The Dartmouth Commencement Issue 06/11/2023

To the Class of 2023, Your four years at Dartmouth have been anything but ordinary. You’ve experienced the College in its pre-pandemic era, before being sent to your respective homes in the spring of your freshman year, and you have been here to welcome a new, post-pandemic Dartmouth. As the last class to ever experience Dartmouth before COVID-19, you had the responsibility of choosing which Dartmouth traditions to hold onto, and which new ones to ofer. Your impact on this College is notable and cherished, and we congratulate you on your commencement.

This year’s Commencement and Reunions special issue revolves around the notion of legacy-building and examines the impact that our thoughts, words and actions have on the world. It aims to explore the special moments and events that have shaped Dartmouth’s history, and looks at how the experiences that we share with one another become our own personal legacies. The articles in this issue investigate how various personal legacies, such as that of football coach Buddy Teevens ’79 and President Phil Hanlon ’77, intertwine with the legacies of clubs and spaces around campus, including Greek life, Ledyard, the House of Lewan and comedy clubs, to form the collective identity of the College.

We also look to the past, as the Class of 1973 ofers advice to the graduating Class of 2023, and a writer explores the most important news over the last four years. We ofer investigations into Dartmouth’s divestments in fossil fuel industries, opinion pieces on campus culture and seniors’ fnal refections to try to understand the intricacies of our legacy — both as an institution and as individuals.

And with that, we are reminded that the present moment will one day be our legacy, so let’s make it count. With each moment comes an opportunity to leave the world better than we have found it.

Congratulations, Class of 2023!

You have bright futures ahead of you.

Selin, Maia and Angus

HANNAH LI/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

Q&A with outgoing College President Phil Hanlon

BY Julia Abbott The Dartmouth

As Sian Leah Beilock prepares to assume her new role as the 19th President of the College on June 12, The Dartmouth sat down with outgoing President Philip J. Hanlon to discuss his achievements and what he is looking forward to in the future.

What three words do you feel best describe your tenure and why?

PH: I think “exciting,” “ambitious” and “community.” Exciting just because we have really accomplished so much over the last 10 years. The quality and impact of our academic work, our teaching and our research on campus have elevated more in the last 10 years than any other decade in the history of the College. One thing that’s really fueled this transformation has been our admitted student yield, which is our key measure of competitiveness. When I arrived, and for decades before I arrived, the yield was about 50%. It has risen over the last eight years to over 70% this year. The quality of students who are deciding to enroll here is phenomenal and just getting better every year.

Also, in our most recent senior survey, 88% and 96% of graduating seniors were satisfed or very satisfed with their undergraduate experience and quality of teaching, respectively. These numbers outdistance those of our Ivy peers. That leads me to believe that we’re not only getting great students, but we’re providing them with a great education, which is preparing them to go out and live lives of leadership and impact.

The ambitious part is about getting great talent to campus. I was just talking about bringing really great student talent to campus, but we’ve done the same on the faculty side. In the last 10 years, we have recruited and retained real rock stars on our faculty. And not only are they rock stars, they’re committed to the undergraduate education of students, as indicated by the satisfaction levels I just read to you. We’re not only recruiting great research faculty, they’re throwing themselves into their teaching, which is what we expect at Dartmouth.

What are your plans for your retirement, and what are you most excited for?

PH: The frst thing is that I’m retiring as President, but I’m not retiring from the faculty. So I have a year’s sabbatical, and my wife Gail and I are going to travel, and I’ll start doing some more math research. Our frst stop next fall is Oxford, England. I have a position at Merton College at the University of Oxford. And then we are working together with a couple of my longtime collaborators at the University of Miami in the winter and spring. So next year is a good chance for Gail

and I to spend more time together at a slower pace. Then, we’re gonna land back here, and I’m going to teach for a few more years.

Do you have a favorite Dartmouth memory you would like to share, either from your time as an undergraduate or as president?

PH: There are so many really good times. From my time as a student, it would have been the frst success I had in undergraduate research. I did a bunch of undergraduate research when I was here and wrote three papers that were eventually published. I can still remember the frst time I discovered something — you’re seeing something no one else has ever seen, which is just amazing, it’s an amazing feeling. It must be the feeling explorers had way back in the day, and it’s so much fun.

From my time as President, there have been so many memorable moments. I think the 250th anniversary celebration in 2019 was an amazing year of events. Amongst all those events, the one that stands out most distinctly is the reenactment of the Daniel Webster case at the Supreme Court with Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts presiding. That was just so flled with history, and what I really have come to appreciate is that Dartmouth is flled with history and tradition. Especially during the last 10 years, we’ve not been a backward looking institution. We’ve been a forward looking institution, and we’ve really thought about how we can make a diference in the world.

As President, you’ve continued to teach undergraduate math courses. Why did you decide to continue teaching, and did you feel that your role as President influenced your educational philosophy?

PH: I taught my 10th class this last term, MATH 28, “Introduction to Combinatorics.” The answer to your question is pretty simple. I feel like the teaching we do on campus is the most important work we do, and I want to be part of it. MATH 28 was probably the best class I’ve taught in my entire career. It is the class which inspired me to be a mathematician all those years ago.

I took MATH 28 at Dartmouth, and I was in love with the topic, and I still am. It was so neat to teach it last term because I just think it’s so beautiful. And I had 41 incredibly talented students. You know, has my time as President infuenced teaching? Probably not so much. The math is still the math that I knew and loved from when I was a student here and then a professor going forward. And I did my last fnal ofce hour yesterday. I’ve done over 300 ofce hours in the last 10 years. And yesterday was great, we had a steady fow of people through.

What is a place you consider special to you around campus?

PH: I’ll give you a couple. One is Pine Park, just because I love the outdoors, and it’s so peaceful down by the river. It just reminds me of the sense of place, which is so important here. Another one is the tower room at Baker-Berry Library, just because I spent so many hours there. And it’s such a peaceful place, and it looks out over the bustle of the Green, which indicates to me the real energy of this place. The last place I think is really special is a newer place, the Irving Institute. Just because coming back to your original question, “ambition” was one of the words I said, and it’s because I think that we have committed ourselves to solving some of the world’s great challenges. The Irving Institute is symbolic of Dartmouth saying, ‘we’re going to make a diference,’ meeting the energy demands of the future in a way that sustains the planet — one of the great challenges facing humankind. And that’s what the Irving Institute’s all about — gathering all of the assets, the students, the faculty from across disciplines together to try to make a diference.

What was one of your proudest moments over your past 10 years as President?

PH: It was the moment that we had completed our fnancial aid goals in the campaign. Within a year’s time, we eliminated family contributions from families making less than $65,000 a

year. We put in place an endowment to cover the costs of study abroad for students on fnancial aid. We secured the gifts to allow us to be need-blind for international students and to eliminate loans entirely from our fnancial aid packages. The moment that I learned we had fnished all four of those was probably one of my proudest moments. A Dartmouth education is a gift. It’s a gift that I had. And we want to make sure it’s available to any student, regardless of their fnancial circumstances.

What has been the greatest challenge facing Dartmouth during your tenure?

PH: I think the most challenging moments for any academic community are when you lose a student or faculty member. We’ve probably had 30 student deaths during my 10 years as President, which are just the most gut wrenching, difcult times for any campus. They’ve been for a whole variety of causes, but no matter the cause, when you lose a friend and someone who is so full of promise and just starting their lives, it’s really hard.

What will you miss the most about your time here?

PH: As President, you have the real privilege to meet so many members of the extended Dartmouth family — students, faculty and staf on campus, of course, but also our alumni and parent communities. And you get

to really meet and learn about how incredibly accomplished all of them are. Dartmouth is, at the end of the day, a very tight-knit community. So that’s the third word I’ve brought up, from your frst question: “community.” The alumni, they don’t leave and just go of and live their lives, they stay attached to the institution, and they care about the institution. As President, you get to feel that directly. I’ll still be here in the faculty and spend time with students and our faculty, colleagues and staf, but I’ll probably miss seeing alumni and parents, because they’re really an amazing group of people.

If you could give one piece of advice to incoming College President Sian Leah Beilock, what would it be?

PH: Let me just begin by saying that President Beilock is highly accomplished and really experienced, and I’m always happy to give her my advice when she wants it. But she is totally capable and can do things superbly on her own. But, if I was going to tell her one thing about Dartmouth, I’d emphasize the importance of being authentic. Dartmouth is a small place. Everybody knows everything, right? So you can’t fake it at all at Dartmouth. You’ve just got to be yourself and be authentic.

HANNAH LI/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

College labor organizers re ect on a new era of unionization

BY Amadea Datel

Over the past three years, Dartmouth students and faculty members have made large strides in labor organizing through three unions: the Student Worker Collective at Dartmouth, the Graduate Organized Laborers of Dartmouth and the Dartmouth College Library Workers Union. The Dartmouth College Library Worker Collective is the only union which has not been recognized by the College as of press time. The Dartmouth spoke with various members of these unions to understand the motives, goals and challenges that they have faced.

The Student Worker Collective at Dartmouth

The SWCD, the union representing Dartmouth Dining student workers, frst emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic during the fall of 2021. According to founding member Sheen Kim ’23, the union’s inception came when a wave of undergraduate unionization was sweeping the nation due to worsening working conditions during the pandemic.

“The frst [fall of the] pandemic, workers were coming back and pay was low,” Kim said. “You had all these exploited workers at the frontlines of COVID-19 serving their much wealthier peers. A couple of [student] managers at the time came to us … and cooperatively, we decided a union was the move.”

This year, the union won a $21 per hour minimum wage for its workers — a struggle that Kim described as a “long, drawn-out process.”

“It took months to even get to the table in the frst place,” she said. “From the start, we had been insisting on the $21 per hour fgure. We saw that the Columbia grad student union had won $21 for all its research assistants, and Hanover is one of the most expensive places to live in New Hampshire, so we had that fgure from the start.”

According to the SWDC’s website, the Dartmouth administration refused to change their offer of $18.50 for cafe workers in January. As a result, the union decided to strike this February. 99% of its members voted to strike, resulting in the College eventually accepting the contract.

“For the large part, bargaining itself is a game of power,” Kim said. “The school has the mass wealth, but the workers have the power.”

Moving forward, the SWCD is working to support other unionization eforts on campus by showing up at events for the library workers and graduate student unions, along with ensuring that the College respects the terms of their new contract, since negotiating a new contract is only the frst step, Kim added.

Kim said that several Dartmouth

Dining managers are cultivating an environment that does not align with the terms of the contracts, reporting “distributing incidents when workers have been treated in ways that are not beftting of a conductive work environment.”

“We don’t only want to win the pay,” Kim said. “We want to create an environment that shows student workers have power here … coming out of a pandemic and economic crisis, students should have a wage that represents their work and gives them a chance to enjoy being a student, not just having to work to survive.”

The Graduate Organized Laborers of Dartmouth

GOLD, the union representing all graduate student-workers, frst announced its intention to unionize in the fall of 2021 and spent over a year organizing in the lead-up to its frst election, which it won in April 2023.

Logan Mann TH, a second-year graduate student at the Thayer School of Engineering, said that when he frst arrived at Dartmouth, he was excited to engage in academic work but found it impossible because he could not aford to live in Hanover. This motivated him and others to found GOLD.

“The constant challenge of making my life work ultimately proved much harder than my coursework or research, so I saw no better option than to unionize,” Mann noted. “Our struggle started out of desperation, but then it gradually transformed into a vision of much greater hope.”

Mann explained that the union has four main goals: cost-of-living adjustments to keep pay in line with rent increases, comprehensive benefts including healthcare and childcare coverage, additional support for international students when moving to Hanover and a safe and equitable workplace that includes protections against sexual harassment and predatory management.

The union received strong pushback from the College, which attempted to stall the process of fling for recognition by appealing to an arbitrary distinction between “fellows” and “non-fellows,” according to Mann.

“Dartmouth announced its intent to challenge over half of all eligible voters on the grounds that they were fellows, and therefore not employees of the university,” he explained. “When they sent us their list of people they considered fellows, it was fully randomized — we think they blindfolded themselves and threw darts at the board, with the objective of challenging over half of the voters in the election.”

Since the National Labor Relations Board has to adjudicate each challenge individually, the process would have significantly

delayed the union’s formation, Mann explained. Ultimately, GOLD countered the College’s stalling tactic by convincing the people Dartmouth sought to exclude to not vote in the election, so the College would not be able to challenge any of the ballots cast.

“The result was only 13 challenged votes,” Mann stated. “We won the election by over 90 percent.”

Mann explained that GOLD is currently drafting its proposals through weekly bargaining meetings that he aims to make “the most democratic and participatory as possible.” Mann said that while he has no doubts that bargaining will be a fght with the Dartmouth organization, he believes that “we’re organized and passionate enough, and we can win.”

Dylan Barbagallo TH, a Ph.D. student at Thayer, described the union organizing as requiring hours of research, writing and phone banking.

“You have to recognize that students [are continuing] their research while putting all this efort into organizing,” Barbagallo said. “During the election, people were working together every night for six nights a week, phone banking and writing up documentation. It was an awesome force of collective advocating that got this done.”

The Dartmouth College Library Workers Union

Dartmouth’s most recent organized labor efort, the DCLWU,

announced its intention to unionize in April and is currently in the middle of its election, according to acquisitions services supervisor Tim Wolfe.

According to Wolfe, the union originated from, “a thousand little roots in diferent places.” He said that several issues crystallized the decision to unionize in the past few years, such as the staf losing set rules of professional advancement and being required to complete “unreasonable” tasks like patrolling the buildings during the pandemic, which potentially exposed workers to COVID-19.

Once Wolfe and others started talking to friends and colleagues, they discovered the broad nature of support among library workers.

“There was just as much support among professional staf as there was among 40-year veterans in technical services who had grown cynical and expected the worst from Dartmouth at all times,” Wolfe said. “At that point, we realized there was broad support for coming together and advocating for ourselves.”

Wolfe explained that one of the union’s central goals is to create a professional development structure that serves both professional development staff and technical staf. The previous advancement structure applied to the professional development staff but not the technical support staf, who lack recognition for their expertise.

The process of creating the union has helped bridge the cultural divide between the professional and

technical staf, according to Wolfe. He added that initial excitement upon creating the union came from the realization that library workers “have shared concerns.”

Wolfe noted that speaking with library workers’ unions at other universities, along with other unions at Dartmouth, further convinced him of the value of collaboration and inquiry.

“Early on, I remember talking to some folks at Northwestern [University] who were a year into the process,” Wolfe said. “They said, ‘We started without knowing anything either, so don’t worry — you can do this.’”

Although he said that the administration’s reaction to hearing the library workers were unionizing was “minimal and predictable,” the response from the community has been “incredibly touching,” with organizations both within and outside Dartmouth expressing their support for the library and its workers.

“The American Labor Association president immediately tweeted in our support and sent us a care package,” Wolfe said. “People have also noted how valuable the library is to the academic life at Dartmouth and want very much for it to be as good as it can be, which is all we want — we have a communal interest in [our eforts of] being successful.”

Sheen Kim ’23 is a former Opinion writer for The Dartmouth.

The Dartmouth

Divestment at Dartmouth: A look into the College’s progress

By Isabelle Han

Over the past few years, the fossil fuel divestment movement has swept universities nationwide. Developments over the last 10 years, from Swarthmore College’s student divestment initiatives to Stanford University’s divestment from coal demonstrate how students have pushed administrations to rethink their investments in fossil fuels.

On Oct. 8, 2021, the College formally announced its intention to divest its endowment from fossil fuel holdings, according to past reporting from The Dartmouth. The plan would allow all current holdings in the industry to expire and eventually eliminate any investments in the fossil fuel industry.

According to Sustainability Ofce intern and climate activist Maya Beauvineau ’26, divestment from fossil fuels is when universities stop using funds from endowments to invest in companies that proft from the fossil fuel industry.

“Divestment is like stopping our funding of the climate crisis itself,” she said.

However, according to Beauvineau, there has not been an “active conversation” about “holding Dartmouth accountable.” She added that the College has only announced a plan to divest, but does not provide a timeline.

“If you look online, [Dartmouth] only [has] one article on divestment specifcally, and it’s very vague,” she said, referring to Dartmouth’s initial announcement of its intent to divest. “My demand would be that we have more transparency for how much money is currently invested in the fossil fuel industry and how long those investments are planned to continue before they expire.”

According to an email statement from College media relations specialist Jana Barnello, divestment is the third “area of impact” that is part of the College’s “comprehensive plan” to address the climate crisis — the other two areas being research and education

and energy efciency and resiliency. Dartmouth made the decision to divest in 2017, began to divest in 2020, and in 2021, investments in the fossil fuel industry comprised less than 5% of the endowment, Barnello wrote.

“Dartmouth has taken steps to ensure its endowment investments are made into funds working to support a timely global path to netzero emissions,” Barnello wrote. “This includes using the endowment to invest in renewables, the broad energy transition and other innovative technologies.”

According to Barnello, the College is “working on updating” sustainability and energy goals, with a report on recommendations for “more ambitious” sustainability goals to come out in the fall of 2023. The College has also committed more than $50 million to updating current infrastructure, such as converting from steam hot water heating and cooling.

“Dartmouth’s overall goal is a lowcarbon, zero-combustion campus,” she wrote.

Community campaigning for Dartmouth to divest came primarily from a student-founded organization called Divest Dartmouth, which was frst formed in 2012.

According to former Divest Dartmouth member and member of Sunrise Dartmouth, a climate justice movement, Lucy Rathgeb ’23, Divest Dartmouth’s founding mission was to “push the College” to divest, with their eventual goal to get the College to publicly announce that it was divesting.

“We just wanted there to be a public display from Dartmouth just saying that they would divest because fossil fuels aren’t the future that we want,” Rathgeb said.

According to former Divest Dartmouth member Edel Galgon ’22, divestment is a “tactic” to “get rid of some of the credence” of fossil fuel companies and raise awareness about their role in the climate crisis, as well as the “lack of regulations” in the industry.

“Divestment, or even renewable energy, is not an end all be all but …

contains the potential to be a part of more transformational change,” Galgon said.

According to Beauvineau, a “chain reaction” occurred in 2021, when other colleges began to announce their plans to divest from fossil fuels.

“Dartmouth is starting to feel this pressure from exterior forces and [is] recognizing that it also needs to step up its game on climate action,” said Beauvineau. “That being said, because we are following other institutions, we are also not being a leader in the advancement of climate action.”

Among the other Ivy League universities, Brown University and Cornell University were the frst to announce their intent of divestment in 2020. Columbia University and Harvard University made similar announcements in 2021, and Princeton University announced its intent of dissociating from oil and gas companies that year. Dissociation includes divestment, but also includes “refraining, to the greatest extent possible, from any relationships that involve a fnancial component with a particular company,” according to Princeton’s website.

Yale University released “more stringent principles” for investment and released a list of fossil fuel companies ineligible for investment in 2021. The

University of Pennsylvania announced last year that it does not hold investments in 200 companies “whose reserves contain the largest amount of potential carbon emissions.”

Last year, Princeton released a list of 90 companies that it will dissociate from. None of these other institutions have released further updates since their initial announcements.

According to The Washington Post, in February 2022, students from Princeton and Yale, along with students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford and Vanderbilt University fled a legal complaint which aimed to compel their administrations for “complete divestment from all fossil fuels.” This legal action follows similar suits filed against Boston College, Cornell, Harvard, Johns Hopkins University, Marquette University, the University of New Mexico and the University of Wisconsin, the article added.

According to Rathgeb, divestment is a “smart financial decision” as renewable energies become cheaper and begin to replace fossil fuels as sources of energy. Rathgeb also added that fossil fuels also have “issues of labor.”

“The only [things] really keeping fossil fuel infrastructure from becoming obsolete [are] lobbying and vested interests that don’t necessarily refect

A look back on news for the Class of 2023

the reality of fossil fuels as a safe future investment,” Rathgeb said. “But … looking at the high incidents of accidents on oil rigs and coal mines, there’s a huge moral reason for switching to renewable energies.”

Addressing the importance of divestment for institutions of higher education, Beauvineau said that the values of universities are “indicative of where the country’s values are at,” specifcally because they are meant to prepare the next generation for the workforce.

“By divesting from the fossil fuel industry, we [at Dartmouth] have the opportunity to indicate to the country and to the world that we do not support the climate crisis,” she said. “Instead, we have an opportunity with divestment to reinvest our money into local communities and sustainable eforts.”

Galgon added that divestment goes beyond simply addressing the climate crisis. Instead, it raises awareness of the “depth and extent of fossil fuel created misinformation,” challenges “individualistic approaches to social change” and introduces people to “anticapitalistic and anti-colonial analysis.”

“My hope is that in addition to understanding how energy works, more students can really learn to imagine diferent types of social, political and economic worlds,” Galgon said.

