VOL. CLXXIV NO.192
PARTLY CLOUDY HIGH 50 LOW 32
THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 2018
HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE
Dartmouth not included in letter opposing legacy admissions preference
FIRST FLOOR FOCUS
By CAMERON ROLLER The Dartmouth
A coalition of 13 first-generation and low-income student groups at 12 American universities sent a letter encouraging their institutions to reform the practice of giving legacy students preference in their admissions processes. Dartmouth, which does not have a student-led first-generation student group, does not appear on the list of signatories. Legacy students are those who have family members — usually parents — who are graduates of the institution. Viet Nguyen, Brown University alumnus and co-founder of EdMobilizer, an organization that promotes the interests of undocumented, first-generation and SEE LEGACY PAGE 3
ARTS
‘QYRA QYZ’ HAS WORLD DEBUT PAGE 8
OPINION
ALLARD: DIG DEEPER PAGE 7
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STANESCUBELLU: LAY DOWN YOUR WEAPONS
By ALEX RIVLIN
By ALICE ZHANG
The Center for Social Impact recently appointed interim director Tracy DustinEichler as its full-time director. Dustin-Eichler has been the interim director of the center since July and was previously
the center’s assistant director. Dustin-Eichler began working at the Tucker Foundation 15 years ago and continued working at the Center for Service following the foundation’s bifurcation into the Center for Service and the SEE DIRECTOR PAGE 3
The Dartmouth
Since the College elected last fall to reclassify the North Park apartments as undergraduate rather than graduate housing, graduate students at Dartmouth have worked to form a united front and increase communication with the administration.
Last spring, the admissions yield of approximately 1,279 students for the Class of 2021, which dean of the School of Graduate and Advanced Studies F. Jon Kull ’88 called “unprecedented” at the time, prompted the College to search for more housing accommodations. This past fall, beds in the North Park apartments,
f o r m e rl y d e d i c a t e d t o graduate student on-campus housing, were reassigned for undergraduate use. Before this year, the North Park apartments primarily housed first-year graduate students, but with this change, the College eliminated oncampus graduate housing SEE HOUSING PAGE 5
Winter edition of The Pitch sees 21 entries
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GHAVRI: BECOMING A YOUNG HISTORIAN
By JENNIE RHODES The Dartmouth
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Students study on the first floor of Baker-Berry Library.
Center for Social Months later, still no onImpact appoints campus grad housing available director
The Dartmouth
CHUN: THE WORST OF FRIENDS
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JENNIE RHODES/THE DARTMOUTH
Attendees listen to participants pitch their entrepreneurial ideas at The Pitch.
On Monday night, Dartmouth held its latest rendition of its entrepreneurial show, The Pitch. Twenty-one g roups of faculty, graduate students and undergraduate students pitched their startup ideas to a panel of six judges and approximately 100 voting audience members.
T his year, the Digital Arts Leadership and Innovation Lab and the Dartmouth Entrepreneurial Network, the event’s co-sponsors, experimented with several changes to the event. Since its conception in spring 2014, The Pitch has taken place once per term. However, last night marks SEE PITCH PAGE 5
THE DARTMOUTH NEWS
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THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 2018
Course aims to help students unpack study abroad experiences By HARRISON ARONOFF The Dartmouth
College Course 21, “What’s in Your Shoebox?” — a new course being offered next term — will allow international students and those who have completed a foreign study program to reflect on their experiences abroad and increase their intercultural sensitivity. The course, listed under the interdisciplinary “College Course” department, is designed to allow students to “come together and spend 10 weeks [in the spring term] unpacking and reflecting upon their study aboard experiences,” said Francine A’Ness, associate director and assistant research professor at the Frank J. Guarini Institute for International Education, who is one of the course’s two teachers. According to the course’s syllabus, the course name
is derived from cultural anthropologist Bruce La Brack’s conception of “shoeboxing,” or compartmentalizing experiences from time spent abroad. Seventeen students have signed up for the “experimental” course so far. Students must have either studied abroad for credit during 2017 or 2018 or be an international student to enroll. A’Ness designed COCO 21 this past fall with co-instructor Prudence Merton, associate director for faculty programs and assessment at the Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning. They submitted their proposal in November, and it was approved earlier this winter. According to the course’s syllabus, the class is structured as a seminar. One of the course’s goals is to encourage students to reflect upon and learn from their recent study abroad experiences.
Students will engage in a variety of activities, including keeping a daily reflection journal, writing letters to themselves, drafting ref lection papers, applying for fellowships and creating a documentary about their international experiences that will be screened at the Loew Auditorium in the Black Family Visual Arts Center, among other activities. Merton sees herself engaging heavily with helping develop these reflective activities. “One of my research areas is metacognition, so I see my role is to support that aspect of the course, to come up with new ideas asking all of us to reflect on our experience,” Merton said. The other purpose of the course is to take the “skills, knowledge and awareness that students have gained from their international experiences and find ways to apply
that,” A’Ness said. One way in which students will apply their learning, according t o A’ N e s s, i s t h ro u g h c i v i c engagement. Students will partner with Dothan Brook School in Hartford, Vermont to help plan and execute its World Culture Fair on May 4. The fair, which will debut this year, is designed to educate elementary school students about inter national experiences and other cultures. “We’re trying to bring the world to our students in Vermont,” said Lanni West, fourth grade teacher and World Culture Fair chair at Dothan Brook School. “We are hoping all the [COCO 21 students] will partake in some form … and introduce to our students the culture which they experienced during their trip.” If they find the course to be successful, A’Ness and Merton hope to offer it twice more, three
times being the maximum number a College Course can be taught, A’Ness said. Afterwards, they hope COCO 21 will be assigned to an academic department so they can teach the course regularly, though they currently do not have a specific department in mind. K atie Goldstein ’20, who is enrolled in the course and participated in the Spanish Foreign Study Program in Madrid last fall, said she was interested in taking COCO 21 because she felt her experience studying abroad was different than that of the ’19s she was abroad with. She said that she was excited for the class and looked forward to working with A’Ness and Merton. Dennis Washburn, associate dean for international studies and interdisciplinary programs and chair of the Interdisciplinary Programs Committee, could not be reached for comment.
