MIRROR MARCH 28, 2014
GRAPPLING WITH CHECKING IN // 2
COMING TO THE COLLEGE: PERCEPTIONS VS. REALITY // 3
IS DARTMOUTH ON THE DECLINE? // 4 THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS // 6 YOU’VE BEEN PUNK’D // 8
KATHLEEN RAO // THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
2// MIRROR
EDITORS’ NOTE
STUDENTS BURDENED BY CHECK-IN HOLDS By KALIE MARSICANO
ANNIE MA // THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
When we were approached to be this spring’s Mirror editors, we panicked. Neither of us had much experience with The Mirror. One of us (you have a 50-50 shot at guessing!) had never actually opened an issue of The Mirror before. But our chemistry was undeniable — even though we had never met. Over spring break, we eagerly exchanged flitzes (and also sent out story assignments), finally arriving in the office this week with distinct expectations. We thought that our inbox would be flooded with hilarious overheards and that we would be hard pressed to pick just five for the week. Alas, this is not the case. We barely received two. Can you all become better eavesdroppers? We thought that spending our Thursdays in The D’s office would be miserable, but actually we’ve managed to smile a few times. We thought there would be sunshine and flowers on campus. There are not. After reading this note, your expectations for this term’s Mirror are probably exceedingly low. We hope you’re wrong. As incoming freshmen, Jasmine dreamed of being educated alongside the likes of future Nobel prize winners and presidents, perhaps becoming one herself, and Emma anticipated that she would study exclusively in the mystical Tower Room and that her TAS would expand her intellectual horizons. Sadly, our expectations often failed to meet reality. This week, high school seniors all over the world will buy their Dartmouth ’18 shirts and dream similarly misguided dreams. If there’s anything we learned this week, it’s that history repeats itself.
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MIR ROR MIRROR EDITORS JASMINE SACHAR EMMA MOLEY EDITOR-IN-CHIEF LINDSAY ELLIS PUBLISHER CARLA LARIN EXECUTIVE EDITORS MICHAEL RIORDAN STEPHANIE McFEETERS
The email came last Friday afternoon with a clear message and simple instructions. “All students in residence are required to officially check-in online,” it read, providing a one-click path to Banner Student. After the first deadline on Wednesday, students could still check in with a $50 late fee tacked on. Until checking in, students cannot receive credit for classes and may even face administrative withdrawal. Despite these daunting consequences, the check-in process itself is relatively simple. All students have to do is log onto Banner Student and click a few links. If all goes well, a yellow smiley face congratulates you. For most students, the trials of check-in end there. But for others, administrative holds prevent checking in and further unsettle the already hectic few days at the start of each term. Student financial services instates financial holds — called bursar holds — if a student has an outstanding balance of $500 or more on his or her D-Pay account after scholarships, financial aid, payment plans and explanation forms have been factored in to the total, director of student financial services Kathryn Page said. The student must pay the balance in full or negotiate a payment plan before student financial services lifts a hold, Page said. Students must pay the balance out of pocket or arrange loans and scholarships with the financial aid office to cover the difference. Sandi Caalim ’13 will graduate this spring, and she said she can only remember one term without having a check-in hold. She spends the first few days of most terms in and out of the financial aid office, juggling the stress of tuition negotiations with the first week of classes. Dealing with the monetary concerns of check-in holds makes it feel impossible to start the term, Caalim said. Furthermore, the process of negotiating loans to overcome check-in holds creates a distinct difference between students who do and do not struggle with financial issues, she said. “Check-in holds reminds me, in a way, that maybe I’m not allowed to be here,” Caalim said. Just like Caalim, Janelle Bullock ’15 can only recall one term at Dartmouth when she could
check in on time, without a hold. “I’ve never had a good time with check in,” Bullock said. “Ever.” Although Bullock’s parents have consistently paid her tuition and expenses on time, Student Financial Services has been late to process payments, Bullock said. At the start of each term, she now sets aside time to visit student financial services in person, where she must have a representative manually process her tuition payments and lift the hold from her account. “It’s really obnoxious,” Bullock said. “I know I’ll go on Banner Student, I know I have a check-in hold, and I have to go deal with it.” While Page said she wasn’t aware of the specifics of Bullock’s situation, she said that such a situation should not have happened. For Bullock and Caalim, check-in holds have become a routine headache at the start of each term. For others, holds crop up unexpectedly and come as a shock. At the beginning of this term, Madeline Parish ’16 logged on to Banner around 10 a.m. on the final day to check in and found that a bursar hold had been placed on her account. If she could not resolve the hold to check in by 4 p.m. that day, she would face a $50 fine on top of the balance she already owed. “I felt like there was a kind of weird disconnect in that I was getting notified,” Parish said. “I didn’t know how to fix the problem. I felt like they should have alerted the person who pays for the schooling.” Parish’s father, who pays for her education, had accidentally missed a bill and later realized that an email had slipped through the cracks, Parish explained. Although she resolved the unexpected hold relatively quickly, Parish barely met the deadline. The stressful combination of the intense time crunch and the impending fee created an overall frustrating situation, she said. “They’re saying, ‘There’s an issue with you paying money. Please pay us or you have to pay more,’” Parish said. Tyler Rivera ’16 was also shocked to discover that a check-in hold had been placed on his account at the start of last winter term, when his scholarships from a separate organization were
not automatically applied to his Dartmouth tuition. “I was kind of freaking out,” Rivera said. “It was completely unexpected. I had no idea that my scholarship wasn’t going to be applied to my tuition balance.” Rivera, who handles all the finances for his education himself, had previously met with both student financial services and the financial aid office, and was well-equipped to resolve the situation. Even so, Rivera still found himself working against the deadline, checking in three hours before the deadline. Check-in related issues unfold during the first three days of term, amid shopping for classes, resolving housing problems and coming to terms with the depressing reality that spring is actually just winter with a few more daylight hours. The extreme time crunch imposed by deadlines can compound the natural stress that comes at the start of every term. For some students, the process creates an administrative nightmare — but the added stress and the $50 fee are usually as bad as it gets. At some colleges, Page explained, having a check-in hold can prevent students from receiving a room key, signing up for classes or using the meal plan. Dartmouth is different, Page said, as checkin holds do not harshly penalize students or cause them to fall behind with classes. The fee is in place to motivate students to submit payments on time, she said, and a student who feels their fee is unjustified can submit a waiver form to appeal it. There’s no doubt that resolving check-in
holds is often a hassle. The process of bouncing between administrative offices consumes the few relatively relaxing days of term we’re afforded before work really picks up. The solution? Try to check in early. If an issue arises, contact the associated office as soon as possible and figure out what needs to be done. And if there’s a hold on your account this year, don’t fret. “Usually,” Page said, “we work something out.”
