeds” for future voter initiatives in 2024.

“We’re just hoping to make this bigger and more exciting, as the presidential [election] is coming along,” Mirkarimi said.

Students affiliated with partisan groups on campus have also spearheaded their own voting initiatives. Recently, Dartmouth Democrats conducted phone bank drives for Organize New Hampshire — a subsidiary of the New Hampshire Democratic Party — that is “fghting to elect Democrats up and down the ballot,” according to its website.

Dartmouth Democrats executive director Prescott Herzog ’25 said that the organization is encouraging students to vote for the Democratic party, while also stressing the fundamental civic importance of voting.

“...Democrats align with my values and I want to support Democratic candidates,” Herzog said. “So that’s why I take a partisan approach in that sort of sense.”

Sam Cooper ’26 said he plans on voting in person in New Hampshire and feels “very open” to candidates and issues on the ballot.

“I just want to vote this year because I know my vote counts and it’s a civic duty,” he said.

Representatives for the College Republicans and Dartmouth Libertarians did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Panelists share about hostilities from male classmates during early years

“Remember, this is your College now,” she said. “Soak up your time here, all of the amazing things you can learn and incredible people you can meet. Seek out people who are not like you and opportunities that scare you … And don’t be afraid to imagine how Dartmouth can grow and become amazing for generations to come.”

Mather, who was frst hired as an instructor at Dartmouth in 1972, said that her experiences teaching at the College during the first decade of coeducation were “very, very difcult,” citing the intimidation and violence that many women faced as a campus minority.

“[Women came to my ofce hours and] began talking about the difculties they were having on campus. Pretty soon, I’m doing counseling for rape victims, for whether or not to have an abortion — all kinds of things that I had absolutely no qualifcations to do, but there was no one else doing them,” she said.

Mather said that in 1972, she was one of just 26 female professors out of 315 faculty members. According to data from 2017, there were 116 tenured woman professors at Dartmouth. However,

Mather said that her experience as a woman in Dartmouth’s faculty actually became worse as time went on due to the College’s poor retention of female professors, which would not change until the College implemented policies such as spousal hiring, maternity leave and childcare.

“The problem was retention. [Women] wouldn’t stay,” she said. “Disproportionately, women were leaving, and it was not an individual explanation — it was a structural problem that the College needed to address”

Love Tsai ’23 said that the event was “eye-opening.”

“I don’t really think about coeducation at Dartmouth here, because it feels like that’s what we are walking into, so we take it for granted that there are both male and female students here,” she said. “To hear about how hostile the environment [Dartmouth’s frst class of women was] walking into was really shocking.”

Madeleine Saraisky ’26 said that she attended the event because she wanted to learn more about coeducation for her class, WGSS 10, “Sex, Gender and Society.” Saraisky added that she was able to talk with Hennessey after the event to

hear more about her experiences as a member of the frst coeducational class.

Hennessey said that when the women of the Class of 1976 arrived on campus, the Class of 1926 had placed roses and a welcoming note in their dormitories. The Class of 1976 in turn, Saraisky said, gave all students of the Class of 2026 an encouraging note and fower after matriculation.

Saraisky said that she also attended the event because she had been “interested since matriculation,” from “that frst introduction when they gave us fowers.”

The event concluded with a Q&A session in which Hennessey and Kemeny discussed other topics related to their time at the College, such as feeling intimidated to speak up in a male-dominated space and the presence of Greek life on campus.

After the event, Lee said that she thought each panelist ofered a “unique perspective” as storytellers of coeducation.

“What was striking to me was the pressure to be quiet about how difcult it was to be a woman — whether you are a student or faculty member,” she said. “It reminded me that the history of coeducation is so important to every single student’s experience here today.”

Sununu, Hassan and Kuster reelected as Hanover votes Democrat

BY ANDREW SASSER The Dartmouth Senior Staff

In Tuesday’s midterm elections, all incumbent candidates representing Hanover emerged victorious. Senator Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., defeated Republican candidate Don Bolduc — winning 53.6% of the vote to Bolduc’s 44.4% — while Rep. Ann McLane Kuster ’78, D-N.H., fended off a challenge in the second congressional district from Republican businessman Bob Burns, securing 55.9% of the vote compared to Burns’s 44.1%.

Republican Gov. Chris Sununu

was also reelected with 57.1% of the vote, defeating Democratic physician Tom Sherman’s 41.6%.

According to final voting results from Hanover, where 5,639 total ballots were cast, Hassan received 86.9% of the vote, or 4,887 votes, to Bolduc’s 12.1%, or 682 votes. Hanover’s votes in the House race also went to Kuster with 87.4% of the vote — 4,887 ballots cast — to Republican business owner Bob Burns’s 12.5%, or 700 votes.

Hanover also supported for Tom Sherman for governor with 77.9% of the vote, or 4,284 votes.

Incumbent Republican Gov. Chris

Sununu received 22.1%, or 1,214 votes.

In state-level races, incumbent Democratic executive councilor Cinde Warmington defeated Republican challenger Harold French by a margin of 60% to 40%, while Democratic state senator Sue Prentiss won reelection over Republican John McIntyre with 68.9% of the vote compared to McIntyre’s 31%. All four of Hanover’s Democratic state representatives — Mary HakkenPhillips, Sharon Nordgren, Russell Muirhead and James Murphy — were reelected without opposition.

FROM ROCKEFELLER

PHOTO COURTESY OF JOANN BLAIS

Term in Review: Cross country, volleyball and rugby nd prosperity

a signifcant improvement over last year’s 15-8 overall and 7-7 Ivy League record. The team has won the last six out of seven games against Ivy League opponents as they prepare for the Ivy League tournament on Nov. 18 and 19.

Men’s cross country placed fourth with 114 points in the Ivy League Heptagonal Championship on Oct. 28, marking an improvement over last year’s ffth place fnish. Notably, the team also won the Maribel Sanchez Souther Invitational home meet on Sept. 10 against Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Maine.

Despite their success, rugby and men’s cross country also faced signifcant challenges. Both teams found silver linings within their hardships.

“During the mid-season we were down quite a few girls because of injury,” rugby player Allie Amerson ’25 said. “I think that gave non-starters a chance to show their true colors as they were able to step up for the team.”

Notably, men’s cross country started preseason with the announcement that head coach Justin Wood had stepped down from his role. Women’s cross country head coach Kendra Foley flled in as interim head coach.

km race, while volleyball player Karen Murphy ’24 featured her team’s growth and improvement.

“We have defnitely had a stronger season than last year,” Murphy said. “Last year we lost twice to Harvard [University], and this year we won both games against Harvard, which helped us enter the Ivy League tournament in third place.”

In terms of the reasoning behind success, the teams had different strategies. Amerson pointed to the versatility and selfessness of the rugby team.

“We adjust under whatever circumstances that have changed from the week prior,” Amerson said. “Our team culture caters to success, and we’re playing for the people alongside us, not for ourselves, which creates a winning team.”

Velikonja explained that most cross country runners are three sport athletes, running cross country in the fall, indoor track and feld in the winter, and outdoor track and feld in the spring. Always being in season, Velikonja said, contributes to success.

BY CAROLINE YORK The Dartmouth Staff

After nearly three years of COVID-19 restrictions, fall sports teams have returned back to normal with pre-COVID-19 traditions reinstated. Among other teams, women’s and men’s cross country,

volleyball and rugby all had successful fall seasons this year.

Women’s Rugby had high expectations going into the season as the reigning national champions. With a 7-0 record and a current National Intercollegiate Rugby Association #1 ranking, the team has proved they have the same dominance from last season.

The team has had two shutouts, frst 79-0 on the road against Mount St. Mary’s University then 85-0 at home against Brown University. The team will be playing the NIRA semifnal game against Quinnipiac University at Brophy Field this Saturday.

Women’s volleyball went 16-6 overall and 8-4 in conference play —

“We’ve had upperclassmen really step up and our captains have done a really good job of keeping us organized and motivated,” cross country team member Albert Velikonja ’25 said. “I think we’ve raced as well as we could have given the circumstances.”

Teams noted diferent moments in the season for the biggest success.

Velikonja pointed to the Paul Short Invitational, where the men’s cross country team placed 10th and several runners ran under 24 minutes in the 8

“Because we are always in season, we can always work for redemption if we have a bad season or continue onto a new opportunity if we have success,” Velikonja said. “We are always engaged and never complacent because always being in season keeps you honest.”

Cross country, volleyball and rugby have all had remarkable seasons, but the athletes pointed to effort and improvement as the most important part of the teams.

“The results on paper haven’t been perfect,” Velikonja said, “but as a team we’ve defnitely improved a lot and that’s really all you can ask for.”

‘Park Dae Sung: Ink Reimagined’ highlights traditional Korean art

BY Ryan Yim The Dartmouth

‘Park Dae Sung: Ink Reimagined,’ a solo exhibition of the artist’s contemporary ink-and-wash works, is currently on display at the Hood Museum of Art until March 19, 2023. The exhibition is not only the largest exhibition of Park’s art to ever reach America, but is also one of five major exhibitions currently available in the U.S.. Furthermore, Park gave a lecture at the Hood on Nov. 3 and the Hood Museum hosted a full-day symposium about Korean contemporary art, coorganized by the College, the Korea Foundation and the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art on Nov. 4.