Q&A with Tracie Williams ’08 of the Outdoor Programs Office
By BERIT SVENSON The Dartmouth
Tracie Williams ’05 discovered her love of the outdoors as an undergraduate after participating in a backcountry skiing break trip sponsored by the Outdoor Programs Office. After exploring various jobs related to the outdoors — her field of interest — Williams has returned to the Outdoor Programs Office’s staff to serve as assistant director for leadership a n d ex p e r i e n t i a l e d u c at i o n . Although it is only her fourth week working at the College, she hopes to draw upon her past experience as a student at the College to foster an inclusive community and encourage students to try something new. W hat does your position entail? TW: Largely, this position is trying to get students outdoors. It’s meeting students in the outdoors or seeing students that have an interest in the outdoors, whoever they may be, and trying to figure out ways to get them out there. So far, what I’ve been doing is a lot of student outreach, some of the tedious administrative stuff and I’ve just taken over organizing all the Dartmouth Outing Club physical education classes. A lot of that will be logistics but also
coming up with ideas for cool and creative P.E. classes that do not resonate as hardcore outdoors. A lot of the programs that we run might intimidate some students that aren’t already familiar with things like paddling a kayak or canoe or rock climbing. When I was a student here, I wasn’t involved in the outdoors very much. I joined the DOC after my First-Year Trip but then didn’t feel comfortable within that group because I wasn’t experienced at all. I didn’t have loads of expensive gear and none of them looked like me. I think I have an experience that is potentially relatable to a lot of other students on campus who, even though they really are interested in the outdoors and have that nostalgia for their Trip, are afraid to come in because they don’t have these technical skills. What fuels me to wake up in the morning is connecting with students who don’t know how accessible this department is. I’d like to see more students getting involved in some of our P.E. classes as fulfilling a requirement, then maybe finding their love of a sport or the outdoors. However they get connected with nature, I think it’s never a bad thing. W h a t w a s yo u r t i m e a t Dartmouth like? TW: I struggled for sure. I came
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from an underserved community. I g rew up in a Habitat for Humanity house. When I was coming into Dartmouth, I didn’t really know anything about the school. I came in and just saw the amount of wealth, affluence and privilege that was represented in Dartmouth among the students that surrounded me. Some of my best friends already knew what they wanted to do, and I came in just sort of floundering. I was really insecure, and I allowed that to kind of push me out. It’s easy for students who come to campus and sort themselves into sameness again. It was difficult and as an undergraduate, I left Dartmouth for over two years. It transformed my life. When I came back, I saw a sign for a backcountry skiing spring break trip. It was run by a colleague of mine who still works here. I went on the trip and I had the best time of my life. I was unprepared. I had a hodgepodge of different gear that I wasn’t sure was useful, but he talked me through good gear selection. Winter camping in a tent up near Labrador, Canada was a really intense environment, but it was softly and easily led so it didn’t feel like I was in any danger at all. It transformed the way I thought of myself as an outdoorswoman. It gave me a new awareness of my competency. Then, I pursued a profession in the outdoors that consisted of seasonal outdoor work and office jobs such as marketing, advertising and copywriting. I’m just really grateful to have found this position because it’s the culmination of all sorts of
experiences.
Why did you enjoy that trip so much? TW: I had never been backcountry skiing before. When I actually met everybody else who was going to be on my trip — there was a guy from Mauritius, a guy from China — nobody had any experience. It was just hilarious, and I feel like it was fated. If I had been there with people that were really experienced, I don’t know that I would have had a great time. I probably would have felt really insecure the entire time. Instead, I felt like I became a leader because I realized that, even if I didn’t have all the technical skills, I had some knowledge that I was able to impart and a lot that I was able to learn. It was a really diverse and amazing group. I remember the day that everybody showed up, and I felt super confused and relieved at the same time just being like, “This is going to be so much fun because we all get to work together.”
student? TW: Structurally speaking — loads. I think internally, this position speaks volumes for the way that we’re trying to move the College forward. And yes, a big component of that is diversity and inclusion. It’s so strange to me that it’s still a topic of conversation when you think it would just be given that we all learn better from difference. It only serves to enrich our lives. And so at some point in the future the sort of diversity and inclusion aspect of my job will fall away because it won’t be an issue anymore. This is what I’m hoping that we’re pushing toward.
What brought you back to Dartmouth? TW: Opportunity. I found out that this position was open. It didn’t exist when I was a student here, and I wish that it had. I probably would have found the DOC a lot earlier and found my place at Dartmouth a lot sooner than I did. It would have been nice to have some sort of a liaison between the administration and the students.
What are some issues with inclusivity in the outdoors? TW: It’s ongoing. I think that whether we think it or not, the outdoors is already diverse. We were born into this world through an active nature. To claim or to think that any one group has dominion over nature is a really sickening feeling. As far as recreating in nature, I think more needs to be done to reconnect all of us with our natural roots. I think we should also try to change the narrative of what it means to enjoy the outdoors. We should be finding ways for underprivileged communities and individuals that don’t have access to the outdoors and don’t think that they know how to recreate there to find a space in nature for them, because there is a space for everyone.
W hat has changed about Dartmouth since you were a
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
THE DARTMOUTH NEWS
THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 2018
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Dartmouth groups not Dustin-Eichler continues as director included in legacy letter FROM DIRECTOR PAGE 1
FROM LEGACY PAGE 1
low-income students and that coordinated the coalition, wrote in an email statement on Feb. 25 that Dartmouth’s lack of inclusion as a signatory was “because the first[generation] student group is still in the process of being formed.” “There was not an independent group that could sign onto the letter when we reached out,” he wrote. Jay Davis ’90, director of the First-Year Student Enrichment Program, said that FYSEP aims to help meet the specific needs of firstgeneration Dartmouth students on campus. “First-[generation] is one of those interesting identities that cuts across demographics … I think that awareness of the issues that firstgeneration, low-income students face at all of our colleges is much, much higher than it was even four, five years ago,” Davis said. He added that Dartmouth likely did not sign the letter because FYSEP is not a student-run organization but rather a program organized by the College itself. “I would suspect that it is because Dartmouth has not had a student group, and student groups are much more likely to sign on to such letters,” Davis said. “Dartmouth instead has institutional programs like FYSEP and [the Office of Pluralism and Leadership] that support first-[generation] and lowincome students.” While the College currently lacks a student-led group focused on the campus’ first-generation, lowincome community, this might not be the case going forward. Marina Cepeda ’21 recently attended the 2018 1vyG Conference, organized by EdMobilizer, which aims to unite and provide resources for first-generation, low-income students across the Ivy League. She said that workshops were held to promote the development of a student-led organization for the College’s first-generation, lowincome community. “We attended workshops, and they had lots of resources available to help us figure out how to start a community on campus,” Cepeda said. Cepeda said that Dartmouth’s exclusion from the coalition probably has to do with the lack of a strong first-generation, lowincome community at the College, which, according to her, is due to administrative priorities. “Many first-generation students miss out on the [FYSEP] community because they didn’t apply freshman year,” Cepeda said. “To incorporate more first-
generation students, I think it is important to have a stronger [first-generation, low-income] community.” Nguyen wrote in a later email statement on Feb. 26 that the backlash against legacy preference in admissions stems from the fact that it is a practice mostly benefiting already-privileged populations and violates the core tenets of higher education. “It is a policy that provides a leg up to those who are already advantaged and goes against much of the ideals of access and meritocracy that higher education prides itself in,” Nguyen wrote. EdMobilizer was founded on the idea that giving firstgeneration, low-income students across institutes of higher learning could help enact policy change, Nguyen wrote. “Our coalition saw an opportunity for our collective voices to advocate for specific policy changes on the campus and national level,” he wrote. N g u ye n a l s o w r o t e t h a t EdMobilizer plans to help advance the coalition’s cause by supporting student campaigns and being helpful in any way possible. “We are working with students on various campuses [to] help them organize campaigns around this issue,” he wrote. “Some campuses are launching campus wide referendums, others are launching petitions. We are working to see how we can best be useful in bridging this work.” The backlash against preference for legacy applicants is a nuanced topic and one that requires information and critical thought, according to an email statement from Brown University junior Joseph Vukel, director of business development for EdMobilizer and a treasurer for the 1vyG conference. “When it comes to legacy preference, as with how I think about most contentious matters, I try to understand all perspectives on the table,” Vukel wrote. “Having more information helps.” Vukel wrote in his statement that he believes the future of change for first-generation, lowincome students will be in careful partnerships among universities themselves, alumni and other groups. “Ultimately, for EdMobilizer to effect most change and help uplift students of low socioeconomic status, we’ve got to have a strong foundation,” Vukel wrote. “This foundation rests upon effective alliances and frameworks for change-making.”
