MIR ROR 5.10.2017
POWER
THE PROFESSORSTUDENT DYNAMIC | 3
WIEN: THE POSTMODERN LOVE | 4
WHAT'S IN A NAME? | 7 TIFFANY ZHAI/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
2 //MIRR OR
Editors’ Note
ELIZA MCDONOUGH/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
The theme for this issue was inspired by several different factors: recent heated debates about power dynamics on campus, flickering lights in various campus dorms, the best running song of all time (“POWER” by Kanye West)... Your intrepid editors often like to believe that, in the context of the newsroom, they have a great deal of power. They often go on maniacal power trips slashing Oxford commas, rearranging poorly constructed sentences and laughing maniacally as they design a storyboard with more ideas than they have writers. But, at the end of the night, they’re really just three tired girls who have put off an entire night’s worth of studying. So, this week, we decided to look outward at representations of power. Who holds the power on campus and beyond? What happens when professors choose to subvert or uphold classical power dynamics? What do the subjects that we as a campus decide to rally around say about prevailing values? Will May, Annette and Lauren ever make it to bed before 3 a.m. on a Tuesday night? All this and more within the issue. Enjoy!
follow @thedmirror 5.10.17 VOL. CLXXIV NO. 78 MIRROR EDITORS LAUREN BUDD ANNETTE DENEKAS MAY MANSOUR EDITOR-IN-CHIEF RAY LU
PUBLISHER PHILIP RASANSKY EXECUTIVE EDITORS ERIN LEE KOURTNEY KAWANO PHOTO EDITORS ELIZA MCDONOUGH HOLLYE SWINEHART TIFFANY ZHAI
MIRROR //3
Level footing: the professor-student dynamic STORY
By Eliza Jane Schaeffer
In season five, episode one of “How I Met Your Mother,” Ted Mosby is nervous before his first day of teaching class as a professor. His friend Barney Stinson advises him to refuse questions on the first day of class, asserting that Ted needs to clearly define his relationship with his students. Barney says, “You’re their teacher, not their friend.” The director of the television series used this anecdote to parallel Barney and Robin’s struggle to define their own relationship, but it also nicely illustrates a dilemma that every professor faces: What kind of classroom does he want to run? His classroom can be discussion-based or lecture-based. He can encourage students to set up meetings. He can ask to be called by his first name. He can take questions. He can learn all his students’ names. Or he can choose not to do any of these. It’s all up to him. We might logically assume that someone who is paid to educate would create the classroom environment that is most conducive to learning. But that is much easier said than done. There are different learning styles, personalities, class sizes and subject matters, and as a result, a “good professor” is something we can instinctively identify but struggle to define. Here is my attempt at a definition: A good professor is one who empowers his students. The word “power” often elicits images of corrupt public figures, decadence and decay, dictators, greed. But the Oxford English Dictionary offers a far more innocent definition: “Power (noun): The ability to do something or act in a particular way, especially as a faculty or quality; the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behavior of others or the course of events.” A good professor is one who gives his students the ability to digest and absorb the material and
to guide their own learning. Education policy experts have a special word for power as it relates to learning: agency. According to business management expert Marilyn Gist, self-efficacy, another word for agency or ownership, is strengthened when people (students) feel that they have some degree of control over their situation (learning environment) and that others (their professors) expect highly of them. In plain English: When your professor knows and cares about who you are and your capabilities, when he takes your opinion seriously, you believe in yourself and put more effort into your schooling. Professors who foster a sense of agency in their students don’t view students as empty receptacles to be filled with knowledge. Rather, they engage students as partners in the learning process. They get to know their students outside of class. They point their students to co-curricular opportunities for further learning. They encourage, rather than shame, mistakes. Any Dartmouth — or to be frank, any collegiate — tour guide will tell you that their school is characterized by close student-professor relationships that often develop into research opportunities and job references. That was certainly true for Sunny Drescher ’20. “I’m actually going to be doing some research with [my professor] next year as a result of him being so encouraging of me pursuing quantitative social science,” she said. But when I asked her to elaborate on what made that professor so great, what was most important to Drescher was the fact that her professor cared about her life outside the classroom. She often attended her professor’s office hours to ask questions about the material and the field of quantitative social science more broadly, and she pointed to these