BY Kent Friel

The Dartmouth Sta in College history and boasting Dartmouth’s highest yield rate — 64% — up till that point.

The Dartmouth looks back at how four years of news events shaped the Class of 2023’s experience, as they now prepare to graduate.

Adjustment to campus

interrupted by pandemic

The Class of 2023 set three institutional records before arriving on campus, including being part of the largest application pool at the time since 2012, having the lowest admit rate — 7.9% — at that point

As the Class of 2023 entered campus, they moved into frst-year residence halls corresponding to their specifc house communities, marking a change from previous years where each frst-year residence hall contained students from several diferent house communities across its foors.

In September 2019, the College revoked universal access to all College dorms and residential social spaces in response to incidents of

racial bias, a policy change which students sharply criticized. The College reinstated universal access to residential social spaces in October and universal access to dorms during daytime hours the following month. The Class of 2023 was the frst class to take part in the Sexual Violence Prevention Program’s fouryear curriculum.

In September 2019, restaurant Han Fusion and clothing store J. McLaughlin opened their doors. In October, a barber shop opened in Hanover called the People’s Barbershop and Shave Parlor,

and following the closure of the Dartmouth Bookstore in 2018, Still North Books & Bar opened in December.

As the state of New Hampshire geared up to host the frst-in-thenation presidential primary for the 2020 election, multiple presidential candidates visited the Upper Valley during the fall of 2019 and winter of 2020. Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker, Michael Bennet and Elizabeth Warren held rallies on campus in October. Pete Buttigieg spoke at Lebanon in November, and Bill Weld held two events on campus in

October and November. In January 2020, Tulsi Gabbard and Tom Steyer hosted town halls in Hanover. In February — the month of the presidential primary — Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Sanders and Andrew Yang spoke in Hanover. The end of winter term 2020 coincided with the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. On February 27, the spread of COVID-19 would lead the College’s study abroad program in Italy to end early, and on March 2, a DHMC employee tested positive for COVID-19,

The Dartmouth Sta

HANNAH LI/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

Class of 2023: the last class to experience College pre-pandemic

FROM NEWS PAGE 5

marking the first case in New Hampshire. On March 17, the College announced it would hold online classes for the remainder of spring term, cutting the Class of 2023’s freshman experience short. The frst Dartmouth undergraduate tested positive for COVID-19 the following day.

Following the state-mandated closure of indoor dining on March 16, 2020, businesses in Hanover struggled to adapt. Six local eateries closed their doors that year, including Salt Hill Pub, Vermont creperie The Skinny Pancake, frozen yogurt and bubble tea shop Swirl and Pearl, Asian-Italian fusion Noodle Station, Morano Gelato and Market Table. The King Arthur Flour cafe in BakerBerry Library also closed in May.

In May, Dartmouth saw the second-highest turnout in a Student Assembly election up to that point, and Cait McGovern ’21 and Jonathan Brifault ’21 were elected Student Assembly president and vice president.

Summer term was also held virtually, and senior’s belongings were shipped home by mid-June. Meanwhile, the Hanover Country Club permanently closed in July 2020.

Pandemic continues to reshape campus and world

Classes for the 2020 fall term were held mostly online, and all study abroad programs for the fall, winter and spring terms were canceled, while those for the summer of 2021 were either shifted to a remote format or canceled. Students were assigned between one and three on-campus terms for the academic year.

Students returning to campus for the fall faced a 14-day quarantine including mandatory testing, meal delivery and ban on unauthorized gatherings. Violations of College COVID-19 guidelines resulted in some students being sent home for the year — most notably after police in Hanover and Lebanon intervened in of-campus parties over Halloween weekend — though the College did not disclose the number of students afected.

After the start date for winter term 2021 was pushed back three days to January 7 to allow for a lengthened move-in process, only eight undergraduate courses were taught fully in-person.

In January 2021, Dartmouth reinstated fve sports teams that it had cut in July 2020 — men’s and women’s golf, men’s lightweight rowing and men’s and women’s swimming and diving — citing Title IX compliance. Renovations to Reed and Thornton Halls were completed, and renovations to Dartmouth Hall

began in January.

Only 10 undergraduate courses were ofered fully in-person for spring term 2021. That spring, Jennifer Qian ’22 and Maggie Johnston ’22 were elected as SA president and vice president, with a turnout that fell more than 20% from the previous election.

On April 14, 2021, the College announced that it would require vaccination to return in the fall. In advance of classes beginning for the fall 2021 term, the College maintained an indoor mask mandate, but did not impose gathering limits or distancing requirements. Also in April, New Hampshire’s vaccination campaign led the nation with 60% of the population having received at least one shot.

In spring 2021, some Hanover restaurants had returned to normal operations. Three new restaurants had opened — Impasto, Dunk’s Sports Grill and The Nest. The poster store, which was renamed to Records, Memorabilia and Posters New Hampshire, reopened in a new location.

Allegations of cheating against 17 medical students embroiled the Geisel School of Medicine in months of controversy. In June, the school dismissed academic honor code charges against the students involved after criticism from students, professors and technology experts that the school was relying on unsound evidence and failing to ofer due process in its judicial proceedings.

The Kresge Physical Sciences Library and the Paddock Music Library closed permanently at the end of the 2021 academic year as a result of decreased library lending numbers and budget cuts.

The Dartmouth community mourned the loss of Beau DuBray ’24 in 2020 as well as Elizabeth Reimer ’24, Lamees Kareem ’22 and Connor Tifany ’24 in 2021. The College held a vigil on the Green in May 2021 to commemorate their lives.

After a virtual commencement for the Class of 2020, the 2021 Commencement was held in-person with historian Annette Gordon-Reed ’81 as the Commencement speaker.

Changing face on campus

As many members of the Class of 2023 returned to campus for their sophomore summer, the face of campus was changing, from its people, to the physical buildings to its institutional history.

In July 2021, Dean of the College Kathryn Lively stepped down from her position, and in August Provost Joseph Helble left Dartmouth to become president of Lehigh University. They were replaced by Scott Brown ’93 and David Kotz ’86, respectively.

With Dartmouth preparing for a full reopening for fall 2021, Dartmouth faced a housing shortage as the demand for on-campus housing outstripped supply, leaving dozens of students without a place to live.

By September, regional pharmacies and hospitals had begun administering booster shots.

In the fall of 2021, Mexican restaurant Tacos y Tequila opened its doors. The Fourth Place, a game and comic store, opened in October. In January 2022, 4U Bubble Tea brought the popular beverage back to Hanover.

Ahead of winter term 2022, the College mandated booster shots and restricted social gatherings and indoor dining.

In January, the College expanded its need-blind admissions policy to international students, and College President Phil Hanlon announced he would step down efective June 2023 after serving nearly 10 years.

In spring 2022, COVID-19 restrictions were eased and masks were no longer required indoors after March 16.

Also in the spring, the west end of campus was reshaped with the opening of both the Arthur L. Irving Institute for Energy and Society and the Class of 1982 Center for Engineering and Computer Science. The construction of both buildings was part of the Call to Lead campaign, which surpassed its $3.7 billion in June 2023, with a record 60% of alumni participating.

The Student Worker Collective at Dartmouth became a recognized union in March 2022 after a unanimous vote –– thus becoming the ffth recognized undergraduate union in the country. David Millman ’23 and Jessica Chiriboga ’24 were elected as SA president and vice president in an uncontested election.

In April 2022, Dartmouth returned the Samson Occom papers to Occom’s native Mohegan tribe. The papers include 117 documents and two books, including diaries and Mohegan language materials belonging to Occom — a co-founder of Dartmouth. The College also announced a $88 million expansion for the Hopkins Center for the Arts, and construction began in December 2022. Starting the fall of 2022, more than 750 Dartmouth students, faculty and alumni signed a petition to keep the Woodworking Shop open during the renovations.

Three new dining locations — The Fern, Back of the Napkin and Cafe@Baker — also opened in April 2022. Ice cream returned to Hanover in the spring of 2022 with the opening of Hanover Scoops in early May.

During the May 2022 Town Meeting, residents approved Article 11, which established a new zoning

district that allows for residential development along West Wheelock Street. The article was proposed by Millman and Nicolas Macri ’24.

NFL quarterback Russell Wilson spoke at the 2022 Commencement ceremony.

Solidifying a sense of place

Beginning on the frst day of the 2022 summer term, Dartmouth transitioned to a no-loan fnancial aid policy for undergraduates, replacing the loans with expanded scholarship grants. In July, the Board of Trustees elected Sian Leah Beilock, a cognitive scientist and the current president of Barnard College, as the College’s 19th president and frst ever female president.

In addition, around 2,500 members of the Class of 2020 and their guests returned to campus in August 2022 for a long-awaited inperson Commencement ceremony.

In September 2022, SA changed its name to Dartmouth Student Government, created new positions such as a liaison to the Town of Hanover and updated its goals to focus on mental health services and housing accessibility. In November, DSG coordinated eforts to bring teletherapy provider Uwill to students free of charge.

2022 also marked a series of anniversaries and milestones for the College. After a 21-month renovation, classes returned to the newly renovated Dartmouth Hall in October 2022. In November, the College celebrated the 50th anniversary of coeducation, the 50th anniversary of the Native American and Indigenous studies department and the 50th anniversary of the African and African American Studies program.

After over three decades in business, Dartmouth merchandise store Traditionally Trendy closed in November 2022.

In February 2023, the Hanover Zoning Board granted a special exception to the College for the North End Housing project, a new 397-bed residential hall on Lyme Road. The project is awaiting approval from the Planning Board to proceed.

In 2023, Dartmouth also continued to confront its history with Native American tribes. It announced in March 2023 that it is pursuing repatriation — as dictated by the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 — of the remains of 15 Native American individuals that were discovered in the College’s collections.

In mid-April 2023, the Graduate Organized Laborers of Dartmouth became a recognized union after a vote with an 89% margin in favor of unionizing. One week later, library workers also announced their

intentions to unionize.

On April 11, 2023, Dartmouth ended its COVID-19 vaccination requirement.

In 2023, Chiriboga and Kiara Ortiz ’24 were elected DSG president and vice president in an uncontested election.

In the spring of 2023, downtown Hanover continued to evolve with the April opening of Spanish tapería Duende and that same month, the closure of hardware store Hanover True Value after over a century in business.

At a Hanover Selectboard candidate forum prior to the 2023 Town Meeting, Carey Callaghan ’83 and flm and media studies lecturer Jennie Chamberlain both stated that the lack of afordable housing is the most pressing issue that Hanover residents currently face. A report published in October 2021 by St. Anselm College’s Center for Ethics in Society and the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy found that the Upper Valley ranks among the areas with the highest housing prices and most stringent zoning restrictions in New Hampshire.

During the May 2023 Town Meeting, Callaghan and Chamberlain were elected to the Selectboard, and residents passed Article 15, which transfers fve acres of town land to the Twin Pines Housing Trust for development as workforce housing.

Filmmakers Chris Miller ’97 and Phil Lord ’97 will speak at the 2023 Commencement ceremony.

Throughout these last four years, the Dartmouth community mourned the lives lost of students, faculty and staf. In addition to the student lives lost in 2020 and 2021, members of the community mourned the lives of Sam Gawel ’23, Joshua Watson ’22 and Alex Simpson ’22 in 2022 and Vasudha Thakur ’23 and Josh Balara ’24 this year.

On the faculty side, Dartmouth remembered women’s track and feld head coach Sandy Ford-Centonze and psychological and brain sciences professor David Bucci in 2019. In 2020, the community mourned the lives of executive associate athletic director Brian Austin, environmental studies and writing professor Terry Osborne, Geisel psychiatry professor Alan Green and Guarini assistant dean of postdoctoral afairs Victoria Blodgett.

In 2021, the community mourned the loss of engineering professor B. Stuart Trembly. The following year, Dartmouth mourned the loss of College president emeritus James Wright. This year, members of the Dartmouth community remembered the lives of flm and media studies professor emeritus Albert LaValley and professor of English and creative writing professor Monika Otter.

Sawtooth lls void in Hanover’s live performance scene

BY CELINE CHOI The Dartmouth

Under Allen Street’s beloved Still North Books & Bar, encircled by the sweet scents of My Brigaderio’s delectable treats, lies a growing hub for the arts and live music. Since its opening last fall, Sawtooth Kitchen, serving “Southern comfort food with a New England twist,” has gained signifcant attention as an outlet for creative expression from Dartmouth students and Upper Valley community members alike.

Kieran Campion, founder of Sawtooth and Hanover local, said that he decided to return to Hanover and start Sawtooth after moving away for college and living in New York and Chicago for most of his adult life. He added that the opportunity to create this restaurant came to him during the pandemic when he found out about an empty and unwanted basement space.

“In the middle of the pandemic came the opportunity to work on a project that my father and I have been thinking about and talking about for as long as I can remember, which was to build an entertainment venue in Hanover,” Campion said. “This is something that has been a noticeable void in town forever … and with the space available … we took the opportunity to renovate, strip it to the bones and build it back up into what is now Sawtooth Kitchen.”

Sawtooth’s performance space attracts various groups and individuals, including a number of student groups, bands and theater performers as well as touring bands and performers coming through the Hanover area. The venue hosts at least one performance a week, according to Campion. Campion said that collaborating with the Dartmouth community — including the theater and music departments as well as student clubs and organizations — has helped Sawtooth accomplish its mission as a performance space for the local community.

“I think one of the ways that we have tried to accomplish that [mission] is by bringing student performers to the community, as opposed to leaving them cloistered on campus,” he said. He added that this has a “dual beneft” by providing the student performers with a “semi-professional space” while also allowing the community to learn more about “talented” students on campus.

PJ Grifths ’26, a member of the band Tightrope and the Coast Jazz Orchestra, and Kieran Norton ’24, The Stripers band member, both noted the unique and professional performance space Sawtooth has provided for their musical exploration.

Grifths said that performing at Sawtooth provides a more formal and laid-back atmosphere than at other spaces on campus, such as fraternities.

“For the drums, we actually had individual mics for each of the drums

[at Sawtooth], and they got it all set up and helped us wire everything into the mains, and it was actually a really great experience,” Griffiths said. “It was probably the best … sound experience I’ve had just because they have all the equipment there, and all of the staf there who know what they’re doing and are very friendly and helpful.”

Norton said that he also had a positive experience with the professionalism of the space and Sawtooth’s ability to provide resources that other campus venues may lack.

“I love it compared to what I’m used to playing because they’re very professional with the sound they have,” Norton said. He added that performers can obtain live recordings of their performances by plugging in a USB drive into Sawtooth’s mixing board, which is “special.”

In addition to being a space for Dartmouth undergraduate student performers and bands, Sawtooth has also provided a space for graduate students who may not have as much access to other performance scenes such as fraternities or campus-based venues including Collis Center, the Black Family Visual Arts Center and the Hopkins Center for the Arts.

On Tuesday, May 16, student drag group House of Lewan and Tuck Pride hosted their second TuesGay night at Sawtooth, where they hosted a drag show that happens each term.

Aaron Carrillo Tu’23, former cochair of Tuck Pride, discussed how

TuesGay came to fruition as a way to build a stronger community:

“We thought, ‘let’s just create a night where LGBTQ+ folks can meet,’ so this idea started,” Carillo said. “We realized that we were talking to Sawtooth, and House of Lewan was also talking to them, so we decided to join the eforts and act as a bridge between the graduate and Tuck and undergraduate community at Dartmouth.”

Carrillo also noted that Campion and Sawtooth have been “supportive” with event planning and creating an inclusive space and a creative outlet. He added that with the past TuesGay event, communicating with Sawtooth was accessible and allowed them to create an eccentric scene.

“Kieran has been excellent in allowing us to [basically change] …

the identity of the bar from the identity they already have to pretty much an LGBTQ+ bar,” Carrillo said. “Sawtooth has been instrumental, if not pivotal, for the creation of events around the community, not only for our LGBTQ+ community, but also for other events around campus.”

Sawtooth aims to connect various groups within the Dartmouth and Upper Valley community as a whole, bringing them together to share an appreciation for live performance and the arts, according to Campion.

“My goal is to bring the Dartmouth community and the Upper Valley community at large together,” Campion said. “I think that there’s been kind of a long, slow rip in the town and school relationship, and I’m hoping that [Sawtooth] can be a part of mending that.”

House of Lewan re ects on the future of drag at Dartmouth

BY RAMSEY ASH

The Dartmouth

House of Lewan, founded in spring 2022, is Dartmouth’s frst recognized drag club. The club’s mission is to spread inclusivity, artistry and expression on Dartmouth’s campus according to members, and it hosts multiple drag shows and performances throughout each year.

The recent graduation of many infuential members of the Class of 2023 in the House has led its members to refect on the legacy the ’23s will leave behind, along with the future of the organization. These refections came with many stories of the resilience of the House’s members in the past year, citing recent national

anti-trans and anti-drag legislation as well as local push-back to their mission.

The largest of the House’s performances is their annual Transform show that takes place during Dartmouth Pride celebrations, according to House executives Regan Harnois ’23 and Jaime Aranzabal ’24. The event is entirely coordinated by the House of Lewan, and it remains an integral part of Dartmouth’s Pride celebration and a unifying event for Dartmouth’s LGBTQ+ community, said Aranzabal — Mother of the House of Lewan. The House Mother takes on many of the highest executive, organizational and leadership duties. He explained the impact of putting on such an infuential event, which has drawn notable support from

Dartmouth’s LGBTQ+ community.

“I’ve been involved in a lot of queer programming on campus, and I can tell that the [queer] community shows up for an event like Transform,” Aranzabal said. “For me, that’s very powerful: to be on this large stage, with music you can hear from the Green. It’s really exciting to know that it’s an event for us and has been a great time where we can all come together.”

Harnois, social media and communications chair, who has been with the House since its inception, shared that the House will often host professional drag queens from nearby cities such as Boston, Massachusetts and Burlington, Vermont. The club hosts these professional drag queens on campus to support the

House’s performances each term by performing with the members of the House of Lewan as well as mentoring and interacting with the members. Harnois appreciated how amazing it is for the group to learn from professional artists and see them “thriving in this art form,” inspiring the members of the House.

According to student performer Rosario Rosales ’25, the House aims to promote student artistry and to be inclusive of all people interested in drag. Rosales said she has found the House to be a supportive and inclusive space for performers of all experience levels and backgrounds, speaking to her personal experience joining the House this past fall.

One of the founding members of

the House, who performs under the drag name Lulu Baijiu, shared that a central mission of the House is to encourage membership of “anyone with an interest in the art of drag,” and he hopes to emphasize that drag is for people from of all sexualities, identities and backgrounds.

This was further emphasized by Justin Selkow ’24, another performer who shared that the House has been successful in showing the Dartmouth community that drag is “an artform and an avenue for expression, just like other art forms” at the College.

The House’s central missions of inclusivity, representation and expression were pioneered by leaders

HANNAH LI/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

House of Lewan discusses anti-trans and anti-drag sentiment

in the club’s one-year history, including Aranzabal and Baijiu. An important piece of the accessibility of drag to Dartmouth students is related to the fnancial barriers to drag, which the club has successfully mitigated through gaining COSO recognition and utilizing institutional funding to support student performers, according to Baijiu.

Many performers and leaders also refected on recent anti-trans and anti-drag legislation, as well as accounts of Dartmouth campus pushback to their artistry and mission on campus. Aranzabal explained the House’s reactions to these unsettling events, sharing that the House is

“very grateful to be a part of the Dartmouth community, which has generally been very accepting and supportive.” Yet, he also highlighted that “many performers as individuals and a collective have had our runins with anti-trans and anti-drag sentiments, and this can be very unsettling.”Aranzabal pointed out that it can be upsetting and, at times frustrating, to see the performers — who express their truest selves through drag — receive pushback and hate.

Many members of the House expressed that anti-trans actions and legislation has infuenced their artistry. Baijiu said the performers and organizers curated the 2023 Transform in direct opposition to recent events. The show began with

news clips from reports on anti-trans and anti-drag legislation and ended with signs stating “Drag is Not a Crime.”

Student performer Mayari De La Mer shared that many performers have experienced both positive and negative impacts of recent pushpack to drag as an art form. According to De La Mer, these negative impacts have included “the challenges of knowing that people oppose the art you do and are trying to paint you in a bad light when you’re not doing anything wrong.”

However, De La Mer stated that the pushback has also served as inspiration for many performers to incorporate more explicit call-outs against this negativity in their performances,

including the aforementioned incorporation of this rhetoric in this spring’s Transform show.

Harnois emphasized that for some performers at the House of Lewan, motivation to speak out at shows has been a direct result of recent events.

“We defnitely are aware of all the things going on — we’ve had articles coming out against us related to some of our past performances and what we stand for being twisted — so, I think we’re aware of that, but it drives us to push ourselves more, to keep going and to do our part to keep drag accessible in our community in the face of such backlash,” Harnois said. “We can’t be scared to continue to express ourselves and perform and put on these shows for the community.”