William Jewett Tucker Center in 2015. The Center for Service was officially renamed the Center for Social Impact at the beginning of this year under her leadership. After the center’s previous director, Theresa Ellis ’97, left her position last year, Dustin-Eichler stepped in as the interim director, a position she held for over six months. According to Dustin-Eichler, as the center’s director, she will be continuing much of the same work that she has been doing as interim director. She said that she has not felt an enormous transition moving into her new role. According to its website, the Center for Social Impact “prepares students to be transformative leaders for the common good.” One of the newest program initiatives is the Social Impact Practicum, which is a “project-based experiential learning opportunity” allowing Dartmouth undergraduates to apply their classroom learning to community needs throughout the Upper Valley, according to the center’s website. “I’m very excited,” Dustin-Eichler said. “I ... care deeply about this place and the work that we do, and engaging with Dartmouth students and supporting their desire to make the communities in which they work a
better place.” said. “I can’t think of somebody According to senior associate dean better to direct the Center for Social of student affairs Liz Agosto, Dustin- Impact, because [Dustin-Eichler]’s been Eichler has been promoting “student- thinking about how to make a positive driven and student-focused work” and impact her entire life, and in her entire has “continued to work at Dartmouth push the agenda in the center in all its forward for the “We are very various forms.” office.” Marty Lempres confident that She said that ’84, chair of the it made sense for [Dustin-Eichler] is board of advisors for Dustin-Eichler to the right person to the center, said all of continue directing the board members help the center ... ” the center. were supportive of “It’s exciting,” Dustin-Eichler’s Agosto said. “I’m -MARTY LEMPRES ’84, promotion. really thrilled for her “We are very and the direction of CENTER FOR SOCIAL co n f i d e n t t h at the center.” [Dustin-Eichler] is IMPACT BOARD CHAIR Agosto added the right person to that Dustin-Eichler’s help the center ... directorship we are thrilled to appointment had have her in this role, the full support of leading the center at colleagues, students, alumni and other this point in time,” Lempres said. stakeholders who have been invested in Dustin-Eichler said that she is happy the vision of the center’s future. with all the support she has received Recent alumna Emma Hartswick since the promotion. ’17, who first met Dustin-Eichler when “It’s only been a few weeks … she mentored Hartswick through the I have been excited and it’s been Upper Valley Social Entrepreneurship heartwarming, all the support I’ve Fellowship, said she could depend on received both from my colleagues Dustin-Eichler for guidance. on campus and from our alumni “I really began to see her as stakeholders and from the students somebody I could turn to for lots of I work with,” she said. “That’s been different kinds of advice,” Hartswick uplifting.”
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DARTMOUTHEVENTS
THE DARTMOUTH EVENTS
YEE-HAW
THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 2018
UUGANZUL TUMURBAATAR ’21
TODAY
12:30 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.
Talk: “The Kurdish Liberation Movement,” with Kurdish activist Christopher Helali, Haldeman 246
4:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Fiction Reading: the Cleopatra Mathis Poetry & Prose Series, with novelist Victor LaValle, Sanborn Library
5:00 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.
Discussion: “Civil Rights through film: A brief history,” with filmmaker Valerie Scoon and civil rights attorney Cecile Scoon, One Wheelock
TOMORROW
8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Conference: “Leapfrogging the Developed World: Lessons from Emerging Markets,” Tuck School of Business, Raether Hall, Georgiopoulos Classroom
12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Presentation: “Using State Regulation/Oversight for Health — Sepsis and C-Section Efforts in N.Y.,” with consultant Hope Plavin, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center Auditorium F
THE SPINE COMMERCE
DAVID VELONA ’21
8:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.
