In 1788, when Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay published the document now known as “The Federalist Papers,” they used the pseudonym Publius to protect themselves from persecution. Theirs was a difficult and dangerous time when dissent was treason and free speech was a pipe dream.

Well, in the wee hours of the morning of February 23, 2010, Dartmouth’s own Publius was out and about putting up signs that accused several Greek houses on campus of racism and sexism and Parkhurst of tacit acceptance of these prejudicial behaviors. The signs proclaimed that our new Publius was holding the signs’ recipients accountable for their hurtful actions.

I have some unfortunate news for the authors of these signs: accountability is a two-way street. In his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, Martin Luther King Jr. said the following:

“When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the ‘unalienable Rights’ of ‘Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.’”

I believe that Dartmouth signed the same kind of promissory note in the fall of 1972, when women first set foot on this campus as Dartmouth students. If we have defaulted on this debt, then we ought to be held accountable by all means necessary. The problem with anonymous signs is that we don’t know where to send the new check.

As the son of a member of the last all-male class at Dartmouth, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we have come a long way in the last 37 years. My father witnessed Theta Delt sing at the infamous 1975 “Hums” (see “Early days of coeducation at the College were bitter ones” from the November 14, 1997 issue of The Dartmouth), and I have heard stories about a fraternity brother stealing every toilet seat out of the girls’ dormitory. I recognize that we still have a long way to go to reach true gender equality, but I would like to remind the members of our community who see these signs as a victory to look around them.

We do not live in the Dartmouth of the mid-1970’s. In today’s Dartmouth, anonymous signs are not brave or courageous. They are cowardly. They use mystique to sensationalize the issue and get media coverage.

I believe in free speech. And I believe that free speech is a necessary factor in the production of change, but not when there is no one to claim it. In these cases, free speech can harm as much as it can help. Perhaps it is a sign of the times when anonymous blogging has become a viable means of social critique, but such actions are, from a purely practical point of view, fundamentally flawed. We do not need secrecy. This campus has plenty of “secrets” already. What we need is open and frank dialogue. Part of activism is talking the talk, but the other part is walking the walk. Activists, just like the status quo against which they fight, are accountable on both of these fronts, and I would wager a pretty penny that most of the people responsible for these signs visited the basement of at least one of the accused fraternities over Winter Carnival.

So to the Dartmouth Publius,
If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. You’re part of it every time you set foot in a frat basement without saying something. You are just as guilty as Parkhurst. You perpetuate the cycle just as much as anyone else. But the ship has sailed on this incident. Coming forward now would not help your cause, a cause which I believe should be shared by each and every member of the Dartmouth community. I am not suggesting you “stand up and say that to our face.” That would be counterproductive at this point. It would only lead to unproductive finger-pointing.

But what I am saying is this: follow in the footsteps of one of the greatest activists in modern history, Mahatmas Gandhi, and “be the change you want to see in the world.” Do not stay silent, but do not be anonymous. There is a place for anonymous accusations and name-calling. It’s called Bored@Baker. You’re better than that.

Dartmouth still has a long way to go to become accessible to students with disabilities.

Dartmouth has been good to me. Sure, I have my gripes about dining plans going up by $200 almost every year—and the likely introduction of the Super-Size Mega Ultimate Green Plan. I have my gripes about the gummed up Blitz terminal keyboards in FoCo. It also annoys me how the registrar here requires that underclassmen stand in line in the chilly early morning to sign up for the classes of their choice. But, overall, these are minor qualms in the grand scheme of things.

As said, Dartmouth has been good to me. But then again, I don’t have to get around in a wheelchair.

I transferred here from the University of California, Berkeley, which, for all its faults, took the cause of accessibility to what I thought at the time was an overhyped extreme. It probably had something to do with the strict California regulations stacked on top of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and the number of students with physical and learning disabilities on campus.

It was common for me to see people going around in wheelchairs—there were even a few students with a form of dwarfism that were permanently confined to a mechanized wheelchair-bed. Although they were unable to manipulate any objects with their small hands other than the joystick for their wheelchair, they were still able to get around just fine with keycards that automatically opened doors, and the copious numbers of ADA-compliant ramps stretching every which way from every University-affiliated building.

And Berkeley didn’t just accommodate physical disabilities. It was a relatively common sight to see students in the front of class with computers that transcribed the lecture into written words almost in real time. I though of it as a technological marvel until I found out it was actually a service the University paid for where typists in India real-time transcribed the lecture.

I suppose it wasn’t as difficult considering how many of the lectures were done through a speaker-system to thousand-student auditoriums, and subsequently piped to iTunes University to be posted online with full video. They didn’t need any new equipment to send off that audio stream across the world. Oh, and we also had a note-taking service that charged nominal amounts for full class notes of each lecture. By now, Dartmouth readers are probably in awe of the rich class skipping opportunities offered at Berkeley.

To be honest, for most of my career at Berkeley, I felt the same way. It was a great tool for slackers that didn’t want to walk through the clear California weather to get to class. It was probably expensive, only enriching the lives of lazy people. God, what a useless and inefficient system. And while I understood the physical accessibility accommodations better, did these students really need TWO ramps going to every high-rise in the new dorm complexes? Bah, Berkeley bureaucracy.

It’s perhaps one of the great ironies of my academic career that I never really had that much sympathy for students with disabilities while at Berkeley, one of the most accessibility conscious and “liberal” (though it isn’t really) schools in the United States. Or, maybe it isn’t. While at Berkeley, it seemed that students with physical or mental disabilities could go about their lives—not as easily as the rest of us, but acceptably nonetheless.

Dartmouth is different. I couldn’t quite place what felt so odd about the physical landscape here, compared to Berkeley. Unlike many, I didn’t have any drop-dead, “This is gorgeous,” reaction. Maybe it was the fact that the grass was somewhat yellowed, and the school felt too SMALL for the 32,000 students I was used to. But nonetheless, images of strident, athletic people bounding up the stairs and running around campus came into my mind. I figured it was mainly because I knew about Dartmouth’s sports prowess compared to most of the Ivies (it still didn’t prepare me for the vast disappointment of going from Cal to Dartmouth football).