Park blends traditional and modern practices of the ink-and-wash technique to portray a wide range of subjects — from the colossal landscapes of Mount Halla and Mount Kumgang, to smaller portraits of birds and traditional Korean porcelain, to impressionistic interpretations of sprawling gardens and twenty-meter-long handscrolls filled with calligraphy.

“Magnificent View of Samneung,” which can be viewed in person at the Hood Museum, is perhaps Park’s most famous piece, offering a mesmerizing and meditative view of the artist’s fogridden garden doused in moonlight. Other works on display include “Heaven, Earth and Human” and “Flower Rain.”

Hyunsung Ryu ’25, a Korean exchange student at Dartmouth studying art history, found that the pieces captured the essence of the actual Korean landmarks they were based on.

“Both paintings gave me the experience of visiting a new version of Korean landmarks,” Ryu said.

“Kumgang Mountain is well-known for its beautiful views and having a different face every season. Park’s paintings showed the winter version. I could almost feel the blowing wind and snow.”

Beyond being a prolific artist, Park is also a renowned philosopher. Park lost both of his parents and his left arm as a child during the Korean War, and he often speaks about how his physical impairment has shaped the way in which he views his own purpose and life.

“When the body is uncomfortable, the mind does not become sluggish and is awake. I became who I am because of my disabled arm, so I refrain from being (too) comfortable,” Park shared with the Hood.

Sunglim Kim, associate professor of art history and Asian societies, cultures and languages, curated the exhibition. Kim, who has known Park for over fifteen years, elaborated on what Park’s philosophies truly mean.

“[Park] describes a sort of ‘beauty in discomfort,’” Kim said. “Nowadays, people only search for comfortable and convenient things. But he believes that if you do that, you become complacent in that comfort. He believes that a person has to be sort of uncomfortable to progress forward and become a better person.”

Kim added on to describe how the artist and philosopher moves through life.

“He describes his lifestyle as moving backwards — people want to move forwards, but he’s always trying to

move backwards; people want to move quickly, but he’s always trying to move slowly,” Kim said. “The ‘beauty of slowness’: moving slowly, taking the more difficult route.”

Kim also explained how Park’s philosophies have contributed to his fame and reputation in Korea. Kim noted that Park does not have any formal higher education and grew up isolated in the countryside. Yet, he has grown to have a wide network of friends that include politicians, chaebol heads, talents, art historians and professors.

“Once they become friends, they stay friends for a long time because of his philosophies of going slow, going backwards, being uncomfortable, having less, living in nature,” Kim

said. “People that are going through a hard time who come and visit him feel comforted by him and become longterm friends.”

Yifeng Shen ’22, one of Kim’s students who visited the Hood, noticed how Park’s background has influenced both his art and his philosophy.

“My father once told me that you can see an artist’s soul through his artwork, and that’s exactly how I felt when I entered Park’s exhibition last week,” Shen said. “His life was filled with adversity, but all those challenges subtly reshaped his creative philosophy and his way of living.”

Park’s work, Shen noted, is also significant in how it represents Korean culture to international audiences. Kim

“What I think is, in the 21st century, Korean pop culture — films, movies, dramas — is very popular right now,” Shen said. “But for this pop culture to exist, we have a very nuanced, deeprooted history. If you don’t know this history and you only consume pop culture, then you’re missing the point.”

The exhibit will remain at the Hood until March 19. During this time, visitors can engage with the exhibit in a number of ways, learning about Korean culture and life along the way. Entry to ‘Park Dae Sung: Ink Reimagined’ is free and available to the public.

PHOTO COURTESY OF ROB STRONG

‘Park Dae Sung: Ink Reimagined’ is the largest solo exhibiton of the genre-bending artst’s work in the U.S.and will be on display at the Hood untl March 19, 2023.

PHOTO COURTESY OF ALLIE AMERSON

Fall 2022 brought growth, success and a sense of unity for women and men’s cross country, volleyball and rugby as each athlete worked to be part of something larger than themselves.

said that Korean visual art — in this case Park’s paintings — is contributing to the ever-growing presence of Korean pop culture in the global scene.

Verbum Ultimum: e Show Must Go On

The arts at Dartmouth must remain robust in light of the temporary closure of the Hopkins Center.

The Hopkins Center for the Arts is a hub for performing arts in the Upper Valley. From renowned guest performances to a capella groups and orchestral concerts to student productions and flm screenings — and countless events in between — the Hopkins Center is a gathering place for those afliated with Dartmouth and the broader area to engage with the arts.

Sadly, the community will lose access to this gem of campus arts life very soon. Earlier this year, Dartmouth announced the temporary closure of the Hopkins Center while the facility undergoes renovations. Currently, this closure is slated to begin by the end of this year with an estimated reopening in fall 2025.

Although the College has provided some insight into where spaces will be housed throughout the renovation — including the music and theater departments and the jewelry and ceramic studios — many other details remain unclear. Will large shows — like Pippin and RENT — be performed at all over the next three years? If so, where could the community gather for these shows, which can draw thousands of attendees? Will the artist in residence program continue? We know that smaller activities will be accommodated; students will be able to book practice rooms and small spaces for performances. But few — if any — other spaces on campus have the capacity to bring together over a thousand people together in one space, not to mention the grandeur of the theaters in the Hopkins Center.

We understand the necessity of renovations and construction. This displacement is only temporary and will result in a Hopkins Center that is, hopefully, better suited to engagement with these traditions and programs than in its current state. However, investing in the arts cannot begin and end with infrastructure. If the College cares about the arts, it is vital that it does everything in its power to keep our performances and programs alive in these next few years.

Sure, Dartmouth isn’t known for its reputation as an

“arts school.” After all, we average about seven theater majors and nine music majors per year. However, this does not account for students who modify their major with music or theater, students who minor in either discipline or the countless students who are part of a performance group, attend Hop events or take classes in these felds. This Editorial Board feels strongly that Dartmouth students care about the arts. Whether students are part of the arts community or not, it only takes a dance or an a capella performance to see people focking to support. We enjoy performing in plays, stage managing, attending friends’ performances, learning from experts and watching world-class artists give amazing performances.

While some may argue that losing a few years of large-scale performances are a reasonable concession to achieve long-term improvements to the Hopkins Center, the Hopkins Center is more than just a place for arts clubs to rehearse — it serves as a cultural hub for the local community. After all, rural New Hampshire doesn’t typically attract talent of the likes of renowned satirist Andy Borowitz, Met Opera choreographer Camille Brown or world-class pianists such as Jean-Yves Thibaudet. But because the Hopkins Center is a part of Dartmouth, these acts make their way to Hanover and Upper Valley residents are able to enjoy them. And with an already fragile relationship between the College and the Upper Valley community, we cannot risk the loss of an equalizer like the Hop.

We agree that renovations of the Hopkins Center are necessary for the continued health of the arts at Dartmouth. But to avoid dismantling student interest and the legacy of our arts programs, it is integral that the College continues supporting the programs that drive this interest in the frst place, no matter the cost.

The editorial board consists of opinion staf columnists, the opinion editors, the executive editors and the editor-in-chief.

Adkins: Why People Don’t Want to Work

People in the United States seemingly don’t want to work. Why? This column was originally published on Nov. 11, 2022

The recent labor shortage in the United States has left many wondering why it seems that Americans do not want to work. We have seen three million more eligible workers choose to leave the workforce compared to February of 2020 according to The United States Chamber of Commerce. Despite what your boomer parents may have to say about the work ethics of Gen Zs and millennials during your Thanksgiving meal, workers have elected to stay away from the workforce for valid reasons. In short, people understand that current working conditions in many companies are simply not worth the limited amount of compensation.

By and large, it looks like people are leaving the workforce in search of better pay and more benefts. This runs counter to the “American dream” — that hard work means you can make it in life. But, the fact of the matter is that the American dream has been dead for ages. The incentive to work minimum wage jobs has slowly declined over the last decade because of the toil they create, and that trend has been exacerbated by the pandemic. Even a $15 an hour minimum wage — what just six years ago was the gold standard for progressive activism — is becoming increasingly more difcult to live on in America. According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Minimum Wage calculator, in 2022, the living wage for an American family of two working adults and two children is $24.16 per hour. Thus, a $7.25 minimum wage makes it nearly impossible for a family to survive, in turn bolstering the argument in favor of the $15 minimum wage, which is no longer as radical as it used to be. However, as statistics show, even a $15 minimum wage may not cover the needs for some Americans.