All of the members interviewed emphasized that in a time when visibility is resistance, it is important that the House’s legacy carry on into the coming years to support its mission of artistry and expression.

As members of the Class of 2023 prepare to pass the leadership of the House onto the next generation of members, they refected on their hopes for the House.

“I am extremely hopeful for the continued success of the House of Lewan to provide both a safe space and institutional support for drag on Dartmouth’s campus,” Baijiu said. “I would love to return in some years and see an organization like the House of Lewan to continue supporting students in drag at Dartmouth.”

Seniors re ect on completing creative theses in the arts

BY Ryan Yim

The Dartmouth

Senior thesis season is in full swing, with graduating members of the Class of 2023 presenting projects from various academic departments. While a prototypical example of a thesis may look like a lengthy research paper, for many students studying a creative feld, their senior thesis functions as a creation of art rather than academic research. These can include theater productions, novels, flms, collections of short stories, and more. A few students from the graduating Class of 2023 refect on their experiences producing creative projects for their senior theses.

Maggie MacDonald ’23, a theater major, submitted a production titled “Orphan Play” for her senior thesis. Based on MacDonald’s own life, the play follows an aspiring playwright who draws on memories and past experiences to produce a play of her own. “Orphan Play” was derived from an initial draft for MacDonald’s thesis that she ended up scrapping. One of the characters from her original piece, based on MacDonald’s own mother, served as inspiration for this new play and its semi-autobiographical structure.

MacDonald said there were difficulties getting her new thesis proposal approved, primarily due to the semi-autobiographical nature of her play.

“Initially, it was really hard for me to get permission to portray myself,” MacDonald said. “They thought that

because [my play] was so personal, that I wouldn’t be able to handle it, that it’d be too emotionally draining, but it was really important to me because it’s my story and it’s my work, and I wanted to tell it the way it was intended to be told.”

In the end, it was former theater professor Liliana Padilla — who has since left Dartmouth — who enabled MacDonald to take on the roles of both writer and actress, mentoring her throughout her writing process.

“She had my back in a really lovely way, and was able to convince the faculty that I should be the one to [perform in my play],” MacDonald said. “Performing [“Orphan Play”] was emotionally draining, but in a rewarding way. I’m happy that I did it.”

Tulio Huggins ’23, who is double majoring in history and English with a concentration in creative writing, wrote a short story collection for his thesis titled “Meet Me Outside the Sanctuary: Stories.” Also semi-autobiographical, the book follows a series of incidents which occur at an evangelical church youth group, a setting which Huggins is closely familiar with.

“I grew up going to church youth groups — that was a very important part of my life and has infuenced a lot of who I am … I think it’s a very unique cultural phenomena,” Huggins said. “I could tell endless stories of drama — of the good, the bad and the ugly — to show people what life is like within these unique scenarios.”

Unlike MacDonald, Huggins’s process of creating his thesis began

much earlier in his Dartmouth career, all the way back in his sophomore fall.

“I took CRWT 10, ‘Introduction to Fiction’ with professor Alexander Chee … who told us to write a story that you would tell others if someone were to ask you,‘what’s a good story?’” Huggins said.

This prompt inspired Huggins to refect on stories based of of his youth group. In addition to including more light-hearted, humorous anecdotes, Huggins’s work also deals with more serious issues he witnessed while involved with the church.

“One of my favorite [short stories] is called ‘Cassia.’ It kind of hits close to home because it deals with abuse in the church and seeing some of my friends in my youth group have abuse in their homes,” Huggins said.

Due to the nature of Huggins’s fctional retellings, he developed a special relationship with his work.

“It’s a unique connection because you’re telling a story that’s very close to you,” Huggins said. “With a creative writing thesis, you have all the reins to that story, you can tell it exactly how you want to tell it. I think that’s what I was doing. I was telling about my own experiences exactly how I wanted to tell them.”

Mariah Hernandez-Fitch ’23, who majors in flm and media studies with a minor in Native American and Indigenous studies, directed a short flm titled “Ekbeh,” which translates into “to build” or “to cook” in Houma, Hernandez-Fitch’s Indigenous

language. The flm explores themes of forced assimilation and loss of language through the lens of Houma’s enduring culinary culture, both deeply personal subjects to Hernandez-Fitch and her Houma background.

“My language has not been alive for a century. Due to eforts with linguistics and the Houma Language Project, they sort of revitalized the language through Choctaw and Chickasaw,” HernandezFitch said. “I wanted to honor my family and Dulac, Louisiana, which is where I’m from.”

Hernandez-Fitch said her film primarily focuses on her younger sister and the process of cooking gumbo, a staple dish in her culture.

“I start of with my little sister, who tells a tale about our culture and how language and land means a lot to us, how a lot of that has been taken away

due to assimilation and practices against Native culture,” Hernandez-Fitch said. “Then I show you how to cook gumbo. The one thing that remains the same is our food. Through food, we sit down and we cook and we tell stories … food itself has made our culture able to sustain itself and come alive.”

Developing a film on such an intimate topic also posed its own set of challenges to Hernandez-Fitch as she was producing “Ekbeh,” mostly concerning the accessibility of her story to unfamiliar viewers.

“At a certain point, I realized maybe many people might not understand [my flm],” Hernandez-Fitch admitted. “But my family will, and I think that was the important message I learned through this process.”

ELAINE PU/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

Students may complete artistic projects for their thesis

FROM

Hernandez-Fitch also emphasized how flmed theses fundamentally difer from more conventional thesis forms, namely research papers and essays.

“I think a lot of people can’t read through a 60-page thesis, but they can watch an eight-minute movie and get the point,” Hernandez-Fitch said. “One of the best experiences I had was actually the flm showing, and seeing my work with people I love and care about.”

McKenna Kellner ’23, a studio art major, also spoke about how her thesis, a collection of architectural drawings titled “Playhouse,” doesn’t ft the mold of a traditional thesis.

“It’s more of a project than it is a

thesis — we’re not required to write anything necessarily … It’s more for the development of a body of work with a specifc conceptual or material goal,” Kellner said. “It’s about thinking about where your work comes from and artists who are doing similar things to you … and trying to see how that applies to your own work.”

Kellner also spoke about how it was initially difcult for her to articulate aspects of her project, given the strictly visual nature of her thesis.

“I think it was difcult putting my project proposal into words,” Kellner said. “It’s not something that’s really taught in classes necessarily: how to talk about your artwork and your practice.”

Nevertheless, Kellner’s work is

formed on the basis of a coherent narrative, one entrenched in memories of a past self. “My proposal for the project was on abstractions of foor plans and elevations in reference to personal memoir — places I had grown up in, places I had been — to sort of narrate a story about physical place and belonging and movement and misplacement,” Kellner said. “Conceptually, there’s an essay by bell hooks called ‘Homeplace’ that a lot of my project is based of of, which is … focused on the idea of building a dream house or an imaginary house, as even those imaginary feelings are rooted in a real sense of poverty.”

Kellner also emphasized the importance her peers and faculty mentors had on encouraging her to

develop and expand on her ideas for her thesis.

“I took an advanced printmaking class in the fall, and the class was only six people, and a lot of them were [studio art] majors,” Killner said. “We had a really great group dynamic, so we worked a lot together.”

It is this combined sense of community and comparative progress that Kellner emphasizes refecting on her experience.

“I think [the senior thesis] is the best way to push yourself to make the best work you can and also develop relationships with faculty directly,”

Kellner said.

Underlying all of the senior theses is an overwhelming urge to seize

Dartmouth comedy groups are no joke

BY GIANNA TOTANI

The Dartmouth Sta

Dartmouth’s comedy clubs are prominent performance groups on campus, with some clubs going back for decades and others joining the scene within the past few years. Currently there are four comedy groups on campus: Dog Day Players, Casual Thursday, Dartmouth Comedy Network and Can’t Sell Culture Comedy Collective. Each group rehearses weekly and regularly performs at diferent spaces around campus — some of the groups have even toured around the country.

Dog Day Players is Dartmouth’s oldest improv comedy group, which was founded in 1995 as a successor to Said and Done, an improv group that was started by Dartmouth students in the 1980s. Dog Day’s shows tend to be in long-form style, which means their performances are continuous improvised pieces which are inspired by a suggestion from an audience member. In other words, everything the Players perform is made up on the spot, following the basic rules and techniques of improv comedy.

Dog Day also has a strong alumni network; notable alumni include Alexi Pappas ’12, Mindy Kaling ’01, Rachel Dratch ’88, as well as other recent graduates working in television and comedy, who have come back to campus to speak to members of the group. Kaling even came back in 2020 to interview members about the show she was writing at the time, “The Sex Lives of College Girls.”

Six years after the debut of the Dog

Day Players, the Class of 2004 founded a new improvisation group called Casual Thursday. The comedy troupe usually performs short-form improv, which consists of short, standalone games in which a suggestion is taken at the beginning of each game to inspire the improvisers. Casual Thursday also performs sketch shows on occasion.

More recently, the Class of 2022 founded the Dartmouth Comedy Network in 2019 as a platform for students to write, perform and flm sketch comedy to be posted on their YouTube channel. The group also aims to host at least one open mic event per term where anyone can sign up to try comedy.

Can’t Sell Culture Comedy Collective is a very new club — formed in the winter of 2023 — with the mission to provide students with opportunities to work in a writer’s room to create written sketch comedy pieces that are performed by the group members. The group also creates a publication of written comedy, open to all submissions, that is published at the end of each term.

Each of these four comedy groups has unique characteristics with separate audition processes, unlike those of a capella and other performance groups on campus. According to business manager Miles Brown ’23, Dog Day Players only takes three to four frst-year students each fall. The audition process is composed of three rounds. The frst round consists of a warm-up improv exercise and group scenes with about fve to six auditionees. Then, about half of the auditionees are called back to do

two-person scenes with a member of the group. By the fnal round, about fve or six auditionees remain and are called back again to do one fnal scene with a member of the group.

Casual Thursday, on the other hand, accepts new members from any class year; however, it tends to be mostly freshmen who audition, according to Jordan Paf ’23. The audition process — which takes place during the fall of each academic year — consists of three rounds. First, auditionees play a short-form improv game called “Pan Right, Pan Left,” in which each member of a four-person team receives a suggestion such as an occupation, location, relationship or theme from the game caller. The team is confgured in a square, with two players downstage, considered “on stage” and two players upstage, assuming “of stage.” As the game progresses, the caller rotates the players by announcing “pan left,” moving the players clockwise and “pan right” which moves the players counterclockwise. Essentially, the game has four scenes in one which has the potential to create an efortless rif as the players move from one position to the next.

After the game, the existing members send the auditionees out of the room to do their frst round of deliberations. Then, depending on the skill level of the auditionees, some are called back for a second game with an existing member of Casual Thursday to get a sense of the auditionee’s communication skills as a potential scene partner. The fnal call back takes place, and then the group makes their fnal decisions.

Can’t Sell Culture Comedy Collective just held auditions for the frst time at the beginning of the term. According to co-founders Connor Norris ’25 and Lulu Alonso ’25, the group plans to hold auditions at the beginning of each term to give students who tried out for the other comedy groups in the fall another chance at participating in comedy at Dartmouth. Can’t Sell Culture Comedy Collective also wants to give students who prefer writing comedy to have an outlet on campus.

Unlike its peer comedy groups, Dartmouth Comedy Network does not hold auditions, as the club believes that anyone on campus who wants to be involved in comedy should have the opportunity, according to co-president Danielle Tamkin ’23. Therefore, they do not hold a formal audition process and instead have a participation requirement for members, which is to come to a few meetings, to perform with the group and be listed on their setlist. The participation requirement, however, is easily achievable, and new members frequently join their open mic opportunities.

Because Can’t Sell Culture Comedy Collective is in its infant stages, the group hopes to grow and create an even stronger community of people who love comedy and want an outlet to practice writing, according to Alonso and Norris. According to Tamkin, Dartmouth Comedy Network’s community is very encouraging and supportive of one another. Each member of the group loves doing comedy but also desires to help each other improve.

individuality and express a story that needs to be told, no matter the medium. In addition, faculty members as well as fellow students backed these creative pursuits. Indeed, the senior thesis is more than simply demonstrating an itching passion. It is about producing a work that is wholly and uniquely their own.

Huggins encouraged future seniors to explore a thesis and discover this unique sense of ownership for themselves.

“Find a story that you’ve been wanting to tell, whether that be something that you couldn’t tell or haven’t had the opportunity to,” Huggins said. “You can tell a story that maybe only you can tell.”

“I think Dartmouth Comedy Network helped me discover just how much I love comedy,” Tamkin said. “It really helped me discover how much I love writing and performing jokes. Also, it’s just been an amazing community.”

Upon refection of his four years with Dog Day Players, Brown said he cherishes the time he spent rehearsing in the basement of Mid Massachusetts residence hall. He reminisced on the many laughs had in that space, which is now one of his favorites on campus. Brown explained that a Dog Day alum painted a picture of the group in the basement for him, and he keeps it on his wall to remember the wonderful memories.

“Some of my closest friendships I’ve made at Dartmouth, the group has given me,” Brown said. “I think probably all of my best memories are just in rehearsal time. Some of the scenes that really made me laugh are moments that I’ll never forget.”

Paf explained that Casual Thursday functions more like a friend group. From weekly dinners three times a week before rehearsal, to cabin nights and tours, Casual Thursday is truly a community that has radically shifted Paf’s whole Dartmouth experience for the better.

“I think the most signifcant thing that I’ve learned is that any group that you’re in on campus isn’t really defned by the activity so much as the people,” Paf said. “[Casual Thursday] is a comedy group, but I don’t feel that emotionally connected to the improv comedy at all. I’m just really connected to this group and these people.”

SPORTS

Buddy Teevens: His impact on football and beyond

BY Will Dehmel The Dartmouth Sta

The name Buddy Teevens ’79 strikes a chord beyond Dartmouth — even NFL commissioner Roger Goodell stops when he hears the name.

“Buddy is a force — a force for the good of football but more broadly [for] communities,” Goodell said. “He made football better, but he did it in the context of making Dartmouth better — and at every place he was, he made it better.” Goodell spoke while standing in a place familiar to Teevens. A complex that Teevens, with the help of his vast array of supporters, rebuilt almost 20 years ago. Floren Varsity House, a 44,000 squarefeet building, was built because of Teevens; Memorial Stadium was renovated because of Teevens.

It was only right, then, that Goodell — a footstep away from exiting Memorial Stadium last Tuesday — stopped when I, an over-eager, freshman reporter, called his name. He stopped because of Teevens.

A chance encounter in France

In the spring of 1977, in a city far removed from rural New Hampshire, Teevens himself was stopped. It happened in Bourges, France, on a lonely soccer feld.

Midway through a pickup soccer game, a fock of muscular French rugby players rapidly approached Teevens. “They saw Buddy, [whom they immediately called Tarzan], and they immediately recruited Buddy for their rugby team,” Ben Riley ’79, who met Teevens his sophomore spring during a study abroad program, said. While Teevens was a great athlete, what Riley and Peggy Tanner ’79 remember Teevens more for is his character.

“There’s no one who’s a better human being, person, classmate or friend than Buddy Teevens,” Tanner said.

Teevens has stayed that way, both said, through a coaching career that has taken him to eight diferent schools. His ties to Dartmouth, though, remain deep. Recently, Tanner and Teevens were working together on a class gift. Despite managing a Division I football program, Tanner said Teevens dedicated himself fully to the efort.

“He was engaged in every conversation whenever he was needed,” Tanner said. “He made himself available. I feel like his own needs never were a priority. It’s always about other people.”

A helping hand in the sports industry

Teevens’s infuence has touched the lives of others in the sports industry, like Callie Brownson. At 28 years old, Brownson, now the assistant wide receivers coach for the Cleveland Browns, had undoubtedly expanded football’s female frontiers. Having interned with the New York Jets, Brownson, serving as Dartmouth’s ofensive quality control coach, was the frst full-time Division I female football coach at the time. On September 15, 2018, though, gearing up for her frst collegiate game, Brownson found herself on the periphery.

Before its season opener against Georgetown University, the Big Green football team sat inside the locker room at Memorial Field awaiting a signature Coach T speech.

“I’m standing outside the door in the locker room because it’s the locker room — now nobody’s changing or anything, everybody’s dressed — but I’m like, ‘I can’t be in the locker room,’” Brownson said, giving a long pause. “I can’t be a part of this moment where he’s going to get in front of the team, frst game of the season, and get everybody fred up.”

But Teevens would not allow Brownson to miss out on the moment.

“[Teevens] walks in … and he stops, and he looks back at me, and he’s like, ‘What are you doing out here?’” Brownson explained. “‘Well Coach, it’s, it’s — it’s the locker room.’ And he goes, ‘I don’t care. You’re part of his team. Get in here, immediately.’”

That, Brownson said, is the moment she knew Teevens was special.

“To me, it’s just always funny because I overthought,” Brownson explained. “All [Teevens] wanted to do was make sure that everybody who was part of the program felt like part of the team, because we all were.”

Teevens bred new life into her career once the Jets internship was over.

“I didn’t really think I was ever going to get back into football at a high level again — as a female in the sport, it was just hard,” Brownson said. “I don’t think giving up is the right [phrase], but I just … put football as a ‘this isn’t gonna happen’ kind of deal for me.”

Hiring female coaches — Brownson, Chenell Tillman-Brooks, Jennifer King and Mickey Grace — and eliminating tackling in practice, as mentioned in the New York Times and the Washington Post, is just part of who he is, Brownson said.

A risk taker

In 2010, as the national conversation surrounding chronic traumatic encephalopathy among football players heightened, Teevens decided Dartmouth football players would no longer tackle during practice — a decision that fellow coaches said would surely get Teevens fred, according to Dartmouth Alumni Magazine. Nevertheless, the Big Green’s 2010 season was its best since 1997 and missed tackles dropped by half, according to the Magazine.

“To him, he was just tasked with this bigger purpose to do the right thing, to change the game in the right way,” Brownson said. “Whether it was popular or not … it didn’t matter to him.” Goodell, too, said that he appreciates Teevens’s eforts as the NFL continues to face backlash for the risk inherent in such a physical game.

“He was a pioneer,” Goodell said. “He had the courage to do it. And he did it for all the right reasons, which is making the game safer for our players.”

In the spring of 2011, Teevens sought out former classmate and Thayer School engineer John Currier ’79, Th ’81 with a question: Could Currier make a tackling dummy mobile?

The answer was yes, and soon Teevens was the chairman of MVP LLC, a company that designs mobile tackling dummies. Current CEO Quinn Connell ’13, who worked on Currier’s project as an undergraduate assistant, says the project would not have been possible without Teevens’s love for the sport, the Dartmouth football program and the College.

“He has an enthusiasm and energy that just sort of draws people to him,” Connell said. “And he’s created this network of people that are fans of Buddy and believe in the culture and ethos that Buddy lives by.”

Doing things his own way

While it’s hard to forget your frst ever Orange Bowl, it’s harder, Dartmouth interim football head coach Sammy McCorkle said, to forget the frst time he met Teevens.

When Teevens frst started his coaching stint with the University of Florida right before the 1999 Orange Bowl, adapting to the Gator atmosphere was a challenge for Teevens. McCorkle, a Florida native, Gator walk-on and graduate assistant at the time, recalls the culture of the Florida football program as being “really laid back.”

Teevens, who had grown up in Massachusetts and attended Deerfeld

and Dartmouth, approached the job diferently.

“Everybody kind of comes in pulling paper out of their pockets, or a pen, or whatever,” McCorkle said. “And here comes Buddy as an organizer, and he opens [a binder] up and he has all these diferent colored highlighters.”

“I’m watching him, like, ‘Who’s this guy?’” McCorkle explained. “And I remember our ops guy was like, ‘Yeah, that’s an Ivy guy for you.’ But I just knew right there, this guy’s diferent — in a good way.”

McCorkle put his full faith in the Northerner when Teevens, returning to Dartmouth in 2005, invited the lifelong Floridian to Hanover to repair the Big Green’s struggling program. “I said, ‘heck yeah,’” McCorkle said. “Starting essentially at the ground foor with him and watching him, and how he went about building this thing back up — I couldn’t ask for a better opportunity ever.”

McCorkle, who began coaching without Teevens for the frst time in 18 years in March, said he recognizes that the program he is stepping into — the one Roger Goodell visited last month — is Teevens’s program.

“The one thing I really appreciate … was his persistence of wanting to accomplish something that … was going to be important to this football program,” McCorkle said. “Starting from getting these facilities built and getting the alumni back involved in this program.”

McCorkle paused, as if he was soaking in memories from the last two decades.