WAYS TO
ACCUMULATE CHECK-IN
HOLD FEES
BYRNE HOLLANDER // THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
OVER HEARDS
’15 Girl: There are six Aires in this room but I can’t breathe.
Blitz overheards to mirror@ thedartmouth. com
’15 Girl: My favorite part about spring break is being able to talk shit about people without fear of being overheard.
’16 Girl: How can I trick them into thinking that I’m nice enough to be on Croo?
’15 Girl: What’s it like to have a first kiss?
’17 Guy: His parents came on the Mayflower.
’17 Guy: I don’t know what an overheard is.
MIRROR //3
Last night, thousands of students across the globe awaited the fateful hour of Ivy decision releases, the hour that would seal students’ destinies for the next four years. Though many students went to sleep ecstatic for the years ahead, the larger majority could only consider what might have been. We can predict that Dartmouth’s Class of 2018 will be diverse, not only based on students’ backgrounds, but also their expectations for Dartmouth. Many will accept offers of admission after dreaming of Hanover for as long as they can remember, while others will settle for Dartmouth after being rejected from other institutions. Personally, my only expectations for Dartmouth lay in New Hampshire’s infamous weather. Despite being from the also chilly state of Wisconsin, I bought a new winter jacket before coming to Dartmouth, terrified for the “polar vortex” that awaited me in Hanover. But after surviving my freshman winter, I now understand that the authors of these guidebooks are not from Wisconsin — more likely they hail from sunny California. I was not exactly frustrated by the warmer-thanexpected weather, but there are higher stakes in others’ expectations. An Ivy League institution like Dartmouth cannot always live up to the high
shared experience at Dartmouth,” Salovaara said. “There’s only shared experiences within the micro-communities of Dartmouth.” Both Flanagan and Salovaara found their own communities within smaller realms of Dartmouth, such as the Dartmouth Outing Club. Other students, including Lee and Anna Gabianelli ’16, could not initially find their place at the College, an experience which did not meet either of their expectations. Lee remembered campus as being intimidating and overcrowded for the first three to four weeks of her freshman fall. On a similar note, Gabianelli floundered during her first term at Dartmouth, as she wasn’t provided the community that her classmates on sports teams were and was unsure of which extracurricular activities to join. Gabianelli became a tour guide last year, and once every two weeks, Gabianelli can shape prospective students’ expectations through her tours. While she originally tried to talk about the College as a whole, Gabianelli found that attempting to represent every student’s diverse perspective was disingenuous, and instead only relays her own experience. “Expectations are so hard to match because
By VICTORIA NELSEN original expectations. Dan Pham ’16 applied to Dartmouth on a whim. After spending his whole life on the East Coast, Pham said his top choice was Stanford University, where he was not accepted, because he thought it would offer a new experience, strong academics and good weather. Still, after he visited Dartmouth, he felt welcomed and could see himself fitting in. “When decisions first rolled around, I wished that I had that opportunity,” Pham said. “But now that I’m here, I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.” While students may not consider the broader Dartmouth community in their day-to-day lives, he said, this community becomes more noticeable, particularly through alumni interactions. “I disagree with the thought that there is no ‘Dartmouth community,’ per se,” Pham said. “I think my expectations of Dartmouth were met pretty well with what I encountered here. The openness and welcoming community stuck with me.” Though some prospective students may base
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@ Dartmouth YOUR TAN
Hope Cabo treated you well.
#14STILL SNOWON THE GROUND BOOKLESS WHEELOCK BOOKS
Hanover’s most convenient stop for books has been experiencing shortages this week, to both professors’ and students’ dismay.
FIRST WEEK FACETIME
Whether you’ve been off campus for two terms or two weeks, you’ve been sending out dozens of mass “Let’s catch up! Lunch at Collis after 12s?” texts. It’s spring time and there is socialization in the air!