one-on-one interactions as playing a key role in developing their relationship. Caroline Allen ’20 wished that her favorite professor was more accessible. “He doesn’t really have a lot of office hours, so it’s harder to have more of a personal relationship,” she said. Allen went to a small, discussion-based high school. For her, learning comes more naturally when it is seen as a collaborative process in which the professor and student, rather than playing the traditional roles of giver and taker, have a more egalitarian relationship. “In high school, the teacher was another seat at the table — there was no front of the classroom,” Allen said. “So my whole high school was discussion-based, and for me, it’s really hard to learn in a classroom where you don’t really get to know your teacher, and your teacher doesn’t get to know you, like in [Psychology 1] or other introductory classes.” The setup she described pressures students to engage with the material on a deeper level. Environmental studies professor Terry Osborne fully embraces this approach. In a traditional classroom, the lesson serves as a third party or buffer with which the professor and students interact, and the professor is not obligated to connect directly with his students. However, Osborne feels that his responsibility to his students comes before his responsibility to the material. “I want to teach students and not the material,” he said. “That means if I keep the students primarily in mind and the material secondary, the learning of the material manifests itself more effectively. My focus is not necessarily on getting across the material. My focus is on getting across the material to the students. The material seems
to have more of an impact when I keep in mind that this is an interaction between me and the students.” In his classroom, personal relationships are very important. He holds conferences with his students regularly and asks them to “check in” at the beginning of each class by providing a brief update on how they are doing at that particular moment. Professors in other departments use similar methods to engage with students. Drescher enjoyed having a teacher who cares about her and not just her assignments. She connected with her favorite professor at Dartmouth on a personal level and felt that she could talk to him about subjects outside of that week’s lesson plan. “He was always super encouraging if I had an idea about something that was outside of class,” she explained. This can be difficult in larger lecture-style classes, a fact acknowledged by Allen and Osborne. But even in these larger classes, Drescher’s professor made an effort to connect with his students. According to Drescher, the professor described the importance of “just getting past the anonymity, recognizing that everyone in that room is someone who has a story and who is a human being.” All of this — building a relationship between students and professors, helping students engage with the material outside of the classroom, approaching learning as a collaborative endeavor — may sound like a nice recipe for an eye roll. But these strategies serve to encourage students to take ownership of their education, thus motivating them to achieve at higher levels. So perhaps, in a stunning turn of events, Barney was wrong. A professor can and should be a teacher and a friend.
4// MIRROR
The Postmodern Love COLUMN
By Elise Wien
Hello! I’ve been thinking a lot about power on this campus over the past two days, in the midst of all this local election mishegas. I think there are a variety of tactics to take down institutions of power: We can talk back to them, yell at them, meet with them in an instance of “civil discourse.” We can ignore them. Maybe in our absence they’ll shrivel away. A moment of peace. Kayuri and Corinne have been anxious lately. They haven’t been in my column for some time. So here, an hour after my comparative literature thesis presentation, is an essay on the Postmodern Love: It’s the evening of our last class, and the professor has taken us to Pine, the swanky restaurant in town. All the graduating students studying comparative literature