Public Astronomical Observing, Shattuck Observatory
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THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 2018
PAGE 5
Community members participate in winter edition of The Pitch idea,’” Tregubov said. “Now we thought, ‘Why don’t we use this the only Pitch of the 2017-2018 cool platform to give feedback and [have teams] apply with their school year. D A L I c o - f o u n d e r a n d actual pitch?’ This allows groups director Tim Tregubov said that to start thinking about their “different terms have different pitch much earlier, so a month in characteristics,” with the winter advance they are already thinking term usually generating the most of their public presentation. participation and the spring term I’m excited to see the effects of prepping a video ahead of time the least amount. “Having it once a year really and getting feedback.” T h e generates an judging e n t re p re n e u r i a l “There’s a loyal process has excitement,” following of people also taken Tregubov said. a new turn, Theo Obbard, who come to every according DALI L a b single Pitch event, to Tregubov. administrator T h i s and organizer of and they just love to ye a r, f o u r Monday’s Pitch, see the creative ideas different said this year’s that come along and awards were application process given: DALI for The Pitch was love voting for their Award, DEN r e v o l u t i o n i z e d favorites.” A w a r d , because of a B e s t P i t ch business idea and Most presented at last -LORIE LOEB, DALI COImpactful. s p r i n g ’s s h ow FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE Previously, called Pitchback. there was Pitchback, which DIRECTOR a Pe o p l e ’s won The Pitch 17S C h o i c e DALI individual prize, is a software that allows Award that was decided by applicants to record their pitches audience member votes — the on their computer camera and get audience now votes for both Best artificial intelligence feedback on Pitch and Most Impactful. The what was not successful, according judges of the DALI Award were to Obbard. Once applicants are students from the DALI core happy with their presentation, leadership team and the judges team members answer a few of the DEN Award were student written questions about it and DEN associates, according to DEN submit their video to apply to director Jamie Coughlin, who added that for the past four years, appear in The Pitch. “In the past, the application judges have been faculty and staff was just, ‘Tell us about your of DALI and DEN. FROM PITCH PAGE 1
Coughlin said he wanted students to gain judging experience and have student pitchers get feedback from fellow students. “The majority of people pitching are students,” he said. “So from a peer to peer standpoint, where you’re pitching this product geared towards the student-age demographic, [student judges] have a better perspective of whether they would use that product or whether a peer would use that product.” In previous years, audience members have voted by writing down their three favorite pitches. This year, however, audience members ranked both the top three pitches and the top three most impactful ideas using the DALI Lab app, according to Obbard. “I love to see the audience packed full of people and how they respond,” DALI co-founder and executive director Lorie Loeb said. “There’s a loyal following of people who come to every single Pitch event, and they just love to see the creative ideas that come along and love voting for their favorites. It has a good atmosphere.” DEN associate Matt Kenney ’21 said he attended The Pitch this term because he believes it is a uniquely valuable experience. “People waste away so much time not going to events like these, which are incredible experiences you can’t get at home or anywhere else other than on this college campus,” he said. “I try to come to events like these to see new ideas and people looking to change the world.” This year’s DALI award winner
was Nudge, a personal relationship management application that aggregates the data on mobile phones via email, text messaging and phone calls. “Nudge is impactful because of the power of relationships in our technological age when it is so easy to reach out to someone,” founder Angela Orzell Tu’19 said. “It becomes more important to maintain those connections and make sure they are not superficial.” Orzell said she saw The Pitch as an opportunity to obtain the help needed to develop a minimum viable product. As the DALI winner, Nudge will receive $1,000 and development support from the DALI Lab through a team of DALI assistants. This year’s DEN winner was Cash Goals, a goal-oriented financial management platform for couples that works to prevent big ticket financial conflicts before they happen, according to founder Teddy Wahle ’21. As the DEN winner, Cash Goals will receive $1,000 and entrepreneurial support from DEN. “A lot of startups tend to blow a lot of money on development, which is a huge cost because they do not have a technical team member or co-founder,” Wahle said. “I am going to build a prototype where all the costs are small, so I hope the money lasts a long time. As for DEN support, I need access to people who can provide us with capital. I would like mentorship and guidance on big startup moves. I am also in need of a technical co-founder who can
build an app.” Who’s down?, an app that locates spontaneous events happening on campus, won the Best Pitch award, and Re-memory, an app that uses music to help elderly people with Alzheimer’s disease, won the Most Impactful award. Although these two winners will not receive DEN or DALI support like Nudge and Cash Goals will, they will receive “the same amount of funding and a heads-up in the DALI application process if they choose to apply to work with us,” Obbard said. “The idea is exposure, not winning,” Loeb said. Non-winners have also gone on to see success. Pulse, the online College polling platform, participated in The Pitch in spring 2016 under the name “The Dartmouth Transparency Project.” Order Orchard, the digital restaurant management suite, was also a participant in The Pitch during fall 2015 and winter 2016. Despite not winning in the show, Order Orchard won $25,000 in the 2017 Dartmouth Entrepreneurial Forum Competition and has gone on to receive a $1.7 million investment from a venture capital firm this past year, according to Tregubov. “The world is requiring us to be more entrepreneurial-minded,” Coughlin said. “How do you do more with less? How do you think outside the box? On campus, given our liberal arts roots, Dartmouth produces these future entre preneurial leaders. If they can all be provided an entrepreneur lens, I think [The Pitch] has benefited society.”
Graduate students advocate for on-campus College housing FROM HOUSING PAGE 1
opportunities. Kull wrote in an email statement that he is particularly concerned with the ability for international students to have a smooth transition to campus, as many do not have driver’s licenses, U.S. bank accounts or knowledge about home rentals in the U.S. Graduate Student Council vice president Patrick Bedard said the administration failed to fully consult the community before making the decision to make the North Park apartments for undergraduates, suggesting that the College places a stronger focus on undergraduates. “We weren’t consulted at all in the decision-making process, or even in the accommodation process once the decision had been made, so it felt very after the fact,” Bedard said.
Wi t h o u t t h e N o r t h Pa rk “We should have a united front; apartments, we should have a g r a d u a t e “We should have group of people students are who are responsible limited to off- a group of people for taking the voice campus spaces who are responsible of the students and near campus. sure that for taking the voice making College-owned they are heard,” options include of the students and said Graduate Sachem Village making sure that Housing Ad-Hoc in Lebanon Committee chair and houses and they are heard.” Parth Sabharwal, apartments a Ph.D. student listed by the in the physics College’s Real -PARTH SABHARWAL, and astronomy GRADUATE HOUSING Estate Office. department. S i n c e AD-HOC COMMITTEE These steps have the change, been important g r a d u a t e CHAIR in increasing students have communication formed a between graduate committee to students and the address this administration, he issue, with the goal of always having added. students available to take up similar Bedard echoed Sabharwal’s issues with the administration. sentiments.
“We’ve had very productive conversations with the executive vice president Rick Mills,” Bedard said. H o w e v e r, d e s p i t e t h e s e improvements, Bedard said that when decisions are actually made, the Graduate Student Council is only informed after the fact. Bedard said he felt that there is not enough being done to improve other graduate housing opportunities to replace North Park. Kull confirmed in his email statement that the College is considering expanding Sachem Village housing. While graduate students were initially told that they could take part in the expansion proposal process and make suggestions, they later found out that the proposal had already been finalized, and the timeline for Sachem Village’s potential expansion shifted from 18
months to over two years, according to Bedard. With no immediate options within reach for on-campus graduate student housing, Bedard said that he sees only a slim chance of graduates returning to North Park, even as the College investigates the possibility of building new undergraduate housing. In his email statement, Kull wrote that “realistically not until more undergraduate housing is built [will we] get North Park back for graduate and professional student use.” Bedard said he believes the loss of graduate housing not only hurts the graduate community, but Dartmouth as a whole. “I think that one of the things that makes Dartmouth unique is the potential for a really strong connection between graduate students and underg raduate students,” he said.
THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 2018
THE DARTMOUTH OPINION
PAGE 6
STAFF COLUMNIST SOFIA STANESCU-BELLU ’20
STAFF COLUMNIST ANMOL GHAVRI ’18
Lay Down Your Weapons
Becoming a Young Historian
The United States’ toxic relationship with firearms is costing people their lives. “To stop a bad guy with a gun, it takes a good guy with a gun,” proclaimed Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice president and chief executive offi cer of the National Rifle Association at the 2018 Conservative Political Action Conference. In an endgame situation like the one LaPierre describes, it could be that the only way to protect people would be through the use of a firearm, especially if faced with someone that also has a firearm. But the issue with LaPierre’s logic lies in the fact that he accepts that such a situation would occur instead of doing everything in his power to stop it. In the wake of the Parkland, Florida shooting, a section of conservatives, including President Donald Trump, are increasingly arguing that the best way to prevent a similar situation from occurring is to, counterintuitively, have more guns. Some have proposed the arming of teachers and other administrators in schools in order to protect students. Therein lies the issue: The situation surrounding guns in the United States has arrived at the point where innocent children in schools need to be protected from mass shooters. Mass shootings are an epidemic in America. The United States has 5 percent of the world’s population but 31 percent of its mass shooters. In 2007, there were 88.8 civilian-owned firearms for every 100 people in the U.S. The United States has the highest rate of homicide by firearm in the world, with 29.7 homicides by firearm per 1 million people. Mass shootings in the U.S. are becoming deadlier and deadlier, with over 400 people killed in 200 school shootings since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012. That’s 400 too many. With a situation of this magnitude, the only way to prevent more tragedy is to find the root cause of this festering infection and put an end to senseless, preventable violence. Why do Americans need so many guns? Why do civilians have access to military-grade weapons designed for mass destruction? While the Constitution gives Americans the right to bear arms, many have come to forget that the Constitution
was written over 250 years ago. At that time, the majority of guns were muskets that were not technically equipped to fire over 400 rounds per minute like modern AR-15 assault rifles. The Second Amendment was written during a time of great upheaval and change — it was the aftermath of a revolution and the Founding Fathers were wary that the country might descend into another violent conflict and wanted citizens to be able to protect themselves. The country is no longer in the 18th century. It is no longer at war. In fact, there have not been battles fought on American soil since the Battle of Wounded Knee in 1890. So then what is the justification for owning assault weapons or any firearm for that matter? This mentality of clinging to guns and refusing to acknowledge that they do more harm than good when they are readily accessible is costing men, women and children their lives. I am not going to argue to repeal the Second Amendment or to ban all guns. It would be futile to do so. Like it or not, guns are part of the fabric of American history, and it would take an inhuman effort to untangle America’s relationship with firearms. What I am arguing for is common sense: Access to guns needs to be restricted. There need to be extensive background checks, mental health evaluations of people interested in purchasing such a weapon, no civilian access to assault rifles and measures that ensure the small number of people that would end up purchasing a weapon are thoroughly vetted and have clear motives. At the end of the day, the gun industry brings a select group of people a lot of money. How could the NRA ever have America’s best interests at heart? When LaPierre stepped up to that podium to give his speech, was he thinking about the 17 people murdered in Parkland and the millions more at risk due to the easy access to firearms or was he thinking about his bottom line? America, lay down your weapons. How many more people need to lose their lives for those in power to realize that it is at last time to make a drastic change?
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Dartmouth’s history department has meant a great deal to me.
Despite the myriad problems and the issues I have come to see and experience over my years at Dartmouth, my academic experiences and time spent with faculty have been the highlight of my time in Hanover. The one-on-one interactions, engagement and emphasis on undergraduate teaching Dartmouth offers are features of the academic experience that I will miss. In particular, my experiences with Dartmouth’s history department and its faculty have been the most consistently eye-opening and intellectually stimulating part of my Dartmouth career. The history classes, foreign study opportunities, research and faculty engagement I have partaken in have all, in one way or another, had a significant impact on both my personal and professional development as well as the evolution of my intellectual and social concerns. A critical and subversive worldview — which revolves around a concern for inequity and emphases on complicating, contesting or interrogating existing paradigms and ways of thinking — that history professors at Dartmouth have instilled in me will continue to shape my life long after I graduate in the spring. Despite offering a popular major at Dartmouth, the history department still maintains an intimate feel. Even in relatively large classes, there are plenty of opportunities to interact one-on-one with faculty or in small groups with peers. Professors are always willing to chat in office hours or over coffee about assignments, readings and even topics not directly related to class. This exposure has been particularly important to me in connecting the issues, problems and theories we studied in classes to the real world and making them relevant. While the critical and subversive worldview I developed through my academic experiences in the history department has been useful in allowing me to critique power and those who hold it, I do not simply look to undermine or find faults in institutions or society writ-large. Rather, I stand by the belief that despite the problems humans have faced and continue to face, all people are agents in shaping the progress and direction of communities and the world at large. Knowing how to interrogate, contest and subvert top-down narratives and piece together a bottom-up or middle-out narrative of history that emphasizes human agency and all the ways it interacts and collaborates with systems and structures of power creates better citizens. It also provokes people to be more skeptical of seemingly simple solutions to complex problems. Because of the disciplinization of academia, some divide the so-called pure social sciences from the so-called pure humanities. The social sciences allegedly revolve around using the ideas of objectivity, technocracy and replicability. In these disciplines, the questions posed are often binary, and recent efforts have focused on making data used in such scholarship publicly available so that findings can be replicated. On the other hand, what we know as pure humanities disciplines might not seek singular answers to singular questions but rather explain the spectrum of what a question, issue or topic can mean and the shifting ideas and theories underpinning them. I would say history falls somewhere in
between this artificial binary. While history majors often rely on pure numerical and categorical data, we recognize that the categories we use are constructed by humans. Historians gather data from archives, texts and material and visual culture and produce what social scientists call “literature reviews” in the form of historiography — and in this focus on evidence and data the discipline certainly has qualities of the “social science” category. Yet, interpretive multidisciplinary methods — particularly anthropological and literary methods and concepts in microhistory and oral history have become powerful forces in history, particularly when relevant consolidated archives do not exist. Moreover, human agency is emphasized as shaping the progress of history and scholars seek human action, input, beliefs and attitudes which sometimes cannot be recovered from archives or numerical records. In my opinion, most serious historians do not look for single, universalist answers to questions but rather processes and the spectrum of factors and how they interact, collaborate and weigh into nuanced answers in specific contexts. This emphasis on complication has rewired my brain to stop looking for universal explanations and singular solutions. It has redirected me to depict the spectrum of explanations to a question and their relative weighting and interaction with each other, as well as how my contribution relates to what others have said. Beyond being useful in academic research and writing, this skill makes for great lawyers, businesspeople, engineers, doctors and anyone who deals with complex problems. Another invaluable skill I gained from studying history is the ability to critique scholarship and systems of power. As a person of color, first-generation American and college student and as a member of the Indian diaspora, this has been especially powerful for me in challenging stereotypes and monolithic views of non-European people and societies. The history of the formerly colonized world in particular has been an innovative field. Theories and analytical toolkits that emerged out of postcolonial and subaltern studies — which sought to challenge historically exoticized or distorted visions of nonWestern societies or to tell history from the bottom up reappropriate the language of scholarship to subvert and contest older historical narratives. Indeed, the most important theories developed in these schools of thought were articulated in Western academia by diasporas, and their application in historical scholarship has allowed me to connect my scholarly concerns with my social concerns. They have made me a better citizen and activist. One of my social activist role models — Howard Zinn — was a historian, and many of my academic role models like Eqbal Ahmad, Noam Chomsky, Edward Said and Cornel West were or are social activists. Scholarship — historical scholarship in my case — can make people better citizens, friends, colleagues, activists and humans exercising agency on this speck of dust floating in the infinite void of space. That is one of the reasons I decided to pursue a graduate education in this field. My experience with the study of history at Dartmouth has meant the world to me and will certainly shape the trajectory of my life.
