EST
Diversity Peer Program (DPP) $mdash; Just do it. Whether you already know everything, don’t know anything, or especially if you don’t care, DPP will change your life and how you look at the world around you and not in that hokey, touchy-feely way, either.
Office of Admissions $mdash; Quite possibly one of the best ways to impact Dartmouth. Guiding tours does wonders for public speaking skills. Although the exact amount of influence you have is debatable, the Senior Interviewer program is one of the most intriguing jobs on campus—a true gem in the bureaucratic mess that is Dartmouth.
Departmental Hiring Committees $mdash; Meet and possibly interview new professors; particularly beneficial if you’re interested in pursuing a career in high education. However, your ability to get involved with these and the degree to which your input is considered, if at all, depends on the department.
Mentors $mdash; Formal or informal, professor or peer, try to have one and try to be one. After all, someone has to take over when you graduate or when your D-plan is calling.
The Hopkins Center $mdash; Even the least jaded activists need to take some time off. From the Dartmouth Film Series to the student workshops (jewelry, woodshop, and pottery studios) to amazing performing arts opportunities, this should be on everyone’s “take advantage of before graduating” list.
WORST
Apathy/ignorance $mdash; Self explanatory and a mass pandemic. The question is: is this better or worse than the below?
People who claim/pretend/think that they “get diversity” but really don’t $mdash; Just because someone is of a certain ethnicity/gender/sexuality/religion/ability doesn’t mean that he or she involved in that community. And if you are of a certain “historically underrepresented group,” you don’t need to be the president of an organization or the community intern to prove that you understand diversity, so long as you don’t ignore your heritage.
Dean of the Faculty Office/bureaucratic bullshit/“the process” $mdash; The former is the champion of the latter two. Also, see above “worsts.”
Green Key Society $mdash;While I understand its traditional value, it’s devolved into quite possibly one of the most useless groups ever. To this day, I’m still meeting people who were purportedly in my Green Key delegation, and I’ve never seen them before. Ever.
Meetings $mdash; Ever consider that this influx of programming and student organizations is actually keeping us from actually getting anything done?
Culture nights $mdash; These need to die. There’s no way of accurately depicting an entire culture in two hours. Not that groups shouldn’t try, but the burden of representation and education often serves to burn out minority communities and channel away leadership and resources that would be better used elsewhere.
JURY’S STILL OUT
Palaeopitus Senior Society $mdash; What do you get when you put a group of twenty “leaders” from all over the Dartmouth campus in one room with the support and open pockets of the administration? General chaos and a lack of productivity.
The Senior Thesis $mdash; Yes, you’ll have a true culminating experience, get to know a professor really well, and can get access to school funds to do what you want (even if that’s hanging out in strip clubs in San Francisco and interviewing sex workers!). But don’t do it unless you’re really excited about your topic and are willing to sign over your ability to enjoy your senior year.
THE FINAL WORD…
On activism
and diversity
Why do I go to school with people, who, after four years, still think that diversity means including someone from the crew team and the lacrosse team?
Why do I feel like Dartmouth should be paying me for all the work I do here and not the other way around?
Why can’t I be happy with the way things are? Why do I feel the need to change everything?
The other day, someone asked me how I turned out how I did. Lord knows it’s not because my parents encouraged me.
I found out recently that my mother thinks that my four years at Dartmouth were a waste of time and money and that I could have gotten an equivalent, if not better, education at any other school (and by that, she means a school with a more recognizable name). Apparently the reason is because I came out all activist-y, and this clearly wasn’t on the agenda.
So how did I become the token angry Asian American/feminist/Pan Asian Council intern/Asian American Studies person/women’s and gender studies and English modified double major that I am today?
Maybe it’s because I had a professor ask me, one of two minorities in her class, to explain the “Asian perspective” on a given issue. Or because other students have told me how wonderfully I speak English and commended me on the fact that I have no accent. Or possibly because I realized that yes, it is possible for someone to date you solely because of your skin color and not because of who you are as a person.
The question of racial identity and combating assumptions pops up in my life here almost every day. Since there are so few Asians and Asian Americans here—or so it seems to the Californian in me—it almost feels like an obligation to be involved with the minority community, and “educating” others has become a part of my daily life.
I find it strange that we talk about “The Dartmouth Experience,” when there are so many. I observe the lives of some of my classmates and it’s as if we’re at two completely different institutions. I rush from class to meeting to event to meeting and don’t even have time to eat or use the bathroom, while Sarah Sorority lounges in her string bikini, Abercrombie and Fitch-style, on the Green.
Was it worth it? I think it was.
On the faculty, administration
and the institution
Why are there no tenured professors here who look like me?
Why do all of the female/minority professors keep leaving? Why hasn’t anything been doing about this?
Why are we STILL fighting for Asian American studies?
Nowhere is the phrase “reinventing the wheel” more true than at Dartmouth and the administration is completely aware of the absence of institutional memory. But when I say administration, I don’t mean President Wright.
Let’s face it—chances are, whatever people are blaming him for probably isn’t his fault, and he most likely doesn’t have the direct power to fix it. A bulk of what he does is deliver speeches and put in face time with a variety of groups, trying to keep everyone happy and therefore making no one happy. He’s not “the man” and he’s not “keeping the students down.” When I say administration, I mean the Deans of the Faculty: Carol Folt, Lenore Grenoble, and Michael Mastanduno.
How many students have heard of Deans Folt, Grenoble, and Mastaduno, much less know where their offices are or what they look like? They certainly haven’t made any effort on their part to be accessible—down to being the only office that doesn’t hold office hours.
I’ve sat there in Wentworth (yes, that’s the one to the left of Dartmouth Hall), on multiple occasions as a matter of fact, patiently explaining that just because someone is of Asian descent doesn’t mean that s/he is involved in Asian American studies, just like being female doesn’t mean that you’re a women’s studies professor. I’ve been told that they “understand” (they clearly don’t).
Students have jumped through all of the hoops they’ve provided, arranging all sorts of meetings, serving on hiring committees, even practically conducting feasibility studies at the behest of the deanery, only to be told that they
need to “wait” and “have respect for the process.” We’ve been waiting for nine years. Clearly, fighting the good fight isn’t good enough—but what else is there left to do?
As a student, I shouldn’t have to know that an endowed chair costs $2.5 million, and I shouldn’t have to have thought about how to go about raising that money. We pay to go to this school. They’re being paid to do their job. So why do I sometimes feel like we’re the ones doing it?