can fit at a round table. There are five of us. Someone’s dessert arrives deconstructed: crushed peanuts in a jar, a puff of cream on a plate. “Whoa. Postmodern,” someone murmurs. If I’ve learned anything from studying comparative literature, it’s this: No one knows what “postmodern” means. Or rather, no one agrees. One concept: If modernity refers to a time when Truths were capitalized, absolute and communicable, postmodernity questions that authority. It posits a dissipated, nebulous, subjective look at experience. It questions the very medium of communication, the value of communication itself. Here’s a sample from a syllabus: “Appiah, Kwame Anthony. ‘Is the Post- in Postmodernism the Post- in Postcolonial’ (1991); Moore, David Chiani. ‘Is the Post- in Postcolonial the Postin Post-Soviet? Toward a Global Postcolonial Critique’ (2001); Shih, Shu-mei. ‘Is the Postin Postsocialism the Post- in Posthumanism?’ (2012).” You get the idea. I don’t know that I’ve ever experienced anything you could call Modern Love, authoritative capitalization and all. I don’t know that there’s anything modern about my college experience, where everything is subjective, nebulous, unauthoritative. I forget whole terms at a time and convince myself I’ve become wiser. Another way of defining postmodernity is not as a chronological shift but as a way of thinking that’s appeared in every era of history. If modernity is one mode of thought — say, that everything revolves around earth — then the Copernican model would be postmodern, a re-mapping, re-positioning and re-evaluation of the self. This, I think, is the type of love I’ve experienced at school. The Postmodern Love looks like this: I was matched with my two roommates, Corinne and Kayuri, the summer before freshman fall. This was based on a questionnaire about our sleeping habits, cleanliness, noise level, etc., a questionnaire on which I’m sure we all lied. We’re graduating this spring, and with the exception of sophomore summer, we’ve lived together for every term we’ve been on campus. We imagine ourselves as a sitcom, “Two Indians and a Jew.” One roommate is Gujarati Indian, the other is Potawatomi Native American and I am Ashkenazi Jewish. The seasons look like this:
Freshman year: We m o v e i n t o Russell Sage 111. It’s a two-bedroom triple with a tiny halfbathroom and an out-of-commission fireplace. Our room is markedly colder than every other room on our floor. Like, winter in New Hampshire cold. We do freshman year things. We run around the twostory homecoming bonfire (me: three laps, maybe; Kayuri: s eve n ; C o r i n n e : 60) and attempt to triple-bunk our beds. Stacking all three beds on top of each other would give us more space in the tiny inner room. Perhaps a small trampoline would fit there (not that we had one), more storage area (for what?) or a fort (never happened). Corinne does most of the work stacking the beds. She’s the strongest, and I have notoriously weak wrists. We have to un-bunk them after two nights because I (top bunk) keep hitting my head on the ceiling and Kayuri (middle bunk) suffers back pain from her inability to turn over. We watch students get arrested outside of our window for public urination. Spring term, we jump in a mud pit together. I ask them if they want to live together next year. It feels like proposing. Sophomore year: We move into MidFayerweather 110. Kayuri managed to get us housed together because she is an economics major who simply won’t take no for an answer — the Human Filibuster. We watch students get arrested outside of our window, this time for hazing. Somehow Corinne convinces us it’s a good idea to get the small trampoline in our room. We visit our freshman year quarters, and the current residents tell us the reason it was so cold the year before was because the flue to the fireplace was open. They closed it, and a pigeon carcass fell out. Corinne gets a Mellon Mays Fellowship and has a terrifying experience in which we think she might’ve been drugged on a night out because she can’t stop vomiting. (It turns out it’s because she’s gluten intolerant.) Kayuri goes to Spain. I intern at a literary magazine. Corinne declares her linguistics major. She’s going to work on Potawatomi language revitalization. The statistic is this: More people can speak Klingon than can speak Potawatomi. Kayuri becomes a tour guide. We crash her tours. I direct a play and cram the room with props. Junior year: We’re all in different parts of the world for fall and winter terms, and we won’t see each other until spring. I study abroad in Edinburgh, where I gain two new roommates: Depression and Eating Disorder. The greater parts of my days are spent sleeping, staring at a wall or throwing up. Back at school, I see a counselor. I fear the relationship with Corinne and Kayuri has been codependent,