CANVAS ON THE RISE
hopes of prospective students. Diane Lee ’15 noted that admissions offices tend to portray their schools in an idealistic way, adding that every institution has its flaws that are not advertised. She wouldn’t expect admissions officers to change this tactic, however, as their job, first and foremost, is to attract potential applicants to their institution. For example, when a Dartmouth admissions officer made the trek out to my high school in Wisconsin, she was quick to highlight the College’s strong and nurturing community. It’s no surprise, then, that when I enrolled, I expected to become part of a large tight-knit group. Similarly, Shea Flanagan ’14 said she perceived a college-wide community when she visited. “But it seems that the original sense of community that I hoped for was not as cohesive as I originally thought it was,” she said. “My choices for joining certain groups has fulfilled my desire for that.” Malcolm Salovaara ’17 had a similar reaction to Dartmouth’s oft-touted sense of community. Like Flanagan, Salovaara chose Dartmouth partially because of the inclusive community that it is known for. “Community is developed by shared experience, and I don’t think there’s any universal
Dartmouth is so complex,” Gabianelli said. “It’s important to remember what you want to get out of your experience and focus on that.” Entering her freshman fall, Lexi Krupp ’15 was extremely excited, since Dimensions had eased her nerves about Dartmouth’s negative reputation in the media. “It seemed like a dream,” Krupp said. “It seemed like such a wonderful community of down-to-earth, really intelligent, caring people who went out of their way to put so much energy into my experience.” Krupp said that her Dartmouth reality has changed over the years. As a freshman, she was disappointed. Expecting a diverse array of students with several perspectives on the world, she was surprised when her freshman floor was fairly homogeneous, with most of her floormates coming from the Northeast. Krupp said that she was also frustrated with the Greek system, as she struggled to find an alternative to going out to fraternities. Over the next few years, Krupp discovered other communities, becoming involved with the DOC and making close connections through Foley House and an off-campus social scene. Now, she said her current reality matches her
their expectations of Dartmouth on its reputation in the media, Adam Wright ’17 said that the media attention on sexual assault demonstrates something positive about Dartmouth, especially in its approach to handling the issue. “It’s definitely not the media attention Dartmouth wants or needs right now,” Wright said. “However, I think there’s something to be said that we, as a school, are so open to the issue, and the administration does seem to truly be trying to combat the issue and investigate what can be done to lower the rate of sexual assault and hopefully stop it altogether.” Overall, Wright said that his first two terms at Dartmouth have matched his pre-college expectations of meeting diverse students, studying with intelligent professors and being challenged academically. Expectations are more than weather and a winter jacket, but unlike the not-so-disappointingly “warm” 14W, most students have worked their way through their initial expectations of Dartmouth, creating diverse realities that reflect the complexity of our campus. As for me, I recommend that Midwestern students look further than college guidebooks when researching Dartmouth’s weather. KELLEY LIN // THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
Move over Blackboard, there’s a new learning management system in town. More and more professors have switched over to the sleek and modern Canvas to connect with students.
MARCH MADNESS If your bracket is doing well, who even are you?
3 WEEKS ’TIL MIDTERMS
4// MIRROR
Is Dartmouth on the Decline ? By Sakina Abu Boakye and Min Kyung Jeon Recent controversies surrounding Greek life, sexual assault, administration upheavals and most recently, declines in application numbers have spurred some to speculate that Dartmouth is, to put it lightly, at a crossroads — perhaps even a slump. Upon hearing about the 14 percent drop in regular decision applicants this Januar y, many students voiced concerns that the value of their degree will drop. However, the College has been no stranger to controversy in past decades, many of which touched upon issues still relevant today. This raises the question: is Dartmouth’s current predicament indeed unprecedented? And if not, how has the College recovered from similar controversies?
’70s
Histor y professor emerita Mar ysa Navarro, who joined the faculty in 1968, said that though most community members supported the inclusion of women on campus beginning in 1972, a minority of students, administrators and alumni quietly opposed coeducation. “Because of the resistance of the alumni to coeducation, Dartmouth pretended that the presence of women did not change the institution,” Navarro said. What started as perhaps a quiet but grudging acceptance of diversity in the College morphed into a heated debate in the 1980s.