That was probably part of it as well, but now, I feel it was also because of something else. Berkeley often felt chaotically styled and garish with its many ramps, blinking keycard sensors, and automated doors scattered everywhere. Dartmouth felt older, with an elevated sensibility. A flight of stairs in front of every building and no ramps or elevators in sight. It was an immediate feeling of difference in who would—or could—come here. I can’t imagine the girl with dwarfism that I said hi to every day coming and going from class in this landscape.

The physical inaccessibility of the campus is reflected into the “invisible” space, with its unfriendliness towards learning disabilities. I’m sure most of us have had classes where professors noted in their syllabi that students with “invisible” disabilities could speak with the professor. But in many cases, even if a student does go to a professor with such concerns, he or she risks being laughed at or looked at with skeptical eyes. The mandated accommodation is also sometimes lost in the fragmented faculty and administration relationship.

To be fair, it isn’t malice that drives this behavior. I spoke with an alum this past Winter Carnival whose feelings about learning disabilities encapsulated perfectly what many professors think—rich, privileged kids at Dartmouth just pay to be tested and diagnosed with these disabilities to get extra time on tests. It lets students be lazy—a view very similar to one that I used to hold.

One that I used to hold, at least, before someone very close to me found out that she likely had dyslexia. I watched her struggle through the administrative offices looking for accommodation, from Ward Newmeyer (the head of Student Accessibility Services), to her dean, to the SAS secretary, to Dick’s House, back to Ward… and so on and so forth. I was privy to the “deal with it yourself” attitude the College had towards testing and treatment. She struggled to figuring out insurance costs and had to find a way to avoid paying thousands of dollars since she didn’t have Dartmouth insurance. Yes, thousands of dollars. And the entire administrative framework, the one that we pay so much to support, gave her little more than a wave towards a general direction.

Since then, I’ve met a surprisingly large number of other students with similar issues. And many others that have “symptoms”—though they don’t see it that way—of at least mild cases of such disorders. I don’t think that people should be coddled in the same way that they are at Berkeley. That is going too far, and it does not prepare students to face the real world. But at the same time, each and every reading assignment shouldn’t be a personal trek to hell for these students.

Nor should moving about the campus, getting food, or just making it into classes.
At Dartmouth, the lack of sympathy for students with disabilities is only topped by the lack of understanding. I should know. I never understood, even when disadvantaged students surrounded me. I have two perfectly good legs, am relatively athletic, and probably read faster than average. It isn’t to brag about it,
it’s to give perspective. My position is similar to those of many students. And probably of most professors as well. We can’t understand what it is like to try to just pick up food from FoCo, which is not exactly designed for wheelchair-bound students in mind. Nor can we understand a routine reading assignment being a multi-night marathon of painful and largely unremembered text. Because we don’t understand, we can’t sympathize. Because we don’t see, we never care to know.

It’s why groups such as the newly founded ABLE are so important. But it’s only a first step. Action must follow awareness—but right now, we aren’t even aware yet. It’ll be a long time before I can see that girl I knew at Berkeley ever even wanting, or ever able, to be here.

A discarded can of our College’s favorite drink. Photo by Quinn Anya. http://www.flickr.com/photos/53326337@N00/3262302956

If ever there were a case for pun making, the events of last week made it pretty convincingly. It was a Frat-zaster. The affront, the outrage, the carefully meted dialogue, mediation and reconciliation (whew, Winter Carnival, unhindered and affirmed)—there was a hint of twisted wonder in it, laying-bare of our values. If only the infamous Giaccone had been a sterner villain! A small spectacle would have become frenzied mobilization, an us-versus-them crusade of the first order.

Maybe that was the odd crux of it all, though. The fire burned out before it really got started, our forces too strong and our enemy a paper tiger. Pick any terrible array of metaphors you like, save, maybe, ones involving Phi Delt. They all fit.

Vagaries aside, last week was understandably and necessarily absurd, as though the story now needs retelling. First, Hanover Police chose an inexplicably irrational new policy towards drinking, introducing it at an inexplicably irrational time.
Second, students responded with indignant force to what seemed a strike at the heart of Dartmouth’s social world. And third, said students won, beating back discussion so quickly that it was reduced, by a Feb. 11th article in the D, to mealy-mouthed abstractions about future “transformation” and “harm reduction.”

Convincing, right? It may have been a hard battle, but hard, we can guess, in deed only. Barring some game-changing detail, the war for the frats was won well before the issue had even settled into campus consciousness. There was no “other side” to it, just a hapless police chief drowning in the horrified criticism of students, administrators, and alumni alike. Had this not happened, would Winter Carnival have been any more dangerous? The worst Pollyanna would struggle to say yes.

Whatever drove the Hanover police’s decision to craft such a strange new policy, we can guess, will yet be a fascinating story. Provided the tale isn’t ultimately monotonous, bureaucratic boilerplate (by now, we’ve heard the rumors about a threatened HPo looking to reassert itself in the face of budget cuts), there’s riveting detail yet to be uncovered here. Someone, somewhee—for some reason—must have thought that a decision to cripple the frats, one week pre-Winter Carnival, would be politically sustainable and therefore worthwhile. Whatever change in thought this marks, provided it wasn’t undertaken by a hopeless fool (which is unlikely, given Giaccone’s long tenure and President Kim’s institutional shrewdness), it will likely speak to some paradigm shift in institutional thinking that has yet to come to light.

But that’s a story for another, hopefully brighter, day. Instead, what stood out about last week’s outrage were two things, each reinforcing the other. The first: that HPo’s new policy, upon retreat, seemed to leave no meaningful imprint on campus alcohol policy, minus obligatory, conciliatory pleasantries. The second: that this change was deferred not only by the immediate strength of fraternities and sororities, but also by the unquestioned, leveling sway of their institutional logic. There is, in a crisis-unified Dartmouth imagination, no alternative to our social system as it now exists. More than anything else about this place or this school, it constitutes our identity, an identity that subjects itself neither to internal criticism nor serious debate when threatened.