“Sometimes as a coach you’re brought up as, ‘Hey, this is the way we do it,”’ McCorkle explained. “And sometimes some of his ideas you’re like, ‘Where’s he going with this?’ But I’ve learned, knowing him long enough, that it wasn’t just crazy. He had a plan — he knew what he was trying to accomplish — just his way might have been diferent

A wide web of support

Although Brownson’s career has taken of, Teevens continued to check in with Brownson every week, sending her messages after every win and loss, frst when she went to the Bills and then the Browns.

“I was really only [at Dartmouth] for a year, and he could easily say, ‘Hey, congratulations, et cetera,’ and move on. But that’s not that’s not who he is. He’s a person where relationships matter the most.”

It all ties back to Teevens’s frst experience at Dartmouth, McCorkle said.

“When he came up here on his visit, the coaches didn’t even know his name,” McCorkle said. “He felt like he was kind of the outcast a little bit — and he doesn’t want people to feel that way.” Teevens’s culture of inclusivity, McCorkle said, is something he will continue to make a priority.

“Regardless of who you are, what your status is, if you’re willing to commit to something and do the work, or show that you’re invested in something, your value’s just as high as anybody else,” McCorkle said.

And while Teevens recovers, people have invested in him.

“You always knew there was a large group of alumni that were really excited about Buddy and what he’s done here,” McCorkle explained. “But … I still today get emails, almost on a daily basis, from individuals — some of whom I’ve never met before or spoken to — and they just reach out and ofer their support.”

Goodell said “Kirsten and Buddy are like family members” to him.

“[Teevens] has got something special,” he said. “It’s like a beacon. He just lights everybody up. And he just motivates people. And there’s not a single person who he doesn’t try to help.”

ELAINE PU/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF from a lot of people’s.”

SPORTS

Q&A with Olympian and women’s rugby co-captain Ariana Ramsey ’22

BY Caroline York

As Commencement approaches, scores of seniors will leave Hanover and start their post-graduation lives. For some seniors who are student athletes, however, their time at Dartmouth has already brought them to diferent corners of the world. Currently, there are two seniors on Olympic teams. The Dartmouth sat down with one such student, Olympic athlete and Dartmouth women’s rugby team member Ariana Ramsey ’22 to discuss her experiences as a rugby athlete on an international stage.

What got you into rugby?

AR: It was actually pretty random. I started in my sophomore year of high school. They set up a stand in my cafeteria during our lunch period, and they were very convincing to get people to come over and learn about club rugby and sign up. My friend decided that we were going to go, and then I just tagged along with her, and then it was pretty much only up from there. We went to the frst practice, and we loved it. So we kept going back.

What do you study at Dartmouth, and what are your plans for after graduation?

AR: My major is economics and my minor is Chinese. I’ve always been interested in China’s manufacturing business and their wholesale products. After college, I’m going to train for the Olympics again in 2024. We just qualifed when we were in Hong Kong, so hopefully I make the team again. After that, I hope to work in fnance.

How has your Olympic career impacted your Dartmouth athletic and academic experiences?

AR: I think it has gotten me a lot of opportunities, as far as the awards I’ve been receiving. It also allows me to network easier with people — which includes faculty and students. I think it helps with meeting people and having something to talk about.

When did you become an Olympian?

AR: I became an Olympian in 2021.

COVID-19 happened in 2020, so I missed my sophomore summer. I was taking my classes online while I was at the USA rugby training camp, which I had been doing since I was 17. One day, my coach called me while I was at the camp and asked if I wanted to stay for a chance to compete in the Olympics in 2021. I needed time to decide whether or not I wanted to stay. I mean, I wanted to do it, but I was just nervous about school, and if I would be able to get back into things. But I ended up saying yes.

You participated at the Tokyo Summer Olympics in 2021, where you became the frst Dartmouth women’s rugby player to compete in the Olympics. Tell me more about the experience, from your stay at the Olympic Village to your time on the feld.

AR: When I frst went, I thought it was going to be a lot of fun, which it was, but it was still so much hard work. We were still training every single day. I think my favorite part was the opening ceremony because that was the only time we got to see all of the athletes. The French team was behind us and then they started singing French songs and yelling at us, and we were having fun. Being at the opening ceremony in person, with the drones and lights, was way more magical than watching it on TV, and I was really grateful for that. It was really odd playing our games without any fans watching, because we could only hear each other talking during our games. But I knew a lot of people were watching us from the livestream, so I was doing a lot more for the camera; I was waving at the camera and trying to be more interactive because I knew people were actually watching. But other than that, there was not a soul except our team and the other team and the staf.

How did you feel meeting other athletes of the feld from across the country with very diferent experiences at the Olympics?

AR: It was really an honor to be meeting so many athletes. I met a lot of basketball players like Kevin Durant, Damian Lillard, Brittney Griner as well as Allyson Felix and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. I think

everyone felt a sense of unity being surrounded by other people who are working hard to achieve their goals. That was very special for everyone, no matter what position they had or what sport they played. Why did you choose to attend Dartmouth?

AR: I was initially planning to attend Pennsylvania State University because it was close to home. Once I started playing rugby, more doors started opening for me. For example, when I visited Dartmouth, the school was absolutely beautiful, and the teammates were really nice. So that drew me in as well. Everyone seemed

very comforting, warm and inclusive, which is really important for me. We were also a good team at the time. I watched a game that weekend and Dartmouth was blowing teams out like we still are today. I was like, I can’t really go wrong with this. I had the grades to get in, and I knew I would be challenged academically. Dartmouth had everything that I wanted.

How has the D-Plan infuenced your time on the Olympic rugby team and the Dartmouth rugby team?

AR: The D-Plan has been great. I love that we can just choose when

to be on campus. The amount of terms that we can be “on” and the amount of terms we can be “of” is extremely helpful because it has allowed me to be both a collegiate and Olympic athlete. I was able to take of this past winter to train and compete with Team USA in Hong Kong. The D-Plan gave me the opportunity to do other things that I’m still interested in and then come back and still focus on school fully. I’m very grateful because I don’t have to split my time between school and rugby — that would be very stressful. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.

The Dartmouth Sta

PHOTO COURTESY OF ARIANA RAMSEY ‘22

SPORTS

Student-athletes re ect on cancellation and reinstatement of Division I varsity sports

BY CAROLINE YORK

The Dartmouth Sta

On July 9, 2020, Dartmouth College announced that they would discontinue fve Division I varsity sports in order to prevent a projected $150 million fnancial defcit due to the COVID-19 pandemic. After these teams — men’s and women’s swimming and diving, men’s and women’s golf and men’s lightweight rowing — were cut, 110 studentathletes lost their collegiate athletic status and 15 staf members lost their jobs. The Hanover Country Club was also permanently shut down during this time period.

Five months later, in January 2021, all fve sports were reinstated after the women’s swimming and diving and women’s golf teams hired a lawyer to investigate possible Title IX violations. At the threat of litigation for not complying with Title IX, the College entered a settlement agreement, promising to reinstate the women’s teams that had been cut. Although the settlement agreement did not require it, the College also reinstated the men’s teams. Even though this occurred nearly three years ago, the team cuts and reinstatements still impact the fve teams today, according to Charles Petrie ’22.

Men’s Golf

When the initial news broke that the teams had been disbanded, men’s golf co-captain Petrie frst received a text during the pandemic in summer 2020 that urged him and other student-athletes to get on a Zoom call.

“I remember it really vividly,” Petrie said. “I was out practicing, and then we got these automated texts, and I think the frst word was like ‘urgent,’ at which point I knew something pretty signifcant was happening.”

The news was not such a shock to men’s golf co-captain Mark Turner ’22, as he had heard rumors of teams getting cut. Turner had previously heard from other teams at Dartmouth and beyond that they were concerned that their teams may be cut, which worried him.

On the bright side, Petrie and Turner said they came to appreciate playing golf at Dartmouth more so after the reinstatement.

“I had more of an appreciation to be able to just play golf at Dartmouth — more so than always worrying about scores, shooting good numbers,” Turner said.

“I feel like I got a lot closer with my teammates and with our coach,” Petrie added. “Our coach went through so much as well.”

Women’s Golf

Women’s golf head coach Alex Kirk thought it was best to not look back after the reinstatement. “You got to pick up the pieces and move forward,” Kirk said. “You learn from the situation, but you can’t live in fear.”

The men’s and women’s golf teams kept the same coach, which helped the team move on; however, the loss of the Hanover Country Club had a large impact on both teams.

“That was our course we could play on campus,” Petrie said. “We now have to drive 20 minutes to a course to play. We are very lucky to be able to play there, but it’s not the same as having a course on campus.”

Men’s golf head coach Rick Parker commented on the progress of the team post reinstatement, noting that “everyone was so rusty” due to the lack of golf tournaments for a year.

“It’s obvious you don’t pick up where you left of,” Parker said. “I think that’s the part that people didn’t understand. Everybody was so rusty, because no one had played in any tournaments.”

But Parker said he has high hopes for his team in the future.

“I’m looking forward to us getting back to where we were before we were cut, and we were close this year,” Parker said. “I know we’re building our way up, and we had a really good fnish this year.”

The women’s golf team lost a couple of players who transferred to diferent schools because of the initial cut of the team, according to head coach Alex Kirk. Kirk said he helped these transfer athletes to ensure that they still played golf, and he still keeps in touch with them.

“Most of my players stay in touch with me,” Kirk said. “You’re doing something right when the kids still want to keep in touch with you. I’m pretty proud of the program we put together, and we’re a smart team.”

Men’s Lightweight Rowing

Prior to the men’s lightweight rowing team’s cut in 2020, current head coach Trevor Michelson served as the assistant coach. Afterwards, he found a job that allowed him to continue his passion for the sport as an assistant to women’s rowing head coach Nancy LaRocque.

Once the lightweight rowing team was reinstated, Michelson regained the position of head coach for the men’s lightweight rowing team. Michelson spoke on what this position means to him.

“I’ve known most of these guys since they were 17 — I’ve seen them grow as people and work through the adversity of the team getting cut,” Michelson said. “The privilege of my life has been being entrusted to lead this group of guys, and for them to just trust me through the process is really special.”

The men’s lightweight rowing team received support from the alumni network during the initial disbandment of the team, with men’s lightweight rowing co-captain Chris Stich ’23 describing this team as “really special..”

“There was a big outpouring of alumni support and big email chains with all former lightweight rowers from Dartmouth,” Stich said. “A lot of them really wanted to get involved and they formed … almost a committee.”

Despite the lightweight rowing

team being dismantled, the team actually became closer during this time.

“I knew I had great friends that really cared about me, and I had a great network still there,” Stich said. “I think we bonded in just knowing how … important the team was. And I don’t think we ever lost our spirit and camaraderie.”

Even though the administration cut the rowing season short in 2020, the lightweight rowing team did not let this bring down their spirits, according to Stich. Together, they successfully qualifed for the World Rowing Championships, which is “pretty rare” to do with a team of athletes who all attend the same school, Stich said.

Swim and Dive

The women’s swim and dive team did not only receive support from the alumni network, but also from Olympians. It was also not the frst time the team had been cut.

“There were several swimmers prominent in the swim community that publicly said this is wrong,” Christina Cianciolo ’23 said. “Not only the Olympians, but a lot of my swim friends back home and a lot of swimmers always reposted our stories, commented a lot on diferent articles, things like that. So there was a lot of support from a lot of diferent people.”

On the men’s swim and dive team, athletes were discussing transferring schools, according to Tim Cushman ’23.

“People talked about [transferring] and looked into it, but when the team got brought back, the few individuals who were thinking about it decided not to,” Cushman said.

Unlike the golf teams, the swimming and diving team had a complete coaching staf turnover.

“We had a full coaching change, so all of our coaches left, and we got two new assistant coaches and a new head coach,” Cushman said. Cushman added that he believes the members of the team bring much more to Dartmouth than their athleticism.

“The individuals on the team bring a diferent perspective to Dartmouth and bring just a diferent lens to look through things.”

While the team cuts did not give Cianciolo the best impression of the College, she also expressed the lessons she learned from the cut, and later the reinstatement.

“It defnitely created a distasteful image of the College in terms of who and what they prioritized, especially over the pandemic,” Cianciolo said. “It was an extremely tough time, especially because of the fact that everyone was scattered … But I think, overall, it taught me a lot about perseverance and patience.”

Verbum Ultimum: Welcome, President Beilock!

The Dartmouth Editorial Board urges incoming President Sian Leah Beilock to both hear and substantively utilize student voices when implementing new changes.

As The Dartmouth Editorial Board, we would like to welcome President Sian Leah Beilock and express our excitement for the 19th president — and the first female president — of the College. We are looking forward to seeing how your administration will lead the College, and we hope your fresh perspective will bring forth many positive changes.

In the first few years of President Hanlon’s tenure, his administration considerably changed residential housing, alcohol policies and other aspects of campus through the Call to Lead campaign. While many of these developments positively impacted the undergraduate experience, this Editorial Board recognizes that others did not. We ask that when making decisions, you consider student voices seriously. Listen to what students have to say, be willing to alter initiatives to better serve student needs and postpone instituting sweeping changes until you fully understand the Dartmouth community. Students want change, but it must be well-informed.

In the past, students have had a turbulent relationship with the administration, but we believe you have the potential to repair this connection. Many students unfortunately feel that the administration lacks accountability and operates within a bubble separate from the student body and its interests. For one, the housing community system — which Hanlon implemented in 2016 — remains deeply unpopular, but there have been few efforts by his administration to address these concerns. In The Dartmouth’s 2023 senior survey, which yielded 122 responses, 72% of the participants reported that they viewed the administration at least somewhat unfavorably. The Dartmouth’s surveys of outgoing senior classes from the past several years reveal that even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the administration was oftentimes one of Dartmouth’s most negatively viewed institutions. Your presidency represents an opportunity for a fresh start. Repairing this relationship begins by including students proactively when making decisions that affect them, listening when they express dissatisfaction

and most importantly, taking action after an appropriate amount of time and planning. There is no singular policy or action that will mend the fractured relationship between the administration and the student body immediately, but one of the most pressing concerns of the student body centers around campus mental health. Both Dartmouth’s partnership with UWill and the recent JED Foundation report represent progress toward addressing the issue of student mental health, but there still remains necessary work to be done. We especially hope for improvements to the medical withdrawal policy, to which Provost Kotz recently announced impending changes due later this year. We look forward to the findings of the all-Dartmouth strategic plan currently under development by the JED steering committee. Your background as a cognitive scientist and commitment to prioritizing student mental health will provide you with a valuable perspective when the administration implements the plan’s results.

We also hope to see more channels to allow students to share ideas and feedback with the administration. For example, holding well-publicized office hours would continue one of President Hanlon’s successful initiatives. Regular, accessible avenues of communication such as office hours help endear Dartmouth faculty to their students, and a similar strategy can go a long way toward building a rapport with the student body. Most importantly, we hope that student input substantively impacts your decision-making. Conversations with students are not just a box to be checked, but instead must be an integral guide as to the best course of action. When considering policies that impact students, your administration should proactively reach out to affected student groups in order to incorporate their perspectives.

A fantastic way to engage with students would be by surveying the student body or consulting representatives of organizations such as the Dartmouth Student Government, the Dartmouth Student Mental Health Union, the Greek Leadership Council or the

GABRIEL MODISETT ’25: SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE

Organizational Adjudication Committee, to name a few. As you’ve mentioned previously, having access to diverse opinions when making decisions leads to the best possible outcomes, and involving students is a critical part of this. After hearing and listening, there must be acting.

We also hope that this philosophy of listening to the needs of students extends to student workers. We would like to see the administration support unionization efforts on campus. President Hanlon’s administration made multiple unionbusting attempts, such as with the new graduate student union. We urge your administration to listen to students on this matter, particularly student workers. This Editorial Board will not hesitate to call out future union busting attempts. The College should also consider the benefits of unions, which provide a key forum for communication between management and employees. Unions ensure fair compensation for workers and bring attention to misguided policies in need of revision. It is our belief that unions benefit everyone, not just workers. We hope the new administration will shift to embracing unions as a way to build a stronger, more resilient Dartmouth that ensures everyone in our community can thrive. With the currently ongoing library workers’ unionization vote, this issue is of the utmost importance.

Finally, we hope the incoming administration addresses two issues paramount to the Dartmouth community: inflation and the Upper Valley housing shortage. In recent years, these concerns have meant that students, faculty and staff struggle to live in the Upper Valley. Given Dartmouth’s prominent position in the local economy, we would like to see tangible initiatives that help the faculty and staff who keep this place running, such as ensuring that all Dartmouth staff members are paid a living wage. We understand the precarious relationship between Hanover and the College, and we hope the College recognizes that it needs the town as much as the town needs us. Altogether, these are just some of the key issues facing the Dartmouth

community that we hope you will address. It is with open arms that this Editorial Board welcomes our new president. We cannot wait to see the beginning of your tenure, and we wish you luck with the move from New York City to the Upper Valley. As Daniel Webster famously said, “It is, Sir, as I have said, a small college, and yet there are those who love it” — we hope you will love it too.

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

Khan and Mullins: An Open Letter to President-elect Beilock On the Greek System

To President-elect Beilock, Congratulations on your impending inauguration. We are two recent graduates — Kyle, a former editor-in-chief of this newspaper; and Attiya, who previously served in leadership in Epsilon Kappa Theta sorority and the Inter-Sorority Council — who believe you have a unique opportunity to tackle one of Dartmouth’s most intractable problems. Fifty-one years after women frst matriculated, the social scene is still heavily segregated by gender. Indeed, the College will never be truly coed until every student, regardless of gender, feels safe and welcome in every space on campus. You can make that happen. In this letter, we ofer a framework, developed from our own experiences in classes, at parties and around campus, for how to do so — and an explanation as to why fraternities must open their doors to change frst.

Why a coed social scene is necessary

A social scene separated by gender is inherently unequal. For starters, there are 13 recognized (and one unrecognized) fraternities, eight sororities, three coed houses and four National Pan-Hellenic Council member organizations that mostly function separately from the rest. Thus, most male students have substantially more options when it comes to fnding a Greek community to join and feel comfortable in. The hypercompetitive and widely criticized women’s rush process is a natural consequence.

Even within the houses that exist, inequalities persist. Financially, houses across the board difer dramatically; fraternities, thanks to their longer histories and higher-paid alumni, have larger potential funding bases than sororities. One of us is in a fnancially secure coed house with no dues, while the other was in a sorority dependent on the ISC for fnancial aid. Additionally, most fraternities are local, while half the sororities are bound by national organization rules. This means some sororities are ofcially barred from hosting public events, having alcohol or even having men in their houses. A social scene dominated by fraternity-hosted events is the result — with disastrous consequences for women.

There is no good reason to allow these obvious inequalities to continue. Dartmouth should move aggressively to shift the entire social scene toward coeducation, with a goal of, say, 80% coed houses by 2035. This preserves the possibility of a couple single-sex houses remaining, but ensures that coed spaces are predominant.

This will simultaneously be a house-byhouse and a whole-of-Dartmouth operation. To meet these goals, Dartmouth should work with each house individually to identify and remove obstacles to coeducation. Help and push houses to go local. Cover operating

expenses for fnancially strapped houses. Allow unrecognized fraternities like Sigma Alpha Epsilon and derecognized fraternities like Alpha Delta to return as coed houses. Construct new coed Greek houses. Work with the town of Hanover to eliminate planning and zoning obstacles to any of these changes. Work with afliated and unafliated student leaders to ensure current students are part of the journey. And fnally, put up the funds necessary to make all this possible — which probably means launching a new capital campaign. Sororities, however, have an excellent counterpoint. They were founded to give women, like other historically marginalized groups, a space of their own away from those run by men. Remaining inequalities indicate that women are still marginalized today. The Greek system’s original sin is that when every other part of Dartmouth went coed, fraternities were not forced to follow. In order to reverse that injustice, fraternities must lead the way in integrating — and most sororities would then follow in due course, enough that coed spaces eventually dominate the social landscape. In other words, the responsibility to build new and inclusive social spaces should fall, frst and foremost, on the frats.

Why the frats must go frst

The most pressing reason to push fraternities to integrate frst is their institutional complicity in the culture of misogyny and sexual violence on campus, a culture that continues to create a gap in the educational opportunities of men and women. This reality is borne out in statistics from a 2017 survey: 34% of female and 26% of transgender and non-binary undergraduates report that they have been victims of sexual assault while at Dartmouth (compared to 7% of men), over a third of assaulted women report that their assailant was someone they “met at a party” — the largest single category — and we all know where the parties are at Dartmouth. This reality is also borne out in everyday sexual harassment targeting women, as one reporter noted last month in a harrowing account that described explicit verbal abuse from fraternity brothers. And it is borne out in our own experiences: One of us was groped in Kappa Pi Kappa (then Kappa Kappa Kappa) fraternity freshman year, but after her assailant was found responsible, his brothers nonetheless scrambled to defend him. It was up to the frat to decide whether he could remain a member; when he was allowed to stay, it was her who was efectively barred from returning to the house due to his continued presence and social stigma. Sadly, events like this are commonplace — every fraternity has its own collection of young women who have been substantially harmed within their houses.