The situation in the United States is horrifying compared to many of the nation’s peers. America

ranks last in the “developed” world when it comes to employee benefts according to Zenefts, a human resources management company. Paid vacation and sick days in America compared to Europe are abysmal. In fact, the Center for Economic Policy and Research notes that we are one of the few industrialized countries in the world that doesn’t require paid vacation days for our workers. Also according to the CEPR, Europeans receive 20 days of mandated paid leave at the very least. Maternity leave in the U.S. is also remarkably inconsistent compared to other countries. Here, maternity leave is contingent on individual companies and is not governed nationally, according to the Federal Bureau of Labor. However, in most places in Europe, women are required to receive a minimum of at least 10 paid weeks of while some places like Italy have a minimum of at least 21 paid weeks of . How can we improve the conditions for workers in the U.S.? Though companies play a role in deciding their policies and culture, it is ultimately up to our government to defne how we can apply workers’ needs into law. According to the International Monetary Fund, raising the federal minimum wage to keep up with infation would refect a European approach to empowering workers. As of 2021, 62% of Americans are in favor of a $15 federal minimum wage, according to the Pew Research Center. While I noted that this would not necessarily provide a family with the resources they need, it certainly would thread the needle in the right direction when it comes to the well-being of workers. What’s more, a federal mandatory maternity leave of at least eight weeks is not only feasible, but absolutely necessary to support working families. It is imperative that our representatives do their due diligence and represent their constituents.

These benefts are all incentives for people to work. There is a reason why western European employees are much more satisfed with their jobs than Americans. Ireland’s Central Statistics Ofce notes that 90% of Irish people reported being happy with their jobs, whereas only 49% of Americans reported positive feelings towards their jobs. It’s a refection of businesses and governments in those regions listening to their workers. In the U.S., it’s apparent that businesses avoid evolution and stick to the old ways of fnding how to exploit their workforce by any means necessary. The issue of the United States’ worker shortage shouldn’t fall on workers. It should fall on our businesses and governmental institutions that have only recently been forced to acknowledge their defects as a direct result of the worker shortage.

MIRROR

Fighting For Freedom: Ukrainian Students at Dartmouth on Supporting the War Effort

By Christopher McCardle STORY

This article was originally published on Nov. 9, 2022.

When Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, the entire world stopped to watch. Since then, despite constant media coverage of the war, many non-Ukrainians have let the invasion slip into the background of their lives. But for members of the Dartmouth Student Alliance for Ukraine, who are doing everything they can to raise awareness and help the war efort, not paying attention is not an option.

As president and vice president of Dartmouth’s Ukrainian Student Association, Zhenia Dubrova ’24 and Polly Chesnokova ’24 have been thinking a lot about the

efects of the war in Ukraine on Dartmouth students.

“We’re just kind of trying to raise our hand and be like, ‘Hey, our people are dying,’” Chesnokova said. “We are the ones shedding blood [and] protecting democracy.”

To that end, Dubrova and Chesnokova are currently running an auction to raise funds for soldiers who are known personally by the Ukrainian students at Dartmouth. The auction encourages members of the Dartmouth community to ofer their time or expertise for other students to bid on; it began October 29th and will continue through this Sunday, November 13th. Some of the experiences on ofer include a mushroomforaging expedition, playing fetch with a

dog, conversing with Dartmouth faculty members and Ukrainian cooking lessons.

For Dubrova, the auction represents a lighthearted way to make a diference.

“People are not as engaged with the topic as they should be; that’s why we wanted to do this auction,” Dubrova said.“We tried raising money before in the spring — and it’s always very difcult to engage, unfortunately, as people are just tired of hearing constantly about the war.”

While some students may no longer keep up with news related to the war, it is difcult for Ukrainian students to distance themselves from a situation that directly involves their family and friends. Chesnokova’s parents live in Kyiv, so they are constantly thinking about the efects of

the war on their family.

“Today there were some bombings in Kyiv, and so I woke up and I was texting my parents,” Chesnokova said. “That’s the frst thing that I do — just check if they’re alive. For us, [the war] never ceased to be very personal.”

When they arrived on campus as a freshman during the pandemic, Chesnokova was — to their knowledge — the only Ukrainian student on campus. Since the beginning of the invasion, Dartmouth’s Ukrainian community has come together to create a strong network of support, which Chesnokova noted with pride.

“I like being in the room with ten other Ukrainians from diferent years,” they said. “I’m very proud to say that we have postdocs and graduate students that have joined and really work with us on organizing these events.”

Outside of these rooms, Dubrova said, the broader Dartmouth community can tend to focus on Russia’s role in the war, at the expense of highlighting the conditions in Ukraine.

“A lot of the students would ask me questions about Russia and not Ukraine — questions about Putin and the future of democracy in Russia” she said. “And I’m like, why are you asking me all these questions?”

Kyrylo Fomin ’26 voiced frustration with college events on the war which featured only Russians, including two events in October with Gary Kasparov — Russian chess championship and human rights activist — and the upcoming event on November 10 with Mikhail Gorbachev’s chief English interpreter, Pavel Palazhchenko. While these events aren’t all being hosted with the express purpose of discussing the war, Fomin noted the relative absence of Ukrainian activists or experts.

“Why invite a speaker from Russia to talk about the situation when you can invite a Ukrainian one?” he asked. “The school doesn’t do enough for the students

to understand the Ukrainian perspective.”

Fomin added that people miss the fact that Russia is a colonial state and the war has signifcant colonial context

“Just because [Russia] did not colonize the south or western hemisphere doesn’t mean they are not colonizers,” he said.

Dubrova emphasized the importance of understanding this confict, not just in terms of political theory, but in terms of human life.

“I wish that students in particular would talk more and ask questions more,” she said. “And think about the war, not just in geopolitical terms and not just in terms of the west and Russia, not even just in terms of Putin and Zelensky, but in terms of actual human experiences — what it’s like to live through the war and to have families that are living through the war.”

Though they still hope for greater awareness on campus, the Ukrainian Student Association has accomplished a lot in the months since the invasion began. In addition to the ongoing auction, they’ve used social media to promote on-campus events like a vigil for Ukraine in April, screenings of documentaries about life in Ukraine’s warzone, a multi-media exhibition in May and fundraising eforts for Ukrainian refugees.

Throughout these eforts, Chesnokova has been impressed with the Dartmouth community’s support.

“We’re just really happy to see interaction coming from non-Ukrainians,” they said. “To me, when I see people who are understanding the impact that [the war] has on a global level, I value that a lot.”

The eforts of the Ukrainian Student Association remind us that there’s still a long way to go — a point which Dubrova underscored.

“Even though the people [at Dartmouth and in the US] are experiencing war fatigue, the fght in Ukraine still continues,” she said. “It continues every day.”

Dear readers,

In our last print issue for the fall term, we wanted to celebrate and honor the 50th anniversary of coeducation at Dartmouth. Here, you will fnd a collection of our recent reporting on the early years of coeducation and eforts by women to create change at the College. Writers hear from some of the frst women students on campus — who were outnumbered by male students 46 to 1 — and explore the origins of the housing crisis. Also read about current initiatives to recognize 50 years of coeducation, including Homecoming programming for women’s athletics and the alumnae-funded campaign to renovate Dartmouth Hall.

While the College has come a long way since women frst matriculated in 1972, there is still much to be done. Women continue to seek change and leave their mark at the College, and here at The Dartmouth, we remain committed to being a platform that amplifes the voices of our community members.

Sincerely, Executive Editors of the 179th Directorate

Dartmouth’s rst women students re ect on 50 years of coeducation

BY EMILY LU The Dartmouth Senior Staff

This article was originally published on Sept. 7, 2022.

Fifty years ago, a cohort of 150 women students arrived at the all-male institution of Dartmouth College. This would be the last academic year of exchange programs that allowed women to attend the College before the Board of Trustees voted in November 1971 to ofcially institute coeducation.

Prior to the fall of 1972, when women students frst matriculated at the College, Dartmouth hosted various co-educational weeks and academic exchanges that allowed women to explore campus. The frst women accepted by Dartmouth in an exchange were a group of seven drama students in the 1968-1969 academic year, though they were not allowed to live in the dormitories. In the following two years, approximately 70 upperclassmen women were accepted through exchange programs with other institutions. The last year of the exchange program, academic year 1971-1972, saw 150 women students enroll at Dartmouth.

Campus Life

The exchange year provided new opportunities for academic challenge and socialization. Most students participated through the 12-college exchange, a program that originally consisted of 10 colleges, addressed the national push for coeducation and allowed students from other northeastern single-sex institutions to attend a diferent school for a year, according to College archivist Peter Carini.

“It was magical to me — it was something new and exciting, and I needed it,” Alice Malone ’71, who decided to attend Dartmouth on an exchange program after learning about the opportunity on a bulletin board at Occidental College, said. “Dartmouth was what you made it, and it was an opportunity that most of us felt we shouldn’t miss.”

Women exchange students — known as “co-eds” at the time — were all housed in Cohen Hall and later North Massachusetts Hall, according to Malone. During the 1970–1971 academic year, male students outnumbered the women 46 to 1.

Gabrielle Handler ’70 said that even as a member of one of the frst cohorts of women at the College, she was very enthusiastic about attending.

“There was a certain kind of thrill and excitement in being in the vanguard,” Handler said. “It was an opening up of opportunities. That was the whole era — opportunities being widened and opened and broadened for women.”