This is the delicate point, it seems, that every implicit or explicit challenge to our frat system reaches, and where every attempt at genuine change falters. Assuming that the system needs to be changed (a big assumption, sure, but one deeply felt by many people), criticizing it alienates all too many students whose relationship to our campus mean very little outside of house affiliation. Sure, this monolith of Dartmouth life frustrates the unaffiliated, perhaps rightfully so, but that fact has so far proven counterproductive as a call to change on its own terms. Systemic overhaul will depend on consensus, a consensus that can’t be built when a majority as passionate as ours feels threatened. The implementation of any alternative to the fraternity system, whether that means its overhaul or its phasing into irrelevance, will depend on persuasion. Where that persuasion will come from, though, has yet to be seen.

So that’s the impasse we all reach when change, whether incremental (a la the Student Life Initiative) or severe (last week’s debacle), is hinted at. The Greek system’s acid logic persists, referring again and again to its inclusiveness, and its all-pervasiveness, as incorrigible and unquestionable defenses. Even whispers of reform threaten too many people—too many, too intimately involved. And this is what will doom our Greek system in the long term. As Matt Ritger pointed out so sagely earlier this year, our frats have long had a death sentence stamped squarely on their foreheads.

Sooner or later, they’re going to kill someone, or almost kill someone, or push the envelope just a bit too far just a few too many times. And when it happens, critics will ask, again, the questions that have been long been dismissed or cynically accommodated: Where are the alternatives? Where is the system’s progressive future? Why is the joyfully communal heart of this school, really, so inseparable from its drinking? The answers to these questions have long been just convincing enough, just evasive enough to maintain the status quo.

But where time continues to move forward, and while things on Webster Ave. remain the same, they won’t always be. Sure, Hanover Police made a stupid decision last week, but its defeat added one to what may yet be remembered, by what’s left of the Greeks, as a history of pyrrhic victories. Until then, hold on to your composites.

Patronizing. Dismissive. Amused. These are attitudes that we generally take towards fringe commentators who spout nonsense and take untenable positions. Usually, we feel justified in judging them harshly. Yesterday, during a closed-door meeting in Parkhurst, the administration took this attitude towards students who met with its representatives to discuss staff layoffs. The administrators chuckled. I’m sure they felt they were justified too.

Let’s be clear. The efforts of the students and the local SEIU chapter, who collaborate in part but mostly plan their events independent of one another, have been disorganized, haphazard, and “unprofessional.” No one is going to praise their elegant prose, deft political maneuvers, or clever strategic planning. This process has been messy, slapped-together, and oftentimes impromptu—which is exactly what one would expect from a grassroots movement dealing with what is, to its members, an unfamiliar and novel problem. One can hardly fault it for not moving like a well-greased political machine. It isn’t one. The local union began this process scared and immediately dropped all of its cards on the table, including its willingness to absorb pay cuts in order to preserve jobs. Likewise, the student response has been organized largely through blitz, and lately run through a newly registered gmail account. One could hardly scream “novice” any louder.

This effort, so far, has consisted of concerned staff and students feeling their way through a difficult and frightening situation.

But what this movement lacks in sophistication, well-polished rhetoric, and on-message discipline it makes up for in earnest dedication and raw emotion. While national union organizers and speakers have appeared on campus every now and then to breathe fire and attempt to impose some sort of discipline on the chaos, they have ultimately been peripheral to the action. A majority of what you see happening on Dartmouth’s campus is a result of an outpouring of student and staff sentiment. It’s unscripted, disorganized, and chaotic. In other words, it’s real.

The administration’s shared amusement, eye-rolling, and patronizing dismissal of the students yesterday was understandable on a political and tactical level. The students, in their idealistic fervor, planned to storm the President’s Office and present a letter that highlighted their concern—but they told the administration about their plans and even sent the letter ahead of time. As a result, the administration instead invited twelve students to discuss the letter. The students accepted.

So, unprepared, idealistic, and having given up any semblance of an advantage they might have had, these students were confronted with President Kim and a phalanx of top administrators, each armed with prepared remarks and talking points. Faced with a group that included media savvy professionals and a President they all admired, the students present were barraged with legal technicalities and prepared rebuttals. Honest but unhedged words were savagely and efficiently ripped apart. President Kim demanded to know what this ragtag group was accusing him of. He freely interrupted and silenced students—and, understandably, the students were largely unwilling to “talk back” to a figure who had assumed the seemingly well-deserved status of campus idol. Kim’s team then briskly lectured the students on how “uninformed” they were of the situation’s technicalities.

Although the students did know the essentials of what was happening to staff and the questionable tactics being directed towards them (which, if not illegal, are at least unethical), students were contradicted and chided on their ignorance of specific detail. The students recognized their ignorance, of course. That ignorance was the product of the administration’s opacity in regards to budget cuts.

However, even outspoken Dartmouth students are reluctant to push back against top College officials. Thus, yesterday, four administrators, with decades of combined professional experience, effectively “schooled” twelve genuinely concerned undergraduates for an hour.

But to focus on the legal soundness of their remarks, or the effectiveness of their execution, or their rhetorical skill is to miss the point entirely. One would have hoped that the takeaway for these top College officials would not have been that their opponents are unseasoned politically, but instead that students have genuine concerns about the process—concerns serious enough to compel them to draft a letter, albeit an unprofessional one. Thursday’s meeting wasn’t supposed to be a brawl over public opinion or snappy technical points. Instead, it was supposed to be an airing of concerns, uncensored and utterly vulnerable. It wasn’t supposed to be a confrontation.