If more women than men must spend days, weeks, months away from school to avoid

their abusers because reporting to Title IX may bring more trouble than closure; if more women must avoid certain fraternities because they are dominated by men who abuse or men who protect abusers; if more women must spend all night anxious, covering their drinks and searching for their friends’ shadows under dim basement lights because there is simply nowhere else to party; if more women are forced to watch their rapists and abusers walk at Commencement and go on to work at Bain & Company and J.P. Morgan; they simply do not have equitable educational experiences. Women are fundamentally disadvantaged by the continued existence of all-male spaces, and until they are eliminated via integration, the sororities must remain in some form. The need for them will exist until fraternities fnally, in some cases after centuries, begin making the changes necessary to incorporate women fully.

Additionally, our experiences suggest that fraternities believe that they are unaccountable to anyone and will not change without a push. They are unaccountable to the sororities, as evidenced by their lack of enthusiastic engagement with anti-sexual violence eforts during the summer of 2021. They are unaccountable to the press: One of us, Kyle, was the subject of an online harassment campaign when he, as a news reporter, attempted to investigate rumors that a winter 2021 COVID-19 outbreak started at an illicit fraternity event, and the Interfraternity Council now routinely refuses to release to the public even basic information about rush. Finally, they are unaccountable to the administration: The very existence of SAE as an entity on this campus — a rogue house, derecognized following hazing allegations, that routinely takes a rush class in blatant violation of College guidelines — speaks volumes. To end unaccountability, fraternities must change.

While fraternity culture is most harmful to women and queer individuals, men are also genuinely harmed by the culture of bingedrinking and chauvinism that fraternities encourage. The lack of any real local alternatives to the frats — a dive bar, a bowling alley, a clothing store someone under 45 might patronize, anything — means that celebration at Dartmouth is synonymous with drinking and drugs, making perpetual intoxication a timeless tradition. Many men who belong to fraternities face pressure to “embrace alcoholism,” perform bizarre hazing rituals and generally behave in a manner they might not otherwise around women and other marginalized people in the interest of ftting in. These habits linger long after college, manifesting in chronic alcoholism and toxic workplace cultures. For women and the vulnerable, it means that “old boy’s club” felds historically dominated by men remain actively hostile minefelds. For men, it means a more lonely, angry existence.

It is for all these reasons that the sexsegregated social scene at Dartmouth must end, and end with fraternities being cast frst into the ash heap of history. The arguments usually ofered against this path are dubious. Alumni donations may sufer temporarily, but past controversies suggest that there is a substantial bloc of Dartmouth alumni who presently withhold their money because they rightly perceive the College as complacent in a broken system. What about increased liability if the College exercises more control over Greek spaces? Give us a break. Dartmouth can aford to hire an extra couple of lawyers to head of legal snafus. And as for the idea that men need their own spaces — sure, maybe, somewhere, but why must they also be the primary social spaces on campus? What positive contribution precisely do fraternities ofer that coed houses could not? Why must we perpetuate the lie that men and women are constitutionally unable to forge social spaces together?

There are absolutely practical questions to be considered. How will the frst women that join newly coed houses be protected better than the women who integrated Dartmouth just over 50 years ago? How will entrenched apathy and bureaucratic sclerosis across the Dartmouth community be overcome? How will the most stubborn, obstinate houses be converted to the right side of history? These must be considered thoughtfully before a plan is rolled out, but the ultimate goal remains just as important.

President-elect Beilock, we leave you with this: Bold leadership is necessary to integrate the Greek system, but it is not sufcient. It will take everything Dartmouth has — and maybe, in the end, your best eforts will crash against the patriarchal walls of Webster Avenue — but it is far too urgent to not try. You have the opportunity to not just be the frst woman president of the College, but the frst president of a truly coeducational College.

Dartmouth was among the last Ivies to let women past its gates. It could be among the frst to truly set them free.

Kyle Mullins is a member of the Class of 2022 and a member of Phi Tau coed fraternity, graduating today. He is also the former editor-in-chief of The Dartmouth. He is now a member of the Opinion staf and his views do not necessarily represent those of The Dartmouth.

Attiya Khan is a member of the Class of 2022. While at Dartmouth, she served in leadership at Epsilon Kappa Theta sorority and on the Inter-Sorority Council and was also a member of The Tabard coed fraternity. The Dartmouth welcomes guest columns. We request that guest columns be the original work of the submitter. Submissions may be sent to both opinion@ thedartmouth.com and editor@thedartmouth.com. Submissions will receive a response within three business days.

It’s long past time to end sex-segregated Greek houses. Here’s how to do it.

Alsheikh: Lest the New President Fail

For the sake of the College on the Hill, the incoming Beilock administration must work within existing Dartmouth traditions to create change.

Commencement is a time for reflecting on the past and considering the future, and this is as true for the rest of the College as it is for the graduating seniors. I want to take a moment to make a statement about our Dear Old Dartmouth: Our College is at a crossroads.

Stuck between the pandemic and a new College President, our College is potentially positioned for a radical change to its core identity. We have seen old traditions get lost during the pandemic, with students expressing concern over the slow recovery of campus culture after COVID-19. The pandemic hit when Dartmouth was already undergoing a significant transformation: Hanlon’s modernization of the College, mainly through the Call to Lead campaign. The desire to make Dartmouth into a more traditional research institution led to the expansion of the graduate schools, investments in the school’s STEM programs and the construction of the Engineering and Computer Science Center. Because of Hanlon’s efforts, Dartmouth is more competitive, more well-recognized, more “modern” than ever before, and the incoming Beilock administration will be in a position to build upon these changes — but at what cost?

Dartmouth is defined by its respect for tradition and history. Our College’s ethos, our basic value system, is rooted in the idea that we have a unique past which we must celebrate, even as we must adapt to new conditions. That celebration of our past is what gives Dartmouth its fundamental character as the “College on the Hill,” something more than just another New England university. Yet, with both COVID-19 and administrative pressure eroding College culture, one must be concerned over how this “Dartmouthness” will be preserved for future classes. At this crucial juncture in the history of Dartmouth, I would like to offer the Beilock administration a new framework from which to approach modernization: working within traditions, rather than against them.

To preserve the Dartmouth ethos, I suggest that the incoming administration should prioritize re-imagining existing systems over creating new ones. This strategy isn’t directed at any specific issue, but rather is aimed to be a general strategy for approaching Dartmouth traditions and campus culture. While our College is in need of change, it need not come at the expense of Dartmouth’s uniqueness.

For instance, take the undergraduatefocused, liberal arts nature of Dartmouth. In attempting to make Dartmouth more competitive nationally, the Hanlon administration joined the Association of American Universities (“a consortium of leading research institutions”), expanded funding for the graduate schools while cutting funds from the Library system, disbanded the Education department, closed the Kresge Physical Sciences and Paddock Music Libraries, founded the Arthur L. Irving Institute for Energy with millions of dollars from Big Oil and even

considered expanding the student body by up to 25%. To quote a 2017 Verbum Ultimum, “[it] appears clear that the College is attempting to play a game of ‘big university’ alongside its Ivy League peers.”

This is a clear example of the administration attempting to work outside of the traditional Dartmouth framework, which is that of the small, undergraduate-focused liberal arts school. Such efforts have failed to bring about the “modernization” that the Hanlon administration so desperately desires: trying to play the big university game hasn’t given us any edge over the competition. As that same 2017 Verbum Ultimum notes, Dartmouth’s application numbers, senior satisfaction, administration approval, and senior donations all dropped noticeably in that period, despite the fact that our Ivy League peers were doing well on these statistics.

Instead of working outside the existing Dartmouth framework, let the incoming administration embrace the liberal arts as a tradition of Dartmouth. Focus on bringing in more faculty, supporting undergraduates to do more research, expanding course offerings in interdisciplinary fields like the digital humanities, capitalizing on Dartmouth’s legacy in artificial intelligence, creating opportunities for undergraduates in the graduate schools and so on. Actions like these help to make Dartmouth more appealing from the outside, while simultaneously staying true to tradition and our identity. There are so many ways we can make Dartmouth more competitive, more selective and more “modern” without sacrificing basic qualities of our beloved College. If we work within the core identity of Dartmouth, we can make strides towards a better future for our College — without destroying Dartmouth heritage.

As a slightly less academic example of how we can apply the aforementioned strategy, consider the example of Greek life. So far, efforts to limit the historicallyinfluential presence of Greek life at Dartmouth have failed miserably. Hanlon’s administration launched the housing system as an alternative space to Greek life, sorting undergraduates into one of six randomly-assigned housing communities. Yet, this system has failed to curtail Greek life’s serious problems with alcoholism, misogyny and racism. The housing system has also failed to create any sort of student excitement, with 73% of undergraduates in 2020 disagreeing with the statement, “I feel a strong sense of community with those in my House.” The end result has been a shallow, corporate residential system that feels more like a cheap copy of Yale University than an authentic expression of Dartmouth’s culture.

Applying our new principle of reimagining existing systems, a much better solution to Greek life’s problems would be creating a greater diversity of Greek houses on campus, giving students a range of house cultures to choose from instead of subverting the very tradition itself. Houses like Phi Tau, Alpha Theta and the newly

returned Omega Psi Phi are great examples of houses which can accommodate diverse backgrounds, identities and cultures. These types of houses create spaces within the Greek system for alternatives to the stereotypical drink-and-party fraternity lifestyle, and simultaneously open up Greek life to traditionally underrepresented members of the student body. The College should devote more resources to the Office of Greek Life, which could then equip student leaders with the support to create new Greek spaces that enrich the existing culture and add to diversity.

After all, both Greek life and the liberal arts are Dartmouth traditions, and although they have flaws, like all other traditions they are a fundamental part of what makes Dartmouth itself.

This brings me back to my main point: the incoming administration should approach campus culture by asking how it can be reimagined or revitalized, and not fundamentally changed. The principle of “re-imaging existing systems” can be applied to many other aspects of campus — upholding the College’s duty towards Native Americans, improving our national reputation, strengthening alumni relations, revitalizing Winter Carnival and so on. At

an institution with such a rich history and heritage as Dartmouth, we cannot afford to abandon that which has made the first 250 years of the College on the hill so special. This is the approach that I urge the incoming administration to take.

We need change, innovation and new solutions to old problems, but we cannot and must not make Dartmouth into just another Ivy League school. We are not just a university, and we are certainly not Harvard, Yale or (God-forbid) Princeton — nor should we be. No, we are the College on the hill, the voice crying out into the wilderness: “It is a small college, yet there are those who love it.” We are what Eisenhower thinks a college should look like, as beautiful as a poem from Robert Frost and as goofy as a book from Dr. Seuss. Raised by the hill-wind and granite of New Hampshire, our College has spirit — a spirit that each previous generation of Dartmouth sons and daughters has carefully guarded from the world around it, as if it were the candle of the Twilight Ceremony.

That candle is now passed to our generation. And just like freshmen at the end of Orientation, it is our duty to ensure that the fire is not blown out by an autumn wind.

NINA SLOAN ’24: GRADUATING AT LONG LAST!

MIRROR

Ledyard’s Legacy: The Canoe Club’s Customs

By Gretchen Bauman STORY

One of Dartmouth’s most special features is the accessibility of a wide variety of outdoor activities. However, participating in many of these activities necessitates a car ride, whether that’s hiking in the White Mountains or traveling to a nearby cabin. Yet, Ledyard Canoe Club is lucky enough to have the Connecticut River located just steps away from campus. Founded in 1920, Ledyard — a subclub within the Dartmouth Outing Club — offers both flatwater and whitewater canoeing and kayaking, as well as paddleboarding. Over the course of its century-long existence, the club has developed several traditions still in place to this day.

One such tradition is Ledyard’s annual Trip to the Sea. Each spring, members of the senior class set out on a 220-mile paddle down the Connecticut River. Over the course of a week, they travel from Hanover all the way to the Long Island Sound to recreate an expedition first embarked upon by the club’s namesake, John Ledyard. Former Ledyard president Chris Gaige ’23 called Trip to the Sea his favorite Ledyard tradition.

“You become really close with the people you are paddling with, even if they were complete strangers to you at the beginning,” Gaige said. “Several alumni groups throw parties for the Ledyard group as they make their way down the Connecticut, and it’s always fun to get to know them and enjoy the delicious food they have on the grill when our boats pull up.”

For Ledyardites who can’t wait until senior year for Trip to the Sea, Ledyard runs a Trip to the Source during sophomore summer, in which participants paddle from the source of the Connecticut River back to the Ledyard clubhouse.

Current Ledyard president Hayden Miller ’25, who planned and co-led the trip last summer, spoke highly of this tradition.

“Trip to the Source was one of my favorite outdoor experiences at this school and definitely my favorite Ledyard tradition I’ve gotten to participate in so far,” Miller said. “We canoed 61 miles over a long weekend and stayed at fantastic campsites on the river —

one was on an island in the middle of the river.”

In addition to these mammoth paddling trips, Ledyard also hosts Riverfest every spring term, a weekend-long series of events including a race on the Mascoma River. Summer vice president and Riverfest coordinator Anna Chabica ’25 pointed out that Riverfest traditions — like hosting the race on the same river each year — can build connections across class years and serve as a reference point for students.

“The Riverfest race happens every year on the Mascoma River, so that people can do it and become better at it over the course of their time at Dartmouth,” Chabica said. “Traditions [like these] help us stay connected as both alums and current students. It’s cool to do something that you know so many other classes and students have done before you.”

In addition to these well-known traditions, club members have a host of other customs that are more obscure but no less meaningful.

Gaige stated that one “underrated” tradition is Ledyard’s weekly dinners — known as feeds — that take place every Thursday at the clubhouse.

“The menu changes every week, but if conditions are nice, you’ll more often than not find us working the grill,” Gaige said. “Alums from as early as the 1960s have visited and asked us if we’re still doing the feeds. They’re a great chance to unwind after a long week, and there’s no better place to do so than at the Ledyard Clubhouse on the shoreline of the Connecticut River.”

In addition to Riverfest’s wellpublicized traditions like the race, Chabica also highlighted the tradition of “cheesing” people at the Riverfest party that occurs the Saturday night of Riverfest weekend.

“We take packaged cheese sticks and hide them in each other’s pockets, or in the cabin where we have the party, and if someone finds the cheese stick they have to eat it,” she said. “Cabot gives us hundreds of cheese sticks for free because they know that we have this tradition.”

Miller also noted one custom reserved just for position holders — an end-of-term dinner where the directorate members “celebrate” the work done over the term and set goals for the next one.

“It’s not a tradition that many people outside of the directorate know about, but I think it’s a nice way to reflect at the end of the term,” he said.

Though the endurance of these traditions is widely celebrated throughout the club, both Gaige and Miller noted a lost tradition they hope to revive — Ledyard’s racing program.

“Throughout the 1960s to the 1990s, Ledyard had a strong presence in the national and international canoe and kayak racing scene,” Gaige said. “We have produced national champions and even Olympic paddlers, but over the past few decades the club has drifted away from this high

caliber level of competition.”

As president, Gaige focused on bringing Ledyard’s racing program back to its former glory.

“I took it upon myself to begin organizing and leading race practices, as well as entering us into several local races. While I don’t think we’ll be going to the Olympics soon, we did win the Northeast Collegiate Cup last fall,” Gaige said.

There’s no doubt that Dartmouth prides itself on its traditions, and Ledyard is no different. Whether those traditions involve a week-long, intensive canoe trip or a weekly meal down at the docks, each is designed to bring the members of the club closer together and bond them to those who came before.

Gaige noted that an exceptional aspect of Ledyard is its studentrun nature — each of these traditions are not only shaped by,

but endure because of the students who commit themselves to the continued success of Ledyard.

“I cannot emphasize enough how uniquely lucky Ledyard is as a club to be entirely student-run and self-sustaining,” Gaige said.

As one of the largest clubs on campus, it’s clear Ledyard has many students who love it. Though the reason for joining Ledyard differs for each member, Gaige pointed out that the strong community, shaped through the club’s many traditions, often plays a role.

“Ledyard’s ability to combine the sport of paddling with a deeply supportive community and social scene for people of all backgrounds and abilities makes it an attractive space for first year students to join as they begin their college careers at a place steeped in and surrounded by so much natural beauty,” Gaige said.

ELAINE PU/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

MIRROR

To Gap or Not to Gap?

By Grace Beilstein STORY

There’s an implicit, classic “Dartmouth Experience” — one advertised to eager freshmen in a neatly-packaged, four-year progression. It begins with the firsts of freshman fall, continues with the light-hearted laughter and sunshine of sophomore summer and the lofty expectations for internships junior summer. And it ends, after a blur of four years, with a cap and gown on the Green. However, for many students, their time at Dartmouth is more fluid and adaptable, often stretched out over time.

If you’ve spent any time this year asking students about their graduation plans, you’ve surely come across a few students who call themselves ’22+1s or ’22+2s: students who, for one reason or another, delayed their graduation. What is the gap year phenomenon that has more than 150 members of the Class of 2022 calling Hanover home for another term or another year?

“You can just learn more about what you actually like to do in life and what your values are,” Haley Warzecha ’22 said. Warzecha took time off after her junior fall to prepare for her future medical school plans, working at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center as a research assistant, serving as a teacher’s assistant and taking the MCAT. She will now graduate with the Class of 2023.

The famed “Washed Up ’22s” GroupMe boasts 155 members — students who are “on” for an additional term, through the spring of 2023, or pursuing a Master’s degree or BE. All three of the students I interviewed for the piece, who have delayed their graduation and are graduating with the Class of 2023, mentioned the group chat as the central hub for students who took gap years.

Haley Warzecha ’22 cannot sing the praises of a gap year enough. As a pre-medical student here at Dartmouth, Warzecha used the time after her junior fall to prepare for her future medical school plans.

While reasons for deciding to gap vary widely, the choice to stretch out 12 academic terms over more than four calendar years is becoming increasingly popular. At the onset of the pandemic in

2020, many incoming students took a gap year, becoming members of the Class of 2025.

Some students, like Josh Ocampo ’22, took a gap year to gain experience before entering the professional world after graduation. Ocampo began his gap year one term into his senior year.

“I had gone through the recruiting process … I had one potential job, and I was feeling uneasy about the period I was going into,” Ocampo said.

Ocampo took time during his gap year to prepare for a career transition from UX design to product management. The internship he completed in the project management field during his gap year allowed him to secure a full-time position in project management post-grad.

“In the job market, it’s a lot harder to make a lateral move without setting your career back. It’s honestly a lot easier to take a year off and take a different internship and then bet somewhat on that return offer,” Ocampo said.

While both Warzecha and Ocampo echoed the practical benefits of gapping, the pressure to choose a career path before even matriculating feels hasty to many Dartmouth students.

“For my friends who are younger and taking a gap year … it’s very unfortunate how rushed everything is here,” Warzecha said. “If you want to recruit for certain industries or apply to law or medical school, you have to decide when you’re 17, maybe 18.”

Alex Wells ’22 seemed to notice a clear difference in students who’d taken the extra time for themselves before starting their college careers. He said that he believed many of the ’22s and ’23s who had taken a gap year “arrived with a sense of knowing who they were.”

“They just had some sense of how to approach [being at Dartmouth],” he added.

At Dartmouth, class designations, such as “’22” and “’23” feel quintessential. They are the primary way students distinguish themselves on campus — socially and otherwise.

A student’s class year is indicative of a host of shared experiences, such as the memories made

over sophomore summer or of lockdowns during the peak of COVID-19. Perhaps it is because of this weight that they hold such cultural currency on campus — and beyond. You’ll often find that alumni will mention their class year with pride and nostalgia early on in a conversation.

Wells gave a nod to this, saying, “I’d call myself 80% ’23.”

Even though gap years can change one’s social identity on campus, they can also provide an opportunity to do some soul searching. For Ocampo, the fact that there were students in his year who were also taking gap years helped to normalize an otherwise intimidating process.

“I was like… there’s a bunch of ’22s that are going to be here next year,” Ocampo said. “This is pretty normal; I can take this year now to figure out what I want to do with my life.”

One clear worry for students considering a gap year is coming back to a campus without their friends, who have since graduated. For Ocampo, the time on campus after his projected graduation date was an opportunity for new connections.

“Even this year, I don’t have

my central friend group anymore. I could lean a little bit more into my interest-based friend groups,” he said.

Wells appreciated the time his gap year gave him to lean into the non-academic things he loves about Dartmouth.

“It feels so hard to really take the space that you need to just be a human here,” he said. “As a senior, I’ve made more space in my schedule for [little things like] just hanging out with friends and giving hugs on the Green.”

Wells’s sentiment rings true for many students who feel like the terms here leave little space to truly do things they enjoy, amid academic, extracurricular and social demands.

