The Dartmouth Mirror 1/16/15

MIRROR 01.16.2015

A TALE OF TWO CENTERS| 3

WHEN GRADUATION BRINGS UNCERTAINTY| 4-5

LIBERAL ARTS GO GLOBAL|6

NEW YEAR’s IN A RICKSHAW| 8 SHUOQI CHEN// THE DARTMOUTH

2// MIRROR

The Rise and Fall of the FSP

EDITOR’S NOTE

story story

Hey Mirror readers, This week, The Mirror turns its attention to Dartmouth’s reach outside Hanover.

On my foreign study program in Paris last winter, the extent to which I flaunted my background as a Chicagoan quickly became a joke among my friends on the FSP. Put it this way — I felt that I had an obligation to enrich the cave-dwellers who have the misfortune to inhabit Paris, a place widely considered to be devoid of any cultural interest whatsoever, with essential cultural artifacts like the recipe for Chicago hot dogs and the aesthetics underpinning the Cubs cap. Just exactly how Parisians — or on that note, New Yorkers — can navigate the modern world without a basic understanding of the history and symbolism of the Chicago flag escapes comprehension.

Editing this issue taught me a great deal about myself. I learned that I assigned this theme about the “international world” in a deep-seated pathological attempt to resolve my lifelong sadness about not being born in or living out my life in France. I also learned that for all the benefits of a liberal arts education, my feeble brain is as yet poorly equipped to unravel something as complex as the U.S. visa system. (Dear Office of Visa and Immigration Services: You’re doing God’s work.)

It has surprised me just how much I’ve come to appreciate Hanover’s isolation. Without the distractions of theaters/galleries/clubs, students here turn their attention to creating strong communities. I’m convinced that Hanover’s isolation contributes to the intensity of the passions that dominate discussions about our social climate.

Still, Dartmouth is really only isolated in overwrought thinkpieces about Hanover’s isolation. (See paragraph above.) There are more than 40 foreign study programs, a Global Village and a wealth of international programming. We enjoy a number of advantages of going to school in the woods — e.g.: hiking, Occom Pond, smooching on the golf course, more-than-smooching at the BEMA — but Dartmouth isn’t some sort of secluded monastery.

In any case, I think you’ll enjoy the issue — and congrats on finishing week two.

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MIRROR R MIRROR EDITOR CHARLIE RAFKIN

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF KATIE McKAY

PUBLISHER JUSTIN LEVINE

EXECUTIVE EDITORS LUKE McCANN JESSICA AVITABILE

How many times can you study abroad?

B y Sam forstner

With the Feb. 1 deadline to apply for many of next year’s off-campus programs rapidly approaching, students are weighing the benefits and disadvantages of studying abroad.

Yet after just 535 students enrolled in off-campus programs in 2012-2013 — the latest year data is available — participation in off-campus programs has dropped 10 percent from the almost 600 students who studied abroad in 2008.

While enrollment has dropped, this does not necessarily imply a decrease in interest. After all, there are still study abroad programs that turn away students, even as newer programs like the German language study program in Berlin and Arabic foreign study program in Tangier, Morocco were cancelled recently due to lack of interested students. Despite the drop in overall program enrollment, the number of programs offered has hovered around 44 since 2004, “We’re not satisfied with the decline in enrollment. We’re working actively with departments to put these new programs in place,” said John Tansey, executive director of Dartmouth’s Frank J. Guarini Institute for International Education.

Government professor Lisa Baldez said she recognizes that declining enrollments pose a problem.

“It’s definitely something that the faculty have noticed. We’re thinking about creative ways to deal with it,” she said.

While a handful of programs struggle with finding an adequate number of students to fill the trip, securing a spot on some study abroad programs still proves to be difficult. Spanish professor Raul Bueno noted that Spanish programs are particularly competitive.

“Yes indeed, the programs are competitive,” said Bueno. “We have a ver y good number of candidates for all of our programs, especially for the FSPs in Madrid and in Buenos Aires. But all of them are ver y, ver y desirable programs.”

Not all new programs have faced these challenges as programs like the astronomy FSP in Cape Town and the film studies program in Los Angeles have attracted plenty of students, Tansey said.

In addition to cancelled programs, the College does not offer a comprehensive foreign study program in economics — the school’s most popular major.

Tansey noted that the economics department itself has not generated a plan for a study abroad.

“Most of our programs originate out of departments. The economics department, they haven’t put forth a proposal

How many different types of U.S. visas are there?

Eliza McDonough/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

Students attended an off-campus activities fair on Thursday. or a strong interest in having an FSP or LSA,” Tansey said.

Especially with the added tangle of the D-plan, studying abroad at some point in a student’s four years at the College can require extensive planning. Although cancelling a program may not seem particularly impactful, it can result in major shakeups to a student’s plans.

“From [the department’s] perspective, cancelling one program isn’t a big deal,” said Sam Van Wetter ’16, who had planned to attend the German LSA in Berlin, “but [the program’s cancellation] shaped the rest of my junior year plans.”

In addition, with the College’s threeterm language requirement, students must formulate a plan early on to fulfill it.

“The LSA in German was a large part of why I chose to study German, to make it somewhat worthwhile by getting a cultural experience out of it and getting some semblance in fluency,” said Van Wetter.

Jordan Kastrinsky ’16, who had hoped to attend the Arabic FSP that was cancelled last year, said he felt frustrated that he had to determine his own path to study abroad. His peers who study French or Chinese had enriching cultural experiences through the College, he said.

Besides the obvious inconvenience and frustration that program cancellations or a lack of a program to begin with can bring Dartmouth students, there are larger issues to consider when evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency of off-campus programs.

Especially because of the Arab world’s centrality to global affairs, Kastrinsky said the cancelation felt like a particular slight.

Still, few doubt the quality or success of many individual off-campus opportunities. Alex Kaye ’15, who traveled around the western United States on the earth sciences FSP, lauded the program.

Am I going to get into the FSP of my dreams?