Did the administration think that the students it dealt with got their “talking points” from the union? Did they believe that they had been “subverted” and made into pawns? Anyone who has met Earl Sweet, the president of SEIU local, would know that he has all of the malice and scheming of a bowl of porridge. If any of the points students took from the staff were incorrect, that should be a sign to the administration that the College staff is irrationally scared or misinformed. It should have been an opportunity to open a campus dialogue that assuages fearful murmurings. It should not have been an opportunity to soundly thrash a group of concerned students—students looking out not for themselves but instead for Dartmouth’s employees.

Without a doubt, there are varying degrees of firmness in student opinion regarding potential layoffs. A few are staunchly against any layoffs. Some believe that layoffs should only be a last resort. Many more are in favor of a careful, open, and considered approach to budget cuts and staff layoffs. However, general student sentiment seems to hold that the administration should talk openly with the staff. It’s a simple notion—but even now I can see the obvious administration counter. Legally, formal negotiations—at least for unionized workers—are more complicated than that. Of course it is. But that’s not the point. The point is that perhaps a letter from the union requesting more administrative transparency should not be answered by just a press statement about the administration’s refusal to talk to the union—published in the Valley News. Which is exactly what the administration did. Technical dismissal of student and staff concerns do nothing to address underlying community sentiment.

And that is ultimately what is at stake in this debate—community. Why is this process new to the union, and why is the union’s response so unpolished? It’s simple. It’s because it has never faced anything like this before. The context in which union negotiations had previously existed at Dartmouth was relaxed, casual, and—truth-be-told—most likely lax in the legal niceties. Negotiations never needed to be airtight or rigorously professional because they were a friendly exchange between partners.

Many parties are pointing fingers, and assigning blame for our predicament, to this or that. Maybe the College overexpanded in a time of plenty and made investments that, in hindsight, were poorly considered. All this would mean is that the College’s endowment staff and administrators made roughly the same mistakes that seem to befall most human decision-makers from time to time. On the other hand, maybe it is the case, as is suggested in some quarters, that the union is used to being given too much too easily, and that College staff is, overall, inefficiently allocated. Even if these claims are true, this doesn’t mean that the people themselves should be dealt with as an enemy—or that they should be treated as mere “assets” to be shed.

Students and staff don’t have the specifics about this budget process down pat. That’s not what they came here to learn, nor is it what they’re paid to do. But they don’t require this mastery of detail in order to have a sense of the process, and they deserve to have more openness than has been given so far. President Kim has declared that he wants to see Dartmouth students become leaders in various fields all over the world. That process begins with treating his student partners as parties worthy of respect and consideration. It also begins with not dismissing or cynically disregarding the idealism of those who are concerned. President Kim has also publicly declared that Dartmouth has a unique community that he wants, or wanted, to preserve. If that’s so, perhaps he should start doing a bit more to understand it better rather than simply declaring, in College-produced publications, that he “intuitively” understands it.

This isn’t a matter of policy, or action, or layoffs. In the end, it’s a matter of tone and discourse. Even if layoffs—even significant ones—come to pass, what ultimately matters here is the humaneness of the process. With real economic hardship hanging over its head, the staff deserves advance notice and a general sense of where the College’s budget discussion is headed. Maybe this would result in a more disorganized, slower process. It would probably make things messier.

But that’s necessary. There may be few things that are black and white, but it is unacceptable to treat layoffs as something that should be decided with a swift, sudden blow. This way of conducting business may make things faster and more efficient, but it also makes them colder, more mechanical, and more exclusive. The Dartmouth community appreciates the professional efficiency of this new administration. But efficiency should not be bought with community, community built up through hundreds of years and dozens of generations—of students and staff alike. Among all of Dartmouth’s most cherished traditions, this is the most fundamental, and the one we must not let fail. If it does, regardless of what synergies, efficiencies, and precision we gain in the end, we will still have lost the Dartmouth we love. This is what is at stake. Not just this or that program. Not just this or that class size. And not even just jobs. It is the soul of Dartmouth itself.

What exactly does the “Dartmouth Experience” mean? Over the past 18 months, we’ve learned that Dartmouth means many different things to everybody. Today, we students stand in an uncomfortable and uncertain situation. On the one hand, we are trapped between the staff and the Administration in a bitter fight, and, on the other hand, we are embroiled in a battle to save the individual pieces of our own Dartmouth Experiences.

Dartmouth is first and foremost an institution of higher learning. It also happens to be an institution that employs a large number of Upper Valley residents. But Dartmouth’s primary duty is to the College, not its facility. This is the angle from which I approach the Dartmouth Experience. Instead of focusing on the Dartmouth Experience, I propose we focus on the Dartmouth College Experience (I should clarify that I consider the professional schools part of the College in this sense).

This next notion seems to have been brushed aside in light of the pending staff cuts: intergenerational equity. Dartmouth has spent some of its endowment funds during this recession as a means of smoothing the operational deficits it currently faces. On this point, I must admit I am conflicted. A conscientious observer might wonder where this reactionary notion was when certain College administrators were playing Russian roulette with collateralized debt obligations and mortgage-backed securities. Suddenly, after almost $1 billion of our endowment just disappeared, we begin to talk about intergenerational equity. It is an enticing idea: It shows foresight that can serve as a long-term yardstick for the future and a productive mindset for the Administration as it begins to try to ensure that this kind of financial debacle does not reoccur, or least to this extent, in the future.

When the endowment began, it was a safety net. As endowments have grown over the years, colleges across the country (including Dartmouth) have done something risky: relying on their safety net for income. Akin to the United States, this College has lived beyond its means. As Warren Buffet said in his 2001 Chairman’s Letter for Berkshire Hathaway, “You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.” Well, the College was swimming naked, and now it’s time to put on some clothes. This is not to say that we should stop spending from our endowment, which would be ridiculous. We just cannot afford to be dependent on our endowment in the future—it’s swimming naked. Those who spout doom and gloom about the future of our endowment need to take a step back and remember that alumni have not stopped giving to the College.