“The gap year was good for me in the sense that I’m a little bit more removed from Dartmouth culture,” Ocampo said. “This past year, I’ve been able to put more time towards my genuine interests.”

While the amount of time students spend pursuing their genuine interests while on campus varies, Ocampo highlighted that the way students get a bachelor’s degree is undoubtedly changing: more competitive job markets, the high cost of education and

increasingly younger career pressures.

Ocampo went as far to say, “It doesn’t make sense to me why people would take four years for college.”

Warzecha noted that gapping is still a luxury enjoyed by students who have the financial means to stretch out their educational time.

“It is a luxury to do it … to be able to take that time off and have the funds for it,” Warzecha said.

While students considering a gap year face these fnancial constraints or other pressures on time, Dartmouth students taking gap years isn’t going away any time soon.

“I was talking to a ’25 the other day on an on-night. She told me she was about to go on a gap year for a whole year,” Ocampo said. “I thought that was pretty cool. I had never heard that before COVID.”

For all three of these students, a gap year clarifed their intentions for their remaining time at Dartmouth. By giving them valuable experience for the work world and a chance to connect with more ’23s, few expressed any regret about taking extra time to finish their degree.

ELAINE PU/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

MIRROR

From Alpha to Omega: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Greek Life at Dartmouth

By So a Ortiz STORY

Amongst the elm and maple trees, memories tinted with the golden age of youth are made through traditions transcending generations, kept alive with Dartmouth’s Greek life. Yet despite the synth sparkles, the bass shaking the foor and the fashing magenta lights that seem to seep into the walls, Dartmouth’s Greek life formulates a unique spirit of community that contributes across all aspects of campus culture — even beyond the sphere of a party scene. In particular, there has been a recent movement within Greek spaces to make these spaces more accessible than they have been historically on campus.

Tevita Moimoi ’24, the current president of Gamma Delta Chi fraternity, discussed what the fraternity means to him: a diverse brotherhood that establishes companionship across athletic communities and ethnicities.

Moimoi identifes as Tongan, and said he takes “big pride in being present” with GDX’s DEI eforts. He stated that the “diversity in sports teams also plays into [GDX’s] diversity,” adding that this is what enables GDX to ofer a safe and diverse environment.

“I want to make sure the message gets out there that we are not just football [players], but we’re basketball, we’re sailing, we’re track,” Moimoi said. “But you don’t have to worry about being involved in any of that — we [will] still appreciate you as one of us: a brother of a fraternity.”

The house’s range in members across and beyond the athletic community helps create bonds, connection and brotherhood between members that may not have otherwise met each other, Moimoi said.

Fraternities at Dartmouth have traditionally been more exclusive than they are today. Historical records from as early as 1898 detail Dartmouth fraternities discriminating against potential new members on account of the student’s race or religion. However, Greek life on campus is no stranger to reform eforts throughout Dartmouth history, some even seeking its abolition. These eforts often seek to right past wrongs — and current reforms are seeking to make amends to issues of diversity and exclusion.

Dartmouth’s Iota Kappa Chapter of national sorority Alpha Phi has sparked national change and infuence across

diversity, equity and inclusion training eforts, according to Sam Carranza ’22. Carranza was the frst vice president of DEI at Iota Kappa’s APhi, and said that the Iota Kappa chapter was one of the frst chapters of the national sorority to integrate conversations and eforts surrounding DEI.

“The goal was to create a platform in which every member of our house felt loved, heard and accepted for every aspect of their identities,” she said.

Carranza said the establishment of Alpha Phi International’s Collegiate Committee On Diversity, Equity and Inclusion was in part infuenced by the work of the Iota Kappa chapter. In October 2020, Alpha Phi International initiated a new executive structure, which implemented the position of Vice President of DEI. The position includes educational modules and resources to facilitate productive DEI conversations and eforts within houses around the nation.

Due to the “extensive network of people across the world” that APhi ofers, Dartmouth’s sisters are allowed to “play a role in bringing about widescale change” through “connecting with like-minded women from other chapters,” Carranza said.

Founded in 1993, Kappa Delta Epsilon sorority is one of Dartmouth’s frst local sororities. KDE president,Vicky Escalona ’24 highlighted KDE’s contribution to campus as a place for women at Dartmouth from all diferent interests and backgrounds.

“You can have a lot of identities and factors to yourself and still fnd your own place in KDE,” Escalona said. “Everyone has such diferent interests. There’s a lot of athletes, but then there [are] also a lot of girls who are in performance groups or into theater.”

Escalona said that KDE’s emphasis on individuality is what helps KDE provide “a space to fnd a community — not because of any specifc identity — but because the girls that are in it share the same values, support each other and love each other. When we’re in our space, we’re in it as if we’re paying attention to connecting with each other and our contributions to the house, and there’s nothing else on our minds. ”

Despite such efforts, however, Carranza mentioned that sororities “were not originally meant for women

of diverse and underrepresented backgrounds.”

Indeed, sororities at Dartmouth have historically not always been such inclusive spaces and remain imperfect today. Students who completed the rush process have refected on the performative aspects of DEI. Meanwhile, some queer students have found a space in sororities, despite the heteronormative aspects of certain events. In 2020, the four local sororities at Dartmouth voted to accept non-binary and gender nonconforming people in their bylaws, while the four national chapters remained restricted by “national policies that limit membership only to self-identifying women,” according to past reporting from The Dartmouth. These developments only make DEI more relevant, especially since these conversations are still ongoing.

APhi President Harley Kell ’24 described some of the DEI work, training and events the Iota Kappa chapter does. APhi has a DEI task force — composed of a group of members who “meet to discuss concerns, brainstorm solutions and plan DEI events for the house.”

Escalona further emphasized how DEI eforts have slowly just become a part of Greek life: “every year it just becomes a more natural part of the way [KDE] run[s] the house.”

Carranza added that she hopes that one of the most signifcant legacies of APhi’s DEI work is that it inspires other spaces to have similar conversations.

“We have been able to hold events and workshops with other Greek spaces with the intention of furthering the work we’ve done so far.”

Outside of the Inter-Sorority Council, Dartmouth’s chapters of the National Pan-Hellenic Council are institutions that have created safe spaces for sisterhood and brotherhood within Dartmouth’s Black communities.

The Pi Theta chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. is a historically Black Greek Sorority and Public Service Organization meant to develop Black communities internationally.

The current president of Delta Sigma Theta, Danelia Gossop ’23, discussed the legacy, mission and contributions of the sorority, which was chartered on April 28th, 1985.

According to Gossop, the chapter was founded on Dartmouth’s campus “by 14 collegiate women” who “saw a need for a vehicle through which concerns of women could be expressed at a predominantly white institution.” She asserted that Delta Sigma Theta is “an organization of college-educated women committed to the constructive development of its members and public service, with a primary focus on the Black community.”

Gossop stated that the sorority aims to serve the student body and those in the surrounding Upper Valley. She described the sorority’s values as “sisterhood, scholarship, service and social justice” and emphasized Delta Sigma Theta’s mission as a space for Black women who are “passionate about building, uplighting and advocating for the Black community.”

Delta Sigma Theta’s social justice accomplishments have been awarded locally and nationally. In Sept. 2022, the chapter was awarded the Exemplary Social Action Program Award at the sorority’s 53rd Eastern Regional Conference, and in 2023, it earned the Dartmouth Social Justice Student Organization Award , according to Gossop.

Houses have also increased their efforts at promoting diversity not just by recruiting members from diferent backgrounds, but also in other quintessential aspects of the Greek life experience including philanthropy, party scenes and rush events.

According to Kell, APhi’s Bouquets & BBQ pre-rush event is centered around discussing DEI within the house.

“This year, we heard from four sisters from diverse backgrounds sharing their experiences at Dartmouth and Alpha Phi,” Kell said. “Our VP of DEI also spoke, and we encouraged sisters and potential new members to engage in conversations about our DEI eforts in the house.”

Escalona highlighted the role of diversity within philanthropy at KDE.

“There’s a lot of creative freedom planning-wise for our philanthropy chairs,” she said. “There’s no set thing that we do, and this goes back to every girl bringing in something diferent.”

Delta Sigma Theta’s traditional events, such as Delta Days, highlight

the chapter’s principal role in activism and philanthropy within Dartmouth’s campus. Delta Days are held at the New Hampshire Capitol, where the sorority brings “expert panelists and politicians to speak about political and social issues relevant to the state that disproportionately afect marginalized communities,” Gossop said.

Delta Day’s event this year, “H2(N) O,” focused on New Hampshire’s water crisis, such as “water quality disparities … [and their] efects on New Hampshire, and more specifcally, the rural and underserved communities in the Upper Valley and beyond.” Panelists included Senator David Watters and Brandon Kernen, administrator of the Drinking Water & Groundwater Bureau.

Moimoi also said he believes that GDX’s diversity shines through during the house’s Saturday night dance scenes.

“We try to play everything,” Moimoi said, referring to diferent music genres. “We try to have an inclusive party scene for everyone, and our diversifed population will also help set that forward.”

Gossop said she believes Delta Sigma Theta is a signifcant space for the Black women at Dartmouth “because due to being Black and a woman … [Deltas are] considered a double minority in a predominantly white, male space.”

She also highlighted that without Pan-Hellenic institutions such as Delta Sigma Theta, members would “lack the representation and community … [essential to] thrive in an already isolated and academically rigorous environment.” She added that the Black women at Dartmouth deserve the “safe space to be their authentic selves and form connections with like-minded women” that Delta Sigma Theta aims to ofer.

Greek life at Dartmouth goes beyond the size of parties and infltrates the social structure and communities on campus. In a school flled with intellectuals, creatives and over-achievers, these institutions provide spaces that can amplify and appreciate the value of diversity. Through intentionally increasing eforts to cultivate such appreciation, Greek spaces at Dartmouth have the infuence to institute change on both a local and a national level.

T HROUGH T HE L OOKING G L ASS : Reflections from Graduating Seniors Don’t Forget to Look Up

By Emily Lu TTLG

When I graduated from high school, my graduation cap featured a painting of famed cartoon character Peppa Pig leaving footprints in the snow, headed towards a jumble of green trees — along with the quote “one foot in front of the other.”

It was a representation of, among other things, the motto that got me through the gruel of those four years. If I put my head down and focused on the task at hand, one step at a time, I could do anything my high school self came across. Anything big or overwhelming felt just a little more doable when I broke it down to exactly what I knew: putting one foot in front of the other, and doing that again.

Not much changed when I left Texas for Hanover. It worked for those past four years, it would work for another, I told myself. While I switched

leggings and Bean boots, I continued down the same path. I inched out of my comfort zone every once in a while to attend a DOC feed here and there or grab a meal with someone new during O-week and stumbling upon a niche study spot early on in the fall,

Head down, straight ahead — that would be my formula for success.

And so I got through a couple of hasty sprints — known as 10-week terms here at Dartmouth — doing exactly that. But there’s a problem with living in the future, when nothing about the future is certain. At the end of my freshman winter, as the Dartmouth Coach I was on pulled out of Hanover, I received a fateful email

would be fully online. Then it was the rest of spring term, and maybe the subsequent fall, winter and spring

again, depending on how lucky you were with snagging housing. I lived on Zoom in limbo. I could no longer rely on my trusty strategy of putting one foot in front of the other when there was nowhere to go. The thing about keeping your head down is that it is easy. It’s easy to get lost in the day-to-day and let a term sweep you away without being intentional with your time. You don’t have to think much about it. I think Dartmouth teaches us to operate this way; with the drastic change that comes with the D-plan every term, added to it a global pandemic, students are often starved of stability. We hold onto every little shred, and for me that meant sticking to a planned routine. Being whisked away to take online classes from my childhood bedroom was not part of the plan, and it did not make things easy. So, with nothing else to do, I took

time to think and feel for myself. I wallowed in my sadness, anger and privilege. I journaled, letting my tears splatter against the still smudgy ink — the drama was not lost on me. In a hazy entry dated July 2020, I promised myself that I would savor every moment I had left as a student of this special place.

This promise wasn’t exactly revolutionary, but returning to Hanover my sophomore winter and spring, it was fresh on my mind how precious time was. It started with saying yes to neighborhood rollerblading trips and late-night baking extravaganzas. Living in the now also means saying no to extracurriculars and research projects

It was easier said than done, but I remembered to look up and be critical of my once steadfast endeavors. The homework and essays would always be there, and it doesn’t hurt to dance those excursions that will be the most memorable.

On some of the most challenging days of my life, where it felt like there wasn’t enough time in the day to get my work done, taking a beat still helped. Many of those were spent in Robinson Hall working on this very paper. At the end of the night, when walking three minutes to my bed felt like scaling a mountain, I reminded myself to look up. There were more than a few nights where you could’ve found me standing in the middle of West Wheelock street, just appreciating the moon and stars that dotted the night sky. It was like a sign that everything would be okay, because life is so much bigger than what we deal with everyday. Enjoying the moment is almost more important in the thick of it, regardless of how impossible that can feel.

But that brings me to where we are now. Just a few weeks shy of graduation, and I’m feeling all the

excitement and nerves that come with a major transition of leaving the place I’ve called home for the past four years. I’m soaking up this last term and counting all the lasts that are bound to happen over these next few weeks. Add to that: I have no idea where I’m going next.

When friends are searching for their commute to work, my road is a senior spring saying yes to Ice Cream Fore U runs and river dips, and also squeezing in as many cover letters submissions as the day permits. The next part of my path is unmarked. It pains me that imposter syndrome is creeping back into my life, when I recently started winning those battles. In my younger years — and on days now where I feel more insecure — I might ask myself what the point of my Dartmouth education was if I’m likely graduating with no job and no certain path ahead. At least putting one foot in front of the other in high school got me to Dartmouth; now, I don’t have anything to show for it.

But I’m reminded that all the little detours and side quests from my intended path were exactly what made me who I am today. They helped me grow and not only accept the unknown, but embrace it. The point of my Dartmouth was learning to believe in myself, to value my worth and interests enough to know what I want. And that kind of learning was harder and more important than any assignment I had.

This place is far from perfect, but if you look hard enough, there are precious moments and people tucked in every corner. There is too much to do and learn and experience here for Dartmouth just to be something to get through. For all of us who like to shoot for the moon, there’s nothing wrong with setting goals and working towards them; just don’t forget to look up while you’re headed there.

SOPHIE BAILEY/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

Eat Dessert First THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS: Re ections from Graduating Seniors

By Lauren Adler TTLG

It’s a beautiful day in Hanover as I’m writing this — sunny and warm without being sweaty, with just enough puffy white clouds in the sky to be perfectly picturesque. It’s the type of day that reminds me why spring is my favorite season, even though the term begins frozen and muddy. To me, days like this are a symbol that life has returned to Dartmouth and to our community.

That idea of life used to be something that I had come to expect. That’s not to say that I take mine for granted — I am grateful every day for my health, my privilege and my loving family and friends. But I got used to life itself as an experience, not really considering it very carefully. Life was good, but life just … was.

Then, I — along with the other three executive editors — became responsible for deciding whether someone else’s life was adequately captured in 800 to 1,000 words. Many, many times.

During our tenure on the 179th Directorate, The Dartmouth published obituaries for 17 people. Many of them were very young. One was my friend. One shared my first name, giving me the uniquely jarring experience of reading about myself in the past tense. But all of their deaths — old and young, friend and stranger, student, faculty or staff — were difficult in their own way. Truly, there are no words to describe the feeling of opening an email titled “Loss of a Dartmouth Community Member” and adding a new name to the backlog of life stories waiting for publication, or of having to decide which of the three obituaries of the week gets to occupy the prime spot on the front page. How can four 21-year-olds possibly decide which person — which life — is the most deserving?

I am incredibly proud of all 17 of those obituaries, and of all of the writers and editors who came together to support each other and pay tribute to the life stories of so many. They are beautiful, moving tributes, and I hope that they provided some form of com -

fort to the loved ones left behind. Looking back on my four years at The D, of all the many, many types of work I did for the newspaper, managing obituaries has been the most meaningful to me.

As I reflect on my year as executive editor, I think of those 17 names: Donna, Brian, David, Deborah, Richard, Alex, Josh, Sam, Luke, James, Lauren, Steve, Vicki, Dax, Teddy, Chris, Ife. I wonder if they would like what we wrote about them. I hope so.

When someone passes away in the Jewish community, in addition to “rest in peace,” people say “may their memory be a blessing.” And in happier moments, instead of clinking glasses and saying “cheers!” you say “L’Chaim!” — to life. It conveys a sense of celebration, the idea that life can be more than just being alive — it can be joyful. The memories conveyed in our 17 obituaries did turn out to be a blessing: They made me realize that even if I was grateful for the shape my life has taken, I was taking the idea of life itself for granted.

Editing obituaries made me sad and confused and stressed and upset. But that’s life. Walking past Robo on this beautiful spring day and feeling the sun on my face made me happy. That’s life too. I had always known these facts to be true, but before I came to know those 17 life stories, I had never fully appreciated them. I had been used to life as an experience, but our obituaries taught me that I could be excited just to be along for the ride. And for that, to me, their memories will always be a blessing.

This term, I haven’t edited any obituaries — I am retired, after all. But I have been very intentional about appreciating my life and everything it throws at me. When I got sick, I appreciated that my body was telling me it needed time to rest. When it rained and I was stuck inside, I appreciated the opportunity to sit on the couch and hang out with my friends. When I had to run errands and my car was parked on the other side of campus,

I did my best to appreciate the 20-minute walk — and honestly, when I stopped being annoyed about it, I ended up enjoying it. I even appreciated the bad days — at least, I did once they were over — because I knew that they would make the good days to come even

sweeter. My dad has an apron at home from our family’s favorite dessert shop that I’ve thought about a lot this spring. It has a big slice of cake on the front, around which it reads, “Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first.” It’s cute and silly and

maybe a little cheugy as a saying, but it’s not entirely wrong.

So, to all of you reading this who I might not see for a while: Have a nice life. No, really — appreciate it, every fleeting moment, the good and the bad. Revel in its uncertainty. And eat dessert first.

PHOTO COURTESY OF LAUREN ADLER

PHOTO COURTESY OF LAUREN ADLER

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS: Re ections from Graduating Seniors

Living the Golden Rule

the older SAPAs and our trainers when we role-played a scenario in which I supported them through processing their assault. This was when I realized that not everyone is a natural caregiver, and that my words — for some reason — were poignant and comforting.

By Mia Russo STORY

“Treat others how you would like to be treated:” the Golden Rule. This is the first lesson I can remember my parents ingraining in me. I always thought it was pretty self-explanatory: If I would want help or kindness in a situation, then I should provide that same care to someone else — whether they be a complete stranger or my best friend. It was not until I came to Dartmouth that I truly realized not everyone goes through the world with this mindset.

In the first few weeks of freshman fall, I vividly remember taking care of a boy I had never met before as he threw up. I assumed his friends were too drunk to look after him, but when I returned to my floormates later that night, I was asked if I knew him. When I responded that I did not, they asked why I helped him. I was taken aback. If I was alone and throwing up from accidentally over-imbibing, I would hope that some kind classmate would help me — so I stepped in. This is the first time I remember thinking

how odd it is that some people can see their peers in pain and not be pulled to do anything about it.

Since then, I cannot count how many strangers I have taken care of as they got sick — their friends nowhere to be found. And every time this happens, I am shocked. How could anyone leave their friend in this situation? And moreover, how can people just walk by someone in distress and not even check in?

We go to a small college — a small community in which you know everyone within a few degrees of separation. Wouldn’t you want one of your peers to check in if that was you, slumped over a trash can?

Soon after this, we were all sent home for the COVID-19 pandemic. When I returned to the Upper Valley a few months later, I lived off campus in the larger community. I would go to CVS or to the grocery store and various adults would stop me to talk to me. Sometimes, they simply asked me if I had ever tried a product they were curious about. But other times, they told me that their father just died, or that their

daughter was really sick and how it was weighing on them. I would talk to these strangers — leaving them with wishes of hope and healing — and then continue on with my shopping. Sometimes a friend would see me talking to an adult and ask how I know them — or I would tell stories about these interactions, and peers would ask me why I even engage with people I don’t know. I explain that while I don’t initiate any sort of conversation, if a stranger finds my presence comforting, and they want to share something with me, the least I can do is listen. We were going through a pandemic, life was hard enough. It costs me nothing to lend an ear — why was my kindness towards strangers so confusing and looked down upon?

My sophomore spring, I went through training for the Sexual Assault Peer Alliance, where I learned how to provide trauma informed support to survivors of sexual and gender-based violence. I remember being told how impressive I was by one of

The encouragement I received while going through SAPA training was critical in understanding that my care for others — even those I don’t know — was not simply standard human behavior. But at Dartmouth, respect comes from prestige — not kindness. I would spend my days helping others and get asked why I was doing it. I would be told to stop — that they’d be fine, they’d figure it out themselves. With all these comments, I often felt like I was doing something wrong: Maybe I shouldn’t be nice to strangers, maybe I shouldn’t want to support my peers through hard times. But SAPA made me realize that I wasn’t doing something wrong by wanting to help others. Sure, maybe it is abnormal, but that doesn’t inherently mean it’s bad. In fact, maybe it makes me special.