Sarah Marter ’72, who participated in the exchange program from Wellesley College, described the reactions of the male students as “varied,” adding that the location of Cohen — directly behind fraternity row — was not optimal. According to Floran Fowkes ’71, while upperclassmen in particular were not “necessarily warm and welcoming,” freshmen and sophomores were mostly excited to have women on campus.

Similarly, in classrooms, women students had mixed experiences with professors. Amy Sabrin ’72 said she was warned to avoid a certain art class due to the professor’s views.

“Some of the guys [told me] that the teacher was a misogynist, and he didn’t think women could be serious artists, and

I would never get a good grade — and they were right,” Sabrin said.

While the ratio of male to female students often meant there was rarely more than one woman in any given class, Fowkes said that did not deter their participation and willingness to learn. She added that women students often took advantage of ofce hours to reach out to professors and develop mentoring relationships.

“We were pretty assertive as a group,” Fowkes said. “We weren’t going to sit and not answer questions or were cowed by the fact that we were the only woman in the class, and I think that speaks volumes to who we were as people.”

According to a Rauner Collection timeline, in 1970, 83% of the student body favored coeducation. A vocal proponent was David Aylward ’71, who said that he was heavily involved in lobbying for coeducation because he believed that women students would make Dartmouth a much better place.

“Dartmouth was a very toxic environment,” Aylward said. “It was an alcohol-fueled, intolerant, homogenous, misogynistic, disrespectful student culture … Having a normal relationship with a woman was almost impossible.”

A Separate School

Despite support from the majority of students, faculty and alumni for coeducation, the form it would take at the College was undetermined — especially as Title IX discussions entered the picture. Plans for coeducation at Dartmouth were originally focused on a target enrollment of 1,000 women across the College and maintaining the number of male undergraduate students at 3,000. Under Title IX, however, coeducational institutions would be required to admit men and women on a non-discriminatory basis.

The proposed law at the time — which would not be enacted until June 1972 — contained an exception that allowed singlesex institutions to maintain their admissions process. As a result, discussion emerged of creating a separate, “coordinate” all-female school, essentially a sister school. The associated school would share Dartmouth’s campus to create the efect of coeducation, but would be legally treated as a diferent institution. According to Carini, other options included making Colby Sawyer College, located in New London, N.H., a sister institution or creating a separate school located in Norwich.

“The idea that women had separate education needs was ofensive,” Sabrin said. “... Even then, I understood that it was a proposal to try to circumvent what was about to become law: Title IX.”

Sabrin, who was the frst female editor at The Dartmouth, said she expressed her “outrage” at the time by penning a column in the paper. This was met with some backlash from students, including ofensive notes taped to the door of her dorm room.

Still, Sabrin organized with other women students and staff to issue a statement opposing an associated school for women at the College and asking for a meeting with then-College President John Kemeny. After receiving a petition signed by almost 50 women students and hearing feedback from faculty, Sabrin said that Kemeny dropped the idea.

Pressure on the Program

According to an alumni poll conducted in 1970, 59% of alumni approved of

increasing the number of women students at Dartmouth. Within this majority, classes that had graduated within the past decade were more strongly in favor of coeducation — 81% of the Classes of 1960 to 1969 favored coeducation — while in the Classes of 1893 to 1925, the approval rate was a mere 46%.

History and women’s, gender and sexuality studies professor Annelise Orleck said that among powerful donors to the College, there was a sizable minority of opponents to coeducation. These alumni held onto Dartmouth’s history of “hypermasculinity,” Orleck said.

In order to address the alumni who had qualms about coeducation, Fowkes said that professors often organized groups of women students to speak at alumni events, particularly students who were interested in pursuing graduate school or specifc professions.

“There was a little bit of hostility [from the alums],” Fowkes said. “Some of the alums were convinced that the only reason you wanted to go to Dartmouth was to fnd a Dartmouth husband.”

Some students therefore felt that the exchange programs were treated as a metric of how successful coeducation would be at Dartmouth. Marter said there was pressure on women students to perform at their best and recalled when her advisor spoke to her about improving her grades after she received a C+ in a class.

“We did feel like we had to represent, be good students and contributing members of the community,” Sabrin said.

Reuniting with Dartmouth

Despite the role of these women in facilitating Dartmouth’s transition to coeducation, the College kept virtually no records of these students. Only in the past few years, Sabrin said, have these women been invited to alumni events and adopted by the Classes of 1969 through 1972.

“I don’t think the administration actually ever thought of us as real Dartmouth students, and that was further borne out by the fact that it took 40 years for us to get invited to a reunion,” Sabrin said.

Aylward, who managed his class’s 45th reunion book, said he made it a mission to fnd the women exchange students who shared time on campus with the Class of 1971. Frustrated that the College kept no documentation of this history, Aylward worked with Malone to track down many of the other women students by emailing the schools that had participated in the exchange.

Fowkes said that class adoptions have served as a way to connect with some exchange students she may not have met while at the College, as there were few activities that promoted a sense of unity within the cohort of women.

“It has really been a treat to meet these other women who have gone on to do great things,” Fowkes said.

According to Aylward, in the past fve years, more than 30 women have reconnected with the College through adoptions by their respective graduating classes.

“Those women are personally responsible for Dartmouth becoming co-educational,” Aylward said. “If as a group they had not contributed the way they contributed, that would have been the end of coeducation … They were real pioneers. They got a lot of arrows in the back, but they really changed the place.”

First matriculated Dartmouth women share experiences and lessons learned, 50 years later

BY EMILY FAGELL The Dartmouth Staff

This article was originally published on Aug. 21, 2022 and shortened for layout purposes.

On Nov. 21, 1971, College President John Kemeny announced that the Board of Trustees had voted in favor of coeducation. The following September, 177 female frst-year students and 74 female transfers matriculated at the College — becoming the frst group of women to fully enroll at Dartmouth, which historically had been an all-male institution.

Over the next four years, female members of the Class of 1976 experienced various hardships on campus — hostile fraternity basements, bricks through dorm windows, crude remarks in the campus dining hall and derogatory songs at their expense, to name a few. But the frst women were also embraced by an “intense and wonderful community,” according to Ann Fritz Hackett ’76, the frst alumna trustee of the College. Now, ffty years after the start of coeducation, former vice president of Alumni Relations Martha Beattie ’76 said she wants to change the narrative of coeducation.

“I would love for the narrative to be changed, that [the College] was full of all these horrible-behaving males, and it was so tough for women,” Beattie said. “It was such a gift to be part of the making of this history. And there were so many men on campus that were incredible partners in making that history happen.”

The Road to Coeducation

Although coeducation ofcially began in 1972, the College had previously hosted women for various co-educational weeks and exchange programs, according to the anniversary webpage. In Kemeny’s inaugural address on March 1, 1970, the new president expressed his desire to transition to full coeducation, calling it “one of [the College’s] most urgent tasks.” The next academic year, 1971-1972, would be the last year of the exchange programs before his wish came to fruition.

Kemeny’s drive to implement coeducation was met with hesitation by older alumni and the Board of Trustees, according to College archivist Peter Carini.

In fact, among those who graduated between 1883 and 1925, only 46% supported coeducation. And though the board knew that admitting women “was on the horizon,” Carini said members on the Board of Trustees expected the transition to take fve or six years — not less than two years — after Kemeny assumed ofce.

Support for coeducation was stronger among students, faculty and younger alumni — 71% of undergraduates, 86% of faculty and 81% of alumni who graduated between 1960 and 1969 supported coeducation, according to College data. Ultimately, these support groups prevailed: After two days of deliberation, the board — spurred by both “agitation by students” and “very vocal” women faculty — voted in favor of coeducation, Carini said.

Though the November announcement came late in the college admissions process, women submitted their applications in droves. According to former trustee Nancy Kepes Jeton ’76, six of her classmates had already been accepted to Middlebury College, but they independently convinced the dean of admissions to suspend their early decision commitments there. Brewer Doran ’76, on the other hand, said she had “never wanted to go anywhere else.”

Campus Culture

Once they arrived, the frst women were met by a “male-dominated” social scene, according to Sara Hoagland Hunter ’76. She explained that the campus was “fraternity-central” — the frst sorority, Sigma Kappa sorority, was not established until 1977 — and there was “no place that women [had] to gather.” Although women were allowed in fraternities, they

were occasionally met by antagonistic or inappropriate behavior. Stefanie Valar ’76 recalled an incident in which a fraternity brother entered the basement “wearing nothing but sneakers,” while Kipp Barker ’76 remembered the infamous Hums incident, in which a fraternity won the Green Key parody competition with their derogatory song, “Our Cohogs” — a derogatory play on “coeds,” the nickname given to women students.

“I will say we were always welcomed, but I never really felt at home in a fraternity,” Doran said.

Hostilities also extended beyond Greek spaces. Kepes Jeton said some men would rate women’s physical appearances as they walked into the dining hall, while Fritz Hackett said a brick was thrown through her dorm window during her frst week on campus. Naomi Baline Kleinman ’76 added that men came to her residence hall to punch out the glass in the back door, kick in women’s trash cans and set their memo boards on fre.