As a freshman, you hear stories about Put it this way: There is an alphabet soup students who study abroad twice, but of different visa options. Your esteemed No clue, but here’s a tip. Do not folyou think that meeting one might make magazine editor would be better served low the model of my application to the for some sort of exceptional rarity, like pleading the fifth for fear of hopelessly French FSP in Paris, France. It is only by receiving a citation, enjoying a cloudless bungling this question and forever the grace of God that my app — in which I spring morning on the Green, or spotting sullying this magazine’s reputation in describe myself, in the very first sentence, as President Phil Hanlon breaking a sweat on the process, but I’ll take the plunge a “francophile through and through” — was the elliptical at the Alumni Gym. Turns out, and hazard a guess. There are at not tossed directly into the “ding” pile. plenty of people study abroad twice — and least three: F1, J1, M1. there are some who study abroad even three times — but you’ve got to put in the planning.

“It was absolutely unbelievable. It’s kind of amazing that they were even able to put it all together,” said Kaye.

Sarah Waltcher ’16, who participated in the Spanish LSA in Buenos Aires last spring, said that the small size of the program allowed her to get to know her professors and peers well. While the Spanish department’s foreign study opportunities to Argentina are often competitive and receive more applicants than available spots for students, the LSA in the spring of 2014 only took nine students.

Additionally, on-campus commitments and the rigid demands of certain fields can render it much more difficult for students who are studying science or are on the pre-med track to study abroad.

There are far fewer opportunities to study abroad in these areas, and these majors and tracks have extremely stringent graduation requirements.

“The number of courses that you need to take in a ver y short period of time, quite frankly it’s tough,” Kaye said.

“Realistically it requires planning from your freshman year, and it’s tough to be able to plan four years of college in your first year here.”

Baldez speculated many students may feel that they’ve arrived on campus with sufficient global perspective and abroad experience. “[Dar tmouth students] come to Dartmouth having done foreign study and with extensive travel experience.

Going abroad isn’t what it was in 1964,” Baldez said. “There are a lot of different competing opportunities.”

Van Wetter echoed Baldez’s concerns, noting that a younger generation may place less value on international learning.

“In a broader perspective, maybe our generation doesn’t see abroad experiences as quite as vital,” said Van Wetter.

MIRROR //3

A Tale of Two Centers story

BY THE

B y michael qian

The Dickey Center for International Understanding and Rockefeller Center for Public Policy, founded in 1982 and 1983 respectively, are both young in the College’s storied timeline. Even down to their close launch dates, the two centers seem like they are born out of a similar instinct — an enthusiastic desire to bridge classroom learning with hands-on, policy-focused work.

Even Rocky associate director for curricular and research programs Ronald Shaiko notes that the students who participate in functions at Rocky share commonalities with those at Dickey.

“Are they similar kinds of students with similar kinds of interests? Yes,” Shaiko said.

So how do two centers with a number of similarities carve out unique spaces for themselves on campus?

I’ll take a look at four shared priorities — similar missions, programming, alumni donors and student participants. Full disclosure: I was rejected from the First Year Fellows program.

I promise this article is not my belated attempt to exact revenge. (I’m better than that.)

1. Mission quite possible?

Dartmouth has 4,000 undergraduate students — but there are two centers with the mission of fostering policy learning and leadership. Huh? This winter, 82 students will learn the basics of policy making, draft memoranda and read countless pages of text in government professor Ronald Shaiko’s class, “Introduction to Public Policy.”

Sydney Walter ’18, a student in the course, said she signed up for the course both out of interest in the minor and as a First-Year Fellows prerequisite. Many other students, including your faithful correspondent at one time in his life, want to spend a summer interning in Washington, D.C. at Rocky-coordinated positions.

Like Rocky, the Dickey Center provides student internship funding, hosts prestigious guest speakers, coordinates an array of courses and supervises a minor.

Dickey student programming assistant Freya Jamison ’17 said that by discussing subjects as broad as policy or global events, there are inevitably some overlaps between both centers.

Rocky director Andrew Samwick also described the relationship between Rocky and Dickey as very similar relative to the various student activities available at Dartmouth.

2. Mo’ programming, fewer problems With regard to programming, the Centers manage to distinguish themselves from one another. Sort of.

The Rockefeller Global Leadership Program seeks to foster international leadership competencies and intercultural understanding — values that closely intersect with those touted by Dickey.

Jamison noted, however, that the centers take advantage of such overlap by collaborating on some projects.

In the Global Leadership Program, Dickey staff members are often featured as speakers.

“It makes a lot of sense to me that the place where you would go to find global health programming is different from the place where you would go to learn about congressional internships,” Jamison said.

Rocky program coordinator Robin Frye emphasized a focus on leadership development as a huge part of Rocky’s co-curricular niche — a goal not surprisingly reflected in programs like the aforementioned Rockefeller Leadership Fellows and Dartmouth Leadership Attitudes and Behaviors.

The matriculating class witnesses Dickey programming in other ways.

This year, 103 first-year students — including all freshmen in the Global Village residential community — participated in the Great Issues Scholars program.

3. It’s all about the money, money, money It’s time for me to apply the vast reservoir of knowledge I received in Econ 1 (and 24 — I know, I’m a freaking superstar).

These internship stipends, guest speaker bills and activity costs add up quickly. Both Samwick and Dickey director Dan Benjamin pointed toward alumni support as a major asset — fiscally and beyond — in their attempts to subsidize student internships and activities.

Shaiko said Dickey and Rocky have different methods of fundraising. It is only at the College advancement and development level, he said, where competing priorities would affect funding.

“I have not ever felt like we were in competition with any of the other centers for alumni gifts,” Benjamin said. “I’ve found Dartmouth alums to be extremely generous.”

Benjamin has a point that Dartmouth alums have been generous in the past. In 2009, Rocky received a $5.6

Kimberlee John/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

Dickey recently pulled in a big donation from Tom Russo ’77 and Gina Russo ’77.

Kimberlee John/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

Just over 80 students will study “Introduction to Public Policy” at Rocky this winter. million donation from Fritz Corrigan ’64 and his family. Recently, Tom Russo ’77 and his wife Gina Russo ’77 made a large donation to Dickey that allowed the Center to expand its Great Issues Scholars program.