’80s
English professor Donald Pease, who joined the faculty in 1973, said that beginning in 1980, Dartmouth instituted several progressive policies to cultivate a more accepting climate for women and people of all races, ethnicities and nationalities. Fraternities faced losing their recognition if they did not follow minimum standards for behavior, such as maintaining civility and respect for women in their parties, Pease said. The 1980s, however, were also marked by slander, destruction and lawsuits, stemming in large part from articles in The Dartmouth Review, the student publication founded in 1980 by a group of students saying they were disillusioned with the direction the College was taking. The Review said the administration weakened the curriculum with what it referred to as “victim studies,” and the publication began running stories about faculty who taught these courses, according to a 1989 article in the New York Times. The Review also ran columns that called the dean of social sciences the guardian of “little Latin Commies” and a histor y professor “androgynous.” In the wake of the resulting uproar, faculty voted to condemn the articles. Music professor William Cole, who taught at Dartmouth from 1974 until 1990, gained national attention
for his clashes with The Review. In 1983, The Review ran a stor y describing Cole, who is black, as looking “like a used Brillo pad.” Cole subsequently sued The Review for slander and though the case was ultimately settled outside of court, the tension between Cole and The Review did not subside. In Februar y 1988, several staff members of The Review entered Cole’s classroom with cameras and tape recorders. A scuffle ensued, which resulted in Cole breaking one of the cameras. Dartmouth’s Committee on Standards charged three editors of The Review with harassment and disorderly conduct. The students were found guilty and suspended. In response, the students brought Dartmouth to New Hampshire court, citing that their rights of due process and free speech had been violated. In 1989, a New Hampshire judge agreed, citing bias against The Review from one member of the Committee on Standards and reinstated the charged students. Cole ultimately left the College in 1990, claiming that his clashes with The Review “totally blackballed” him. Cole’s experiences garnered huge amounts of outside coverage, most famously in the form of a “60 Minutes” inter view on CBS in 1988. The inter view, said music professor Bill Summers, who has taught at Dartmouth for three decades was far more controversial than the recent Rolling Stone article on hazing. In late 1985, a group of students built several plywood shanties on the Green to protest the College’s investments in companies that conducted business in the apartheid-era South Africa. In Januar y 1986, another group of students demolished the shanties. National headlines followed. College President James Freedman was also subject to The Review’s criticism. In 1988, Freedman, who was Jewish, was depicted as Adolf Hitler in the paper’s pages. At the beginning of the 1990s, over 2,000 people joined in a Dartmouth United Against Hate rally in an attempt to kindle campus unity and condemn The Review. In a
move that stunned campus, Freedman publicly denounced the publication’s “reprehensible pattern” of bigotr y and requested that community members instead engage in civil discourse when they have differences of opinion. “It really dramatically reduced tension on campus,” Summers said. “It basically gave the Dartmouth community permission to stop fighting.” In Summers’ opinion, this action by Freedman that allowed campus to focus on progressive academic changes. Among these turn-of-the-decade initiatives were the creation of the minor, the culminating experience as a distributive requirement, the Presidential Scholars program and the expansion of the Collis Center.
’90s
In the 1990s, as Dartmouth’s academic opportunities advanced under Freedman’s leadership, the campus filled with tense debate about the future of Greek houses. “There is a long histor y of the College struggling to find the implication of both the single-sex fraternity and sorority issue,” Summers said, “but also the extent of use of alcohol.” A faction of students disconcerted with what they perceived to be the divisiveness of single-sex Greek houses and alcohol-related incidents began to explore the idea of coeducational fraternities. Freedman also made clear his goal of diverting attention away from Greek houses by enacting a ban on kegs. Then-student body president Andrew Beebe ’93 sparked the Greek house debate among students. In a 1992 speech,
Recent College Controversies
Rolling Stone article published
Title IX investigation launched at College
Real Talk Dartmouth protests Dimensions
“Bloods and Crips” party held by AD and Tri-Delt
MIRROR //5
Beebe advocated making the Greek system coeducational. This statement pushed the campus into a forceful debate over the future of Greek life, resembling current campus climate. The idea of moving toward coed houses gained traction during Beebe’s administration and continued to build support in the mid-90s. In 1996, an unidentified group covered the campus in posters accusing fraternities of rape and homophobia. Among the written accusations was the statement, “Frats assault. Frats rape. Frats suck.” In 1998, the College attracted national coverage for a “ghetto party” hosted by Chi Gamma Epsilon fraternity and Alpha Xi Delta sorority in 1998. Several editorials from the two Greek houses involved failed to pacify certain members on campus, and discussion around the issue continued for the rest of the term. This decade ended with a bold declaration from incoming College President James Wright in the winter of 1999. As a part of a new program called the Student Life Initiative, Wright and the Board of Trustees planned to “end Greek system as we know it,” as a headline in a Februar y 1999 issue of The Dartmouth read. In an inter view with The Dartmouth, Wright said he and the Trustees were committed to not only transforming the Greek system but also realizing other social and residential changes. Summers described the response from students to this initiative as “volcanic.” In Februar y 1999, 1,000 students, most of them affiliated, marched to Wright’s house on Webster Avenue. The group supported keeping single-sex fraternities and sororities. The same year, the Coed Fraternity Sorority Council voted to cancel all Winter Carnival parties to be hosted by Greek houses, sparking more protests.
RECENT ISSUES
In the past few years, Dartmouth has seen a whirlwind of controversies erupting around the same issues that surfaced in the 1980s and 1990s. The March 2012 Rolling Stone article titled “Confessions of an Ivy League Frat Boy: Inside Dar tmouth’s Hazing Abuses” decried the hazing rituals at Dartmouth fraternities and invited a maelstrom of media scrutiny. A year later, a group of students under the name Real Talk protested during Dimensions weekend to call attention to campus problems with racism, sexism and homophobia. Members of Real Talk later received anonymous death threats. In response, the administration canceled classes
Many Panhell executives abstain from sorority recruitment
Bored at Baker post targets first-year female student
for a day of reflection and discussion, and numerous news teams traveled to campus to cover the controversy. Last May, the Depar tment of Education launched a Title IX investigation into the College, and in July Alpha Delta fraternity and Delta Delta Delta sorority co-hosted a “Bloods and Crips”-themed party. In Januar y, adding to recent controversy, a student posted a “rape guide” targeting a member of the Class of 2017 on Bored at Baker, an anonymous Dartmouth message board where students routinely post offensive comments. A precipitous 14 percent decline in application numbers for the Class of 2018 furthered students’ fears of a tarnished image. Speculations have linked the drop to the snowballing effect of recent controversies. The scandals have revolved around issues of racism, sexism, classism and homophobia on campus and spurred debates about Dartmouth’s degree of acceptance of historically underrepresented or disenfranchised groups. Such scandals have often been tied to debates over the Greek system’s influence on campus culture.
