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THE DARTMOUTH COMMENCEMENT ISSUE 2021
SATURDAY, JUNE 12, 2021
A guide to the College’s recent diversity and inclusion efforts B y Daniel modesto The Dartmouth Staff
In the last year, Dartmouth has reckoned with diversity and inclusion both inside and outside the classroom. From an open letter demanding that Dartmouth address structural racism to a recent petition to create an Asian American studies program, the College has been under increased pressure to take action on issues of racial justice. In January, the College announced a number of initiatives to foster institutionalized support of diversity, equity and inclusion. Despite Dartmouth’s efforts, many students and faculty continue to feel that the College hasn’t done enough. Last summer, following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, protests for racial justics took place worldwide, including in Hanover. Although College President Phil Hanlon released an email statement on May 31 denouncing structural racism, hundreds of Black faculty, staff and students signed on to an open letter on July 14 criticizing College President Phil Hanlon’s messaging, which they argued did not adequately address institutional racism at Dartmouth. That same day, the College appointed history professor Matthew Delmont as a special advisor to Hanlon on diversity, equity and inclusion within the faculty. According to Delmont, part of his responsibility is to develop programs that support diversity and inclusivity at the College. He said that one of the “biggest things” that he worked on in the past year was securing the $20 million grant to the E.E. Just Program, which provides networking and internship opportunities to underrepresented minority students in STEM disciplines. “These are things that the College has been working on for a number of years,” he said. “They’re things that the College wants to renew with emphasis, and they’re going to, so part of my role was to offer suggestions and feedback on how the College can do better.” Inearly2021,theCollegeannounced
several initiatives to support faculty of Being a Muslim student is “very color. Among these was a push for more isolating” because the College doesn’t representative hiring practices, which adequately support the community, she aim to make it easier to hire and retain said, adding that many Muslim students faculty of color. According to Delmont, at Dartmouth face Islamophobia. conversations around diversity and As an example, Razzaque said that inclusion also encompass the creation as a veiled Muslim woman, she has been of a more welcoming campus for at the end of comments from people faculty. He noted that Dartmouth who have assumed she is “oppressed.” should be a On one occasion, a place where “That’s not just a woman at Starbucks faculty should remarked that she matter of numbers “feel like they was “glad” that the such as compositional U.S. had “saved” belong.” “That’s not diversity and how Razzaque. just a matter “I think it can of numbers many [faculty of color] be really isolating such a s are here, but it’s also constantly facing compositional Islamophobia on what kind of policies diversity and and off campus — h o w m a n y and practices we have there’s never an [faculty of in place and how escape,” she said. color] are “I think that it can here, but it’s people are treated on be isolating, and also what kind a day-to-day basis.” the fact [is] that you of policies and don’t feel supported practices we or recognized by have in place - MATTHEW DELMONT, Dartmouth.” and how people SPECIAL ADVISOR TO Razzaque added are treated on that the Muslim a day-to-day PRESIDENT HANLON community basis,” he said. needs more “That’s what accomodations, we’re really striving to change in terms such as a larger prayer room and more of campus climate.” halal-friendly options. Creating a more Delmont noted that his position inclusive space for Muslim students, she as special advisor is temporary and said, “starts with visibility.” was only intended to last through the “It starts with having a Halal station end of this academic year. He said [at FOCO], it starts with having a that incoming senior vice president bigger space [at the Tucker Center],” for institutional equity and diversity she said. “It starts with a lot of these Shontay Delalue — current serving conversations [about the Muslim as vice president for institutional equity community].” and diversity at Brown University — is Native Americans at Dartmouth the College’s “long term position” for co-presidents Erin Bunner ’22 and addressing diversity and inclusivity at Mikaila Ng ’22 said they believe that Dartmouth. Indigenous students aren’t supported or Delalue did not respond to requests included by the administration. Bunner for comment. said that her experience — and that of Despite the initiatives the College has most Native Americans at Dartmouth announced in recent years to address — is feeling “othered” on campus. diversity and inclusion, some student “As a sociology [major], a lot of the groups argue that it is not enough. time, I am the only Native student, and According to Al-Nur president Ameena it’s sort of a burden to always explain Razzaque ’21, the Muslim community an entire history of Indigenous people is a “forgotten” community on campus. every time I take a sociology class and
The Native American studies program, located in Sherman House, will ascend to department status this summer.