For Alex Mahler-Haug ’11, who called Rocky a “central” aspect of her Dartmouth experience, an appreciation for the Center naturally extended beyond her years at the College.

Mahler-Haug now participates in Rocky’s Alumni Mentoring Program, which matches young alumni with recent graduates, and has also made financial contributions to Rocky. She does not perceive many tensions between departments over alumni giving.

“It’s not that I would immediately dismiss any center asking me for money, but I’d pretty much always say ‘yes’ to the things I participated in because those are the activities that made my Dartmouth experience,” she said.

Both Rocky and Dickey also have Boards of Visitors, some of whom are also alumni donors, that advise the future direction of each center.

“Just look at some of the most recent headlines,” Dickey board member Welton Chang ’05 said when explaining his support for the Center. “[The Islamic State’s] activities in Iraq and Syria, Ebola response in West African countries, U.S.-Cuba relationship normalization — it is critical that students get up front and personal with these issues, early and often.”

Like Chang, Dickey board member Raffiq Nathoo ’87 said a glance at recent headlines could show that “the big issues are international issues.” At Dartmouth, Nathoo focused on international relations within his government major and studied abroad twice.

“It’s part of who I am,” he said, speaking about the culmination of those experiences.

“I view Dartmouth as the college and the great institution that it is — first as an institution, as a community. I don’t think of it as different departments and components and entities in the community,” Nathoo said, echoing Mahler-Haug’s sentiments of noncompetition over alumni giving.

4. Work out that core [of students] If you buy the rhetoric coming out of McNutt, Dartmouth is made up of many diverse demographics, with policy kids just one group among a sea of athletes, artists and a capella stars.

So how can the policy-minded students who make up only a portion of each class support two entirely independent centers?

Shaiko said that Rocky’s curricular aspect uniquely stands as the only interdisciplinary program that reaches such a large cross-section of students.

He said about 300 to 400 students take at least one public policy class each year.

Meanwhile in the 2013-14 academic year, Dickey funded 97 internship and research applications, selected 29 War and Peace Fellows, hosted 29 public events and oversaw six clubs.

Though Jamison acknowledged that she knows less about Rocky than Dickey, her “impression is that in order to be accepted to their more competitive programs, you have to be a ‘Rocky Person,’ meaning you must have previous experience with the organization.”

Shaiko does not view acquiring student participation as a competition.

Still, Shaiko did note that students can only take on a finite number of commitments, but he said that Rocky does not control how students allocate their time.

Speaking more generally about potential competition for donors and student interest, Samwick said he does not believe the centers are competing in a zero-sum game.

“The way you’d describe them is that they’re different pathways to experiential learning, research impact, bridging the gap between theory and practice,” he said. “The duty of a liberal arts education is that students can go anywhere.”

Benjamin said that every year a “core of students” is deeply involved in both Rocky and Dickey, but that the interaction between the two centers is cooperative rather than competitive.

“I think the bigger challenge is finding time in the schedule and turning out students who are extremely busy,” he said.

Kevin Zhang ’17 is one of those busy, perhaps “core” students. He has been a Dickey Great Issues Scholar, a Rocky First-Year Fellow, participates in the Dickey-sponsored World Outlook journal and intends to pursue a public policy minor through Rocky.

Like Jamison, he thinks the two centers have distinguishable academic niches. Though he has not seen any patterns in the general “type” of student interested in either center, Zhang said Rocky programming seems to attract students with stronger and more deeply charged passions.

“Maybe [Rocky attracts passionate students] because Rocky events are typically political in nature and tend to draw far more passionate opinions then, say, water scarcity in Sub-Saharan Africa, which almost everyone can agree is a bad thing,” Zhang said.

NUMBERS

535 Students enrolled in an off-campus program in 2012-2013, the last year data is available.

18 The number of times global.dartmouth.edu includes the words “global” or “international” on its home page.

82,43 The number of people enrolled in Rocky and the Dickey’s largest courses this term.

61.4 The percent of FSPs in 20122013 that were based in Europe.

15

The percent of the College’s student body that are international students, including undergraduate and graduate

4// MIRROR

When Graduation Brings Uncertainty The Visa Process Poses Additional Challenges for International Students STORY

B y Priya ramaiah

Three weeks before graduation, Brazilian student Guilherme Ferraz ’14 was faced with an unthinkable setback. His employer-to-be had rescinded his job offer on the grounds that it was unable to sponsor his H1B visa process, the fees for which can often cost an employer upwards of $2,000. Without time to find an appropriate job or internship before his student visa ran out, Ferraz was deported.

“My hands were tied,” he said. “I had a limited number of days to leave the country.”

For many international students at Dartmouth, leaving their home country for the frigid winds of New Hampshire isn’t the only challenge they face in coming to the College. As graduation approaches, every student has difficult decisions to think through as they anticipate transitioning into life after Dartmouth. On top of concerns like affordable housing or roommate matches, however, international students must choose whether or not to stay stateside — if the decision to continue living in the U.S. is even legally feasible.

Most international students at Dartmouth, who make up about 15 percent of the undergraduate and graduate student body, study in the United States on an F1 visa, which allows them to stay in the U.S. for a full-time academic program until 60 days after program completion, according to Office of Visa and Immigration Services director Susan Ellison. While international students cannot legally work off-campus, they can work for the College part-time and can be granted up to 12 months of Optional Practical Training time, which can be used before graduation to take on internships stateside or after graduation for a job related to an international student’s field of study. International students majoring in government-approved STEM fields may apply for 17 months of additional OPT time to be used after graduation.

“OPT influences what companies I apply to,” said Peter Saisi ’16, a computer science major from Kenya who hopes to stay stateside for a few years post-graduation to gain work experience before returning to Kenya. “I need a company with resources to get an H1B visa for me, so I’m shying away from startups.”

Perhaps to account for this tension, the government does charge smaller companies less for individual visas, but larger firms may have deeper funds to draw from.