DARTMOUTH’S 2014 APPLICATION SLUMP Jeffrey Durso-Finley ’90, director of college counseling at the Lawrenceville School, said that he does not consider the drop in applications to be part of a pernicious trend. Other liberal arts schools have been experiencing similar declines because of the overall decline in the college-bound population, he said. Durso-Finley said he has not encountered applicants who have ruled out applying to a college because of their perception of campus issues. He said he believes that more so than the application rate, the matriculation rate best represents outsiders’ attitudes toward a college. If an accepted student selects another school over Dartmouth, that decision should be a greater concern for the College, he said. The College’s yield rate has hovered between 48 and 52 percent since 2004. Dartmouth has, however, increasingly relied on early decision since 2010. The rate of early decision students admitted as a percentage of total students admitted has hovered at around 20 percent, a level not experienced since the late 1980s and the early 1990s.
Sean Logan, director of college counseling at Phillips Academy, said that the recent controversies are not representative of the character of the Dartmouth community, though he added that applicants from high schools that lack access to information about might be more susceptible to believing the media’s negative portrayals of Dartmouth. Dartmouth faculty’s decision in 2013 to eliminate college credits for Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate and other such high school courses, Logan said, probably played only a minor role in reducing applications to Dartmouth this year. The types of students who apply to Dartmouth are usually attracted to the College’s strong sense of community and academic rigor, not the prospect of graduating early, he said. Navarro said she thinks that the controversies that Dartmouth has faced are not confined to the College, but are problems affecting other institutions as well. However, Navarro said the College’s recent scandals related to sexual assault were never experienced at this magnitude — even in the 1970s. Furthermore, Navarro believes that for Dartmouth to surpass this reputation of being in a slump, the campus would have to move beyond merely acknowledging its issues and take action. “The institution is far more complex than it was then,” Navarro said. “The kind of passive acceptance that was the acceptance of coeducation cannot be the same.” Summers, by contrast, said he believes that the current controversies reflect a “tepid problem that got unprecedented national press and national notoriety.” Summers said that issues related to alcohol use and the Greek system are certainly not unique to Dartmouth, but that they are still important to discuss. Putting the perceived gravity of this decade’s controversies aside, it is hard to deny they bear a striking resemblance to past scandals. Many of these adversities, especially those during Freedman’s administration, were improved by a series of academic and residential initiatives aimed at enhancing the bond among students and increasing the general campus sensitivity to the experiences of underrepresented groups. Despite all of the controversies of the 1992-93 year, the Class of 1997 applicant pool was cited as the strongest that the College had ever seen. Summers said the spike in applications and the strength of the applicant pool can be attributed to the vast array of academic programs that Freedman created. Pieces of our recent campus climate issues have roots in the past. Perhaps the key to resolving today’s tension is to look to the past, adapting previous solutions that worked toward uniting campus around a common commitment to intellectualism and acceptance of differences. The Greek system, racism, sexual assault — these are issues that will undoubtedly resurface and continue to shape the direction the College takes. So, is Dartmouth in a slump? It depends on who you ask and what statistics you weigh more heavily. What is certain, though, is that the cycle of scandals dating from the 1970s has and will continue to push the College, willingly or not, into progressive changes that will redefine Dartmouth culture.
“Freedom Budget” released
Photos courtesy of Rolling Stone Magazine, Dartmouth Flickr, NPR and Wikipedia
ARMIN MAHBANOOZADEH // THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
6// MIRROR
Through the Looking Glass
14WE’REDOINGVINTAGEEVERYDAY: A JOURNEY B y RIN KOMINKIEWICZ
Courtesy of Rin Kominkiewicz
If you were on this past winter, you most likely saw me. I was the girl bopping around campus in heels, huge nylon bows, skirts with great twirl factor and hair that belonged on an August 1945 cover of Cosmo. I didn’t let the weather tell me what to do. If it was negative 10 degrees, I put my big girl petticoat on, chanted the words of my idol, Doris Mayday, “I would rather get frostbite on my toes than wear some ugly modern boot,” and soldiered on. Yes, I was cold. I hated answering that question. Of course I was cold. I hated answering many people’s questions. Mostly they came from Dartmouth students; however, professors, townies and the morning Collis squad also buzzed about my project and liked to ask questions. A lot of them annoyed me because in my head, the answers are so obvious. I really hated “How do you have enough clothes to last you a term?” Can we think about this for a moment, please? I have a wardrobe just like you. Mine is just more vintage and less boring than yours. People also kept asking where I got my clothes. While that’s a valid question, saying “pinupgirlclothingdotcom” in one breath became really difficult after a while, especially because I wore a girdle most days. So you can see how I could get bothered. Then most people would not believe that the website was actually named Pinup Girl Clothing, which is simultaneously vexing and baffling to me. Perhaps the most frequently asked question was, “Why?” Why pinup? This answer is meditated, deliberate and political; it’s my way of paying homage to the women who could not come to Dartmouth simply because of their historical situation. By taking the time to pin curl my hair and hook my girdle ever y day, I explore the capabilities of women. It was my way of saying, “Anything you can do, I can do in heels and a petticoat.” I intentionally picked this era. Women in the 1920s and 1930s looked great and all, but I simply do not understand the 40s and 50s. It baffles me how the American feminist trajector y actually declined after women gained suffrage. Women went from having strong political voices in pacifist and civil liberties groups during World War I to being satisfied with rationing butter in World War II. I also cannot wrap my head around the crazed competition to be