It seems like every week Dartmouth has a new cause du jour. During these evanescent fads of devotion, a select few whip the campus into a frenzy. This recurring theme lends some credence to the idea that many Dartmouth students have a need to be offended by something. Out of some misplaced need to serve the cause of social justice, Dartmouth students convince themselves that if they stay offended, they are paying into some big karmic pot.

I feel the same way about layoffs as I do about alimony or palimony. The College does not have an obligation to continue to treat employees to “the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed” past any time horizon previously contracted.
That is why we have contracts: to allow for future flexibility in the work force employed by the College.

Here’s the problem: the unions want to have their cake and eat it too. They want high wages and high employment. Who pays for that? Well…we do.

In addition to pandering to Dartmouth’s hypochondria for imbalances in social justice, those who speak for the staff held a candlelight vigil to promote awareness of the job cut situation. Now, I agree that some members of the staff are an undeniably positive part of the Dartmouth College Experience, but I find it very hard to believe that the individuals pictured in the posters plastered around campus are actually the best part of the student in the picture’s Dartmouth Experience. And call me old-fashioned, but I tend to want to reserve candlelight vigils for deaths and missing persons. I don’t mean to sound harsh or indifferent, but when the people who represent the workers act the way they have, I become less and less inclined to sympathize with them. We are talking about loss of jobs, not loss of life. The situation has been sensationalized to the point that it has begun to lose credibility.

It is clear that we have a problem. Moreover, it is obvious that there are several groups who have very strong opinions about trimming the College’s budget by $100 million. So, who should decide what happens? It is useful to consider the different groups in terms of shareholders and stakeholders. Throughout the budget process, I have heard very little respect given for the fact that students pay up to $50,000 a year to go here. That makes us shareholders. Faculty and staff, however, are stakeholders. While they definitely have a stake in this college and certainly contribute to the experience, their role is fundamentally different from that of the students. The alumni are somewhere in the middle on this. Many donate to the College and are in that sense shareholders, but they are also stakeholders in that their personal reputations depend in part on the current actions and present reputation of this College.

Just as Dartmouth’s endowment has become more integrated into the fate of the world economy, our administrative structure has followed a trend in the management style of corporations throughout the world. We have seen stakeholders with increasing control in the College’s operations. It’s not a stretch to say that many Dartmouth students do not believe that Parkhurst actually cares about the students’ opinion. I don’t want token student advisory boards. I don’t want token Student Budget Forums. These groups waste our time and resources, things we have little to spare.

We, the students, pay for a service, and if the changes to the Dartmouth College Experience change that service substantially, then we ought to be consulted, and our voices ought to carry significant weight. If the majority of the student population believes that limiting staff layoffs is the right thing, then so be it, but if the majority of us believe, as I do, that this school needs some restructuring and streamlining, then give the people what they want.

Terry Tempest Williams speaks at Dartmouth on January 25. Photograph courtesy of the Dartmouth ENVS Department.

She had the impact of a car wreck, charging the moment with reality and stillness, grabbing us from the forward-moving current of life and turning us back on ourselves. She spoke with raw poetic beauty. And her words changed the outlook of at least one busy Dartmouth college student.

I almost didn’t go to Terry Tempest Williams’ January 25th lecture because I had work to do. Because it was raining and cold, and I was without an umbrella. Because it was in Cook Auditorium, which is far off my beaten path—the usual dorm-class-Collis-library route. Nevertheless, for the always compelling sake of procrastination and the hope that I would gain something—anything—from the lecture, I made my way through the pouring rain for Terry Tempest Williams.

With the recent budget crisis, along with the resulting movement of faculty and students to support staff in the face of lay-offs, there has lately been an adamant questioning of the “Dartmouth Experience” and its values. Williams did not speak about the budget crisis, but she did address values—ones we hold that become evident in our daily lives, our writing, and our voices.

Though crammed into an audience of 300 plus people, I felt like I was in an intimate conversation with Williams throughout her lecture. A semi-challenged, awkward writer myself who is still in her formative stages, I connected with Williams’ thoughts on the process of writing and what writing means to her, an author, environmentalist, and current Montgomery Fellow and professor at Dartmouth.

Williams dealt at length with the relationship between her work and sense of self, telling her audience that “there is no separation from the writing life and the life engaged, and it has everything to do with love.” An engaged life, according to Williams, is one that is aware—“awake, alert, and alive wherever we are.” Williams commented on the importance of finding one’s voice, an inherent, unique truth that each possesses, and how this voice is essential in delivering justice to those who are voiceless. Drawing on the phraseology of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., she argued that “maladjusted men and women” are necessary in today’s world to be aware, to use their voices in both speech and writing, and to fight against the social and environmental injustices that envelop today’s world. Her points echoed the well-known aphorism of John Sloan Dickey: “The world’s troubles are your troubles.”

Terry Tempest William’s words have particular resonance at Dartmouth, where it’s easy to get caught up in a hyper-competitive environment in which each perpetually fights the other for that elusive citation, for that sought-after FSP, or for those scarce jobs offered during corporate recruiting. We are achievement-driven students. After all, we go to Dartmouth, where achievement is expected and institutionalized. We play hard on Webster Avenue, study hard in the 1902 room, and work hard in the endless stream of meetings, practices, lunch dates, and face time. Yet as Williams might have asked: Are we aware? Are we living our lives with purpose? Did we lose ourselves somewhere along the way?

Williams spoke, here, to the importance of mentally and emotionally “checking-in.” We come to a point in our day-to-day lives at which we need to, and we must, reassess where we are, where’ve come from, and where we’re going. As she put it, “if you know where we are, we know who we are.”

So, while Williams’ lecture may not have been a commentary on the Dartmouth lifestyle, what I left her lecture with was. Too often we find ourselves rushing from one place to the next, one day to the next. And before we realize it, we’re in the middle of winter term, suddenly aware of how much has happened and how little we’ve taken note of.