TIFFANY ZHAI/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
that I’m destined to be sad when I’m not with them. Not codependent, then, I guess. Just dependent. Maybe I miss them unilaterally. We live together in the spring. I am still depressed, still bulimic. Great, then. It wasn’t them. Senior year: We go to the voting booth together. We experience the collective emotions of the nation. When Number 45 is announced the winner, Corinne returns to the room and pours herself a drink. “What if indigenous tribes lose sovereignty?” she asks. “What if they finish the genocide?” The Postmodern Love presents us with pain that we share, instances in which we don’t know how to comfort. We feel feelings we ought not to, a pain in the chest that is not our own. I don’t remember the first time I told my roommates “I love you.” The sentiment expresses itself in a host of different ways: expletives, two-and-a-half consecutive hours of Selena Quintanilla videos, conversations about the impact of protest on public policy, cultural opinions of mental health and treatment, menstrual taboos in different societies, “Who Wore It Best?” slideshows, head scratches, Kayuri reading us the news as we fall asleep at night. There is a friend Kayuri had in elementary school who was pregnant our freshman year. She now has two children and a husband. Corinne shows us a video of a Confederate flag t-shirt scandal at her high school. “We come close to a race war about every two years,” she adds. We know Corinne’s Michigan enemies, Kayuri’s brother, my friends from high school, all without ever meeting them. Eventually we meet each other’s families in the flesh, but the Skype calls, Facebook profiles and anecdotes during these past four years gave us an introduction long beforehand. I’ve never been to their hometowns, but I can picture them. We all come from dinky places outside of major cities; Corinne is from Dowagiac, Michigan (in Cass County, known for its invention of kitty litter), and Kayuri is from Lawrenceville, Georgia (with its own
Zaxby’s, which, if you’ve never been to one, is a fast-food joint that sells “zalads,” or salads topped with fried chicken). I’m from New Rochelle, New York. We have the Thomas Paine Cottage. The Postmodern Love is continually rebuilding itself, like a hideous modular housing unit. This is the rule: No one talks to their freshman roommates. They get personalities and learn specialties; they grow out of each other. Instead, the Postmodern Love asks that we grow into each other. When we take on each other’s mannerisms and ways of speaking, we call this leaking, as though we’re faulty faucets rusting into one another. Corinnetalksreallyfastandthen. Stops short. Kayuri will say it’s the “literal worst.” The Postmodern Love is like an orbit. The speed or attraction may change depending on the mass or the makeup of the body, but the gravity remains. Much of Modern Love encourages us to be independent entities, but this post-love opens us up to what happens when we start feeling for each other. I am trying to feel more for my parents, for people who don’t understand, even for (*gasp*) Republicans. What kind of possibilities open up to us when we allow ourselves to feel communally? In a time when no one sleeps with the same person twice, when we can “ghost” each other over text and practice careful detachment, living with the same exact people for four years feels like a triumph. My friend points out that this doesn’t seem post-anything at all. This is Pre-Modern Love. This is Love. Next year, we’ll all be living in different cities. If Modern Love requires synchronicity and centrality, this love skips time, allows us to hate one another for a moment — for keeping each other up too late, for saying something dumb, for not knowing how to comfort. This love allows us the flexibility of discovering who we are not only around each other but also in each other’s absence. Or so I think. I hope.
MIRROR //5
Little House on the Hill COLUMN
By Clara Guo
