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Refecting on Era-Defning Moments of Commencements Past
By Solenne Wolfe
The Dartmouth Staff and seemingly spectacular displays of political disagreement in years past.
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Commencement is a moment Graduates of the Class of 2021 will of refection — a time when seniors not be the frst 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 difcult 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 signifcance have occured in years past. unafected 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 foat 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 diferent. 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. 1930s and 40s, when World War II was the chemistry of explosives, surveying administration initially reacted by graduates in years past felt the same “White liberals, middle-class, raging. At the war’s outset, Dartmouth and mapping, and signaling, including “demanding the destruction of the way about the trials of their own times. and middle-of-the-road, we have professors living in Europe, including wilderness telegraphy as well as the care shanty towns by the following Sunday,
In some ways, COVID-19 is unlike crouched in the shadow of the draft as several German department faculty of rifes and rife practice.’” or they would dismantle them.” many other prior challenges of national a war drags on, remote, expensive and confned to the Third Reich, wrote The era of South African apartheid “The shanty towns were not or international interminable,” about being stranded abroad after was also a defning one for Dartmouth. removed,” Eudell said in his testimony, scale in that it has reached nearly “The purpose of the Paul said. “We have seen that sailing schedules were disrupted by warfare. Students were also impacted, In the thick of apartheid, students organized to demand the College divest “and the administration replied they could stay ‘as long as they provided an every corner shanty towns was though its cities albeit less directly, by the outbreak of from all funds that did not follow the educational purpose.’ The purpose of of the planet. Though the more not to educate the burn, this nation continues to war in Europe: One student wrote in the September 20, 1939 issue of The Sullivan Principles — a set of six criteria developed in 1977 by African-American the shanty towns was not to educate the apathetic, status-quo Dartmouth afuent can aford apathetc, status-quo spend billions Dartmouth — just three weeks after preacher Reverend Leon Sullivan as student. The shanty towns were to minimize exposure to pathogens as they Dartmouth student. The shanty towns to build missiles and bombs, instruments of German tanks rolled into Poland — that “[the] usual green caps, the moving in, the greetings, the usual importance of goals of equality to work towards in nations where American corporations conduct foreign investment — erecting constructed to dramatize the living conditions of the Black people in South Africa, and to make the College work from home were constructed death.” beginning another year at Dartmouth shantytowns on the Green to highlight address the issue of having investments and outsource grocery shopping, to dramatze the Paul could not separate College seem less important to most of us this week, and undergraduate events the living conditions of many black South Africans. in corporations that perpetuate a racist regime.” they are not living conditons of the frivolity of we once thought of great consequence By June of 1985, after a series of By 1989, amid ongoing pressure invulnerable from a bout with COVID-19 the Black people in South Africa, and student years from broader American trends: seem trifing, isolated from the afairs of the world. In the minds of most of us is the thought that we are all of war rallies, teach-ins and vigils, the Board of Trustees had issued its frst statement supporting divestment. The following from students and community members who considered the Sullivan principles too moderate, the Board went a step in a lonely to make the College “No college could age.” year, it voted to divest from companies further, voting to completely divest from hospital bed. The Financial address the issue of be unafected by this inversion of After the United States joined the war, Dartmouth became the not adhering to the Sullivan Principles. Still, students were divided on companies operating in South Africa. The College’s divestment continued Crisis of 2008, having investments the American nation’s largest training ground for whether through 1994, the too, exposed the vulnerabilities of the American in corporatons that perpetuate a racist dream of a beer at the ballpark or the fraternity house, a a unit of the U.S. Navy’s V-12 program, which enlisted colleges to serve as ofcer training grounds the Sullivan Principles went far enough, year South Africa held its frst multiracial election and banking system, regime.” situation comedy beginning in 1943. The purpose of and eventually, the anti-apartheid but those with the on the tube or on the institution changed overnight, as political African National financial ability a road-trip.” did the student newspaper: “The Daily diferences led Congress party, led to pay of their - DEMETRIUS EUDELL Dartmouth” was temporarily renamed to violence. On by Nelson Mandela, mortgages and those in charge of ’89 TO THE UN GENERAL National politics had pierced the the “Dartmouth Log.” In 1943, the “Dartmouth Log” Jan. 21, 1986, the day after rose to power. The concept of banking systems ASSEMBLY IN 1986 campus bubble published a picture of members of the the frst Martin the “Dartmouth were bailed out just over a month V-12 unit and the College waiting in Luther King, Jr. bubble” is widely by the federal before Paul’s line outside McNutt Hall for academic Day, a group of employed in government and able to come out valedictory address when students registration. “Standing in line seemed 12 right-wing reference to the relatively unscathed. occupied Parkhurst Hall — known like an endless process for all hands as students — College’s rural
Even 9/11 — a national tragedy then as the Administration building the V-12 Unit opened last week,” the among them location and unlike any other in recent memory — — in protest of ROTC presence on caption read. “Here trainees are shown ten staf of The isolation from afected Middle Eastern civilians abroad campus. Nearly three hundred students in front of McNutt Hall to register for Dartmouth global, national as well as those falsely coded as terrorists seized the building and demanded their academic work with the College.” Review — and local politics. domestically. While COVID-19 is the complete abolition of ROTC The students stand in line forming a staged an attack Still, the bubble in some ways an equalizer — no programs, the instatement of College large crowd — reminiscent, oddly, of on the shanty hasn’t withstood matter who one’s parents are, social scholarships to students who would lose lines students saw while waiting for towns on the the crises of recent gatherings are limited, in-person classes military scholarships and an immediate COVID-19 testing. Green set up by history — before are few and far between — in others end to all military recruiting. Even earlier, ahead of the American anti-apartheid COVID-19, world it has exacerbated the inequalities Paul’s pushback to the partisanship entry into World War I, The Dartmouth protestors. wars and American of contemporary American society. that inspired such protests could easily wrote of student volunteers being Following the intervention abroad Those with stable jobs were able to be heard in the current polarized trained for war in gym class. destruction brought a dose of take time of of work, those with health political climate. “Dartmouth stopped talking about of the shanty the real world to insurance through their employers or “We must recognize that the going to war and actually went to war towns, 150 students, faculty and local the idyllic Dartmouth Green. An out of pocket did not fear fnancial ruin blind alleys of partisan polemics are on February 7, 1916, when for the residents staged an over 30-hour sit-in institutional history, when taken care of, for a trip to the hospital and those with incompatible with the expanding vistas frst time the volunteer Dartmouth at Parkhurst Hall, demanding that the can remind us of what past graduates, secure home situations did not fear the of a liberal education,” he told students Battalion met in the Alumni Gym,” a students who tore down the shanties be peering at the world from the vantage long quarantine period. The Trump era that day. “I hope that the Class of ’69 1942 Dartmouth article on the use of punished. point that we do today, had to reckon split our country on mask policy, best has learned that in politics there is no Alumni Gymnasium during wartime One student, Demetrius Eudell with upon matriculation. Our tiny approaches to lockdown and the origins right, only shades of error and kinds read. “There were 150 men at the initial ’89, in September 1986 testifed to the corner of the world has been through of the virus. Though the tendency to of guilt.” drill; they wore tennis shoes to protect United Nations about the shanty towns the unthinkable before, and come out exceptionalize the period is strong, International confict also shaped the foor; they were ofered courses in on campus and the administration’s the other side; with any luck, it will do the College has seen intense division the Dartmouth experience of the ‘military engineering, camp sanitation, response. According to Eudell, the so once more.
DIVYA KOPALLE/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF Graduates in years past dealt with crises ranging from world wars to racial injustce at home and abroad.