Despite these incidents, most women from the Class of 1976 reported an overall positive experience, according to Ann Waugh Page ’76, Med ’79.

“Frommyperspective,theoverwhelming story of the ’76 women is how we adapted to, thrived in and then genuinely loved what we consider to be our college,” Waugh Page said. “Almost all the women I knew in that frst year felt privileged to be at Dartmouth and proud to be in that frst class. Obviously, there are little hiccups along the way, but my overwhelming sentiment is that it was a really positive experience for me.”

Hoagland Hunter agreed, calling her experience “magical” and her friendships with both men and women “absolutely terrifc.” Baline Kleinman added that there were more hostile alumni than men on campus.

“I can’t say enough about the fact that there were a lot of incredibly welcoming men across all the classes,” Baline Kleinman said. “The juniors and seniors in [Butterfeld Hall] were, across the board, just so happy that we were there and were very kind to us.”

Making Space for Women

Although the Dartmouth social scene was still dominated by fraternities, the women of 1976 found their place on campus. According to Carini, many women turned to athletics, which provided an arena to “excel on their own, without competition from men.”

Fritz Hackett, who played varsity feld hockey and tennis, agreed that sports provided “a way to have a critical mass of women,” while Beattie referred to her rowing teammates as her closest friends. Waugh Page added that joining the ski team was a highlight of her Dartmouth experience.

“That was a great move because we had a really close group of women,” Waugh Page said. “We had this fantastic mentor as a coach. We could sit around her ofce and chat. She was like our mother, and it was a really nice group — and a group that I still get together with almost annually.”

Beyond athletics, Barker said that women were active in campus activities. Waugh Page said she was involved in the Dartmouth Outing Club, for example, while Hoagland Hunter said she had a lead role in a drama production and co-founded the frst female a cappella group, the Dartmouth Distractions.

“Women participated pretty fully in the extracurricular life,” Doran added.

According to Baline Kleinman, women also found community within their residence halls. While Valar said she enjoyed living in a coeducational residence hall — explaining that her male neighbors were “protective” of the women — Fritz Hackett said that her all-female building, North Massachusetts Hall, helped foster strong female friendships.

A history of Dartmouth’s housing crisis

BY ANDREW SASSER The Dartmouth Senior Staff

This article was originally published on Oct. 8, 2021.

As Dartmouth approaches the 50th anniversary of its vote for coeducation, the growth of the College’s undergraduate population since that decision has impacted student access to on-campus housing. Over the last few decades, the decision to expand the student body with coeducation — combined with the lack of new dormitory construction — has led to many students struggling to fnd housing, especially during the fall term.

When the Board of Trustees voted in November 1971 to institute coeducation and implement the Dartmouth Plan — now known as the D-Plan — the College anticipated increasing enrollment of undergraduates. According to a report by the faculty Committee on Year-Round Operation in September 1971, the implementation of both coeducation and the D-Plan would allow the College to enroll up to 3,400 students by the 1975–76 academic year, up from about 3,000 students.

In deciding to implement coeducation, the Board of Trustees opted to increase the total number of admitted students to ensure that the same number of men would be admitted as before coeducation. College archivist Peter Carini previously told The Dartmouth that the primary “selling point” of co-education paired with the D-plan

was to “free up dorm space” without “displacing any male applicants.”

“[We have an] earnest hope that Dartmouth would remain competitive in male numbers with Harvard, Yale and Princeton...to have a large and diverse enough body of undergraduates to staf [male] athletics teams without skewing admissions,” former Dean of the College Carroll Brewster wrote in a letter to the Board of Trustees while they were discussing coeducation in Sept. 1971.

The prospect of decreasing the number of male students admitted to the College to maintain an undergraduate population of 3,200 students was relatively unpopular among both students and alumni. In a January 1969 editorial titled “The Sooner the Better,” one Dartmouth student wrote that he “generally opposed cutting the male enrollment” of Dartmouth as a “permanent solution” to make coeducation possible.

In a 1971 survey of alumni by the College, only 20% of alumni indicated that they would approve of decreasing the enrollment of male students by 1,000 to accommodate 1,000 more women. In contrast, some 44% of alumni supported admitting 1,000 more women, if there was “expanded use” of summer term and “expanded of campus programs” to keep the number of students in residence around the average of 3,000 at the time.

With the decision to increase the size of the class, the College acknowledged that it would need to improve the

“physical plant” of the College to accommodate more students. The Sept. 1971 CYRO Report noted that the College had already been facing overcrowding in Thayer Hall — now known as the Class of 1953 Commons — as well as dorm spaces.

“35 students are housed in rooms which are seriously overcrowded while crowding exists in another 145 rooms,” the committee wrote at the time. “With the need to improve some existing dormitories as residential communities, a new facility that can accommodate at least 200 persons is needed.”

After the implementation of coeducation, some alumni voiced concerns about the potential for overcrowding. In an article published in the December 1975 Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, Dan Nelson ’75 wrote that during his time as a student, the solution to overcrowding was to “simply jam more students into available spaces” by converting single rooms to doubles and doubles to triples. Ellis Briggs ’21 wrote in an April 1975 issue of the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine that the decision to implement year-round education as a “panacea” created an “uproar in housing.”

In response to the housing crisis, the Board of Trustees voted in April 1975 to approve the construction of a new “apartment-style dormitory” to house 72 students near the River Cluster, according to a Dartmouth Alumni Magazine article. The board also opted to use the Hanover Inn Motor Lodge — now The Lodge, a South House housing

community dorm — for fall, winter and spring student housing.

However, in spite of new dormitory construction and renovations, the housing crisis in Hanover has persisted through the decades. In 1994, some 180 students were left without housing for the fall term when a record 3,845 students enrolled for the term. To deal with the problem, the College at the time used dormitory lounges and faculty apartments to house some students, and ofered reduced rent rates and higher dorm and class priorities to students willing to take an of-term.

Facing a similar crisis in 2001 due to an unexpectedly high admissions yield for the Class of 2005, the College opted to create six “Tree Houses” on the lawn in front of the River Cluster to accomodate students on the housing waitlist. The houses, which were regarded as some of the “worst housing on campus,” were ultimately torn down in the fall of 2006. In 2014, the large number of housing requests for fall term, due “largely” to the size of the Class of 2018, caused some common rooms to be converted into living spaces, and some students were placed into “accommodations they did not request.”

More recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused demand for fall on-campus housing to rise after a year of remote learning has left students eager to access campus. Coupled with a limited number of study abroad programs running this term, the housing crisis is plaguing the College yet again. As a result, the College ofered $5,000 to

up to 200 students who were willing to give up their on-campus housing — and once again, certain common spaces were converted into living spaces and larger singles and doubles became doubles and triples.

With a lack of housing options on campus, students have looked to Hanover and the surrounding Upper Valley area to fnd housing — which students described as “nearly impossible” to fnd on such short-notice. The high rent prices in the area causes problems for the undergraduate and graduate populations alike, with graduate students caught between high on-campus housing prices, a lack of available ofcampus housing due to the increased number of undergraduates living ofcampus and the large enrollment of this year’s incoming Tuck School of Business class. Last August, the Casque and Gauntlet building — used by the senior society of the same name — was leased to Tuck to be used for graduate student housing.

While there have been proposals to create more housing in Hanover, there has been little progress. A plan proposed by parents to create modular housing was rejected by the College this summer, parents told The Dartmouth. A similar proposal to build a dorm complex at the site currently occupied by House Center A — commonly known as “The Onion” — and several tennis courts was put on hold by the pandemic. Though fall is now in full swing, Dartmouth’s housing problems will likely not be over soon.

Over 1,700 women raise $25 million for Dartmouth Hall renovation

BY EMILY LU The Dartmouth Senior Staff

Classes to return to newly renovated Dartmouth Hall in winter

BY TESSA AUGSBERGER

Dartmouth

The

This article was originally published on Oct. 20, 2022.

On Oct. 24, spaces in Dartmouth Hall will reopen after a 21-month long renovation period that updated its interior with improved accessibility features and eco-friendly modifications that were almost entirely funded by College alumnae. Although faculty began moving into their ofces in Dartmouth Hall on Sept. 30 and an ofcial dedication ceremony will be held on Nov. 11, the building will not fully reopen for classes until the start of the winter term.

The College’s project management services senior director Patrick O’Hern said that COVID-19 related supply chain issues and labor shortages contributed to delays in construction. He said his team found it difcult to obtain certain materials, such as audiovisual equipment, needed for the renovation that are usually readily available.

According to Dartmouth Hall project manager Lindsay Walkinshaw, COVID-19 cases within the construction crew contributed to further delays in the completion of the project. In addition to individual workers contracting COVID-19, she said that a subcontractor experienced an outbreak within their crew, causing them to be absent from the worksite for several weeks.