International students from countries mandating military service, such as South Korea, Greece and Israel, must also factor their patriotic duties into their academic planning. Orestis Lykouropoulos ’17 said that while he must eventually serve in the Greek army, his 12 months of OPT time plus the 17-month extension he can receive for studying an approved STEM field has allowed him to defer making immediate decisions about his service.

Students who wish to remain in the U.S. to work for longer periods of time — up to six years — can apply for an H1B visa, a non-immigrant visa that allows U.S. companies to employ foreign workers in specialized occupations.

While applying for an H1B visa can be a quicker process than applying for a U.S. Green Card, the number of H1B visas granted each year is capped and decided by a lottery when the number of applications exceeds the cap. According to a study by the Brookings Institution, the number of foreign students on F1 visas in U.S. colleges and universities swelled about 500 percent from 2001 in 2012. This growth creates a bottleneck for foreign students hoping to stay and work in the U.S. Indeed, the 2014 H1B visa lottery drew more than 172,000 applications for 65,000 visas,

plus an additional 20,000 visas reserved for individuals with a graduate degree from a U.S. institution. H1B visas are tied to employers, not individuals, so losing or quitting a job without a replacement can lead to the loss of the visa.

Saisi is using his first three months of OPT time for a junior summer internship, leaving the remaining nine months for the period between graduation and the H1B visa lottery. As a STEM major, he is eligible for the 17-month OPT extension.

“The OPT extension is good in case you don’t get an H1B visa the first time, he said. “The best case is I never need to use my extension.”

Perhaps as a result of the OPT extension and H1B visa process, international students frequently major in STEM and business fields, the Brookings Institution noted. When searching for jobs, they must take into consideration whether or not their potential employer has the resources and flexibility to support their legal quest for an H1B visa.

Mahnum Shahzad ’15, an economics major from Pakistan, said she found the job search more difficult as an international student.

“The minute you indicate on Dartboard that you’re an international student, the number of jobs you can apply to shrinks exponentially,” she said.

The current H1B system creates significant inconvenience for both international students and potential employers who want to hire based on merit, Mary Peng ’15 said. She said that in her experience the H1B lottery system disrupts many two-year analyst programs at banks and consulting firms.

The D-plan further complicates the alreadytangled nature of visa applications. The complicated issues surrounding visas often force international students to take a more traditional enrollment path of staying on for fall, winter and spring terms — forgoing the tradition of sophomore summer.

While Saisi said the Office of Visa and Immigration Services at the College excels at guiding students through the complex paperwork and regulations of the visa process, he thought that the process is more stressful for international students trying to take enrollment patterns considered nontraditional, such as enrolling during sophomore summer, or taking an off-

term during the regular academic year.

After finishing her required number of terms at the College by senior winter without taking an off-term, Sophie Choi ’14 was deported back to South Korea. While she was planning to use the grace period allowed for students on F1 visas to determine job options, complications with graduation requirements and her nontraditional academic plan forced her to leave the country.

OVIS is charged with administering Dartmouth’s F1 visa program as well as providing immigration services to international students, staff and faculty members. Visa and D-plan advice is given from international student orientation up until graduation, Ellison, the OVIS director, said.

Advisors at OVIS have their own case load of students to ensure that international students can meet with the same advisor throughout their Dartmouth career. While OVIS and other offices at the College work to help international students make the most of their experience, she said keeping in mind the legalities of being an international student is undoubtedly an “added layer of complexity” to the undergraduate experience of these students.

All 12 international students interviewed by The Dartmouth praised the services of OVIS, but also acknowledged that the legal framework and bureaucratic processes of the immigration system take effort to navigate properly due to their complex nature.

“When you hear about OPT and academic planning at workshops and international student orientation, it seems like a faraway story,” said Choi. “It wasn’t until my Dartmouth career was over that I saw the severity of how much difference it makes to be a STEM major.”

Choi added she would have benefitted from having more international upperclassmen share their experiences navigating the legal process with her, as juggling D-plan advice from OVIS with academic plans from a dean can be difficult.

She noted that no single College advisor could help her with the “interdisciplinary” challenges that she met as an international student.

Visa requirements are a strong factor in the choices made by international students in terms of where to study and how to gain work experience, immigration lawyer and second vice president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association Bill Stock said.

“Ultimately, the immigration system is designed to address those places in the U.S. labor market where there aren’t enough workers, such as in the entry-level tech fields where there are a consistent number of openings,” Stock said.

“Many of the qualified people selected are foreign nationals, and everyone is hoping to get picked in a lottery, which is not a qualitative test.”

Faizan Kanji ’15, an international student from Pakistan and an international student mentor, said that the H1B lottery system should be reformed. He believes the cap is not enough given the growing demand for these visas.

“The most stressful and scary thing for a fresh graduate is having to quit a good job, pack up and leave the country through no fault of their own, but simply because their name was not drawn in a random lottery,” he said.

Ferraz said that although he was in constant dialogue with his OVIS advisor and felt very informed of the paperwork and legalities surrounding his immigration status during his time at the College, he was also acutely aware of the constraints placed on international students.

He noted that while objective information about visa requirements exists, the process is deeply emotional for those who face it.

Back in Brazil after two years of boarding school in the U.S. and four years of undergraduate study, Ferraz has found employment with a multinational corporation with branches around the world.

“I thankfully am from a country where I think I can pursue what I actually like,” he said. “It’s just sad that it’s not the country I have come to see as my own for the past six years.”

Ferraz found himself especially frustrated with the H1B lottery practice and the costs associated with it, which often cause international students to seek out large, well-established employers with the resources to support their legal needs.

“When I was in the U.S., I was paying taxes.

I was a contributing citizen. I went to one of the best schools there. So when are you good enough to reside in this country after having proved yourself in so many different ways?”

Ferraz said. “People see that $2,000 for legal fees as a barrier, but in terms of lifetime economic value, it’s really not.”

Weijia Tang/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

International students hold up their student visas in Baker-Berry Library.

MIRROR //5

Annika Park/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

6// MIRROR

Can A Liberal Arts College Go Global?

