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THE DARTMOUTH COMMENCEMENT ISSUE 2021
SATURDAY, JUNE 12, 2021
Reflecting on Era-Defining Moments of Commencements Past B y Solenne Wolfe
and seemingly spectacular displays of political disagreement in years past. Commencement is a moment Graduates of the Class of 2021 will of reflection — a time when seniors not be the first to contend with a world and their families gather to celebrate in need of so much work. There are the completion of their four years some moments in time that no one at college. In 2021, COVID-19 has escapes; though we may experience dominated graduates’ conversations them individually, collectively we come on all fronts, changing how we think out changed. Often there is a human about opportunities after graduation, death toll associated with these events which cities seem like viable options that forces us to re-evaluate our own for relocation, and the future of remote lives. Regardless of our own proximity work. Though it is difficult to imagine to death, we are reminded of our international issues as globally pervasive shared humanity when strangers die. as the pandemic, events of great It is impossible to remain neutral or significance have occured in years past. unaffected during these periods. The short institutional memory of In his 1969 valedictorian speech, the College contributes to the feeling of Kenneth Ira Paul ’69 pointed to the event impermanence; scandals seem to era of political turmoil that had ensued float by at least every four years. Major during his time at Dartmouth. As the changes tend to be grumbled about by battle for civil rights and the Vietnam upperclassmen — until enough time War exposed the weaknesses of passes for all students to assimilate American government, it was easy for the changes into their worldview and some to refuse to take a strong stance forget that things were ever different. on the war. Members of the upper Though COVID-19 presents a unique and middle classes in many cases were challenge to graduates of the College, able to avoid the draft and get their it is important to combat the feeling college degrees instead, or managed that this pandemic is all-consuming to medically exempt themselves from and unprecedented by recalling that conscription. graduates in years past felt the same “White liberals, middle-class, way about the trials of their own times. and middle-of-the-road, we have In some ways, COVID-19 is unlike crouched in the shadow of the draft as many other prior challenges of national a war drags on, remote, expensive and or international interminable,” scale in that it has Paul said. “We reached nearly “The purpose of the have seen that every cor ner shanty towns was though its cities of the planet. burn, this nation Though the more not to educate the c o n t i nu e s t o affluentcanafford apathetic, status-quo spend billions t o m i n i m i ze to build missiles Dartmouth student. exposure to and bombs, pathogens as they The shanty towns instruments of work from home were constructed death.” and outsource Paul grocery shopping, to dramatize the could not separate they are not living conditions of the frivolity of invulnerable student years the Black people in from a bout from broader with COVID-19 South Africa, and American trends: i n a l o n e l y to make the College “No college could hospital bed. be unaffected by The Financial address the issue of this inversion of Crisis of 2008, having investments the American too, exposed the dream of a beer at in corporations that vulnerabilities the ballpark or the of the American perpetuate a racist fraternity house, a banking system, regime.” situation comedy but those with the on the tube or on financial ability a road-trip.” to pay off their - DEMETRIUS EUDELL mortgages and National politics ’89 TO THE UN GENERAL those in charge of had pierced the banking systems ASSEMBLY IN 1986 campus bubble were bailed out just over a month by the federal before Paul’s government and able to come out valedictory address when students relatively unscathed. occupied Parkhurst Hall — known Even 9/11 — a national tragedy then as the Administration building unlike any other in recent memory — — in protest of ROTC presence on affected Middle Eastern civilians abroad campus. Nearly three hundred students as well as those falsely coded as terrorists seized the building and demanded domestically. While COVID-19 is the complete abolition of ROTC in some ways an equalizer — no programs, the instatement of College matter who one’s parents are, social scholarships to students who would lose gatherings are limited, in-person classes military scholarships and an immediate are few and far between — in others end to all military recruiting. it has exacerbated the inequalities Paul’s pushback to the partisanship of contemporary American society. that inspired such protests could easily Those with stable jobs were able to be heard in the current polarized take time off of work, those with health political climate. insurance through their employers or “We must recognize that the out of pocket did not fear financial ruin blind alleys of partisan polemics are for a trip to the hospital and those with incompatible with the expanding vistas secure home situations did not fear the of a liberal education,” he told students long quarantine period. The Trump era that day. “I hope that the Class of ’69 split our country on mask policy, best has learned that in politics there is no approaches to lockdown and the origins right, only shades of error and kinds of the virus. Though the tendency to of guilt.” exceptionalize the period is strong, International conflict also shaped the College has seen intense division the Dartmouth experience of the The Dartmouth Staff
DIVYA KOPALLE/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
Graduates in years past dealt with crises ranging from world wars to racial injustice at home and abroad.