I went on to become the president of SAPA, a both challenging and rewarding experience during which I talked friends and strangers alike through their experiences of being stalked, groped or raped multiple times per week. I dedicated myself to creating spaces where people could feel comfortable sharing their vulnerabilities and fears — and I worked to help them find a little peace in the process. I cannot count how many people I supported in this process, but I can only hope that I made their time here a little bit more positive — and that they will pass on this kindness by showing others the same care. My junior spring, I became the executive editor of production at this very newspaper. Throughout our 36 weeks of production, we edited and published 17 obituaries. We had to approve the news of our friends, peers and professors’ deaths — not once, not twice but 17 times. We lost 17 community members in one year, and what do

we have to show for it? One Day of Caring. An email would come, and given a few exceptions, life here continued on as normal. Classes weren’t canceled, people didn’t check on each other. There was, and still is, little to no time made to mourn the loss of community life.

Without this institutional effort, I made it a personal priority to create spaces for my peers to grieve the loss of other students — and again, I was asked why I was doing this. But this time, instead of feeling like I was doing something wrong, I was confident I was doing something right. Just because I didn’t personally know the student who died, that doesn’t mean their life didn’t matter. They were still my classmates. They were still members of this community. And if I had just lost my friend, I would want a space to be together — to not have to deal with the grief alone. I was proud to provide that space for others as well.

Throughout my senior year here at Dartmouth, I have been told by three individuals that I am part of the reason they are still here today. For one of them, I had no idea that they were in such a dark place. We simply chatted. I was kind. I don’t think I did anything special except listen to them.

You never know the impact you may have.

It took becoming SAPA President for me to gain the confidence to understand that my big heart was not a weakness, but a strength. It was something special about me — a part of myself that I have come to love and appreciate so deeply — and something that I realized I could nurture and grow. Now, I am going to graduate school to get my master’s in clinical mental health counseling — to make a profession out of helping others. So, for any potential or current Dartmouth student reading this, believe in yourself. Trust your gut. Even if it’s abnormal, embrace kindness. Embrace strangers and new relationships. You never know what a little bit of kindness can do.

PHOTO COURTESY OF MIA RUSSO

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS: Re ections from Graduating Seniors

Up North

By Andrew Sasser

I find myself in the midst of a swamp — a bog, if you will. The sun was beating down overhead, and everywhere I turned my feet sank into knee deep water. The path I had been following started as a trail, but the trail I had followed became rougher, steeper, fainter until it faded out of existence. Even though I only had a vague idea of where I was going, I trudged along all the same. I was heading Up North.

My path to Dartmouth — to the moment where I am now, on the cusp of graduation — was similarly arduous. Coming out of high school, I was on top of the world: Dartmouth had always been my dream school. That dream shattered, however, a mere six weeks after high school graduation when my mother lost her battle with esophageal cancer.

In the days following the funeral, I felt empty, sick. My mother was the decisive guiding force in my life, always caring for me, from the moment I cried at my first day of preschool to when I cried over my first college rejection letter. She had dreamed that I would get into a school like Dartmouth one day, and without her, I suddenly found that dream became an enigma. I was moving to New Hampshire — a state that I had only ever been to once before, with no family or friends that I knew of within 200 miles. I contemplated taking a year off to regroup and spend time with family as we tried to cope with the unimaginable.

Despite all the emptiness I was experiencing, I felt that I had to put myself out there and go. If my mother was around, she would push me to go — after all, it had been my dream school. In the weeks that followed, I came to see Dartmouth as an opportunity for a fresh start, a chance to find a new community, even though I had no idea what I was getting into.

Six weeks later, I was boarding a Southwest Airlines flight to Boston.

I again found myself worried and concerned; at that time, Hurricane Dorian was forecast to make landfall in my hometown while I was on my First-Year Trip. Still, I pushed forward, knowing that I shouldn’t let something out of my control dictate my path. Going through Trips not knowing if I was going to turn on my phone to find my hometown destroyed was stressful; seeing that the hurricane turned away brought me a sigh of relief.

I find myself back in the bog. Even though I have a vague sense of where I’m going, I wonder if I made the right choice, going at this alone, to push my limits and my comfort zone. Yet, I trudge on, hoping to see a glimpse of my destination.

Once I got to the first day of 19F, I thought my path at Dartmouth would become clear — I would take a lot of awesome classes, join clubs, make new friends and find a clear community. And for the first two terms of my Dartmouth career, I found something I had been looking for: stability. Sure, I pushed myself a little further than I should have — CHEM 57, “Honors Organic Chemistry” in freshman winter taught me what it was like to be absolutely humiliated by a class — but despite everything, I had a sense of what was coming. Then came the emails. So many emails.

Just as I thought I had found stability again, the hurricane of change, COVID-19, came for everything. Suddenly I found myself thrown back home into my childhood bedroom, separated from friends by thousands of miles. In the world of COVID, nothing seemed certain. Five weeks turned into a term, which turned into not having a normal term at Dartmouth until Fall 2021. In-person meetings were replaced with Zooms; personal connection came through random DMs.

And yet, despite the constant change and uncertainty, I

threw myself into so many new experiences when things became normal again. I took a class on the art history of food; I learned how to use a chainsaw and an ice axe; I wrote a Chem thesis; I played light up frisbee on the Green and skinny-dipped off the Ledyard Docks. Despite all the chaos and scheduled craziness — sometimes it felt like I had no time to explain why I had no time to explain — each of these moments are things I now appreciate.

The truth about my Dartmouth experience is a funny thing. Even though some things were expected, like studying chemistry and becoming involved in the DOC, other things were not. I never

anticipated joining the Timber Team, ice climbing, writing for the News section and even becoming an executive editor of this very paper. These experiences — the things I never would have expected, are some of the things that I have come to cherish the most. Jumping into the unknown, the universe never tells us if we did right or wrong. It’s more important to just try.

I find myself at my destination. The birds around me are chirping; the stream that flows into the bog babbles. The signs around me tell me that I am lost, and yet, I feel that I have found something new, something beautiful, something unexpected.

As I reflect on my Dartmouth experience, now that another whirlwind, Commencement, is upon us, I have come to reflect on what it means to go Up North. To this end, the words of Sam Cook remind me of just how much Dartmouth has changed me.

“Each of us has an up north. It’s a time and place far from the here and now. It’s a map on the wall, a dream in the making, a tugging at one’s soul. For those who feel the tug, who make the dream happen, who put the map in the packsack and go, the world is never quite the same again.” I have been Up North. And part of me always will be.

PHOTO COURTESY OF ANDREW SASSER

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS: Re ections from Graduating Seniors

The Last Glance

By Caris White TTLG

Funnily enough, it wasn’t until I became the editor of Mirror that I actually found out what TTLG stands for. It means “through the looking glass.” And as it turns out, a “looking glass” is just another word for a mirror. What does it mean to look at Dartmouth through the mirror? Who do I see?

In some ways, I can map my time here onto my reflection. I look different. My smile is just a little bit crooked from the time I broke my jaw playing club soccer. My hair has gone from blonde to brown after four years without California sunshine. I dress differently — better, I hope. I have new rings on my fingers, including one with our seal and the year 2023 on it.

But all of the most important parts of my time here don’t show up in my physical reflection. When I think about reflecting on my Dartmouth experience, the image I see in the mirror is only a fraction of it. In fact, when I think about my reflection, I think about articles like this. I’m not sure how many reflections I’ve written for the Mirror at this point — almost too many to count. I’ve written at times when I resented Dartmouth. At times when I was blissfully in love with it. At times when I grieved its failings. At times when all I could do was think about how badly I wished I could be here. And now, at my journey’s bittersweet end.

Time on this campus never seems to move linearly. Even now, I can still feel the intensity of freshman fall. I remember not knowing how to unlock my dorm room because it had a fire door with a secondary lock. It took me at least an hour, sweating in the unairconditioned hallway of first-floor Mid Fay, before one of my floormates finally showed me how to get in.

I remember driving through campus my sophomore fall, feeling a thousand miles away from the life I’d had just months prior. As I sat behind the glass windshield, I stared longingly at the Green

I wasn’t welcome on, sparsely populated by masked newcomers who I wouldn’t get the chance to meet for many months.

I remember laying in my off-campus apartment during sophomore spring, sweating off the beginning of summer. Through my open window, I could hear the careless conversations of seniors walking up West Wheelock after late-night river dips. At the time, my years at Dartmouth seemed endless. There was still so much to look forward to — sophomore summer was just around the corner, and it felt like campus life had just been awoken from its COVID-induced hibernation.

Now, I’m the senior walking up West Wheelock after my daily dip in the river.

A few weeks ago, I found myself walking up that hill on the Friday night of Green Key weekend, after a later-than-usual daily dip. It was unusually foggy, and I had been tempted to do a solo attempt at the Ledyard Challenge, but in the name of safety I decided against it. Also, it would be nice to make it to graduation without a second stint on the Safety and Security pontoon boat.

I wonder if anyone is eavesdropping on my late-night conversations up West Wheelock. Probably not, because I prefer a solo late-night dip. Alone with my thoughts, on foot (not zooming around on my bike), I feel like I finally have the chance to relish in my diminishing number of nights on this campus. The number of times I’ll walk up that ever-tiring hill is probably shockingly small. But as it is with most lasts, I’m not sure I’ll even notice when I finally pass it.

There are the big ones, like the last day of classes, last formal, last assignment turned in and (of course) graduation itself. But the little ones often pass without notice. Have I made my last Foco waffle? Played my last game of pong? (Definitely not). Had the

last passing conversation with a friend? Ordered my last Molly’s marg? Put on my frat shoes for the last time?

If you’ve read my other reflections, you may know that I have a special fondness for my current frat shoes. Almost as if they’d been waiting for it, the week after I wrote that article, they finally got a hole. It’s just a little one — and not in the sole — but it was a bittersweet reminder that the end was near. Now, as I write my final article with less than two weeks until graduation, it feels like the end has really come.

Throughout my time here, I have been in love, heartbroken, joyful, dejected, chosen and

understood. I have been a leader and I have been led, by peers and elders alike. Dartmouth gave me so many people to look up to, and now they are mostly gone, graduated. Soon, I will be too. So as I type this from inside the quiet walls of 1902, I can’t help but think about the people who encouraged me to write, who told me I was good enough, who gave me my first byline and showed me the path by walking it themselves.

My girlfriend gave me a journal for my birthday a few weeks ago, and it’s funny that such a little leather-bound book could mark the end of an era. Sharing my thoughts with all of you has been a part of Dartmouth that I didn’t

know I needed until I had it. I didn’t realize how much I’d miss writing for the Mirror until now, at last, it’s time to let it go. After this article, the rest of my thoughts will go into my little leather book. But what’s written here will stay. Snippets of conversations that have been captured, memories preserved in digital amber. As I peer through the looking glass one more time, I only see me. In the mirror, I see a girl who is a little taller, a little braver and a little smarter for her time here. In all of my words and thoughts and stories, I hope you can see her. And just maybe, I hope you see a little bit of yourself too.

PHOTO COURTESY OF CARIS WHITE

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS: Re ections from Graduating Seniors

Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me

By Meghan Powers

Anyone who knows me can probably tell you how much I love getting the last word. Among the more charming manifestations of this personality trait, I’ll always be the last person to tap out of an activity — there is no game of Monopoly too long or boring for me. Both at home and at school, I turn of all the lights every night, because I’m always the last person to go to bed. If it’s an on- night, I’ll probably ask if you’re sure you don’t want to do an Occom loop before we call it a night. And if you think you might ever win a staring contest against me, you’re sorely mistaken. I’ll always be the last person to blink.

I’ve learned to rely on other people to tell me when enough is enough. When I was younger, my mom had to wait until I was sleeping over at a friend’s house to switch my childhood duvet cover from its tattered purple daisies, because she knew I wouldn’t have approved if I’d been around to veto the change. I was mad, but she was right — moms often are. I love the last word, but I don’t like change, and I don’t like endings.

Writing this TTLG, my ofcial last word on my Dartmouth experience, it has occurred to me that I am once again facing an ending that I didn’t choose. I’ve achieved most of the things I expected out of college: I’ve fnished my major and my minor, and my tenure as an editor of Mirror at The Dartmouth. I’ve written a thesis, studied abroad and learned French in Paris, read a few hefty novels and met people I’ll chase across the globe if it means I’ll get to call them my friends a few decades from now. All of that has amounted to no insignifcant chunk of time. And yet I fnd myself unprepared. If I could quantify that feeling, I’d be able to fgure out how much emotional catch-up I need to achieve in the next two weeks so I’ll be ready to say goodbye. I can’t, though, so I just have to watch the days pass.

I’ve never been ready for anything to end, so this is just a highmagnitude iteration of the crisis I

have every time the sun goes down. I recently found a diary entry I wrote a couple of years ago, when I’d accidentally adopted a nocturnal lifestyle. Over and over again, I stayed up until sunrise and felt awful the next day. I wrote that I wished that I could do an experiment where I could stop the sun from coming up and see how long I could go just being awake at night, unburdened by the sun or my schedule. How many movies would I watch? How many books would I read before I decided I was ready to go to sleep?

I can’t even let one day end. How can I pack up my room and leave Dartmouth when there’s so much left to do? I’ve been a student for so long, almost 19 years, but I still need more time to wake up earlier and go for longer walks, or get six diferent degrees in diferent majors, spend more time with my friends and skim fewer readings. Time is such a luxury, and time at Dartmouth even more so. There is nothing more decadent than getting to choose how to spend it.

These past four years, I’ve cemented myself as the Goldilocks of the space-time continuum by savoring the moments where I know I’m neither too close to the beginning nor the end of something — somewhere in the middle is just right. I love the middle section of a novel, the second chorus in my favorite song — “Linger” by the Cranberries — and weeks four and fve of the term. Sometimes I stop counting after that.

I want to feel time stretching out like a big, lazy cat. I even love the ridiculously long wait for the walk signal at the four-way crosswalk between the Green and Hanover Main Street. I love being forced to stop and feel the seconds move past me in real time, unlike watching a lecture at two-times speed or trying to turn a 13-minute walk to class into a 10-minute one. Have you ever taken the time at the crosswalk to look around at all the people at all four corners, waiting to cross the street? This is such a small campus,

but there are always people I don’t recognize.

My dad has taken to telling my siblings and I that we are “time billionaires,” which is a term some vaguely infuential man in fnance coined to describe people likely to live another 31 years — AKA, one billion seconds. I think about the seconds slipping away like grains of sand and I remember when someone told me in elementary school told me that every grain of salt you eat takes one second of of your life. I didn’t even really comprehend death and didn’t know anyone who had died, but I knew enough to understand that time was precious and that everyone wanted more of it.

I know what it feels like to have too much sugar or too much to drink, but I’ve never had too much time doing something I love. I’m a time glutton, enriched by every second I spend smelling the wet grass in the rain while dashing between Sanborn and West Wheelock and every person I smile at on my way to somewhere else. I take refuge in the fact that life is long. People like to say “life is short” as an encouragement for risk-taking, but your net worth in seconds — need I remind you — might be north of two billion.

So as my last word to end all the words I’ve written and rewritten throughout my time at The D, that is what I have to say: Life is long.

The same girl whose favorite holiday was Thanksgiving — because she got to keep her lamp on as late as she wanted — is now dragging her heels at the thought that graduation is rapidly approaching. But I’m not dreading the end, only wishing I could slow down a little. I know what a privilege it is to like where you are and what you’re doing, and I’m too afraid of overstaying my welcome to try to pretend that I’ll be 22 forever. Life is long. One day I’ll be 75 and I’ll get to remember what 22 felt like. I might even still be a time billionaire, depending on where technology gets us by then. Life is long and I’ll miss Dartmouth, but there’s so much left to do.

Advice From the Class of 1973 to the Class of 2023

By Selin Hos STORY

The Dartmouth reached out to members of the Class of 1973, Dartmouth’s frst co-ed class, to ask them for advice for the graduating Class of 2023. Here is what they wrote, 50 years after their own Commencement ceremony.

Howard Reiss, former lawyer, now arbitrator, mediator and writer (Valley Cottage, NY): Your true religion should always be kindness. However old you are, it’s never too late to make a change and follow your dreams.

Jim Fleischer, lawyer (Bethesda, MD): Sometimes, it’s important to sit and think. Sometimes, it’s important to just sit.

Reed Greene, lawyer (Boerne, TX): My advice is, be fexible. Have a hobby to get your mind of work. Some of the best advice is what Polonius advised his son, Laertes, in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”: “Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. / Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, / Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel, / But do not dull thy palm with entertainment / Of each new-hatched, unfedged courage … This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man” (Shakespeare 1.3.67-86).

George Wolohojian, director at U.S. Department of Veterans Afairs (Derwood, MD):

Be present, active and engaged with others. Get out into nature. Stop, be quiet, listen. Ask questions of others to afrm and learn from them. If you do, you’ll eventually share yourself, but begin by being present, face-to-face with those you meet. Appreciate all you can from the places you go. And be optimistic. My favorite old t-shirt has an image of a drinking glass that reads “half-full.”

Howard Bad Hand, education and economic development director for the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, spiritual and culturalcoach andconsultant(Taos,NM): I’ve learned from people around the world that everyone is looking to do the right thing except those who intend evil. Keep your actions in virtue, and you’ll live a good life.

Donna Bascom, lawyer, executive and flm producer, (New York, NY): Life is not a continuous line of good things coming to good people who work hard. Stuf always happens and it blindsides

us when it does. Just be resilient and roll with it; setbacks can enlighten your lives.

Try to accept doing something less than perfect; this will bring you a more balanced life.

Stay connected to the people you care about and lose the ones who don’t enhance your life.

Valerie Armento, semi-retired local government lawyer (San Mateo, CA): Greet each day with optimism. Live with and for a purpose bigger than yourself so the world is better for you having been part of it. Engage in small acts of kindness without expectation of reward or recognition. End each day with gratitude.

When I was a student, an axiom was that at Dartmouth people “worked hard, played hard(er).” I did then and I still do (well, maybe not quite so hard)!

Jan Seidler Ramirez, curator (New York, NY):

If you are lucky enough, follow a career that lets you continue to learn, in which you can stay humble and respect the many perspectives that animate this big world. If you can’t fnd this through work, look for other means of life-long learning through volunteer work or education. Your Dartmouth experience has likely helped you become more compassionate and curious, a better human being. This journey is never ending. It’s a gift to get up every day and be interested in the world, listen and learn from others, love people and be loved back.

Doug Noll, former lawyer-turnedprofessional peacemaker (CA): Learn how to listen to emotions, not words. This is the foundational skill of life and builds instant trust, loyalty, rapport and intimacy. You will become the leader everyone wants to follow.

Robert Haynes, construction, real estate brokerage and development, Green Mountain Economic Development Corporation (Norwich, VT):

Appreciate the great fortune of living and studying at Dartmouth. You are the benefciaries of more than 250 years of work by those who came before you. You may never again be surrounded by such a diverse and talented group of people. Stay optimistic, committed and get to know people as you venture out; folks get to do things because they know someone.

Kate Stith-Cabranes, Lafayette S. Foster Professor of Law at Yale Law School (New Haven, CT):

The country is in a very difcult state, the world is in a difcult state. Maybe it has always felt this way, but it just seems worse than before. In the rest of our lives, I want us to be strong, to stand up for what we believe in. I don’t want us to just go along with the crowd. I want us, just as I want my students, to be independent thinkers and doers. I tell my students: Get your faces out of your cell phones. You can go out and make a diference, or you can sit around and not make waves. I encourage them: You don’t have to be famous or a big shot, you just have to work to make the world a better place.

Tyrone Byrd, Texas Commerce Bank, Citibank, Texaco/Chevron, oil and gas entrepreneur (Houston, TX): Get on the cutting edge of diversity, equity and inclusion. Help the political divide go away. We can’t depend on the President or the political parties for this; we have to do it ourselves.

Robert Rosenblum, certifed public accountant, entrepreneur and business owner, (Naples, FL): Persevere, roll up your sleeves, work passionately on anything you choose to work on. That makes a huge diference. Do the hard work. Be committed and put in the energy. Almost anything rewarding hasthesecomponents.Onlytheindividual can decide how much they will put in. Also, be fexible with the path life takes you on. As a freshman, I had no idea what I was going to study. I became motivated when I found the woman of my dreams and needed a career to support us. We lived a lean but good life, and I had to work hard for a long time before success came at 50.