Story

B y Victoria nelsen

Since John Sloan Dickey’s tenure, Dartmouth has emphasized both the global nature of its programming and coursework as well as the quality of its international students. These efforts certainly make sense. It’s no secret that a modern education demands an understanding of the world beyond the United States’ borders, and it would be foolish not to attempt to attract the very best students, no matter where they happen to be born.

Still, Dartmouth’s brand remains bound up with its longstanding reputation as a small liberal arts college. Assistant provost for international initiatives Laurel Stavis said that there is a delicate balance between ensuring campus programs are strong while also attempting to increase the College’s global imprint. English and women’s and gender studies professor Ivy Schweitzer also emphasized the balance that must come with expanding the College’s global reach, noting that while it allows for a broader education, it also disperses energy, resources and people beyond the campus.

Dartmouth’s current efforts in providing a global education are well-known — there has been a language requirement for decades, the off-campus programs office sends more than 50 percent of students abroad, the Dickey Center provides on- and off-campus opportunities and funding for global initiatives and the Tucker Foundation funds student projects abroad each term.

Stavis said that much of her work involves facilitating international collaboration with the faculty. She does this through several networks and consortia, including the Matariki Humanities Network, Fulbright Arctic Initiative, the Brazil Scientific Mobility Program and the Wennberg International Collaborative.

Schweitzer recently attended a Matariki Conference in New Zealand where she met with scholars from all over the world to discuss the humanities.

“I think it’s important that we’re engaged in this international partnership to boost international collaboration,” Schweitzer said. “That suggests that Dartmouth is very much interested in nourishing and supporting the international profile.”

Still, Schweitzer said that people from outside the United States have limited knowledge on Dartmouth. To change this, Schweitzer said that Dartmouth should put more resources into international consortia and continue to fund alliances, conferences, internships and collaborations.

Other liberal arts colleges have also made efforts to move toward a more globalized education. In Amherst College’s steering committee process, the school stressed the growing “internationalization of liberal arts education.”

Williams College has a center similar to the Dickey Center and the Tucker Foundation called the Center for Learning in Action, which “connects students and staff to the wider community for experiential learning and service work,” director Paula Consolini said. The Center has a broad mission statement, and its international component is only one part of the work.

Some of the opportunities available to Williams students through the Center include the Williams in Africa initiative, travel opportunities during the month-long winter study, global studies funding and spring break trips.

Consolini said that one of the Center’s primary roles is to communicate resources to students, calling it a “matchmaker.” She said that Williams is thoughtful about its global opportunities.

“We’re small, so we’re not in a position to provide extensive programming,” Consolini said.

“But I think where we do engage off our campus

we do a very good job.”

Dartmouth English professor Don Pease said that a global dimension is necessary at a liberal arts institution, in order “to enable students in the 21st century and help students find way in this global world.” It is important to cultivate skills as a global citizen and understand culture in a global perspective, he said.

While the College incorporates several aspects of a globalized education in its curriculum, Pease said that there is work ahead to bolster Dartmouth’s reputation, noting the College’s low ranking on lists of international universities. He attributes this ranking to a lack of awareness of the College, saying that it is important to improve this reputation to attract more students and scholars from around the world.​ Associate dean of the faculty for international and interdisciplinary studies and comparative literature professor Lynn Higgins, who oversees curricular programs abroad, said that Dartmouth’s study abroad programs are unique from other schools in that they are integrated into the College’s curriculum and accompanied

by Dartmouth faculty.

Higgins said that the D-Plan allows more students to participate in off-campus programs but agreed that “Dartmouth is not as well-known as it deserves to be in other parts of the world.”

The move toward a more global Dartmouth began at the end of World War II, when thenCollege President Dickey was inaugurated as the President of the College in 1945. With a background in the U.S. State Department and heavy involvement in the origins of the United Nations, Dickey was well equipped to help Dartmouth transition into a globalizing world, College historian Jere Daniell said.

Daniell said that Dickey’s contributions mostly came to the curriculum, including the development of an international relations major and the creation of a required course for seniors on global issues.

When John Kemeny became College President in 1970, the international commitment decreased for the next few decades, as Kemeney and subsequent presidents also opted to emphasize other values. It was not until 2009, when Jim Kim began his short term as president, that a global Dartmouth became a priority.

Daniell said that Kim always had international goals for the College. After all, Kim was chosen because of his international visibility and commitment to the increasingly globalized professional world.

“Everything in the world is increasingly global, and Dartmouth’s part of the process,” Daniell said. “If you don’t give students the chance to be performers in the world, you don’t give them globalized experience, then you end up being less and less important in the world of higher education.”

The increase in global resources over the past few decades, however, does not necessarily correlate with an increase in international prestige, some international admissions consultants said. Aarti Kukreja is the study abroad director admissions director at Prep Zone Mumbai, a company that offers test preparation and admissions consulting for prospective college students.

Kukreja said Dartmouth’s prestige has actually decreased over the past decade.

“We work with students everyday, and we never hear of people interested in Dartmouth,” Kukreja said. “Even though I know Dartmouth is a really competitive school to get into, I feel like people underestimate the quality of the education because they haven’t really heard much about it.”

One of Prep Zone’s primary functions is to

Annika Park/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

assist international students in their college application process, and Kukreja said she hasn’t had a student choose Dartmouth. Instead, she said that students will often choose New York University, University of California schools or Cornell University over Dartmouth as there is more general knowledge about these universities.

“Over 10 to 15 years ago, Dartmouth was really considered a premium school,” Kukreja said. “However, its international visibility has definitely decreased compared to other schools because they very actively promote themselves.

They do a lot of groundwork.”

Emilio Giuliani, senior admissions consultant at another international admissions preparation firm, Dubai Brighter Prep, said that Dartmouth’s selective admissions lead the company not to recommend applying.

“Unless [students] have a really strong international profile, we almost discourage students from applying because it’s so competitive,” Giuliani noted.

He said that students generally do not recognize Dartmouth’s name, but they become excited when they hear that it is a member of the Ivy League.