the most average in the 1950s — it was so frighteningly easy. Because I do not understand how ever yone conformed so willingly, I grapple with it and have been doing vintage recreation for over two years. Totally immersing myself in activities of the time through my dress, the music I listen to and the movies I watch is my own way of making sense of it all, yet I still do not fully understand. Why do this ever y day for winter term? That answer is ver y simple. I wanted to. Why wouldn’t I want to? I have fun dressing up, and it also forced me to stop in the whirlwind of term to take time for myself. I also knew students would react well to it because students seemed to have liked a pinup photo shoot Ryan Hueston ’14 and I did in the fall much more than either of us ever intended. I didn’t think anything could go wrong. However, things did go wrong. Besides inconvenient questions, a number of people would remark, “That’s not vintage” when they saw me in my track practice clothes. First, I think I would be aware that spandex, sneakers and a T-shirt do not compile Rita Hayworth’s
outfit of choice. But this remark mostly bothered me because it made me feel like people started viewing my outfits as a source of their entertainment, as several of my peers felt entitled enough to monitor what I wore on a daily basis. Another thing that downright irked me was when people asked to touch my hair. Now, my women of color friends can relate to this. The answer is a resounding no. I am not a pet, nor am I some interactive art display, though people would sometimes just stick their fingers in my faux-bangs without asking. My hair is an extension and expression of myself, and your touch is not welcome. 14We’reDoingVintageEver yDay was not intended to be as political as it became. Not only did people react differently to me, they also treated me differently. For 65 days, I did not open doors for myself. It took me two weeks to notice how students, faculty, townies, men and women all would bolt in front of me to open the door when I was in pinup. I also did not have to wait as long at crosswalks when I was dolled up. Cars stopped short for me while I walked to class, but on my way to practice in sweats, I waited much longer for cars to yield. All of these clues called for introspection and allowed me to realize that I am doing something bigger than playing dress up with myself.
“ANYTHING YOU CAN DO, I CAN DO IN HEELS AND A PETTICOAT.”
I was blatantly objectified for 65 days. From unwanted touches and constant monitoring to being put on a pedestal, I felt like less of a person most days. Precisely 33 days into my project, I cried in my best friend’s room because the objectification became overwhelming. In a basement where I normally feel ver y unthreatened, three different men objectified me, becoming aggressive and commenting solely on my appearance. These instances culminated in a breakdown where I questioned if I should continue. I never realized that objectification could really take a toll on someone like that. Since then I learned to internalize that objectifying gaze by turning it back on people and shooting back witty responses. If I never learned to do that, I probably would never even put makeup on ever again. It really was that traumatic. Doing vintage ever y day last term taught me much more than I ever expected about the gaze and people’s superficiality. But despite the harder times, I am going to continue dressing the way I do, because I’m beginning to understand how piercing and objectifying a gaze can be — and because I seriously have fun dressing up like this. When I looked in the mirror in modern hair and makeup on my first day of spring break, I broke out into “Reflection” from “Mulan” (1998). I just looked so alien to myself. This is who I am, and I feel great.
MIRROR //7
COLUMN
WHAT HAVE WE DONE?
By SEANIE CIVALE and AMANDA SMITH
IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING
COLUMN
By
KATIE SINCLAIR Chapter: The last. Question: How on earth did we get here? Amanda: There are few things I love more than making new friends. And though I didn’t anticipate that my relatively lackluster spring break plans would afford me the opportunity to do so, they did, and this is how it went down: After spending a couple of days bopping between Manhattan and Brooklyn, I bought myself a bus ticket to Philadelphia, where I would spend part two of my break catching up with my little sister. So I packed up my things and rolled it all out to the bus stop on 33rd. My ticket told me to be at the stop 15 minutes before the bus was supposed to leave, but of course that didn’t happen, and I got there with four minutes to spare. The bus was not there. Approximately 10 minutes after our expected departure time, we were informed by a disgruntled driver of a different bus going to a different city that ours was “running late.” After this announcement, the complaining and/or chitchat began. I’m not the best at starting small talk-type conversations with strangers, but the guy standing in line next to me was a pro. I’m not sure how much longer it took for the bus to arrive, but thanks to our conversation, it felt like no time at all. This dude was really freaking cool. Our talk continued well into our journey. Before we exited the bus, we exchanged numbers and said we’d hang out again sometime during the week. This easily could’ve turned into a forgotten promise once we parted ways, but I was determined to solidify the budding friendship. A few days later, we agreed to meet for breakfast at a food truck that sold amazing breakfast sandwiches for only a few bucks, and that we did. In the end, there’s no telling if I’ll ever see this guy again. The odds are most definitely not in our favor. But I’ll always have the lovely memor y of that time I got food with the boy I met waiting in line for a Philly-bound Bolt Bus. Seanie: Over spring break, I made no new friends, but I spent 40-plus hours in a Subaru with two great old ones. We drove west and then south for about 2,000 miles over the course of two days, crossing eight states and eating at McDonald’s in four of them. For the majority of the first leg of the journey, I was relegated to the backseat, where I alternated between sleeping, eating Girl Scout cookies, tr ying to discover the meaning of life and having my detour