About a month ago, my roommate Flora and I made the following list of must-haves and deal breakers for our future apartment: (1) Price: Is the apartment in our price range? Are utilities included? How about other fees? (2) Location: Is it walking distance from work or close to the T-stop? (3) Laundry: Are there washers and dryers in the building? (4) “True” two-bedroom: Does the apartment actually have two equally-sized bedrooms, or is it a one-bedroom flex? (5) Miscellaneous: Does the apartment have natural lighting? How responsive is the landlord? Is there a nearby gym and grocery store? DOES IT HAVE A S--T BATHROOM? (Yes, we wrote this in all caps.) Last week, Flora and I officially started apartment hunting. We scoured realtor websites and Craigslist for a two-bedroom within our price range, ideally located in Beacon Hill, Massachusetts. After several hours, the apartments began to blend together. The prices were reasonable enough, the bedrooms big enough, the locations close enough. Everything was “enough,” but nothing stood out. We sent an email requesting a showing for several apartments, only to realize that one realty company owned all three of the apartments we requested. The response email read: Good morning, Thank you for contacting [insert realty company name here]! What time tomorrow would you like
to see this apartment for rent? Please answer the who has seen many apartments and understands following questions, and I will plug them into our the fickle nature of the Boston housing market. [sic] rental database and show you the listings that My delayed, delayed reaction: What if match your search criteria. all these apartments are off the market in the next A total of 17 questions followed, ranging week and a half ? Is the turnover for Boston housing from straightforward requests for names that fast? and co-signers to more difficult queries on Apparently so. price cap and amenities. Flora and I found Fast forward a few days. I bussed down ourselves struggling to answer even the most to Boston on Friday for a New Hire event basic of questions. and spent the morning We wondered, are “We wondered, are heat apartment hunting heat and hot water and hot water normally with a different realty normally included? We company. Here’s what definitely shouldn’t hope included? ... Should our I saw: for central air, but what price cap include all A partment 1: if the building doesn’t Pros: Great location, allow residents to install utilities and other fees? with only a 23-minute window units? Should Do ‘other fees’ encompass walk to work and a our price cap include four-minute walk to anything besides a broker all utilities and other the Red line. Cons: No fees? Do “other fees” fee and cable/internet? laundry in the building, encompass anything Is cable/internet even an and no heat included. besides a broker fee A partment 2: and cable/internet? Is ‘other fee’ we should be Pros: Laundry in the cable/internet even an considering?” building (two washers “other fee” we should and one dryer), heat be considering? Are we included and lots of “students?” Right now, yes, but in a month (knock windows. Cons: Third floor walkup with a on wood), we won’t be. Should we answer “n/a”? poorly designed bathroom mirror. In five hours, we had confirmed a date Apartment 3: Pros: Spacious and cheaper and time for the showing and received than alternatives. Cons: Bad location application instructions. “Please bring your (45-minute walk to work!), no laundry in checkbook,” the email advised, “in case you the building and general old, worn-down want to apply after seeing our apartments.” vibe. My immediate reaction: Who in the world A part of me wondered if I was focusing would apply to an apartment immediately after on the important attributes. What if I was seeing it? missing something essential? My delayed reaction: Probably someone That morning, I sent Flora photos of
each apartment and my handwritten list of pros and cons. When the showings were over, I called her. “Thoughts?” she asked. “Love apartment 2. Definitely not apartment 3,” I responded. “Apartment 1 is fine. But no laundry or heat, and layout, in my opinion, is worse than 2.” “Yeah, I just want to have the option to do laundry at, like, 4 a.m., y’know?” Flora said. “Not that I’ll ever actually do laundry at 4 a.m., but options are important.” “Agreed.” We paused. “Should we apply?” I asked. Flora wavered. “I think so.” “But you haven’t actually seen the apartment. What if you hate it?” “I literally didn’t see either of the two places I lived in during my internships until I moved in,” Flora countered. “If you like it, I’ll like it.” We hung up, 90 percent sure that we should apply, 70 percent sure that we actually would. On Monday night, Flora and I grabbed Collis dinner to go and sat on my bedroom floor, scanning the Beacon Hill area with Google Maps satellite view. We imagined our weekends spent at the nearby art gallery and pool (the latter of which we will most likely not have access to). We contended with our fear of commitment before finally deciding that, yes, we should and would like to apply for the apartment. As of Monday at 11:30 p.m., our bank accounts are drained, but our spirits are high.