To improve its international name recognition, Kukreja said Dartmouth should be more physically present in India and attend education fairs. Like Kukreja, Giuliani said that Dartmouth could improve its influence by reaching out to more college consulting firms and to students themselves.

Lisa Montgomery, founder and chairman of international educational consulting firm Edvise, differs from Guiliani and Kukreja with her experience of students’ knowledge of Dartmouth.

She said that she works with students applying to Dartmouth every year in her London office, noting that around 50 percent of her clients carry U.S. passports.

Contrasting with Guiliani and Kukreja, Montgomery said that the Dartmouth admissions office has “done an excellent job of reaching out to the European community.”

Montgomery added that Dartmouth’s alumni in London are very vocal about the institution.

Applying from Pakistan, Hassan Kiani ’16 hadn’t heard much about Dartmouth until he started applying to colleges. He applied to schools in two rounds, taking a gap year after the first because he was not admitted to most of his original schools. It was only in his second round that he applied to Dartmouth.

Kiani was more familiar with universities such as Harvard University, Princeton University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University. Still, Kiani does not believe that it is necessary for Dartmouth to increase its international prestige.

“International prestige comes because of certain reasons,” Kiani said. “I don’t think Dartmouth necessarily needs that criteria in the first place.”

Kiani listed criteria such as being a big school with large graduate schools and said he wonders if it is possible for Dartmouth to have a high amount of international prestige without these characteristics.

He noted that Dartmouth has advantages that he believes the College could better market.

“Dartmouth, especially if someone’s applying at the undergraduate level, is need-blind,” Kiani said. “That’s a really good option for lots of international students. Dartmouth should use that.”

Odon Orzsik ’17, who hails from Slovakia, applied to Dartmouth after attending school in Texas for two years. Before attending an American high school, he knew about Dartmouth but could not imagine going there, as most students he knew in Slovakia do not attend school abroad.

He said that in his circles, well-educated people and those hoping to go to the U.S. know about Dartmouth but that it is lesser known in popular culture.

As Dartmouth approaches its 250th anniversary, the school will likely continue to tout its liberal arts pedigree. Yet questions about exactly what that pedigree entails — and to what extent a liberal arts education demands an international perspective — may linger.

FRIDAYS WITH MARIAN

MIRROR //7

Boots and RallIES COLUMN

By Aaron Pellowski

COLUMN By Marian Lurio

As I’m sure you already know, this past Sunday was the Golden Globes, an awards show where a bunch of white people get up and congratulate a different bunch of white people. You might be surprised to hear that I don’t actually watch awards shows. There are two major reasons for this. The first is that I never watch television broadcasts in real time. Instead, I prefer to binge-watch entire seasons of shows in a single sitting. The second reason is why would I want to watch celebrities pretending to be sane people, when I can watch real people pretending to be celebrities?

However, I just had to watch the opening monologue. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are two of my idols. In fact, over the summer I saw Amy Poehler as I walked the streets of the East Village. She walked like a normal mom might, holding hands with her sons on either side of her.

I pretended like she was a regular non-celeb/ pleb, but inside, my heart was beating out of my chest. When I see a celebrity in the wild, I typically leave them alone — unless they are reality TV stars, because you know they love the attention.

But I always make a concerted effort to stare at them and their families so that they know that I know who they are and that I am a respectful, yet adoring fan — or maybe just a creepy onlooker.

Last weekend I bought Poehler’s book at a random Barnes & Noble in New Jersey (don’t ask). If the book is even half as good as my fellow Philadelphia suburbs-raised homie Tina Fey’s “Bossypants,” I will be very pleased.

In case you’re wondering, I prefer “30 Rock” (R.I.P.) to the still-hilarious “Parks and Recreation.” Regardless, both women hold top spots in my list of feminist entertainers and public figures that I wouldn’t mind switching bodies and lives with à la “Freaky Friday.” Just as long as I’m not trapped in Lindsay Lohan’s body ( a scary place, I’d imagine ) or in Jamie Lee Curtis’s body (doing Activia yogurt commercials, so even scarier).

Let’s move on to a form of entertainment that is not as mind-numbing as awards shows (postopening monologue of course).

“Serial.”

Alas, even though it is now 2015 — despite what I accidentally write as the date — all I can think about is murderous events that occurred in the ’90s in the U.S. mid-Atlantic region. ​Now, Phil, I know what you’re thinking.

What could be better than staring into Channing Tatum’s eyes as he degrades the quality of yet another movie? The answer is a lot of things — but especially the podcast “Serial” (there are no visuals and it’s still riveting).

Warning: the following joke 1) isn’t funny and 2) won’t make sense to people who’ve never listened but... “Do you use MailChimp? I use MailChimp.” Phil Hanlon uses MailChimp.

The first season of “Serial” explores the nonfiction murder of a young woman, Hae Min Lee. Jan. 13th, 1999 marks the last sighting of Baltimore-area high school senior, who would later be found dead in the infamous Leakin Park, which I think is the inspiration behind the band Linkin Park and, more importantly, my go-to nail polish color, Linkin Park After Dark. On an even lighter note, on this day in 1999 I turned five-and-

a-half. If you haven’t already sent me your best wishes for my half-birthday this past Tuesday, feel free to send me a dozen red roses and/or a sizable Edible Arrangement (looking at you, Phil).

To summarize the entire series, Hae’s exboyfriend, Adnan Sayed, has been in jail for the past 15-ish years for her murder and to this day maintains his innocence. Is Adnan just an innocent who happens to be the most unlucky and forgetful guy this side of the Mason-Dixon line? WTF was he doing the day Hae disappeared?!

While I’ve been known to tweet #freeadnan on occasion (once), it may be time to face the truth. I spent a significant portion of winterim (approximately 12 hours) listening to the series, relistening to episodes out of order and poring through Reddit posts and conspiracy theories.

I haven’t been able to find a photograph taken of Adnan since he traded his Woodlawn High School track uniform (he was a jock AND in the 30-person magnet program AND a first responder AND a sexually active smoker of marijuana) for the orange (I’m just guessing here — it could be tan or striped) jumpsuit issued by the Maryland Correctional Facility.