suggestions shut down by my two companions up front. It wasn’t until after a stop at a bovine-themed family diner off the freeway somewhere in upstate New York that I was allowed to drive for the first of two times. Both times ended in mild to moderate disaster. During the first, I gleefully spotted a sign for Niagara Falls and went rogue, leading the car off the freeway and onto a detour to the Falls. Examining my actions retrospectively, I think it was a resistance against the Subaru monarchy my two friends had been running up to that point, with me as the court jester wilting in the back. Their howls of protest only energized my mission. The resistance, however, was less dramatic and more annoying than I bargained for — turns out Niagara Falls is not actually anywhere near the first sign for Niagara Falls on the freeway. It took two hours. T wo extremely wor thwhile hours, though. The majesty and grandeur of the Falls brought me to tears, and no claims by my trip mates that they were “utterly obscured” or that “you could literally only see three feet” can take that away. All that should be said of my second driving stint is that it ended in a brutal bout of car sickness on the side of a freeway in rural Oklahoma. Some notes if you’re going on a road trip: All involved will probably operate at a base level of slight annoyance (with the car, the road, each other) the whole time. Failing to yield to an emergency vehicle gets you an extremely pricey ticket. It is possible to drive 2,000 miles with your tire pressure light on and have nothing bad happen. Some McDonald’s don’t sell McFlurries. You should probably respond to this not with hate, but with a reenactment of the “Dirty Dancing” (1987) lift scene in the restaurant. It’ll make sense when it’s happening. And after spending 40 hours in an enclosed pod with the same people, you’ll start to believe that humans have a greater capacity for delirium and unconditional love than you thought. Driving for long distances can be scar y, hilarious and cathartic. I sometimes tend to think that things inevitably erupt in chaos — that the world is a big and terrifying pot we float around in and hope doesn’t bubble over on our side. But road trips prove that things can go wrong and still end up so right. Chapter: The last. Question: How on earth did we get here? Answer: Did you really think we’d have one? Yours come hell or high water, Lucy & Ethel
In case you were wondering, my spring break can be summed up by one scene from “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl” (2003). I unashamedly consider the movie to be one of my all-time favorites and a great achievement in filmmaking. It’s got romance and pirates and Johnny Depp and pirates and sword fights and pirates. Did I mention it has pirates? In this scene, we find a fresh-faced Keira Knightley playing an indignant Elizabeth Swann, accosting the bemused, rumtoting Jack Sparrow (a role that, lest we forget, got Depp nominated for an Oscar). Incredulous, Elizabeth asks, “So that’s it, then? That’s the secret, grand adventure of the infamous Jack Sparrow. You spent three days lying on a beach drinking rum.” To which Sparrow replies, with a sexy little chest shimmy, “Welcome to the Caribbean.” In case you haven’t figured it out, I was on a cruise ship to the Caribbean for spring break, which is like a pirate ship in a lot of ways: you are on a boat in the middle of the ocean, and there is a lot of rum. I may be exaggerating the debauchery aspect of the cruise to keep the pirate metaphor going — I mostly just sat in the sun getting moderately sunburned and reading Helene Wecker’s “The Golem and the Jinni” and 75 percent of Michael Chabon’s “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.” I finished about 1,000 pages of non-required reading, since there was no free Wi-Fi on the boat, and who brings a laptop to go snorkeling in the Virgin Islands? Of course, when I finally did check my email back in Florida, I had approximately a gazillion unread messages, two of which were important and time sensitive, four of which were job rejections and 937 that did not pertain to me at all and merely made it more difficult to identify and reply to the time sensitive ones. Folks, I’m not going to join your club or buy your textbook or loan you the car I don’t have. I am officially a spring term senior and as such will begin to shirk all my responsibilities, except this column, which I really enjoy writing and I think maybe two dozen of you enjoy reading. I could have devoted my first column of the last term to some cliché about seizing the day or making the most of every last moment, but counting down until the end of everything seems unbearably depressing. Yes, I have maybe only two or three trips left on the Dartmouth Coach, and only so many tender quesos, mozzarella sticks, Green Print malfunctions and pong
games to look forward to. But I’m not going to do some epic countdown, because if I actually stopped and calculated the days left of school or weeks until my thesis is due, I may have a mild panic attack. So I’m going to talk about pirates instead, because I’m still basking in the memory of the turquoise waters of the Caribbean, despite Hanover’s best attempts to quash my spring break afterglow with a foot of snow still on the ground. According to my Eyewitness Pirate book, which I adored as a child and have more or less committed to memory, being a pirate was actually pretty boring. You spent most of your time sitting on a boat, trying not to get scurvy and waiting for something exciting to happen. But being factually accurate can be awfully limiting sometimes, so let’s go with the movie version, with witty wisecracking heroes to rally behind and undead monsters to vanquish. Yes, I know that being a pirate is not a valid career goal, but I can’t help being attracted to that sense of adventure and freedom — the idea of hopping on your own personal ship and going off to explore the world, and maybe discovering a magical isle or two while you’re at it. I used to think that everyone graduated Dartmouth with a well-paying job in some glamorous city, acquired from a prestigious junior summer internship. Sure, some people do. But if you’re one of the people (like me!) who have 10 or so weeks left to figure out what you’re doing with your life and where you’re going to live, that’s okay, too. At least that’s what they tell me. So maybe my epic Dartmouth finale will not match the ending of the first “Pirates” film, where Sparrow has defeated the evil Captain Barbossa and escaped the clutches of the British Navy, finally reclaiming his position as captain of the Black Pearl. It’s definitely not going to be like the ending to the second film, either, where Jack Sparrow gets eaten by the Kraken. I’m aiming for something more like the third one, where Jack, after defeating the British Navy with the help of some kind of sea goddess thing, finds that his boat has been stolen by the no-longer-dead Captain Barbossa. But that’s okay! Because he’s Captain Jack Sparrow, and he hops alone into a small, questionably seaworthy dinghy and sets off to explore some uncharted waters. So for these last 10 weeks, let us channel the indomitable spirit of the one and only Captain Jack Sparrow. Bring me that horizon. Drink up, me hearties, yo ho.