1930s and 40s, when World War II was raging. At the war’s outset, Dartmouth professors living in Europe, including several German department faculty confined to the Third Reich, wrote about being stranded abroad after sailing schedules were disrupted by warfare. Students were also impacted, albeit less directly, by the outbreak of war in Europe: One student wrote in the September 20, 1939 issue of The Dartmouth — just three weeks after German tanks rolled into Poland — that “[the] usual green caps, the moving in, the greetings, the usual importance of beginning another year at Dartmouth College seem less important to most of us this week, and undergraduate events we once thought of great consequence seem trifling, isolated from the affairs of the world. In the minds of most of us is the thought that we are all of war age.” After the United States joined the war, Dartmouth became the nation’s largest training ground for a unit of the U.S. Navy’s V-12 program, which enlisted colleges to serve as officer training grounds beginning in 1943. The purpose of the institution changed overnight, as did the student newspaper: “The Daily Dartmouth” was temporarily renamed the “Dartmouth Log.” In 1943, the “Dartmouth Log” published a picture of members of the V-12 unit and the College waiting in line outside McNutt Hall for academic registration. “Standing in line seemed like an endless process for all hands as the V-12 Unit opened last week,” the caption read. “Here trainees are shown in front of McNutt Hall to register for their academic work with the College.” The students stand in line forming a large crowd — reminiscent, oddly, of lines students saw while waiting for COVID-19 testing. Even earlier, ahead of the American entry into World War I, The Dartmouth wrote of student volunteers being trained for war in gym class. “Dartmouth stopped talking about going to war and actually went to war on February 7, 1916, when for the first time the volunteer Dartmouth Battalion met in the Alumni Gym,” a 1942 Dartmouth article on the use of Alumni Gymnasium during wartime read. “There were 150 men at the initial drill; they wore tennis shoes to protect the floor; they were offered courses in ‘military engineering, camp sanitation,
the chemistry of explosives, surveying administration initially reacted by and mapping, and signaling, including “demanding the destruction of the wilderness telegraphy as well as the care shanty towns by the following Sunday, of rifles and rifle practice.’” or they would dismantle them.” The era of South African apartheid “The shanty towns were not was also a defining one for Dartmouth. removed,” Eudell said in his testimony, In the thick of apartheid, students “and the administration replied they organized to demand the College divest could stay ‘as long as they provided an from all funds that did not follow the educational purpose.’ The purpose of Sullivan Principles — a set of six criteria the shanty towns was not to educate developed in 1977 by African-American the apathetic, status-quo Dartmouth preacher Reverend Leon Sullivan as student. The shanty towns were goals of equality to work towards in constructed to dramatize the living nations where American corporations conditions of the Black people in conduct foreign investment — erecting South Africa, and to make the College shantytowns on the Green to highlight address the issue of having investments the living conditions of many black in corporations that perpetuate a racist South Africans. regime.” By June of 1985, after a series of By 1989, amid ongoing pressure rallies, teach-ins and vigils, the Board from students and community members of Trustees had issued its first statement who considered the Sullivan principles supporting divestment. The following too moderate, the Board went a step year, it voted to divest from companies further, voting to completely divest from not adhering to the Sullivan Principles. companies operating in South Africa. Still, students were divided on The College’s divestment continued wh e t h e r through 1994, the the Sullivan “[The] usual green year South Africa Principles went held its first multifar enough, caps, the moving in, racial election and and eventually, the greetings, the usual the anti-apartheid political African National differences led importance of another Congress party, led to violence. On year at Dartmouth by Nelson Mandela, Jan. 21, 1986, rose to power. College seem less the day after The concept of the first Martin important to most of the “Dartmouth Luther King, Jr. us in this week, and bubble” is widely Day, a group of employed in 12 right-wing undergraduate events reference to the students — we once thought of College’s rural among them location and gerat consequence ten staff of The isolation from D a r t m o u t h seem trifiling, isolated global, national Re v i e w — from the affairs of the and local politics. staged an attack Still, the bubble on the shanty world.” hasn’t withstood towns on the the crises of recent Green set up by history — before - AN ARTICLE IN A SEPT. anti-apartheid COVID-19, world p r o t e s t o r s . 1939 ISSUE OF THE DAILY wars and American Following the DARTMOUTH intervention abroad destruction brought a dose of of the shanty the real world to towns, 150 students, faculty and local the idyllic Dartmouth Green. An residents staged an over 30-hour sit-in institutional history, when taken care of, at Parkhurst Hall, demanding that the can remind us of what past graduates, students who tore down the shanties be peering at the world from the vantage punished. point that we do today, had to reckon One student, Demetrius Eudell with upon matriculation. Our tiny ’89, in September 1986 testified to the corner of the world has been through United Nations about the shanty towns the unthinkable before, and come out on campus and the administration’s the other side; with any luck, it will do response. According to Eudell, the so once more.