Time’s Indexes POEM
By Henry Woram
Forgive us; we knew the grindstone too well to believe cigar smoke and Rolexes were worth coffee-stained years staring at “Dell” and retirements spent unwinding time’s indexes. We unfurled life along the football field and read it in crumpled notes, and we let back-of-taxi-cab oratories yield meaning that we scooped with butterfly nets. We waded in thoughts that danced in moonlit windows on nights that bent time’s prison bars. We ferried meaning ’cross conscious rivulets. With toothy grins we held life in our arms. But now I shak’ly give my life to greed because if I’m not fruit, who needs my seed? MORGAN MOINAN/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
6// MIRROR
Inside Palaeopitus STORY
By Carolyn Zhou
It’s no secret: Palaeopitus Senior Society dragging their feet who are not responding administration that Palaeopitus has access is made up of some extremely involved and as quickly,” he said, to. Solomon added that current members dedicated Dartmouth seniors. As one of This year’s delegation started out with will be creating a better archive of what Dartmouth’s non-secret senior societies, three sub-committees, each of which worked projects can be feasibly completed in such Palaeopitus was formed in 1899 as a group of on a different issue: mental health, support a short amount of time. campus leaders whose purpose is to advocate for faculty and people of color on campus Yih said he thinks that initiating a road for student interests to administrators. and community building. map for future classes is one of the most Current members Katherine McAvoy ’17, Yih, a member of the faculty and people productive things the 2017 delegation has Jacob Casale ’17, Hannah Solomon ’17 and of color committee initially, quickly found achieved. Christopher Yih ’17 explained what exactly out that there wasn’t much Palaeopitus would Another one of the deleg ation’s the society does, what their class delegation be able to achieve in that realm. accomplishments is its work on mental has achieved and the challenges they face “We put in a lot of work and hours and health. McAvoy described a project in working in the society. were never able to which her committee “Through my time at Dartmouth I got get any headway on “It shocks me that put together a list of into a niche of how I was affecting change the issue. In many r e s o u rc e s av a i l a b l e money is being spent on on campus,” said McAvoy, when asked to ways, I think that was to students through explain why she decided to join. “To some because we faced a lot renovating the [Hood Banner. However, she extent that’s useful, but heading into senior of resistance from the Museum of Art] rather said that the list is not up year, I was realizing there were broader things school,” he explained. yet, since there is a hold I wanted to accomplish with my time here.” “ T h e s ch o o l h a d than on counseling up on the administrative Palaeopitus is different than organizations their own way they services.” side, an example of such as Student Assembly in that it has wanted to tackle the one of the bar rier s greater access to administrators. To Yih, this issue. Therefore, our that Palaeopitus faces was one of his main motivations for joining. ideas were not really -CHRISTOPHER YIH ’17, when working with the “To me, the administration is clouded in considered by the PALAEOPITUS MEMBER administration. a lot of mystery, and I wanted to understand administration.” Another project what their motivations are, where their Fo r e x a m p l e , regarding mental health priorities lie and what really matters to Palaeopitus and the that Palaeopitus has them,” he said. administration disagreed over the tenure worked on is creating policy recommendations Working with administrators has proved selection process. Palaeopitus wanted to for Dick’s House through conversations with challenging at times, according to members. involve students more in the selection of various stakeholders and collecting data. McAvoy has had a lot of experience tenure and other positions such as the “It’s been a lot of behind the scenes work,” working with administrators because dean of the faculty. According to Yih, the Casale said. “You won’t necessarily see results of her other school plans to increase the of that immediately, but hopefully that work commitments on number of faculty of color can serve as bringing the student voice into campus, so she “Their timeline is by pipelining current people the conversation about mental health that’s already knew what slower, but they tend of color at graduate schools happening at the administrative level.” to expect. and fast tracking them into Moving forward, Yih said he believes that to be working as fast “Administration tenured positions at Dartmouth. there is much to be done regarding mental has all of these as they can be. A lot While he said he thinks this health on campus. other things they of students can feel is potentially a sustainable, “We have identified a gap between have to work long-term solution, he is also demand and ability of Dick’s House to meet through,” she said. frustrated, especially skeptical about whether the that demand,” he said. “There’s a cap on “Their timeline is if they haven’t worked school will actually fix the how many times you can go and long wait slower, but they problem. times. It shocks me that money is being spent with administration tend to be working Besides running into walls when on renovating the [Hood Museum of Art] as fast as they can before.” working with administration, rather than on counseling services.” be. A lot of students this year’s delegation has Yih said he thinks that the best solution can feel frustrated, struggled with what they , is to establish a fund, collect donations especially if they -KATHERINE MCAVOY ’17, have described as “a lack of from community members and ask for the haven’t worked with PALAEOPITUS MEMBER institutional memory.” Since administration to pledge verbal support. administration each year of Palaeopitus brings However, as he has realized, the ’17s simply before.” a new delegation of seniors and don’t have enough time to implement this S o l o m o n because each class only has one particular project. expressed a similar feeling of understanding year to solve the issues they identify, the Given the fact that this year’s class how slow administration can be. Class of 2017 delegation has struggled to has dedicated a significant amount of “Any administration or hierarchal see the implementation of the changes they time to documenting and structuring the institution will have a lot of hoops to jump want to make. organization and its abilities, its members [through],” she said. “Some people get According to Casale, part of this was due ag reed that they are hopeful future frustrated because despite having direct to the fact that the previous delegation did delegations will be able to pick up where the connection with administrators, they don’t not give much direction to his group when ’17s will leave off on when they graduate see much change, even when they’re putting they joined last May. this spring. a lot of energy into it.” “Without a sense of what the group has Solomon commented that she has seen Yih, who had never worked closely with been able to achieve in the past, without a interest in tackling similar issues on campus the administration before, learned about sense of what the group can achieve in a through the applications of the ’18s who will the difficulties and inconsistencies working year in the outset, it was hard for us to get potentially take over next year. with different staff members. He spoke of our bearings as fast as we would have liked,” “We’ve seen a lot of people concerned the varying support Palaeopitus receives he said. about [mental health],” she said. “We have from administrators. Casale said that the group wants to put structures down that could be followed “We might have support from one establish a culture of institutional memory. through, so that if they choose to focus on administrator, but when we’re trying to get He reports that they are creating sheets of mental health, that’s an area in which lasting something passed, there are other people information about the routes within the changes could be made.”