A journey into hell. International aid agencies find a devastated country in chaos on the tiny island. The earthquake destroyed most of the capital city, Port-au-Prince, and have left countless wounded and thousands dead. Photograph by Globovision.

The rush to relieve the devastated people of Haiti is encouraging. It is reassuring to see that people care about Haiti in its most conspicuous time of need in recent memory. The global relief effort, although troubled by logistical, political, and ideological issues, seem genuine. Dartmouth has responded with exceptional vigor and even the self-congratulatory story on the front page of Wednesday’s The D (“Dartmouth’s Haiti response tops other Colleges’”) can’t sully the authentic motivation behind our efforts to help the earthquake victims.

But Haiti was a desperate country before the earthquake, and it will be after we, in our unimaginable comfort, forget about the images of crumbled buildings, grieving Haitians, and starving children.

Even after the immediate effects of the quake pass and the relief effort subsides, Haiti will still be crippled by poverty and the suffering caused by poverty.

In all likelihood, there will still be crumbled buildings, grieving Haitians, and starving children, but we wont see them on TV and Internet news sites.

This past Tuesday, Students for Haitian Relief sent out an article (along with great information about how to help) called “A Long Road to Hell” that was meant to explain how “Haiti’s history has only compounded the current tragedy.”

The article tells at best a half-truth about the history of the poorest nation in our hemisphere. What is predictably absent is also the reason why we should care (in an “I’m willing to do something about it” way) about the fate of Haiti and its people even after the natural disaster relief effort ends. The article leaves out the ways that our countries policies have made it more difficult for Haiti to survive and prosper as an independent nation.

Direct U.S. interference and meddling in Haitian politics for the past two centuries has had a crippling effect on Haitian prosperity. As the article mentions, Haiti ousted its French oppressors and declared its independence in 1804, becoming the first slave colony to do so. As punishment, France demanded an exorbitant fee and the Haitian people were saddled with reparations until 1947.

What the article doesn’t say is that France could not have extracted those unjust reparations without support from America—a country that should have been able to relate to wars of independence against colonial oppressors.

The U.S. later invaded and occupied Haiti in 1915 and disbanded the Haitian parliament so it could force through unpopular pro U.S. corporation legislation.

And if that is too far in the past to resonate, the U.S. has sponsored two coups within the past 20 years against Haiti’s first democratically elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who remains in exile in South Africa. The coups intensified political unrest and precipitated some of Haiti’s worst years both politically and economically. Aristide, however flawed as a president, was popular among Haitian people, but unfriendly to neoliberal U.S economic policies.

The earthquake was a natural disaster, and no country is to blame for the ensuing devastation. But the poverty and lack of infrastructure that leaves a country of almost nine million with only a couple fire stations made the natural disaster far more tragic for humans. If Haiti has been walking “a long road to hell,” it hasn’t been walking alone.

“Will we fight?” cries out the AFL-CIO New Hampshire President, as he throws his arm towards the audience. The crowd composed of DDS, ORL, FO&M, S&S, and other familiar campus faces cheers in assent. “Let’s hear it again!” yells the organizer, raising his arms.

“Yeah!” Although this meeting on the 13th was in 105 Dartmouth Hall, it was an unfamiliar scene. According to Earl Sweet, President of the local branch of the Service Employees’ International Union (SEIU), this is the worst “situation” that he has seen in the over twenty years he has been at Dartmouth.

The reason behind this “situation” is partly fiscal circumstance. But the other part is the new administration. “I could just pick up the phone and call Jim Wright,” Earl said, “If the lawyers were being too aggressive, Jim would tell them that they can’t do that.” With Jim Kim, it’s all changed. President Kim has said that “Everything is on the table.” From the perspective of the union, this means jobs are at risk—lots and lots of jobs. And given what has been happening, it seems President Kim’s table is nearly full.

A few days earlier, President Kim spoke before the local Chamber of Commerce, apologizing for what he was about to do to the Upper Valley economy. Significant cuts at Dartmouth would resonate throughout the entire community as we are the largest employer in the local area. What President Kim has not done, which rails many SEIU members, is speak to them.

According to SEIU, this has been a general trend throughout the entire budgetary process. Although there will be a formal bargaining process, especially since the contract covering the workers is expiring this June, the current decision-making process excludes SEIU. They will get their say, but not before most of the details have already been ironed out internally within the administration and before the trustees.

Whereas faculty, undergraduates, graduate students, and obviously administrators have representatives on the task forces and committees submitting recommendations and proposing budgetary changes, SEIU asserts that they have no one. As for the time of publication, we could not get a response from College officials, or find out what other framework is in place to solicit staff opinions, but various student sources close to the process have confirmed that this is the case.

For these members of the “Dartmouth family,” this is unfamiliar territory. For their meeting on the 13th, the local chapter brought in AFL-CIO NH’s president Mark McKinsey, along with Wayne Langley, Higher Education Director for SEIU. Each brought fiery rhetoric and rage stoked by years of battle with administrations. Wayne Langley, after first acknowledging President Kim’s other accomplishments, was quick to equate the “new Dartmouth” with a heartless “corporate model,” and unambiguously called out the College President’s promise to “cut to the bone.” Why, various speakers asked, did the College still need to cut all of these jobs after the recent campaign had just raised $1.3 billion? Mark McKinsey drew parallels of the workers’ fight with that of Martin Luther King Jr., whose birthday was coming up soon. Both national representatives compared the situation with what happened on Wall Street.

While this turmoil was no doubt expected and standard for various other locales that these national speakers visited, this was not a part of SEIU Local 560’s experience. At the beginning of these passionate and angry speeches, there was visible hesitation from much of the crowd. Much of the crowd withheld their applause about the virtues of “fighting” and looked uncomfortable with such strong assertions. As the meeting went on and more stories about what was happening to their fellow workers came out, the room started coming around.