The Call to Lead

About 1,700 alumnae raised over $25 million to fund the renovations, according to Call to Lead campaign co-chair and trustee Peggy Epstein Tanner ’79, who helped organize fundraising eforts for the project. Epstein Tanner said the Call to Lead campaign empowered alumnae to show their support for the College and for one another, especially after a period of “bad press” several years ago about whether Dartmouth was a “hospitable place to women.”

Epstein Tanner said Call to Lead also emphasized the importance of making fundraising contributions more accessible to smaller donors.

The renovated Dartmouth Hall features a donor wall in its entrance with the names of those who donated to the project, as well as a small exhibit in the basement honoring the history of coeducation — which celebrates its 50th year this year — and impact of women at Dartmouth.

The exhibit, set to open this week,

features several walls with photographs of women at Dartmouth throughout the past several decades as well as display cases highlighting the contributions of women at Dartmouth. There is also a section detailing the history of the building itself, with the original classroom doors from the historic building lining the walls.

Improved Accessibility

Walkinshaw said that she took over the project during construction in March 2021. She added that the building is designed with accessibility in mind to make it easier for students to navigate the building.

“Previously, to get from one side [of Dartmouth Hall] to the other, you’d be really limited with how far you could get without encountering some stairs,” Walkinshaw said. “… There’s a living room space on the third foor that [now] has some loose furniture for [greater] accessibility, there are multiple seating options within [Room 105] and every

entrance into the building is accessible, whereas before there was one [accessible entrance].”

Walkinshaw said her team increased the building’s accessibility by adding outdoor ramps, incorporating accessible signage, replacing door knobs with lever handlesets and more. With the addition of a ramp leading to the front entrance of the hall, Epstein Tanner said she hopes the space feels more welcoming to all students.

“In the past there was kind of a back entrance where someone who was either in a wheelchair or on crutches could have easier access to the building,” Epstein Tanner said. “You almost felt like a secondclass citizen if you were handicapped because you couldn’t go in the front door.”

Changes in Dartmouth Hall

The school hired Boston-based frm designLAB architects and construction manager Engelberth Construction to carry out the renovations.

O’Hern said the building was

designed for LEED Gold certifcation — a classification that certifies the building’s lower environmental impact. He highlighted how the building is more energy efcient due to the installation of storm windows, reinsulation of the building’s exterior and the replacement of steam heating with hot water heating.

“We’re able to use the building more efectively over 12 months,” O’Hern said. “[The building now has] really good temperature control for everybody.”

Italian professor Giorgio Alberti, who worked in Dartmouth Hall for four years before moving with the French and Italian department to Berry Library during the renovations, said construction workers continue to develop the inside of Dartmouth Hall even as professors move back into their ofces, calling the transition “a little premature.” However, Alberti said he appreciates the renovations and is excited to begin teaching students in the space.

“I think we’re very privileged to be

here,” Alberti said. “They certainly packed a lot of things in the same building.”

ITAL 1, “Introductory Italian 1” student Claire O’Flynn ’26 said that she used a third-level alcove in Dartmouth Hall as a study space for her Italian midterm. She added that the updated interior of the building is more conducive to her working style than other work spaces, such as those ofered by College libraries.

“There’s a huge whiteboard and I love to write everything out super big, so I really like [the space],” O’Flynn said. “I [also] like a lot of the little nooks and crannies, individual meeting rooms and small halls.”

Reflecting on his previous office in Dartmouth Hall, Alberti said the renovations improve upon many of the early building’s faws and inconveniences.

“I had a dark, very drafty ofce, and there was no air conditioning,” Alberti said. “The [new] style is very much in dialogue with the identity of the building, but it feels like a completely diferent place. Everything is so much more rational.”

Q&A with rst female Editor-in-Chief of e Dartmouth Anne Bagamery ’78

BY LAUREN ADLER The Dartmouth Senior Staff

This article was originally published on Mar. 5, 2020. Dubbed “the most ambitious women’s fundraising efort” in school history, a community of women alumni, faculty and students has raised over $25 million to fund the renovation of Dartmouth Hall.

This article was originally published on Oct. 8, 2021. Bagamery discussed her tenure in the newsroom and how to launch a career in journalism.

OLIVER DE JONGHE/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

The 21-month long renovaton period updated the iconic campus building, introduced new eco-friendly modifcatons and improved accessibility features.

Women’s athletics celebrates 50th anniversary with homecoming programming for alumnae, current athletes

BY CASSANDRA MONTEMAYOR THOMAS The Dartmouth Senior Staff

This article was originally published on Nov. 3, 2022.

In addition to traditional Homecoming activities, the College celebrated 50 years of women’s athletics since coeducation at Dartmouth with programming throughout the weekend. Events included a talk with Olympic runner and flmmaker Alexi Pappas ’12 and a dinner at the Hanover Inn for current and former female athletes, according to associate athletics director for external relations Lori McBride.

While the celebration highlighted current women’s sports, it was primarily an opportunity for alumnae to reconnect and honor decades of activism that has supported women’s sports at Dartmouth, McBride said.

“It really was the culmination of bringing together all these fabulous women across sports, which was so much fun,” McBride said. “It allowed them not only to get to know each other but also to [learn how] they supported each other back as student-athletes and then stayed friends.”

The weekend’s festivities commenced with Pappas speaking at the Black Family Visual Arts Center on Friday in an event which attracted a “lovely cross-section” of athletes, students, faculty, alumni and dedicated fans, McBride said. At the event, Pappas outlined her career as a professional long distance runner, flmmaker, author and mental health advocate.

“So much of what I learned about being a human being was done through sports, and done through sports at Dartmouth,” Pappas said in her talk, which touched on mental health, chasing dreams and relishing the present.

On Saturday, McBride said that women’s sports events — including an equestrian competition and rugby, feld

hockey, soccer and ice hockey games — were staggered so that alumnae could support current athletes as much as possible. McBride added that attendance was free to boost spectatorship.

On Saturday night, over 300 people attended a dinner held at the Hanover Inn Ballroom, including alumnae from all varsity and club sports, current and former women’s coaches and two current student-athlete representatives from each team. At the end of the evening, athletic director Mike Harrity announced that the jersey of basketball alumna Gail Koziara Boudreaux ’82 — whose prolifc career in basketball won her the NCAA Theodore Roosevelt award and a spot on the AllAmerican team, while her professional successes led her to her current position as CEO of Aetna healthcare — will hang in the rafters of Leede Arena. Hers will be the frst jersey, male or female, to hang in the arena.

“This was just an unbelievable show of commitment and respect to the women athletes of Dartmouth,” McBride said.

While McBride said that she was proud of the progress that women’s athletics has made in recent history, she acknowledged that “a lot of advocacy has been necessary to get to where we are today.”

Chris Brownell ’87 — who was a threesport athlete at Dartmouth, former head coach of men’s and women’s squash and is the mother of two Dartmouth women’s athletes — said she has observed four decades of this advocacy.

“I have a lot of old friends in the feld, and I think our experiences at Dartmouth were much better than their experiences at other Ivy League schools,” Brownell said.

She described many of the women staf members in the athletic department as “warriors” who stood up to other stafers to secure better resources for women athletes.

“As a student myself, I felt like we got 100% of what the men got,” Brownell said. “I never, ever felt like we were second-class

citizens.”

Track and cross country athlete Anya Hirschfeld ’23 added that women face diferent realities than men in sports, and equity alone may not be enough for female athletes to achieve their full potential. This is due in part, Hirschfeld said, to the double standards that women face in terms of appearance and demeanor and also because of gendered diferences when it comes to menstrual care, nutritional needs and mental health.

Hirschfeld said that when it comes to

gender-specifc aid, the College still needs to hire more female coaches who may be more attentive to the needs of female athletes.

“It’s obviously uncomfortable to make broad generalizations along the gender binary,” Hirschfeld said. “But I do think that female coaches are a little bit more responsive to my physical and emotional needs than the male coaches that I’ve had in my past.”

As Dartmouth celebrates fve decades of women’s sports and the activists who

paved the way for the successes of current athletes, Hirschfeld said that it’s important to remember that female athletes face unique challenges in their domain — and hiring more female coaches may be the best way to attend to them.

“It’s really important that people are aware of the kind of pressures that female athletes are under,” Hirschfeld said. “I think that a really good step is just the existence of female sports teams and a very rigorous support network for them.”

First women on campus featured in film on coeducation

BY LAUREN SEGAL & MIA NELSON The Dartmouth Staff

This article was originally published on Oct. 17, 2019.

It is not a well-known fact that Dartmouth hosted a small cohort of women exchange students starting in 1968 before its ofcial inception as a coeducational institution in the fall of 1972. In recent years, Dartmouth has nearly equal numbers of women and men, a norm that is in part due to these trailblazers who made the frst incursions onto Dartmouth’s all-male campus and shaped Dartmouth into the school it is today.

Last Friday at 4 p.m. in Filene Auditorium, the documentary “Early Daughters of Dartmouth — Blazing the Trail to Coeducation” premiered to a full crowd. The film, which is composed of interviews with the female exchange students, details the stories and experiences of the frst women to enroll at Dartmouth.