I have a new world view these days, and it goes as follows: There are two kinds of people in the world — those who listened or are in the process of listening to “Serial” and those who have not. And then there’s me, one of a kind, or so I’d like to think: the person who listens to “Serial” episodes multiple times but usually not in the right order. I’m just assuming no one else in the world has also done this.

Oh Adnan. Clearly host Sarah Koenig has fallen under Adnan’s most likely sociopathic charm. I’ll fight Sarah Koenig to the death for his love. I hope he’s grown into his looks/himself, though.

I feel like a true Ivy League intellectual listening to this podcast, since it’s associated with NPR. I’ve lost many a night’s sleep tossing and turning, trying to figure out who really killed Hae Min Lee. I so badly want it to not be Adnan, but I am beginning to acknowledge that he — and Jay, the Dennis Rodman (!) of Woodlawn High School/ the porn shop he worked at — was probably involved to some degree in Hae’s disappearance and murder on that fateful January day, which, again, was also the day I turned five-and-a-half.

I truly resent that we will likely never know exactly what happened (although I am really counting on the Innocence Project to figure it out). But alas, this is one of many uncertainties in life. There are just some things we’ll never know.

Why is the sky blue? Do dogs dream in color or in black and white? What is it about Anne Hathaway that makes me vomit and cry at the same time? Is it her absurdly large mouth and toothy grin? Is it that she just is too much of a thespian to handle the big screen? I’ll probably never be able to figure out what exactly revs my engine when I see Anne Hathaway. Why do most people in the U.S. also hate her? Again, there is no way to truly know and there may never be.

I am just really glad she wasn’t the host of the Golden Globes after her sickening 2011 Oscars show with James Franco.

Is Beyoncé pregnant or was that Instagram just posted to keep us guessing? I suppose we’ll know about that one soon.

Thankfully, there are some things that I know for certain. One of these things is that Dartmouth students (or visitors/ faculty) don’t know how to use public restrooms properly and respectfully.

Stay tuned for my stories next week. Also tell me that isn’t a “Serial”-like cliff-hanger.

For the purpose of diverting readerly ire from the batch of complaints I am about to make, I should confess that I am not an anthropologist. I am also not a sociologist, meteorologist, historian, geologist or meteorologist. In light of these deficiencies, I suppose a lot of this will come across as ignorant riffing on a rather pedestrian pet peeve. All the same, as I gaze about the sylvan rim of the Upper Valley, filled with evergreens and the harsh vanilla blanket of winter, I am terrifically and genuinely confused why anyone would willingly choose to reside here. As an undomesticated Texan, I am partial to sunlight, dust, mesquite, grackles and a clear blue sky.

This is the environment in which emotions can soar and dreams can blossom. There a young, earnest bumpkin — unadulterated by the vicissitudes of urbanity and civilization — can find contentment in his lazy appreciation of life’s empyrean beauty.

In Hanover, however, I feel like a nervous bug trapped inside a dirty Styrofoam cup. I don’t think this is the kind of world that I was built for. Thus it seems to me, on reflection, rather odd that my D-plan has wound up with me spending every last one of my winters on campus instead of abroad — or at least located in some part of the country that doesn’t feel like the third act of a Norwegian drama.

I can see how people would grow accustomed to the snow, but I can not fathom how one becomes fond of it. Snow is an impediment to almost everything — it makes walking more arduous, driving more dangerous, circumspection more occluded. During a Hanoverian winter, earth and sky are the exact same tone, from paper-white to smoky gray to the frigid ink-black of night. Even in the dark, though, the snow lurks — ready to melt and freeze, spray and coagulate and slowly seep through fabric and into crevices until it has found human skin where it will thereupon administer a wet and annoying bite.

Zooming out to the bigger picture, the story I learned of how the indigenous peoples of America arrived here says that a whole lot of roving groups of hunters realized that Siberia was beginning to run out of ice-antelope so they had to pop over to what we now call “America” to find some more. Once they arrived in the Upper Valley, they looked around and said, “Hey, this is pretty swell,” before setting up shop until the next round of intruders arrived.

But why? How, before the advent of insulation and central heating systems, was New Hampshire in any way acceptable? I can’t stand even the 10 seconds I have to endure being fully-bundled as I

trudge between mechanically warmed modern buildings. How did anyone want to live here? Obviously some people kept trekking southward past the Northeast coast down to the balmy and more hospitable climes of Florida. But why in tarnation didn’t everybody go to Florida?

With electrical lighting, it’s possible to still put in those long hours over books and laptops, doing the sorts of tasks Dartmouth students are privileged enough to refer to as “work” — though I think, sized up against the whole history of human labor, our comfortable chairs, internet access and infinite KAF breaks make our “work” look rather trivial compared to that of the lumberjack or bricklayer of days past. For a moment, however, imagine the era before reliable fluorescent illumination. How did anyone get anything done in the evening? Firelight?

Candles? Oil lamps? At best these sources rub small yellow holes in the darkness, around which I suppose a book could be read, a sock darned or a fish gutted.

That leaves aside the gruesome psychosomatics of darkness and the subtle little demon people have named “Seasonal Affective Disorder.” If the nose-hair-freezing cold isn’t enough to deter residence in this region of the country, I should think that the mighty, depressive darkness would drive out any ambition to linger on in these parts. After I complete my fourth year at Dartmouth, I swear I am headed straight for Southern California. Every winter term I sink into a torpor — last winter my room had nothing but a bare mattress on the floor by the window, an island among dirty clothes and trash. There I would lay awake at night, motionless from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., feeling like a puddle of dissolved humanity adrift in the vast vacuity of outer space, stultified and pulverized by galactic quantities of self-induced ennui and angst. Sapped of all vigor and elan vital, I was the ultimate, pathetic image youth crucified by the thorns of wintry discontentment.

I never feel that way in the summer or in Texas, and I’m never going to let that blurred state recur if I can help it geographically.