THE DARTMOUTH OPINION
THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 2018
PAGE 7
CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST SYDNEY ALLARD ’21
STAFF COLUMNIST STEVEN CHUN ’19
Dig Deeper
The Worst of Friends
Statistics can lead us to incorrect assumptions about gender discrimination. A study published by Rutgers University the pay gap — 75 percent of it — comes from found that until 2008, 97 percent of scholars pay differences within the same profession. who published academic op-eds in The The bulk of the difference seems to come Wall Street Journal and 82 percent in The from the choices men and women make New York Times were men. A byline survey regarding the type of environment in which conducted by Taryn Yaeger of The OpEd they prefer to work. In general, women value Project found that between Sept. 15, 2011 and what Goldin calls “temporal flexibility.” This Dec. 7, 2011, “women wrote 20 percent of means that women tend to prefer jobs in which op-eds in the nation’s leading newspapers — they can choose their own hours — even if The New York Times, The Washington Post, they work for the same amount of time, they the Los Angeles Times, and The Wall Street like to work when it is most convenient for Journal.” Feminist news sources were quick them. But jobs that offer temporal flexibility to publish articles berating The Journal and are costly, even within the same profession. The Times for being sexist and discriminatory For example, according to Goldin, women publications. often leave large law firms to work at smaller These articles may have misidentified firms or as corporate lawyers, since corporate the problem. The issue may not be that law tends to be more accommodating of a newspapers are deliberately selecting op-eds flexible schedule. And corporate lawyers at written almost exclusively by men. The real small firms, in general, earn less than lawyers problem may be that women do not submit at larger firms. In census data inputs, a lawyer op-eds with anywhere near the frequency that is a lawyer and a professor is a professor, men do. In 2012, Sue Horton, the op-ed and so all the difference in wages between men Sunday opinion editor at the Los Angeles and women within the same field look, at Times recalled that out of more than 100 first glance, like discrimination. But further op-ed submissions she received daily, an investigation shows that women are choosing overwhelming majority were authored by to work at small colleges and more flexible law men. firms. Jobs that offer the temporal flexibility This example highlights the importance that women tend to seek also pay less in of reading data critically. If people assumed general. That’s not discrimination. It is a that the issue was rooted in the sexism of choice. newspaper editors, they would look to solve The real issue here is why women are it by hiring new editors or training editors to choosing jobs where they have flexible hours, counteract their own sexist biases. But these whereas men are choosing the jobs that pay solutions could miss the point. The problem more. Herein lies the actual gender-based could come from somewhere problem. Women, even those else entirely — women may “Being able to without children, tend to take not believe that their opinions on more caregiving roles than are worth sharing to the extent think about men do. They more often care that men do. This would be data and to pick for children and sick parents the real issue to address. If and therefore value being able people stop at a surface-level apart statistics to work when it is convenient reaction to the shocking is crucial. If and being able to care for their statistic, they can miss the families when they are needed. people do not deeper implications. Here, believing that Most students who are understand women make 79 cents to a even minimally engaged with where economic man’s dollar could lead to news have likely heard the missing the point entirely. It official statistic that women disparities is not hiring practices that earn around 79 cents for come from, people need to reconsider, it every dollar men earn. This is women’s role in the home they cannot statistic is distressing and and within the family. It has to ubiquitous. But it is also effectively do with whether people value entirely too simplistic to address them.” temporal flexibility as much capture the nuance of the as they value that 23 percent problem. The implication is difference in wages. that this disparity in earnings comes from Being able to think about data and to wage discrimination. Therefore, employers pick apart statistics is crucial. If people do and corporations are being called upon to not understand where economic disparities change their practices. Again, this solution come from, they cannot effectively address does not address the real issue. them. It is a reader’s duty to think critically Professor Claudia Goldin of Harvard about the information presented, even when University researches the gender pay gap. statistics are cited. More importantly though, She has identified a number of factors that it is everyone’s duty to create an environment explain why women are earning less per hour where people welcome challenges to their than men do. Discrimination is not one. assumptions. If people label those who Occupational segregation explains counter claims about the gender pay gap as a significant portion of the pay gap. sexist, prevent them from speaking or shame For example, certain medical fields are them for having a different perspective, they male-dominated while nursing is female- miss out on what could be valuable insight. dominated, and doctors are paid more on To create real change, people need to know average than nurses. But the vast majority of where to start.