The energy in the room was palpable as alumni—many of whom attended the College during the time period in which the flm focuses—anticipated the screening. Producer and director Bill Aydelott ’72 talked about the hectic road to the premiere, citing last-minute 3 a.m. edits to accommodate the last-minute addition of Connie Britton ’89’s voiceover.

In spite of the frenzied production process, Aydelott expressed satisfaction with fnally screening the flm to the public.

“You get very close to a project of this nature, so you almost lose some of your perspective on how certain things are going to play,” Aydelott said. “But I was very gratifed that the audience reacted at the right places. They laughed when I was looking to get a chuckle, and frankly at the end, there was quite a bit of emotion. It was emotional for me.”

Aydelott said he felt comfortable being critical of the College as the flm was funded independently. According to executive producer Katherine Rines ’71, around $30,000 was raised from private donations given by female and male students from the classes of 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972 and the Leslie Center for the Humanities.

In 1968, Rines said, seven women enrolled at Dartmouth through the theater department, which asked the

administration to ease the burden of looking to Hanover residents to fll the female roles in theater productions. The succeeding two years saw 75 female students enrolled at Dartmouth — a number that jumped to 150 women in the year preceding Dartmouth’s move to coeducation.

Overwhelmingly, the women in the flm expressed positive and loving recollections of their time at Dartmouth. Many said they felt like full members of the community. Joan Rachlin ’71, who participated in the exchange program, described her experience at Dartmouth as one that was undeniably memorable.

“It was overall extraordinary,” she said. “And within that very broad umbrella there were times that were terrifying, times that were challenging, times that were a little crazy-making and certainly times that were absolutely the stuf of which the peak adventures in life were made.”

Despite the fond memories these women associate with their Dartmouth experiences, they also mentioned the incessant pressure to succeed on behalf of their gender.

“I understood full well my role as a guinea pig in the fact that if we did anything wrong, we could hurt the whole case for coeducation,” Rachlin said. “We were the crucible on which coeducation was going to be judged.”

In addition to the stress of representing women to encourage the College to consider coeducation, these students were navigating the minefeld that was being one of few women on a campus traditionally dominated by men.

According to Rines, although she felt accepted by the campus, she at times felt alienated by students and alumni who strongly believed that Dartmouth should remain an all-male institution.

“You never knew what you were going to get when you walked across that Green,” Rines said. “This really young kid walked towards me very purposefully. I thought, ‘Oh, he’s going to say “Welcome.”’ And then he just looked at me and he said, ‘Why are you ruining my school?’”

The flm describes how the social scene on weekends was difcult for the exchange students, as the men brought up dates from all-girls colleges. One of the only black exchange students said that the men of the African American Society asked the other black exchange students

and her to cook dinner for their dates. The exchange students’ account of the enthusiastic “no” she and her friends gave the men was recalled with both disbelief and glee.

Rines said she felt that certain areas of campus ofered welcome respite from the constant surveillance by male students and alumni.

“You just carved out your friendships in welcoming areas,” Rines said.

It is this sentimental yet complicated affection that makes the distance Dartmouth kept from its frst class of women all the more saddening, according to Rines.

The women who were interviewed in the flm loved Dartmouth; many cited their exchange terms at the school as some of the happiest, most formative times in their lives, but the College severed ties with them once their time on campus ended.

One woman in the flm quipped about her surprise that the College’s alumni network had found her by saying, “Not even my college boyfriend could fnd me!”

The last scene of the flm features an exchange student recounting the following story: She recently walked up to a current male Dartmouth student and asked, “Did you know that Dartmouth used to be single-sex?” The current student replied, “No!” The exchange student then humorously said, “Can you believe it took Dartmouth so long to admit men?”

The flm pieces together parts of a story that had been buried in time and memory. For Rines, the flm was an opportunity to paint a picture of her time at Dartmouth.

“To see the whole story told in a linear fashion was really exciting,” Rachlin said. “In a sense, the flm was reclaiming our role in coeducation or at least shining a light on it, which had never been shown before.”

Rachlin also said she sees the flm as a necessary artifact of Dartmouth history.

It is appropriate that such a flm was a part of the College’s Homecoming weekend activities and was listed on Dartmouth’s ofcial online schedule because the flm marks the frst real push to illuminate the stories of these trailblazing women. By having their stories told in the flm, the women can fnally come home to Dartmouth as recognized members of our collective history.

PHOTO COURTESY OF CHRISTINA ROMBAUT Alexi Pappas ’12 headlined the opening event and athletc director Mike Harrity announced the hanging of Gail Koziara Boudreaux’s ’82 jersey in Leede Arena — the frst Dartmouth athlete to claim the spot.

Women’s History Month: Remembering Dartmouth’s Coeds

By Eliza Dunn STORY

This article was originally published on March 3, 2022.

On November 22, 1971, the front page of The Dartmouth was dominated by four decisive words: “DARTMOUTH TO ADMIT WOMEN.” Although Dartmouth was far from the first institution to admit women — all of the other Ivy League schools had already made the switch — this landmark decision marked a sharp break in the College’s long history as a men’s school and shook the foundations of what many knew as “dear old Dartmouth.”

Today, over fifty years later, Rauner Library houses the physical documentation of the co-education decision and its far-reaching implications. In these fles, press releases, newspaper clippings and letters chronicle the story of the frst Dartmouth women and the controversial welcome they received here in Hanover.

In the quiet interior of Rauner, I open my frst folder of documents. On top is a press release from November 1971, notifying news outlets of the upcoming Dartmouth Board of Trustees meeting, where the all-male board would vote on both co-education and its counterpart, year-round operation — the current-day D-Plan. As the release read, Dartmouth’s “piquant qualities … with its strong male tradition and relative isolation” gave it a singular role in the nationwide move towards co-education. By voting against admitting women, the release continued, the Trustees would “re-afrm Dartmouth’s 202-year tradition as an essentially male college.”

By this time, the issue had already taken root far beyond the Upper Valley, as Dartmouth students and alumni alike chimed in on the debate. According to a report to the Alumni Council from January 1971, most students and faculty were in favor of co-education, with 61% and 91% approval rates, respectively. Some alumni voices, collected in an extensive series of Letters to the Editor of the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, echoed this support, such as Roy Pfeil ’55, who wrote, “it is inconceivable to me that any educational institution … sensitive to the main currents of social progress in America will choose to remain virtually all-male.”

A few women contributed to these conversations, as mothers and spouses of Dartmouth alumni. In her letter, Moira Haag, married to a ’70 graduate, wrote that she was “one of the young people who was unable to go to Dartmouth because of her sex.” She insisted that while “some of the charm of the all-

male Dartmouth will be missed,” coeducation would create a situation in which men and women could “know and understand one another as individuals. Women are as capable of contribution and discussion as men are: on the Green, in the Hop, and in class.”

This opinion, however, was not common across most of the letters. “I am damn mad,” wrote David Ames ’25. “If Dartmouth goes coeducational then it will no longer be the Dartmouth College which did me so much good.”

Henry Lowell ’14 echoed this loss of a ‘true’ Dartmouth, writing that “as soon as women become members of the Dartmouth undergraduate body, the ‘Dartmouth experience’ will no longer exist.” In a particularly passionate letter, Whitney Cushing ’39 railed against Dartmouth for following suit with other Ivies. “Be damned to Harvard, Yale, and Princeton!” he wrote. “Dartmouth’s a small college for men in the hills of New Hampshire and no females should clutter up the best damned college in the land … Damn!”

I fipped through page after page of scathing letters, full of white male alumni grappling with the inconceivable concept of educating women in the hallowed halls of dear old Dartmouth. One entry, from S.C. Strout ’18, made me pause, not only because it was a rhyming — and derogatory — poem, but because it illustrated the world into which these women would be entering. “But, after all, why not put it straight,” Strout wrote. “It makes it easy to get a date!”

At the time, the idea of women entering Dartmouth as full-time students was uncharted territory for students of any gender. As the reality of co-education grew clearer, the Dartmouth social fabric would have had to shift substantially. The role of female students within the Dartmouth community was still unscripted: would they be accepted — both academically and socially — as legitimate Dartmouth students? Or would they be seen simply as potential love interests, a new surplus of weekend dates?

The questions of the efect that a female presence would have on the College persisted even after Susan Corderman ’76 matriculated as the frst female Dartmouth student. The welcome for Corderman and her fellow “coeds,” as these frst women were called, proved rocky from the very start, when during the 1972 matriculation ceremony, six male students protested the switch from singing “Men of Dartmouth” to “Dartmouth Undying.”

During that frst year of co-education, men outnumbered women nine to one, creating an extremely uneven power dynamic within the student body. As one professor observed, “as long as the coeds are in a minority, it will always seem that they are not equal.”

“Can you imagine being one of the 400 girls on this campus right now?” a student wrote in the alumni magazine. “They must feel incredibly self-conscious and inhibited walking across campus … Can you imagine walking across the Green and thirty guys are walking by saying ‘Hi!... Hi!... Hi!’” Surrounded almost entirely by men, the coeds faced a school that was not designed for them, and that was often set staunchly against them, particularly in terms of social life. One account describes how many female students were “disheartened that the general social life focuses on fraternity row,” and a 1979 Time Magazine article titled “Hanover: The Big Green Battle of the Sexes” wrote that female students were warned not to go near certain fraternity houses “without taking a solidly protective date.”