Karen Fagin White, attorney (Atlanta, GA):

You have a long road ahead. Don’t be afraid to fail, get out of your comfort zone and pursue your passions. Now is the time; there’s no better time in your life than as you graduate.

DanHall, private practice lawyer, Ofce of U.S. Congressman Ron Mazzoli, House of Representatives Subcommittee on the District of Columbia, University of Louisville (Louisville, KY):

I attended Dartmouth during a period of growing hope, optimism and opportunity. Students of my generation benefted from the hard work and struggles of previous generations.

Sadly, we live now in a world that’s too self-serving. I don’t sense optimism. I fret

over the direction the world is heading, the kind of world my grandchildren and great grandchildren will inherit. The history of human progress reminds us that each generation inherits seemingly monumental challenges. But history also tells us that, more often than not, each generation rises to meet these trials. You should know that democracy is messy, under the best of circumstances. And it is becoming even more challenging as we become an increasingly diverse and pluralistic society. Sadly, some people want democracy only on their terms, but ahealthydemocraticsociety requires giveand-take. So, appreciate the values others hold and strive for the greater good.

I encourage the Class of 2023 to give it your all to resolve today’s complex problems and make our country a more perfect union. Pursue activities with global impact, as the world’s problems are interwoven.

Stand strong, believe in yourself, don’t forsake the truth. Be the agent, the facilitator of a better future. Don’t be consumed with power. Live with integrity. Feel confdent that Dartmouth has equipped you to pursue all this.

Jerry Birch, corporate positions with Standard Oil, Buckeye Health Plan, PWC, entrepreneur and business owner, pastor with Abundant Grace Fellowship, Cleveland Cavaliers Player’s chaplain (Cleveland, OH): Remember that God is always more concerned with who you’re becoming than what you’re accomplishing.

Charles Box, private law practice, Rockford Legal director, City administrator and Mayor, Illinois Commerce Commission, American Natural Gas (Rockford, IL):

In the past few years, we’ve faced huge problems — war, recession, pandemic, political turmoil, migration and others. Dartmouth alumni and professors have played crucial roles helping resolve many of these — including alumnae Timothy Geithner and Hank Paulson, and Jason McLellan at Geisel Medical School. We expect you to use all you’ve learned at Dartmouth to help resolve future crises — local, national, international.

MichaelWinn,founderof HealingTao University and qigong and meditation teacher (Asheville, NC): Graduates usually focus frst on their career. Be aware this is only one part of life. Initial choice can easily change as you matureanddeeper passions surface.What

ultimately has more lasting importance is your spiritual path. This is also a process of exploration that goes beyond adopting pre-packaged religious beliefs. Those will only take you halfway. I explored over a dozen paths before I realized I was a “Free-and-Easy Wandering Taoist” in the vein of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu. Most don’t attain “the Great Oneness” because they don’t bother to seek it. It seems too far away, what’s the practical beneft? Time is an illusion, your life will pass in what seems like the blink of an eye. Your bank account and career will turn to dust, forgotten. Only your love of life and creativity will be transferred into the Great Beyond.

Blessings on Your Creative and Loving Way.

James T. Kloppenberg, Charles Warren research professor of American history at Harvard University: Dear Class of 2023, You face a world even worse than the world we faced in 1973. At least our elected ofcials in the Senate and the House had the integrity to stand up for the rule of law. You enter a world in which not even that basic principle can be taken for granted. One party places its own falsehoods, and those of a disgraced president, above the truth and above the law. The world is again at war.

The disastrous war in Ukraine is a reminder that autocrats choose their own perceived interests over everything else—no matter how many people die. Our own nation is being held hostage by a merciless gun lobby that values profts over people and has convinced much of our citizenry that their only defense is military-grade weapons that should never be used outside a battlefeld. And of c ourse there’s climate change, which threatens the survival of island nations and ocean-front communities, again because we value proft more than people.

Your generation is facing challenges even greater than those we faced. It will be up to you to stand up for the values you learned at Dartmouth and do your best to make this nation, and this world, a better place than it is now. Your graduation from Dartmouth marks you as a person whom some Americans will malign as part of an “elite” that does not share their values. Whatever your own politics, you must stand up for free inquiry, the pursuit of truth and justice, which are fundamental not only to higher education but to the future of our nation and our world. Vox Clamantis in Deserto.

Class of 2023: Senior Survey

BY Allison Burg

For the eighth consecutive year, The Dartmouth conducted a survey recording the opinions and experiences of Dartmouth’s graduating class. Since arriving at Dartmouth in 2019, the Class of 2023 has experienced four years defned by substantial change, experiencing two presidencies and national elections, disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the loss of multiple classmates. The following four sections canvas the Class of 2023’s views on campus issues, student life, national and local politics and postgraduation plans.

Campus Issues

The Class of 2023 holds generally negative views of the College, though slightly less negative than preceding class years. 72% of the class has an unfavorable or somewhat unfavorable view of administration, compared to 74% last year and 83% for the Class of 2021. Nonetheless, this disapproval of administration is still elevated from pre-COVID numbers, which were 54% and 57% for the Class of 2020 and 2019, respectively.

As College President Phil Hanlon prepares to step down and COVID-19 regulations dissipate, views regarding his presidency have drastically improved — while views regarding Provost David Kotz and Dean of the College Scott Brown have remained stagnant. Hanlon’s net favorability rating increased by 18 percentage points from last year, up from 19% to 37%. Although 41% of the class holds unfavorable views of the College

President, this number is also down from 60% last year. Meanwhile, Kotz and Brown are rated more favorably compared to Hanlon, which is consistent with prior class years. Kotz holds a 41% favorability rating, down from 46% last year, and Brown holds 55% net approval, up from 50% last year. Yet, while 9% of the Class of 2022 viewed Brown unfavorably, this year’s class has stronger opinions, with 17% rating Brown unfavorably.

The senior class is divided on some college administrative policies, while largely consistent on others. Views on Campus Safety & Security are evenly split, with 35% of the class viewing it unfavorably versus 36% viewing it favorably. The Class

of 2023 views the Greek system favorably, which is consistent with prior class years, at 55% favorable and 32% unfavorable. However, among unafliated seniors, only 18% hold favorable views of the Greek system while 68% hold unfavorable views. The housing community system remains unfavorable, at an unfavorability rate of 60%. College faculty continue to be a beloved group in the eyes of seniors — 96% of the Class of 2023 reported favorable ratings, a slight increase from last year’s 95% approval rating.

Dartmouth Dining Services — with a year marked by the opening of The Class of 1953 Commons After Dark and rising dining prices

— is viewed unfavorably by seniors, with a 63% disapproval rating. Still, views of Dartmouth Dining have improved, compared to 72% of the Class of 2022 holding unfavorable views. This positive shift may be in part due to Dartmouth Student Government, which worked directly with Dartmouth Dining to facilitate a late-night dining option for students. Student Government favorability among seniors — formerly known as Student Assembly — has seen a dramatic increase of 39 percentage points in favorability, from 36% of last year’s graduating class viewing it favorably to a whopping 75% of this year’s class.

As one of the few classes to have experienced both a pre- and postpandemic Dartmouth, the Class of 2023 holds extremely negative views regarding the response to COVID-19 on campus. Even as nearly all regulations have been lifted, this year’s ratings saw a sharp decrease in favorable views of the College’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. A majority of seniors — 80% — reported being either somewhat or extremely dissatisfed with the College’s response to the pandemic, while 20% reported satisfaction.

46% of the Class of 2022 registered somewhat or extreme dissatisfaction with the pandemic response, and 59% of the Class of 2021 reported being dissatisfed — meaning that the lowest approval ratings of the response to the pandemic come from the current graduating seniors.

The Class of 2023 remains satisfed overall with the College’s attention and resources dedicated to sexual violence prevention: 68% report either being extremely or somewhat satisfed, while the rest are dissatisfed. This satisfaction has increased compared to prior class years, with a notable 35% satisfaction rate of the Class of 2022 and with the

Class of 2021 reporting a satisfaction rate of 50%. Among graduating selfidentifying woman, their satisfaction still outweighs past years, with 62% being extremely or somewhat satisfed with the College’s attention to sexual violence prevention.The re-opening of the Student Wellness Center on the frst foor of Baker-Berry Library may be partially responsible for this increase, with 37% of seniors reporting occasional or often use of the space.

In looking at student wellness, the Class of 2023 is almost evenly split regarding the College’s allocation of resources for mental health — 52% reported being either extremely or somewhat dissatisfed and 48% reported satisfaction. These views are an extreme contrast to prior years — the Class of 2022 reported 91% dissatisfaction and the Class of 2021 reported 70% dissatisfaction. Although the Class of 2023 still mourns the recent losses of their classmates Sam Gawel ’23 and Vasudha Thakur ’23, the split may come from DSG’s initiatives in providing expanded access to teletherapy and mindfulness apps.

Views on the overall Dartmouth educational experience have also remained positive. A notable 92% of seniors identify as being extremely or somewhat satisfied with their Dartmouth education, a slight decrease from the 94% of the Class of 2022. Despite this high level of satisfaction, the 48% of the Class of 2023 who considered themselves likely to donate to the College in the future is an 8% decrease from the Class of 2022’s 56%.

Student Life Academics continue to be a focal point of the College for Dartmouth seniors. 93% found academics and/or research to be either a very important or important aspect of

JOHN D’AVANZO/THE DARTMOUTH

SABIN HART/THE DARTMOUTH

The Dartmouth asked members of the Class of 2023 to describe their Dartmouth experience in one word. This word cloud shows the results.

their experience at Dartmouth. Social life was a close second, with 90% answering that it was important or very important, followed by extracurricular activities at 75%, Greek life at 60%, Dartmouth traditions at 56%, paid employment at 48% and outdoor activities at 43%. Somewhat less important for members of the Class of 2023 were study abroad programs at 32%, club and/or intramural sports at 16% and afnity/religious groups at 16%. Least important were varsity sports at 11%, political groups at 9% and house communities at 4%.

The graduating class overwhelmingly indicated their care for academics, with 98% indicating that academic interest was somewhat or very important in selecting their major. 69% found post-graduation careers to be a very or somewhat important factor in major selection, which is a notable decrease from 94% for the Class of 2022. Some members of the Class of 2023 also reported considering parental and familial pressure, as well as ease, in choosing their majors, at 16% and 11% respectively.

The members of the Class of 2023 stayed busy on their of-terms throughout their time at Dartmouth, which is consistent with past class years. Most held a paid or unpaid internship — 71% and 38% respectively — while 35% were employed in a nonintern/research position, and 30% engaged in volunteer/non-profit work. Lesser numbers engaged in paid employment, Dartmouth-sponsored programs or travel: 29%, 26% and 25%, respectively. Travel during an of-term is at a notable decrease from the Class of 2022 at 38%, which is likely a side efect of the pandemic.

Dartmouth is a college steeped in tradition. When asked which of the fve key Dartmouth traditions — First-Year Trips, Homecoming, Winter Carnival, Green Key and sophomore summer — were the most

important for students, sophomore summer was the most important at 79%. Although sophomore summer has been commonly important to seniors since The Dartmouth began conducting the senior survey in 2015, this year’s high percentage is in stark contrast to last year’s 31% for the Class of 2022 — likely due to that class’s primarily virtual sophomore summer. Green Key and First-Year Trips followed at 58% and 52%, respectively. Homecoming trailed at 49%, with Winter Carnival placing last as just 29% of graduating seniors found it to be important or very important.

One Dartmouth tradition that routinely receives attention is the Dartmouth Seven, a set of seven locations where students are challenged to engage in sexual activity. 31% of students reported completing at least one of the Dartmouth Seven, down from previous years — 42% and 35% for the Classes of 2022 and 2021, respectively. Among those who reported completing any of the Seven, the most popular sites were the Baker-Berry Stacks at 73% and BEMA at 61%. The center of the Green and Hanlon’s lawn followed at 29% and 27%, respectively. 22% reported completing the Top of the Hop and 20% reported the steps of Dartmouth Hall. Only 7% claimed that they completed at least one of the seven at the 50-yard line of Memorial Field.

Similar to past years, Greekafliated students reported completing any of the Seven at a higher rate than unafliated students, in which 66% of the students that reported completing the Seven were afliated. There was an even split between fraternity and sorority members that completed the Seven, with one Gender-inclusive Greek house member and the rest unafliated.

The Class of 2023 also resembles previous classes in terms of relationships. 28% of seniors reported

39% reported never having used any other drugs or substances.

that they did not date anyone at Dartmouth. The plurality, 39%, reported dating one person; 19% reported dating two people and 12% reported dating three or more people. 38% of this year’s seniors reported becoming sexually active for the frst time at Dartmouth, consistent with the 36% of last year’s seniors. 38% report having engaged in sexual activity before Dartmouth, down from 50% last year; the remaining 27% report never having engaged in sexual activity at all, up from 13%.

The Class of 2023 also resembles previous classes in terms of alcohol and drug usage. 23% of seniors reported drinking for the frst time at Dartmouth, 62% reported drinking before Dartmouth and the remaining 15% reported having never drank alcohol at all. With regards to drug use, 33% of seniors reported using some drug or substance for the frst time at Dartmouth, 29% reported having used drugs before Dartmouth, while

Among those who did drugs while at Dartmouth, marjuana was the drug of choice, with 75% having used it at some point during their time in college. Other drugs had much lower usage rates among those who reported using drugs: 37% reported having used tobacco or mushrooms, LSD or other hallucinogens, 28% reported having used cocaine, 26% reported having used nicotine or whippets, 15% reported having used cocaine or ketamine and 13% reported having used non-prescription medication. In terms of culinary preferences, members of the Class of 2023 preferred Collis Cafe, with 43% ranking it as their favorite Dartmouth Dining Service location. The Class of 1953 Commons and Courtyard Cafe were also popular, with 24% and 22% of seniors ranking these as their frst choice, respectively. Less popular was Novack Cafe, which was ranked by 6% of the graduating class as their favorite dining location. Both The Fern and Cafe@Baker were least popular, each ranked as the favorite dining location of 2% of the class.

This survey also inquired about whether or not members of the Class of 2023 contracted COVID-19 while residing on campus or locally in the Upper Valley. A majority — 42% — reported that they did not contract COVID-19 in the Upper Valley, while 34% reported that they contracted COVID-19 only once. Among students that contracted COVID-19 at least once, 63% of students were afliated with a fraternity, sorority or gender-inclusive Greek house — a drop from the 73% of afliated students last year and more on par with the 60% of students who are afliated with Greek life at Dartmouth.

Politics

The Class of 2023 began at Dartmouth during a very politically

charged time, and this polarization has continued. Their freshman year began with the impeachment of former President Donald Trump as well as the tail end of the Trump administration, the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and widespread Black Lives Matter protests in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. The following year was marked by the election of President Joe Biden, and the efort of former President Donald Trump to overturn the election results leading his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. In their third year, the Russian invasion of Ukraine also marked a pivotal shift from the preceding years. Domestically, this class year has also witnessed the overturn of Roe v. Wade and many demonstrations of gun violence.

Faced with a series of trying years, seniors are not optimistic about the future: over 60% thought that things in the United States are “of on the wrong track,” while 17% thought things were “headed in the right direction.” Although there is still a stark majority that believe the country is not in a favorable place, there is a notable increase in optimism from last year’s Class of 2022, in which only 6% indicated the country was heading in the “right direction.” Seniors keep up with the news at Dartmouth, with 82% of the senior class reporting being extremely or somewhat likely to be aware of domestic and world news while at college.

Similar to previous classes, the majority of seniors identify as liberal: 39% describe themselves as very liberal and 34% describe themselves as somewhat liberal. About 14% of the Class of 2023 holds moderative views, whereas 8% identify as somewhat conservative and 3% identify as very conservative. The senior’s political views did not appear to change much over their time at Dartmouth. When asked about their political views pre-Dartmouth,

DESIGNER: ALLISON BURG

as having liberal views, with 68% reporting either somewhat or very liberal views, 15% holding moderate views and 15% holding conservative views. 68% of the senior class reported that all or most of their closest friends share their political beliefs, while 28% said some, 4% said few and no one stated that none shared similar or the same political beliefs.

Considering the majority liberal views of the class, it is unsurprising that seniors generally viewed liberalleaning institutions more positively than conservative ones. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala who received a net positive favorability rating, with 61% of seniors reporting favorable views of Biden and 53% of Harris. Seniors seem split on the Democratic Party, as 48% reported positive views while 35% reported unfavorable views. In contrast, favorability of the Republican Party it favorably while 83% registered negative views. Former President Donald Trump received the lowest net favorability by this year’s seniors, with 7% reporting favorable views

Dartmouth students continue to view the other two branches of the federal government unfavorably. In wake of the midterm elections and upcoming 2024 election campaign, 11% view Congress favorably and 57% view it unfavorably. In wake of the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, controversy regarding Justice Clarence Thomas and the overturn of Roe v. Wade, 11% of seniors view the Supreme Court favorably, while 63% disapprove.

On a more local scale, the New Hampshire state government is generally unpopular among seniors — although notably less in wake of the 2022 midterm elections — with 16% of the Class of 2023 reporting favorable views while 33% hold unfavorable views. Similarly, New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu, a Republican, polled at 16% favorable and 44% unfavorable. The Town of Hanover received 17% positive views and 53% negative views from this graduating class.

Wall Street also remains disliked by seniors, with 14% reporting favorable views and 54% reporting unfavorable views. Among the 27% of seniors working in consulting or Wall Street — notably higher than the majority of seniors but lower than the 56% of last year’s seniors working in views.

Post-Graduation Plans

Upon graduation, the majority of the Class of 2023 will join the workforce, with 64% reporting that they plan to work immediately after Dartmouth. The second largest group

planning to attend graduate, medical or law school comprise 16%, 7% and 3% of the class, respectively. 7% of seniors remained undecided about their post-graduate plans at the time of the survey, with 2% planning to travel upon graduation. Compared to the Class of 2022, there is a notable 13% decrease in those looking to enter the workforce immediately after graduation.

Consulting, technology, most popular industries for seniors headed directly to the workforce.

consulting at 23%, closely followed by technology/engineering with 22% fields among this year’s seniors include academia/research at 12% and government/politics at 6%.

Compared to the Class of 2022, there was a slight decrease by three percent in technology/engineering jobs postgraduation, with a simultaneous increase in academia/research by four percentage points.

Nonetheless, these distributions

in terms of long-term career goals. Perhaps most notably, only 3% of seniors want to work in the year’s 10 years from now. Still, 8% intend

long term are academia/research and

health both at 15% and technology/ engineering at 12%. Only 7% want to pursue either public service/nonin the long term, which is a major decline from last year’s 28% for both seniors in the long term are health at 15% and education, self-employment or publishing/media each at 7%, respectively, of the graduating class.

In terms of anticipated annual starting salaries, 37% of this year’s seniors entering the workforce expect to make more than $100,000 annually, and another 26% anticipate making between $75,000-$100,000. 23% expect to make between $50,000 and $75,000 and 14% anticipate making below $50,000. This distribution average salary for college graduates, which is about $55,000, according to a recent National Association of Colleges and Employers salary survey. The Class of 2023’s salaries seems to be driven by the industries that they choose to work in. 67% of those going salaries of over $100,000. Similarly, 61% going into consulting and 53% of those going into technology/ engineering reported annual starting salaries of over $100,000. No seniors

below $50,000. In contrast, no seniors surveyed going into government/ politics or education reported starting

salaries above $75,000.

Geographically, most of this year’s seniors will remain in the U.S., while about 6% will move abroad — a

Among those moving abroad, the majority will head to Europe (4%), with less than 2% of students moving to Australia/Oceania or South America. Within the U.S., New York and Massachusetts remain the top two states in which seniors will land at 34% and 18%, respectively. Other popular jurisdictions include California at 11%, Illinois at 7% and both Virginia and Maryland at not included as a state in this year’s iteration of the survey.) While only 5% plan to remain in New Hampshire, a higher 11% plan to remain in the Upper Valley in the short-term.

74% of the Class of 2023 anticipates graduating with no debt. Among those graduating with debt, 18% anticipate graduating with less than $10,000, and 24% with

Despite the Call to Lead campaign — which eliminated loans in the

undergraduate students — 40% of the seniors graduating with debt still anticipate between $20,000 and with more than $40,000 in debt.

policies — where 56% of middle familial income students (family incomes between $50,000 and $200,000) are not graduating in debt. Meanwhile, 77% of students whose families make less than $50,000 will graduate with no debt and 85% of students with family incomes of over $200,000 will graduate with no debt. 35% indicated that they will their parents following graduation, while the remaining 65% will not. Again, students from higher income backgrounds are more likely to receive incomes below $50,000 expect to receive assistance, while 48% of students with family incomes above $200,000 expect to receive assistance.

Methodology Notes:

From Wednesday, May 17 to Wednesday,

TRACY WEENER/THE DARTMOUTH