An unlikely Supreme Court friendship can teach us to rise above hateful politics. It was 9 a.m. on June 27, 2016 when I woke and sat up, the texture of the sidewalk pavement imprinted deeply into my cheek. I checked the time, straightened my tie and glanced toward the front of the line I had been in for four hours. I was outside the Supreme Court on the day the decision for the Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt case, which concerned a Texas law that required doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals and raised the standards of abortion clinics to that of ambulatory surgical centers, was set to be announced. At the base of the court steps were two sign-wielding groups, ready to assume their role as supporter or protester depending on the holding. An hour later, I was inside the hallowed chambers. The presence of eight of the nation’s fiercest intellects was awe-inspiring; the absence of one was unmistakable. The late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s chair was cloaked in black wool crepe, a tradition dating over a century. If the black drape on the bench was the first thing that drew my gaze, the second was the diminutive yet undeniably impressive figure of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She is the figurehead of the liberal wing of the Supreme Court and a legal titan who has won battle after battle for women’s rights. She was also one of Scalia’s closest friends. It was an odd friendship emblematic of an understanding that America, and Dartmouth, has all but lost. The interpersonal foundation of democracy is founded on the assumption that someone whose opinions one finds abhorrent is still a decent human being with good intentions. People may castigate others’ position with the harshest words imaginable, call their truths lies and declare their position morally bankrupt but they do so with the understanding that the other side has the exact same intention: the common good and the betterment of this country. Ad hominem attacks are worse than outright lies. Lies obfuscate the facts; personal attacks kill the process. Scalia staunchly opposed the Supreme Court’s gradual recognition of LGBT rights. Ginsburg was the first justice to preside over a same-sex marriage. Ginsburg dissented against gutting the Voting Rights Act, the law protecting ballot access for the historically disenfranchised, while Scalia referred to it as one of several “racial entitlements.” It would be difficult to find two more ideologically opposed people nor two who could argue their positions with such intellectual force and passion. Yet they celebrated New Year’s Eves together. They loved opera and travel, both of which they did together. They loved each other because of, and in spite of, their ideas. Dehumanization is the weapon of choice in the acrid national debate. Liberals are declared straw men, mindless state-controlled actors bent on taking guns and killing babies. Conservatives are labeled uneducated deplorables, hateful fanatics incapable of reason or principle. Reducing opponents to generalizations allows people to dehumanize them, to strip them of their good intentions, to forget that pro-life Republicans are trying to protect what they believe are innocent human lives and that
pro-choice Democrats are trying to preserve women’s sovereignty over their own bodies and their own lives. At Dartmouth, this manifests itself in ways big and small. The offhand comment about adamantly refusing to room with a Republican. The text I received from a friend back home with a mocking caricature of liberal snowflakes. The way I recoil from someone when I hear that they write for the Dartmouth Review. The earbuds I used to drown out the protestors on First-Floor Berry three years ago. The list goes on and on. Yale University psychologist Paul Bloom cited the work of French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss who noted, “humankind ceases at the border of the tribe, of the linguistic group, even sometimes of the village.” The words people choose reflect the very act of reducing hated groups to “beasts” or “vermin.” As Bloom remarked, “Wait long enough and you’ll hear the word ‘animals’ used even by respectable people, referring to terrorists, or to Israelis or Palestinians, or to undocumented immigrants, or to deporters of undocumented immigrants. Such rhetoric shows up in the speech of white supremacists — but also when the rest of us talk about white supremacists.” Let’s be clear: At a predominantly liberal institution such as Dartmouth, conservatives are dehumanized. Many members of this community dehumanize conservatives because they see conservatives as dehumanizing others. Conservatives regularly reduce undocumented human beings in America to “illegals,” they deny the experiences of women, they support policies that oppress marginalized groups and deny them even a simple acknowledgement of their humanity. No side is in the right, but understand this: No matter how justified it may feel, dehumanizing others precludes progress. If people care about the issues, they must care for those who stand against them. Discussion at Dartmouth is paralyzed by the realization that holding the wrong position can result in being resentfully rejected. No position is worth one’s humanity, so why even bother? Furthermore, people generally do not wish their beliefs to cause distress and despair to others, so they stay quiet. This leads people to mistake fear for hate, ignorance for intent and passion for cruelty. Ginsburg and Scalia’s friendship embodied what the world must return to for anything to get done. Part of the problem is the medium people communicate through — it can be easy to forget that someone else is human over blitz or cable news or social media. It is harder to deny someone’s good intentions in a face-to-face discussion or over a friendly beer. When I left the Supreme Court after the decision of Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt was announced, the pro-choicers were dancing and blasting upbeat pop music. Just a few feet to their right, the pro-life contingent stood looking at the ground, holding hands, black tape covering their mouths. I could not help but feel for them. I would feel the same despair a few months later, as I watched the results come in from the 2016 presidential election. Everyone is scared, angry, loving, confused. Everyone is human.
THE DARTMOUTH ARTS
PAGE 8
THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 2018
The Hopkins Center hosts ‘Qyrq Qyz’ world premiere
By HABIB SABET The Dartmouth
Tonight, the Hopkins Center for the Arts will host the world premiere of “Qyrq Qyz” (“Forty Girls”), a multimedia reanimation of a Central Asian epic that recounts the epic of a young woman, Gulayim, who defends her homeland against foreign invaders alongside 40 other female warriors. The work is a creative collaboration between two artists from Uzbekistan, filmmaker Saodat Ismailova and composer Dmitri Yanov-Yanovsky, who combine oral poetry, live music and film to construct a multisensory revitalization of the epic narrative. “Qyrq Qyz” has its roots in a mosaic of ancient Central Asian stories and comes out of a rich history of oral poetry and live performance. Ismailova’s reanimation of the tale simultaneously stays true to its bardic tradition and provides a modern lens through which the audience can experience the epic. The production pairs footage filmed across modern Uzbekistan with Yanov-Yanovski’s score — a combination of ambient
sounds from the same region and songs performed live by a group of musicians trained in the various traditional styles of Central Asia. In conjunction with the epic narrative, the production imparts a message of female empowerment and — excluding a single offstage male percussionist — is performed by solely female bards. “The oral epic tradition was practiced by men and recited by male musicians, but here, we’re telling the epic with female performers,” Ismailova said. “The intention of the project is to use new tools to bring back an oral tradition that has disappeared and to use tools that are easily accessible for the audience, such as sound and image.” Ismailova said that aside from sound and image, the work also utilizes aspects of movement, sculpture, lighting and text. Because “Qyrq Qyz” features work from both traditional musicians and a contemporary composer, these disciplines and the different tools of modern art come together, she said. In addition to the combination of several art forms and media, Ismailova said that the project would
also combine various musical styles and instruments of different Central Asian cultures. “We’re using a very wide repertoire of music,” Ismailova said. “If you would imagine that we’re trying to make a carpet called ‘Qyrq Qyz,’ and we have different types of threads and colors and textures; we’re trying to put it all together to weave one body that speaks to one concept, one idea.” One of the performers, Tokzhan Karatai, is a musician from Kazakhstan who plays the qobyz, a two-stringed instrument traditionally used in shamanic rituals. “This project is the first time I’ve collaborated with so many other cultures,” she said. “Even though we’re all from Central Asia, it’s still very new for me. Usually when I’m playing, I’m concentrating only on my own [culture’s] music, but in this project I have to feel the other musicians and the music from countries like Uzbekistan, Karakalpakstan and Kyrgyzstan and so we’re all acting like one organism.” For Karatai, “Qyrq Qyz” is her first experience performing in a multimedia project with choreography and film.