Some coeds faced physical danger — such as broken windows or shouted obscenities — and all of them bore the emotional brunt of carrying out a longawaited and deeply fracturing change in Dartmouth history. Particularly at a school like Dartmouth, where tradition is held in such high regard, the frst

coed years provoked passionate and, at times,

“Hell

The Time article quoted a fraternity member saying, “have you seen many of the women up here?” he says. “I doubt if the “Playboy” people could fnd anybody they’d want. Men get in here because they’re good athletes and are generally pretty good looking. Women get in because they are smart.”

In his sexist but glaringly backwards argument, this frat member touches on some of the countless prejudices faced by the coeds. As the number of women at Dartmouth grew, the name “coed” turned into the slur “cohog,” a combination of “coed” and “quahog,” a type of clam and a derogatory reference to female genitalia. In 1975, during a performance of “Hums,” the clever — and often inappropriate — jingles performed by fraternities during Green Key, the “Cohog Song” marked its debut. Ultimately voted “Most Creative and Original” by Dean of the College Carroll Brewster, the “Cohog Song” proclaims, among other equally-vulgar lines, that the coeds are “all here to spoil our fun,” that “they’re all a bunch of dirty whores,” and that they “have ruined our masculine heaven.” The

chorus, sung to the melody of “This Old Man,” goes: “with a knick-knack, paddy-whack / Send the bitches home / Our cohogs go to bed alone.”

The frst coed years at Dartmouth were certainly troubled as women struggled to fnd a home in Hanover. Refecting on the co-education transition in an Alumni Magazine article, Professor Joan Smith put it perfectly: “we have still not addressed the underlying questions of what it means to have women in Hanover.” Looking back ffty years later, it is clear that these questions of gender also underlaid questions of race, class and other social classifers, which were conversations that had not yet gained momentum in Dartmouth’s homogenous student body back in 1971. Although in 2022 we have come a long way from the “Cohog Song,” Professor Smith’s words still hold some resonance. Dartmouth’s struggle with gender equality — across all gender identities — is far from resolved. While many decades have passed since Dartmouth was an all-male institution, vestiges of that time period are still visible throughout campus culture, particularly within Greek life. As a school, we are still working towards the ultimate goal of gender equality, towards which co-education was a crucial frst step. In doing so, we follow the footsteps of those frst coeds, who, over ffty years ago, claimed Dartmouth as theirs, too.

Sisterhood Through The Ages: The Road To Empowerment?

By Jaymie Wei STORY

The frst time I played pong was during my freshman spring in the basement of Chi Gam. My partner was a Dartmouth senior, a Chi Gam member and a wouldbe Masters fnalist. He was also my UGA. Thinking back, there was probably no better introduction to the illustrious game of Dartmouth pong. Unless, of course, I had learned in a sorority. But sororities hadn’t been marketed to me as open spaces, I didn’t know any sorority members and for some reason I was thrilled to be invited into a male space.

When women first matriculated at Dartmouth in 1972, there were no sororities. That changed in 1977, when Leslie Mandel Gordon ’79 and Kate Wiley Laud ’79 invited the national sorority Sigma Kappa to colonize at Dartmouth. Sigma Kappa was the only sorority amidst 26 fraternities, until Kappa Kappa Gamma colonized at Dartmouth in 1978.

For the frst fve years, Sigma Kappa did not have a physical space on campus. The women met in dormitory lounges, church basements, of-campus houses, classrooms and even fraternities. In 1981, after hunting for of-campus houses and temporarily taking over Foley House, a local fraternity at the time, Sigma Kappa moved into 10 West Wheelock.

Before sororities secured their own spaces, women had to constantly negotiate their presence in male-dominated social spaces. Starting prior to coeducation, with

Winter Carnival in the 1910s, women from other colleges would journey to Dartmouth for big party weekends on buses that Dartmouth students called “f— trucks.”

After going coed, the College and town provided few social options aside from going to fraternity parties, which Susan Dentzer ’77 described as “walking into a den of cavemen.”

For many students, the sentiment prevails today that fraternities are the only viable social spaces at Dartmouth. Avery Schuldt ’21, treasurer of Kappa Delta Epsilon, recalled thinking as a sophomore, “Doesn’t everyone just go to fraternities? Isn’t that the way it is?”

She feels that not many people want to go to sorority-held parties, and if they do, it’s more like a “pit stop” on their way to spending the rest of their night at fraternities.

This idea — that the only places to let loose are fraternities — can push people into uncomfortable situations. Jada Brown ’21, president of KDE, senses that there exists a double standard.

“When I’m in a fraternity, I feel like I have to put myself on the backburner to make sure I’m not overstepping any boundaries,” Brown said. “But frat bros can walk in and do what they want in most places.”

Maya Khanna ’22, who is researching the history of sororities to uncover history that may have gone unnoticed since coeducation, heard from a “fair amount” of alumnae that the sorority system tends to prop up the fraternity system. She believes that this speaks to a broader power dynamic at Dartmouth where women become

commodities for men in power.

“A lot of women said that social interactions are facilitated in a very specifc way in very specifc spaces, often through alcohol and hooking up,” Khanna explained. “Deviating from that is really difcult, especially for new individuals to Dartmouth who are just trying to dip their feet into the social scene.”

One solution that upends these genderbased power dynamics is popularizing sorority-held parties. According to Brown, KDE frequently has an open basement — “if you knock, someone will let you in and you can get on table” — in addition to events like “Tails” every “on night” and “Super-tails” three or four times a term. KDE is able to host parties because it went local in 1993, becoming unafliated with its national organization. In fact, national sororities, which make up half of the sororities at the College, require alcoholfree facilities, according to the standards of the National Panhellenic Conference. Specifc chapter rules can be even more restrictive, such as Alpha Xi Delta’s policy that alcoholic beverages must be provided by a third-party vendor or through a “bring your own beverage” system.

Despite facing concerns about the restrictions placed on national sororities at its founding, Sigma Kappa ultimately localized as Sigma Delta in 1988 in order to jettison religion-based rituals and emphasis on men within its organization. Close on its heels was Epsilon Kappa Theta, KDE and, most recently, Chi Delta. However, sorority localization occurred in a more piecemeal

fashion than the similar process fraternities went through almost forty years earlier, starting in 1948. Fraternities localized in order to dismantle a discriminatory system. At that time, the College also took concrete measures for fraternities to become more inclusive spaces.

In 1948, former College President John Sloan Dickey announced that the College would no longer “permit certain national fraternities ... to impose prejudice on Dartmouth men.” The following year, the Dartmouth Interfraternity Council recommended to the National Interfraternity Conference that Greek societies repeal constitutional restrictions based on race, religion or nationality, to no avail. Many fraternities went local in order to have more inclusive charters. Ultimately, an administrative system was instituted to hold individual fraternities accountable and eliminate discriminatory clauses.

On the other hand, the road to sorority localization is not as straightforward, as each house has its own views on whether national policies are too restrictive. Mahalia Dalmage ’21, president of the Inter-Sorority Council, thinks joining a national sorority can be worthwhile for those who desire a members-only safe space.

Schuldt remembers a huge debate within KDE her sophomore spring about how open the members wanted the house to be. Although KDE decided to become a more open space, it still holds events that are only for members. The fip side is that it can also invite fraternities over for Tails, open the house to all of campus and show

underclassmen what a sorority space looks like.

All of this is not to say that fraternities are incapable of hosting parties where everyone feels comfortable. In fact, the fraternity members I talked to are trying to have more transparent conversations, promote nontoxic house culture and implement implicit bias training. I talked to men who are willing to look critically at the Greek system.

Thomas Clark ’22, the summer philanthropy chair at Sigma Nu, said that during the initiation process, older members insisted on reminding new members to be respectful of people in their house.

I also found out that men want to party in sororities, most are sick of cleaning their basements, and some are maybe just a little too competitive when it comes to pong.

“Instead of the girls going to the fraternity for Tails, we would host Tails,” Schuldt said about her house. “We did this with Psi U and the turnout was crazy. Basically all of Psi U was in KDE’s basement.”

Last winter, as a new member of Epsilon Kappa Theta, I was on door duty for Tails with Gamma Delta Chi, which we hosted at our house on 15 Webster Avenue. For 45 minutes, I sat on the couch in the entryway and stared out the window at the lamplit snow. When the GDX members were leaving, nearly every one of them looked me in the eye, thanked our house for hosting them and wished me a good night. As they thundered out the door, I got the feeling that gender parity is not half as elusive as we think. That idea is pretty intoxicating.

hateful responses from students and alumni. Clicking through photo archives, I found a shot of Russell Sage — the dorm where I live now — covered in banners reading “keep Sage all male,” “No Coeds!”,

no we won’t go,” and “it’s all a damn Commie plot.”

This article was originally published on July 31, 2020.