we talk about inequality and ongoing program will become a department, settler colonialism,” Bunner said. some other ethnic studies on campus “I think a lot of Native students are face a lack of financial and institutional expected to serve [as explainers], in support on campus. A recent petition in sociology and environmental studies, March called for the institutionalization anthropology and all these other spaces of an Asian American studies program. where they’re mostly dominated by According to women’s, gender and sexuality studies professor Eng-Beng non-Native or white students.” Ng said she believes that while Lim, although members of the College Dartmouth tries to acknowledge its have asked for the creation of an Asian history with Native Americans by doing American studies program for 20 years, land acknowledgements — statements “nobody has an answer” as to why declaring that someone or something the College has yet to acknowledge is on land originally occupied by this desire for Asian American Indigenous people — she views them representation in the Dartmouth curriculum. as “the bare minimum.” As director of the Consortium “I think people just like doing it because it makes them look better,” Ng of Studies in Race, Migration and said. “It’s a very performative thing that Sexuality, Lim said that RMS allows for would be better spent in actual action, students to think about critical ethnic such as Indigenous-led grassroots studies as a “comparative, relational, change movements, campaigns, decolonial, intersectional and queer methodof understandingrace,ethnicity, businesses queerness, and education “I think a lot of Native sexuality and initiatives.” gender.” He said Last summer, students are expected that the focus on the College intersectionality removed the to serve [as explainmakes space for weathervane ers] in sociology and students to study atop Baker environmental studies, Asian American Tower due to identity in the concerns that anthropology and all absence of an it offensively these spaces where Asian American portrayedNative studies program. A m e r i c a n s . they’re mostly domi“For two years, Although both nated by non-Native or we [in RMS] have Bunner and Ng been engaged in said that they white students.” all kinds of future were pleased - MIKAILA NG, CO-PRESIresearch activities the weathervane DENT OF NATIVE AMERIto promote this way was removed, of understanding B u n n e r CANS AT DARTMOUTH race [and] said it was ethnicity and to “bittersweet” because Native American students help create space for Asian American have advocated for its removal “for studies because of its absence on decades,” and Ng thought it was a campus,” Lim said. Lim said the lack of administrative “small step.” In March, the Native American support makes it difficult to create an studies program was promoted to a Asian American studies program, and department and will be renamed the also highlighted what he described as Native American and Indigenous a lack of Asian American professors. “Until the College actually invests in studies department as of this summer. Both Bunner and Ng praised the Asian American professors, there will be no robust Asian American Studies decision. While the Native American studies curriculum,” he said. “It’s almost like a chicken and egg question: How do you offer Asian American studies anything when we simply do not have institutional investment in this field?” According to Delmont, it is important for the College to support ethnic studies because it will prepare students for “the kind of world that they’re entering” after graduation. He highlighted the $400,000 raised by the Class of 1982 in a recent fundraising effort to support the African and African American studies program, which he said will provide additional resources for faculty and student collaborations, additional research and the opportunity to bring visiting speakers that will help put Dartmouth “on the map more nationally” for African and African American studies. Furthermore, Delmont said ethnic studies programs are important to generate a “sense of belonging” for minority students on campus. “I think that’s why [ethnic studies] are an important term of the larger conversation about diversity and inclusivity,” he said. “The role that AAAS, NAS [and] [Latin American, Latino and Caribbean studies] play on campus is different from the role that the history department or economics department play [because] there’s a sense of student support and student belonging. That’s really at the core of DARREN GU/THE DARTMOUTH what those programs and departments do, and that’s why they’re so crucial.”