Due to the seniority system, the younger workers—those who can least afford it—were the ones laid off. Hostesses in the Hanover Inn were informed about an unpaid “hiatus” through an impersonal letter. The uses of “furloughs” or “hiatuses” to essentially lay off staff without triggering an inconvenient clause within the work contract that specifies that in the event of a layoff, the College is not allowed to bring in subcontractors to take over the jobs of the laid-off staff—basically outsourcing the labor force beyond Hanover town lines.

Without a doubt, the staff is scared. It’s their jobs and their livelihoods. And as a fair number of speakers from the crowd pointed out, it’s about how they support their families. But, especially if the tension between the union and administration builds, we students should remember who the people are within SEIU. They are DDS workers that we see every day. They are the ORL custodians that clean up our messes. They are the people who help make our “Dartmouth Experience” as we know it possible. But they are far from unreasonable or uncompromising.

Even in the midst of their concern about their own jobs and family, the staffers showed a remarkable amount of concern about us, the students. One of the loudest cheers from the crowd during the entire meeting came from Earl Sweet’s passionate declaration that he saw it as his job to serve the students, not the administration.

During last Friday’s picketing outside of President Kim’s budget forum in the Hop, workers mentioned their concern about what would happen with the students. “If you bring in these other people, these subcontractors, the buildings deteriorate, and the students suffer. Students came here for this prestigious experience, and Dartmouth has lost touch with what that is,” said Paul Labarre, one of the picketers.

The union has tried to mirror the administration’s position with everything on the table, and has also put a strike on the table, but with visible reluctance. When the topic was brought up during the SEIU meeting, there were audible murmurs about what would happen to students. Let’s be honest—if a similar circumstance was put before us, how many of us would think so deeply about the welfare of the staff, confronted with such grave circumstances for us?

Susan Russell, treasurer for the local SEIU accounted for me the situation for the Hanover Inn, where four people were put on indefinite “hiatuses” with no pay and no benefits. In another case, the hours of the hostess previously cited, now the only one left out of four, were suddenly reduced from 37.5 hours a week to 25 hours.

The reality is that Dartmouth, like many other institutions, was hit hard by the financial crisis. Cuts will be difficult and, ultimately, painful—no matter how much the administration tries to mitigate the damage. At the same time, these people have served Dartmouth loyally, oftentimes for many, many years. There is a line between professionalism and basic decency in treating the staff that work, mostly unacknowledged, unappreciated, and invisibly, to make our Dartmouth experiences what they are. Given their own feelings towards us, many staff members understandably expected during the meeting that the students would be there for them too. They’re starting to realize, as I heard from last Friday’s picket line, that this is not the case—at least, not without more awareness of what they do, and what is really going on hidden from student eyes.

The union has emphasized their willingness to negotiate and work with whatever terms they need to keep as many jobs as they can. Even so, perhaps in the end, many staff members will be left without a job.

However, no matter what, after all that they have given to the College they deserve at least less uncertainty of their standing and more honest treatment.

It isn’t illegal to suddenly drop the number of hours a hostess has to work. It isn’t illegal to send people off on extended “unpaid vacations.” In fact, it probably isn’t even illegal to send staff on “hiatus” while bringing in cheaper subcontractors, if that is indeed what the College intends to do. It is, however, deeply disrespectful and skirts the edge of ethical treatment of the staff.

Dartmouth has been a “family” of students, faculty, and staff for a long time. And to be honest, it was easy mainly because times were good. The true test of Dartmouth’s character comes now when times are no longer so good.

Even if the administration can’t preserve every job, it can at least treat those they are letting go with as much decency and kindness as they have given to the College through their time here.

These are some of the words Dartmouth women used to describe sorority rush: stress, overwhelming, exciting, HECTIC, fake, and emotionally exhausting.

Over the past four days, I have talked to students participating in rush, affiliated sisters, and unaffiliated students. The general consensus was that the rush process for men “is much better and easier” than that for women. In addition, co-ed rush is “relaxed and very informal,” according to Reyna Ramirez ‘10.

On Sunday, January 10th, I registered for rush in Carson 106. While filling out my application, I wondered, why do they need so much information about me? Clubs I participated in during high school? Amaka Nneji ‘10, an affiliated student who works for the Panhellenic Council, explained that the long registration process is required for those who become part of national sororities.

The registration is standard for all national sorority organizations and Dartmouth sororities are not allowed to change the process. Nevertheless, the Council is considering ways to make it less detailed and more inviting.

Like many women on campus, Nneji says, “Every year, rush makes me love sororities even more!” Her excitement and dedication to rush represents her commitment to the Panhellenic Council. After two days of rush, I grew to appreciate a sisterhood that was both inclusive and exciting.

On the other hand, a recent rush participant commented: “[Rush] is socially terrible. It’s the most fake way to judge another person, without real substance.”

Another student said potential new members essentially sign up to flirt with sisters without getting to really know the people they meet.
This student felt that she was “making decisions based off of manufactured descriptions in a planned system.”

A Fayer resident explains, “This is the way rush week is, and a better way has yet to come along, so we go with it.”

The rush process reminded me of a moment in my past when I wanted to fit in with a specific group of people. Nothing else really mattered to me. I felt an immediate connection between my emotions the first nights of rush and the emotions I had felt some years ago. The feeling was familiar, negative, and fake, but that changed over a period of time.

The emotional turmoil that Dartmouth women experience during rush lasts about a week, but the rewards are highly worth it for the majority of Dartmouth women who go through the process. Even if the concept of sisterhood may initially seem forced, people still want a place of acceptance.

Throughout rush, I was surrounded by groups of women who felt lost in an overwhelming field of people. One girl explained that she was aware of the fact that she knew little about sororities but wanted to continue with rush because she wanted to make more friends and expand her experiences. She wanted a safe place on campus. She wanted a community.

Jessica Duncan ’12 proposes a solution for rush week: a two-faced coin. Rush is like “a two-faced coin because of its arbitrariness. Just flip a coin!” I encourage the next group of women who enter registration to remember the two-faced coin: always fair, but never predictable.