Obviously these solutions have answers — I’m just looking for more to mollify my bellyaching besides “Hey buddy I don’t know what you’re talking about! I like the snow!”

It just feels like there’s something inhuman about a thoroughly niveous wonderland.

Without modern amenities, no hairless biped is suited to dwell within such an enormous, blacked-out, soporific snow globe — not even for four years. Yet they do, maybe as some inadvertent role-play in the human challenge to endure the greater elements of cruelty, obnoxiousness and uneasiness that are the pillars of the 75-year march unto death we naively call “life.”

8// MIRROR

A New Year’s In a Rickshaw Lisa Luo ’15 explores her roots in China SPOTLIGHT

B y Caren duane

Samuel Heath/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

Devoid of sparklers, Anderson Cooper and Martinelli’s, New Year’s Eve 2014 was unlike any other for Lisa Luo ’15. Instead of watching the ball drop from the comfort of her living room in Boston, Lisa rang in the new year in a rickshaw hurtling through Beijing’s congested streets. The closed tin box pulled by a guy on a motorcycle made for a strange and claustrophobic celebration of the New Year. Luckily, the rickshaw had one small, plastic window for Lisa to gaze out.

Lisa’s tin-box fête marked the beginning of her four-month-long solo journey through China. She left her home in Boston with two themes in mind — filmmaking and childhood.

Lisa planned to travel around both cities and mountain villages to interview family members, culminating in a documentary about her family’s history. One of her primary goals was to explore the story of her father’s side of the family in an effort to understand what motivated her paternal family’s immigration to the United States. More than just an expedition into filmmaking, though, Lisa’s travels in China had another purpose — she wanted to experience a Chinese childhood.

“I wanted to be able to live with my family that I’d never met as a kid while I still had time to be a kid,” said Lisa. There was an entire side of her family — her mom’s side — that she’d only heard about in stories. Lisa yearned to “meet them, live with them and see their way of life.” Splitting her time amongst Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Beijing, Xingning, Luogang, and Hong Kong, Lisa was able to deepen her understanding about her family’s day-to-day life in different parts of China.

The country, and the villages especially,

had changed tremendously since Lisa last visited as a young child.

“Back then, there were no roads, no skyscrapers and it took a whole day to get between two cities. We had to take a train, motorcycle and rickshaw, and the roads were old,” she said. “Every morning if you wanted milk you had to bring your glass bottle and line up at the village cow.”

Growing up in the U.S., Lisa spoke what she believed to be a make-believe language — a language that she only spoke with her mom, dad and brother. She sometimes wondered if every family had their own language. Upon arrival in Luogang, the mountain village where her family lives, the “Luo language” became real. For the first time in her life, Lisa could speak her parent’s native language, Hakka Chinese, with people outside her household.

A language of migrant people who moved from the north to the south, Hakka Chinese became known as the migrant or guest language. The Chinese characters for Hakka mean “guest families.” Linked to Mandarin in the way that English shares similarities with French, Hakkanese uses the same characters as Mandarin with different pronunciations.

Although Lisa is fluent in this dialect, she still encountered communication barriers during her travels. Hakka Chinese is slowly dying due to governmental attempts to unite the country under Mandarin.

“Ever yone my age speaks Mandarin, and it’s rare for you to move out of the small village and into the big city and not take up Mandarin,” Lisa said.

Improvising her way around China, Lisa could only communicate in depth with her

grandparents and older generations, as she does not speak Mandarin.

Many of those in the older generation were bewildered when a five-foot-10 foreigner donning neon Nike running shoes could speak their language.

Her parents had lived in China until 1992 when they migrated to the United States. The decision to leave China was not difficult.

“There was no ‘if.’ I made my decision, and I never looked back,” remarked Chan, Lisa’s mother. Born in the midst of the Cultural Revolution in China, Lisa’s parents’ childhoods were defined by the policies of Chairman Mao Zedong. Lisa said she believed that Mao tried to rewrite Chinese history, burn libraries and censor books. Lisa’s paternal side of the family was composed of historians and professors. They were subsequently thrown in jail.

The Cultural Revolution, of course, occupies a complex position in Chinese history.

Not all Chinese people experienced the Cultural Revolution as Lisa’s family did.

Lisa’s first stop, Shenzhen, was once a site where some who wanted to leave China during the Cultural Revolution fled. When Lisa had visited Shenzhen as a child, the city felt like little more than a small village. Now, it is home two of the 30 tallest skyscrapers in the world.

After spending a month in Shenzhen occupying the upper bunk in her 12-year-old cousin’s room, Lisa gained insight into the life of a Chinese child. She harbored an aching back, the natural product of her sleeping arrangement — her “upper bunk” was really just a wooden board in disguise.

Lisa found childhood in China to be solitary.

“Every family is the same — two parents, one child. Kids have a lot of hobbies to distract them from not having siblings,” Lisa stated.

“It’s lonely and interesting.”

Consequently, her little cousin was quite happy to have an American cousin around.

Upon embarking on her trip to the mountain village, Luogang, Lisa hoped to focus on capturing what the old villages looked like.

The transformations that had taken place in China since her family left made it difficult to accurately capture the village through the eyes of her parents, as roads were paved right through old clusters of houses.

Lisa traveled around with her camera and unsteady tripod to inter view family members. Once resorting to using a broken car seat as a makeshift tripod on the side of a mountain, Lisa had to make due. Filming only on days when the sun was out, as she did not have lighting equipment, Lisa often had to beg an aunt in Xingning to drive her — via motorcycle — on bright days to film.

Her family was unaware that she would be filming them until she arrived, as they did not have email.

“They’d all be really confused about why I wanted to film. It was interesting and hard inter viewing your own family members because I’d have to try and be really professional while also trying to live with them and be a kid with them,” she said.

Once Lisa returned to campus, she had a store of footage to process later. She has not finalized a film yet, but the shots she took and memories she shared persist.

Photos courtesy of LIsa Luo

Lisa Luo ’15 spent four months filming a documentary of her travels in China. Along the way, she had the opportunity to practice her Hakka Chinese.