“Usually, you just concentrate on your music and how you’re playing,” she said. “In this project, you also need to concentrate on your body — how you walk, how you sit. It all needs to be in harmony with the visual components.” “Qyrq Qyz” is produced by the Aga Khan Music Initiative, a subdivision of the larger non-governmental organization the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, which supports the revitalization of Eastern culture and music. The AKMI supported the development of “Qyrq Qyz” through funding and providing the infrastructure that helped develop the musicians. Music professor Theodore Levin is the senior project consultant at the AKMI and played an integral role in the development of the project and coordinating its premiere at the Hop. “The show resonates strongly with current events and all of the attention that’s been focusing — very rightly — on the empowerment of women, particularly young women,” he said. “The production provides insight into the idea that, at the same time as we advocate for women’s rights in
this country, we need to be aware of women around the world.” Levin specializes in the culture of the countries in Central Asia, and in addition to working for cultural organizations like AKMI, has written several books on Central Asian music. Currently teaching courses on the region’s music, Levin said he thinks the show is an important opportunity for the community at large. “‘Qyrq Qyz’ showcases an immensely talented group of young artists from Central Asia, a region with a rich tradition of music, film, and performing arts that remains all too little known in the West,” he said. “‘Qyrq Qyz’ is a production of sublime beauty and artistic imagination. It’s an urgent story for our times about women’s empowerment and fierceness. Through the story of the 40 girls, mythological pathways connect us to universal archetypes and aspirations for fairness and justice that offer hope and inspiration both for women and men.” The production’s premiere takes place at the Moore Theater tonight at 7 p.m.
‘Proof ’ tackles loss, mental illness and gender inequality
By ELIZABETH GARRISON The Dartmouth
This weekend, the theater department will present this winter term’s student production “Proof.” Originally written by David Auburn, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his work, the play is directed by Louisa Auerbach ’20 and stars Claire Feuille ’18, Macguinness Galinson ’21, Tess McGuinness ’18 and theater professor James Rice. Covering themes of loss, mental illness and gender inequality, the play follows McGuinness as Catherine, the daughter of lauded mathematician Robert, played by Rice, after she loses her father and attempts to live up to his legacy as a mathematical genius and inherits his struggle with mental illness. After a mathematical proof that Catherine claims to have wrote is discovered in one of her father’s notebooks, her love interest Hal and her sister Claire refuse to believe her as Catherine struggles to prove her authorship. McGuinness, a theater minor at Dartmouth, proposed producing “Proof ” as her senior project. McGuinness said when she first saw the play in high school, the protagonist
Catherine’s story left a strong impression on her. Since her arrival at Dartmouth, McGuinness said she has dreamed of producing and starring in “Proof,” and that dream is finally becoming a reality. “In the play, Catherine’s father Robert is kind of her best friend, but the real essence of him had been gone for a while before his death,” McGuinness said. “It’s like she has to grieve twice: once for the loss of her father’s mind and once for the physical loss of her father.” McGuinness said that to get into the mindset of her character, she had to imagine losing a parent and connect her own experiences of loss to the character’s perspective. When McGuiness envisioned producing “Proof,” she said she imagined Robert being played by a professor rather than a student to truly capture the father-daughter relationship. Rice said he was thrilled to be part of the production and described Robert as a compelling character to play. “In some cases, visionary mathematicians, who are grappling with concepts that there aren’t even symbols to communicate, descend into madness, where the scale tips from brilliance to insanity,” Rice said. “I think
it’s interesting the balance that we all walk in our own sanity.” McGuinness said she admires how “Proof ” presents mental illness with depth. “Something that really strikes me about ‘Proof ’ is the complexity and brilliance with which it deals with mental health,” she said. “I think it’s so rare, especially in theater, that mental health is dealt with in a multifaceted and productive manner.” McGuinness said that seeing a character who is depressed but not defined by her depression, as well as a play that is not defined by mental illness, will help spark a conversation about mental health on campus. Auerbach said she got involved with the project when McGuinness invited her to direct the show. Auerbach believes that the themes of “Proof ” will strongly resonate with the Dartmouth community. “I think at a school like Dartmouth, pressure is kind of the norm,” she said. “It’s odd if there’s a time in your life where you’re not under pressure, and I think people really need to see other people struggling to understand that what they are dealing with is not abnormal.”
Ultimately, Auerbach said she hopes that the show will give audience members a new perspective. “I really want people to go [to ‘Proof ’] and see that it’s okay to have self-doubt, and it’s okay to struggle,” she said. “I think that seeing people on stage struggle makes it possible for people to understand their own life a little bit better which is what theater has always done for me.” In addition to issues of mental health and academic pressure, the play also exposes audiences to the struggles of women in science, technology, engineering and medical fields. “Proof ” stage manager Virginia Ogden ’18 said that a female character attempting to prove herself through mathematics is not typical subject matter for a play. “I think that everyone who watches ‘Proof ’ is let into a world that they are probably unfamiliar with,” she said. “And I think that is what the best theater does, it shows you characters that you may not know otherwise. Normally, in media and entertainment, you don’t glorify the people who are sitting in rooms working through complex numbers and math problems, even though it’s some of the most important work of our time.”
Rice said that one of his students who studies mathematics empathized with the play. “So much of the play resonated with him as a mathematician; the playwright created an entire network of underlying themes through authentic mathematics,” he said. Ogden said it was very meaningful for her to be a part of a production that was driven by women. “I’ve been told over and over again that theater is a man’s world,” she said. “Stage managing is a man’s world; directing is a man’s world. So it’s really cool to have this microcosm at Dartmouth where the producer and project proposer is a woman, the director is a woman, the stage manager is a woman [and] the designers are women. [Proof] is a show about how women can find so much disrespect outside of traditional female circles. So we’re fortunate enough at Dartmouth to be taken seriously as female student practitioners of theater.” “Proof ” will debut tonight at 8 p.m. Two more performances will be given on Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. All three performances will be at the Bentley Theater at the Hopkins Center For the Arts.