Imagine the possibilities: A whole bunch of students sitting around in the same room discussing common academic interests. Oh right, you’re in class. Imagine a whole bunch of similarly socialized students spending lots of quality time with each other in the same house. Oh right, you’re in a fraternity. Now imagine you’re sitting around with a group of students who all believe in a proactive lifestyle, who all believe in the power of change through personal choice, and who all are leaders in their own communities. Oh right, you were at Parkhurst two Fridays ago.

Sadly, speak-outs like this grace Dartmouth every few years, while classes usually meet two or three times a week, while fraternity houses have weekly meetings and become the ultimate social nexus every weekend. Among the numerous sub-cultures at Dartmouth are social, academic, cultural and service-oriented communities. There has yet to emerge, however, a group of students (and administrators, staff and faculty) unique in their common interests of proactivity and leadership. So far no common language or shared experience has developed to link this type of student to a larger and like-minded community. Such students do exist at this school-I know a lot of them; but most don’t know each other, or perhaps, don’t recognize each other.

The lesson from that Friday was not that visionary student leaders do in fact exist in Hanover. The lesson was that specific issues are only ostensible barriers between these leaders. We learned that personal and community change, leadership and vision can be enough to bring people together for a shared language and shared experiences: the brick and mortar of a community.

What’s the name of your group? Can I get on your blitz list? When are your weekly meetings? Who is your president? What’s your issue? That’s not the point, I keep telling these people. The agenda is my way of life, the meetings are every day over lunch or tea, the blitz list is all my friends. Our lives are shaped by our environment: the buildings, the experiences and the people. Dartmouth offers (arguably) a variety of environments to choose from, and from these choice we are taking small steps to shape our own lives.

Numerous college affinity houses exist now on campus to promote a variety of interests that are not primarily social (i.e. Greek houses): Spanish language, African-American learning, and cooperative living, among others. A house of "change agents" does not yet exist. I envision a place where friendships are made and cultivated not because of skin color, ethnicity or sports team status, but by a fundamental human desire to grasp the world by its horns and battle every day to steer it in a new direction. Leadership and vision are enough to bring people together.

This is the answer to the "next day." When enough Dartmouth students realize that change does not happen in committee or on a regularly scheduled basis, and when we realize that change is a lifestyle, one in need of a community for support, only when we realize these things, activism at Dartmouth will become the status quo, and we will have a community of leaders more vibrant and more dynamic than any student life initiative, trustee or student could imagine.