#Trending THE ELECTION Barbecues, shirts, buses, campaigns, live streams, Facebook statuses and a busy newsroom in Robinson Hall!
THE WEATHER It’s the second coming of winter and we are not happy.
ABOUT LAST WEEKEND...
Who else napped from approximately 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Saturday, then rallied?
SOCIAL MEDIA If you don’t post photos from Woodstock and Pigstick, did you even go?
barn babies 17S probably peaked for you the moment you held your furry friend.
MIDTERMS Yup. Still.
MIRR OR //7
What’s in a name? STORY
By Cristian Cano
Dartmouth during his lifetime, and it was a huge surprise that, after his death in 1892, his will specified that most of his multi-million dollar fortune would be distributed amongst many different universities. After a disadvantaged childhood, Fayerweather did his best to make up for lost time by attending boarding school once he became an adult — and was five to seven years older than his classmates. Not discouraged, he began working at the Hoyt Brothers’ leather house at age 32 and rapidly rose through the ranks, eventually becoming a senior partner and having control over the United States’ largest tanneries. His fortune was unknown during his lifetime, but after his death, word quickly spread. The Fayerweather donation was not tied down to a specific cause, so then-College President William Jewett Tucker used the money freely in what he said were reconstruction efforts. PAULA KUTSCHERA/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
What does it take to get a building named after you? Do you need to donate an unfathomable amount of the “Big Greens?” Do you need to discover the cure for cancer — in five different languages? Do you need to be the great-greatgreat-great-grandchild of some obscure College trustee? To find out the answers to these questions, the Mirror visited Rauner Library this week to learn more about the names behind our favorite and objectively best buildings on campus: the allfreshmen dorms. (Sorry, McLaughlin and East Wheelock freshmen, but upperclassmen live there too!) So, if you’ve ever wondered about the stories behind the people who were great, but only great enough for one of the Choates, you’ve come to the right place. George Henry Bissell, Class of 1845 Like Judge, Bissell’s namesake also existed on another building — the Bissell Gymnasium — before it was demolished. It’s no wonder that another building was named after him instead; after all, he is the man whom many consider the father of the American oil industry. At Dartmouth, he became fascinated with the properties of petroleum and realized that its uses could be revolutionary. He, alongside an associate, traveled to Pennsylvania to buy the land that would be utilized in America’s first organized oil firm. Somewhat surprisingly, he never held a formal position at Dartmouth after his graduation, but considering his groundbreaking work, it’s no surprise why the College would want
to memorialize him. Albert Oscar Brown, Class of 1878 Brown’s passion for the law most definitely aligns with the zeal of many government majors today. After Dartmouth, he attended Boston University Law School and became a taxation specialist in Manchester, New Hampshire. An outspoken Republican, he was governor of New Hampshire from 1921 to 1923. He discovered a new talent for banking and became president of the Amoskeag Savings Bank of Manchester. His connection with the College lasted long after his undergraduate years: He received a master of arts degree in 1908, and he was a member of Dartmouth’s Board of Trustees for two decades. William Cohen, Class of 1879 The Grimes Prize recipient at his Dartmouth graduation, Cohen jumped right into his law career after his undergraduate years, starting at Columbia Law College in 1881 and becoming a partner for Morrison, Lauterbach and Spingarn in 1883. His work must have been well-received, because in 1897 he was appointed to the New York Supreme Court. He was close with former President Theodore Roosevelt and advised him at the Capitol. Cohen also received an honorary doctor of laws degree in 1899. He, too, served as president of the Dartmouth Alumni Council. Daniel Burton Fayerweather Fayerweather had no strong connection to
’20: “It’s friendship until you take their pants off.”