8// MIRROR
In the spirit of April Fool’s, The Mirror examines Dartmouth’s prank-full past By Michelle Li
If you were a prospie yawning your way through yet another college tour, wouldn’t you choose the school where a horde of frenzied students, followed by a marching band and a walking keg, suddenly started running around screaming, “It’s drinkin’ time!”?
Everyone loves a good prank, and Dartmouth students are no exception. With April Fool’s Day right around the corner, it’s an opportune time to take a look at when our creative muscles were exercised for the most entertaining purposes.
The Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern The Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern, Dartmouth’s resident humor organization and magazine, has long been a mastermind of campus pranks. Matt Garczynski ’14, one of the magazine’s editors-in-chief, said that the premise of the organization has always been uniquely based on “prank humor.” “We capitalized on the idea of prank humor and made it our own thing,” Garczynski said. The Jacko’s most celebrated prank is undoubtedly the “Drinkin’ Time” video posted in 2007, which currently has 596,000 views on YouTube. Created by Mike Trapp ’08, the infamous film follows an unsuspecting tour as it approaches Webster Avenue and is ambushed by an ecstatic group of students who declare that “it’s drinkin’ time!” just as the tour guide awkwardly begins to discuss Dartmouth social culture.
Jacko members also set up a fake booth at the student activities fair for a club called “The Dartmouth Yale Enthusiasts” in a 2008 video. During a fake interview for the clip, one of the members explained that the club is for people who “did not get into Yale, despite numerous attempts. But that doesn’t mean we’ve given up.” More recently, The Jacko also took advantage of the Dartmouth social cups initiative to prank students eating at Class of ’53 Commons. Last spring, Jacko members printed posters advertising blue “DTF Cups” for those who were “down to flirt.” “I saw some people taking the cups without reading the sign,” Garczynski said. “If there was anyone who used them while knowing what they were, that would be very funny and very sad at the same time.”
Dimensions Deception Members of the Jacko are not the only students guilty of pranking prospies. In 2004, several students pulled off a “fake kidnapping” during Dimensions weekend. According to a Sept. 2007 issue of The Dartmouth, a Dartmouth student posing as a high school student befriended several prospies over the course of the weekend and later went with them on an unofficial tour of campus. During the tour, a black van suddenly appeared and the people inside grabbed the fake prospie and threw
him into the vehicle. Despite the alarm and panic of the prospies who witnessed the event, the tour continued. The tour guides conceded, “It’s too bad, but the tour must go on. He’ll probably be okay.” At the end of the tour, the van reappeared and the fake prospie, his hands taped together, stumbled out wearing only his boxers. He ran down Wheelock Street yelling, “I hate Dartmouth.” The tour guides revealed it was a prank after the other prospies refused to leave until the incident was resolved.
Streaking & Peeking
Dartmouth pranksters have also adopted a beloved activity that almost ever y student will witness before graduation: streaking finals. Benjamin Kessler ’13 said he streaked anywhere between 150 and 300 exams during his four years at Dartmouth. He decided to tr y the prank when his math final was streaked his freshman fall. “I was stuck on a problem, and the final got streaked, and all of a sudden, I knew how to do the problem,” Kessler said. “I realized this is a great thing. It’s
like giving back to the community.” His favorite streak occurred during his own final freshman year, when he wore a mask and later put his clothes back on to finish the final. Other times he wrote formulas on his body, pretended to be a robot and handed out Coke Zeroes to ever y test-taker. Kessler said that professors’ reactions to streaking var y greatly, from chasing after culprits to writing “Welcome, Streakers” on the blackboard.
Not-So-Recent Past Even Dartmouth’s distant past is rife with pranks. A 1925 issue of The Dartmouth reported that 75 students once fell for a “fake duel” when they watched six pranksters run into the woods and fire four shots in quick succession. David McConnell ’88 recalled that on the night before the 1984 Dartmouth-Harvard football game, four Dartmouth students traveled to the rival campus and painted the John Harvard statue green. “Even though they had to remove the green paint, I was there a year later and there was still green paint on parts of the statue,” McConnell said. Harvard certainly did not appreciate the joke.
The four students were forced to pay $2,004 for the damages, and The Harvard Crimson titled its news story “Dartmouth Vandals Pay Dearly For Damage to John Harvard.” In the spring of 1985, McConnell, who was a member of Alpha Chi Alpha fraternity, said he dressed as a Viking for a 1950s-themed party with members of Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority. Because the fraternity’s social chair was away for the weekend, McConnell and his friends decided to wear in attire from 950 instead. “We went as Vikings and carried a battering ram down to KKG,” McConnell said. “There were some really funny looks on the faces of the sisters when we showed up.”
ALLISON GUH // THE DARTMOUTH STAFF