Sorority names will always connote certain stereotypes, but it is up to the individual to see through the stereotypical window and understand her sorority for what it means to her.

Rush is not for everyone. In fact, some people don’t even receive a bid. The emotional effect that has on a student is difficult. It’s always good to remember that college is a playing field; you will struggle, and you might fumble a few times, but somewhere in the maelstrom of excitement, pressure, and stress, you will find special moments of euphoria.

You may not find that happiness during rush week but it lies embedded in the myriad opportunities at Dartmouth. Just be willing to step on the field and search for your moment of exhilaration.

As Jessica Duncan said, “Just flip a coin!” On any path you take on Dartmouth campus, whether you are affiliated or unaffiliated, will grow and discover more about yourself.

DFPer Chris Desir climbing with the Dartmouth Mountaineering Club. Photograph courtesy of DMC.

12:14, not 12:15, but 12:14. That’s when John Joline, a Dartmouth alumnus and enigmatic mainstay of the Dartmouth Mountaineering Club, suggested we meet to catch the free shuttle to the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. “Does the bus have a bike rack?” I asked in my confirmation blitz, and luckily, it did. So I pack my bag with my climbing shoes and chalk, a water bottle, and some pre-made sandwiches from the Hop—the essentials. I walk down the staircase of Maxwell only to find my beloved bicycle stolen. My initial wave of panic-tinged rage subsides as I realize I left my bike chained to a fence outside of the Hop the previous morning. I retrieve my most prized possession from its burglar proof moor and find a seat in front of the Dartmouth bookstore, waiting for John, and the shuttle, to arrive.

I spot John walking down the street. His signature outdoor attire, free-to-be white hair, and oversized glasses are unmistakable among the Main Street mix of chic Dartmouth students rushing to class and Hanover working folk in their business attire. I tell him my “stolen” bike story and he is easily able to relate; he says he too often misplaces his bicycle. As we wait for the bus, John, in his unusual and effortlessly eloquent English, begins telling me about “new” (he made sure to note that although they were new to us, they had been there for thousands of years) boulders we hoped to climb before the sunset. Given that it is 12:14 on a mid-November day in New Hampshire, we have to hurry. On the ride over, John’s emphatic talk about the beautiful, sculpture-esque objects in the woods draws a few strange looks. One man’s curious glance seems to say, “These guys are talking about rocks!?” Yup. Rocks. And we were excited.

The bus ride is short. We get off at the hospital stop and retrieve our man-powered vehicles from the front rack of the petroleum-powered behemoth and set off for the nearby trailhead. On the brief ride over, we share our mutual amazement at the seemingly endless number of boulders in this part of the world.

The woods surrounding Dartmouth are no exception, and John recounts the countless hours he has spent hiking, bushwhacking, and even snowshoeing through the area in search of, among other things, the most climbable and aesthetically interesting rocks. We use John’s lock to secure our bikes to a tree near the outcrops, and he tells me his lock combination in case I need to leave before he is ready. We plan to hike to what John calls the “UFO” boulder first. Next, we’ll head to the nearby “Stamina Wall,” and finally we’ll end at the “Tip Top” boulder, so named for the disintegrating Tip Top Bakery truck permanently parked nearby—a vestige of the now overgrown road that circumvents the Hanover forest. I had never seen the Tip Top boulder before and its hidden novelty sounds particularly exciting. John goes on to describe other difficult and interesting boulder problems that might satisfy my desire to climb—at least for the day.

We make the short, easy hike to the “UFO” boulder—a 15 foot high, 70 foot long granite beauty— and John shows me his hidden stash of brushes and other tools that he uses to clean lichen and excess climbing chalk from the outcrop. We clean and prepare the boulder for about ten minutes before we begin climbing. John, who is a strong climber for any age, knows every hand and foothold on the rock, and it shows. We traverse back and on forth on a formidable crag for some undefined period of time (neither of us had a timepiece) and sit down to change from our climbing shoes into our walking shoes.

“What’s your major?” he asks during the interim between boulders. “Philosophy,” I answer, which changes the nature of the conversation for the rest of the outing. In between boulders, we talk about our favorite philosophical ideas and traditions. We touch on subjectivity, enlightenment, and the ineffable quality of experience, all before we even get to the Stamina wall. By the time we reach the Tip Top boulder, we’ve covered—in as much depth as a couple hours in the woods will allow—thousands of years of philosophical and spiritual thought. We arrive at the Tip Top boulder and return to the business of cleaning and climbing.

The easier of the two most obvious problems on the 16-foot high, slightly overhung, pure granite boulder stumps me. I fall a few feet from the top three times. We don’t have a crash pad (think of a portable gymnastics pad), but the ground is soft and almost flat—a boulderer’s dream landing. John gives me some helpful tips as to the easiest way up the boulder, but I am unwilling to commit to a high, sketchy heel-hook near the top of the rock that would have me a hanging inverted 10 feet above the ground. Exhausted and running out of light, I resolve to come back later with a crash pad, to give it another try. John draws me detailed map, and we set off into the fast approaching darkness for our bikes.

We hike through the dimly lit trails. John leads and I can barely see the ground as he calmly guides us back to the main trial, politely refusing the headlamp I offer him. “I like to use it as a last resort,” he says, and “I have one in my back-pack.”

John comments on the “bittersweet” sound of cars getting louder as we reach the road. “It’s nice to be able to share this with someone who appreciates it,” he says, and I thank him for the tour. We ride off in different directions and I lament at the darkness; John gave me directions to many more boulders that I now want to visit, but I can barely see the road in front of me—not to mention my bleeding hands and aching muscles. Fortunately, the relatively small area of woods around us has the potential to supply enough boulder problems to occupy a lifetime, and (just in case I get bored) the thoughts running through my head—the aftermath of our free-wheeling philosophical discussion—could occupy a few more.