’18: “Every time I say something disgusting I suddenly remember I’m a direct descendant of the prophet Muhammad.”
Edward Sanborn French, Class of 1906 French began his lengthy career at the Boston and Maine Railroad just after graduation. From 1908 to 1930, he served as the chief operating officer of several short-line railroads in Vermont. From 1930 to 1952, he was president of the Railroad, and from 1952 to 1955, he was the chairman of the Railroad’s Board of Directors. He directed several other corporations and continued to give back to the Dartmouth community as a trustee for over 15 years. Clarence Little, Class of 1881 If you’re a fan of the Baker-Berry bells, then you have Little to thank: He donated $40,000 in 1928 (over $500,000 in today’s money) for the 15 bells that are still used today. What did Little do to acquire such a fortune? Well, a lot. In no particular order, he was an inspector general of the territorial militia, a Republican member of North Dakota’s first senate, chairman of the Republican State Committee, North Dakota’s representative to the Republican National Convention, a director of the Capital National Bank, president of Bismarck’s board of education, president of the First National Bank and president of the Provident Life Insurance Company. Alongside this expansive career, he also found the time to be president of the Dartmouth Alumni Council from 1915 to 1920 and trustee for another 20 years. John Roy “Judge” McLane, Class of 1907 Fun fact: Before 2006, when the current McLane Hall was named, Judge Hall used to be known as McLane. McLane, who went by
’20 upon seeing 4FB empty: “Oh yeah, let’s f——ing ride.”
’18: “I check the Dartmouth meme page more often than I check Canvas.”
the nickname “Judge,” excelled academically — he received a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford University after graduating from Dartmouth and earned a law degree cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1912. As part of a long and successful career, he opened a law firm in Manchester, New Hampshire and worked as a lawyer until his retirement in 1962. If that wasn’t impressive enough, he played a role on the selection committee for the Rhodes Scholarship decades after receiving his own, and he served as a College trustee. James Bailey Richardson, Class of 1857 A native of Orford, New Hampshire, Richardson began his undergraduate years at Yale University before transferring to Dartmouth, where he would graduate. After attending law school, Richardson began an accomplished law career that would take him to many places: Boston Common Council, the Massachusetts State Legislature and the Superior Court of Massachusetts are just a few. He also served as a trustee of the Franklin Savings Bank and was on the New England Home for Little Wanderers board of managers. At the College, Richardson was the first alumnus designated to be a trustee in 1891 under the new system, in which trusteeship was given on a termly basis. He also started the Joel Richardson scholarship in honor of his late father. John Brooks Wheeler Perhaps you’ve heard of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, or at the very least, everyone’s favorite quotation from Daniel Webster about “a small college” and “those who love it.” However, you may not have heard of Wheeler: The man whose donation of $1,000 in 1816 made the entire case possible. A very successful businessman whose son attended Dartmouth, Wheeler learned about how the trustees trying to fight on behalf of the College didn’t have the necessary funds to cover the legal costs. Moved by what he perceived to be “one of those instances in which good is educed from evil,” Wheeler wrote to the trustees anonymously with his donation attached. The sum, though not enough to cover all of fees associated with the case, were enough to get things started. No wonder that Dartmouth chose to name a building after the man whose donation was, perhaps, the timeliest in the history of the College.
Overheard on FFB: “Wait, I thought ‘finsta’ meant ‘food insta.’”
’20: “I just can’t wait for the day when I’m rich enough to buy tissues.”
8// MIRROR
A thousand (or four thousand) words Photo
B y Ishaan Jajodia