VOL. CLXXI NO. 27
SUNNY
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2014
HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE
Author of online post identified as ’17
EVERY DROP COUNTS
HIGH 26 LOW 11
By jessica avitabile The Dartmouth Staff
MELISSA VASQUEZ/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
The American Red Cross set up shop in the Hopkins Center Tuesday for the termly blood drive.
SPORTS
MEN’S TENNIS WINS TWO HOME MATCHES PAGE 8
OPINION
WEARY OF WHINING PAGE 4
REDRESSING THE REVIEW PAGE 4
ARTS
‘VOICES’ EMPHASIZES INCLUSIVITY PAGE 7
READ US ON
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WHY WINTER OLYMPICS TRUMP SUMMER FOLLOW US ON
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Applicants shy from College
B y Zac hardwick The Dartmouth Staff
College consultants and students suggested that recent media attention and the cost of tuition could have caused this year’s decline in applications to the College. Dartmouth received 19,235 applications to the Class of 2018, a 14 percent decline from applications to the Class of 2017, and the second year in a row that the number has dropped. Last year, 3 percent fewer
students applied to the Class of 2017 than had to the Class of 2016. The press release announcing the decline in application numbers, posted over Winter Carnival weekend about a month after the application deadline, pointed to a report by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education about demographics shifts as a possible rationale for the decline. The document indicated that the U.S. is seeing the first overall decline in
its number of high school graduates in more than a decade. Dartmouth’s peer institutions, however, do not appear to have been as heavily impacted. The University of Pennsylvania received a record 35,788 applicants, a 14 percent increase from last year. Brown University received approximately 30,320, while Yale University received 30,922
SEE ADMISSIONS PAGE 5
Office for Civil Rights to visit amid U.S.debate
B y SEAN CONNOLLY The Dartmouth Staff
As part of the ongoing Title IX investigation into Dartmouth’s handling of sexual assault cases, representatives from the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights will revisit the College from Feb. 24 to Feb. 28. The federal attention comes as lawmakers in Congress are calling for increased transparency from the Office for Civil Rights.
On Jan. 29, a bipartisan group of 39 congressmen led by Congresswomen Jackie Speier, D-Calif., and Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., urged the office to better disclose its investigations and activities. The letter went on to request that the office release information regarding the resolutions it reaches with institutions that it investigates. A Department of Education SEE OCR PAGE 2
“She might be reluctant,” read a Jan. 10 post on Bored at Baker, outlining the steps one should take to rape a female member of the Class of 2017. “Just tell her to relax.” The student targeted in the post, which identified her name and residential cluster, was in the library when she read it. Later that day, while in class, she broke down. “It just really hit me,” she said. “I started crying and needed to leave.” After emailing her dean, Natalie Hoyt, Safety and Security escorted her from class to the dean’s office, at which point the post was reported to Safety and Security and to Hanover Police. For the next three nights, the student slept in a secret room reserved by the housing office for emergencies. She changed residence halls shortly thereafter. The author of the Jan. 10 Bored at Baker post, a male member of the Class of 2017, is no longer on campus. He will return to appear before the Committee of Standards for violating the Standards of Conduct. The female member of the
Class of 2017 targeted in the post alleges that the post’s author sexually assaulted her last fall, but that she chose not to report the assault to either Hanover Police or Safety and Security. Assistant dean and director of case management Kristi Clemens said that the female student came to the administration with the Bored at Baker post but had not filed a sexual assault report. The College identified the author of the post last week with assistance from the female student, Clemens said in an email. Upon confirming his identity, Safety and Security investigators retrieved the male student. Once the post’s author’s identity was confirmed, the College issued a no-contact order. Acting chief of the Hanover Police Frank Moran said they opened a case on Jan. 10, the day the post was published online. He said that because Hanover Police does not have a Dartmouth email address and thus cannot log in to Bored at Baker, all information must come from sources with access to the website. When a Bored at Baker post is reported to the police, they launch an SEE POST PAGE 3
Kappa Delta house construction aims for July completion
B y JOsh schiefelbein The Dartmouth Staff
Despite weather-related delays in December and January, construction on the Kappa Delta sorority house remains on schedule, its frame standing three stories tall amidst the snowdrifts on Occom Ridge. Sorority members should be able to tour the house within a month, and the project should be completed by July, said senior project manager Joe Broemel. Low temperatures hindered the team’s
ability to work with concrete, but they didn’t impact the project’s time frame, Broemel said. The construction team was ahead of schedule with its work on the parking lot and the storm sewer system when the delays began. “Anytime you do construction in the winter, you lose productivity, but I don’t think at this point it’s anything we’re concerned about,” he said. Seven months have passed since the SEE KD PAGE 2
THE DARTMOUTH NEWS
PAGE 2
DAily debriefing Dartmouth researchers discovered that human brain circuits representing space, time and social relationships overlap, the United Press International reported. When people think about the near future, a nearby object or their close friends, the same parts of the brain are activated, while a different set of brain regions are activated when they think of the distant future, a faraway object or their distant relatives. The study consisted of analyzing the participants’ brain scans when they read phrases that mentioned different times, viewed photographs of objects at different distances and viewed photographs of people they knew. The researchers reported that this study may explain why people use distance metaphors to explain time and friendships, such as “I feel very distanced from you” or “far in the future.” It may also impact the choices they make when deciding whether a situation is important enough for them to respond. The happiness a person derives from extraordinary or ordinary experiences depends on age, according to research by Wharton School of Business marketing professor Cassie Mogilner and Tuck School of Business visiting professor Amit Bhattacharjee, The Wharton School’s online business journal reported. In multiple studies, researchers asked participants to identify and rate their own and other people’s happiness based on events classified as either ordinary or extraordinary, such as interacting with friends or participating in a flying trapeze class. Younger people gain more happiness from extraordinary experiences, while older people, who reportedly believe they have less time left, find ordinary experiences more self-defining but equally joyful as extraordinary experiences. The researchers also pointed to the potential marketing implications for targeting consumers of different ages. Dartmouth-Hitchcock Norris Cotton Cancer Center director of Colorectal Cancer Screening Lynn Butterly and his team discovered that during a colonoscopy, the more time spent passing the colonscope from the area where the large and small intestines meet to the colon, the more likely it is to detect a polyp, the Oncology Nurse Advisor reported. After analyzing 7,996 colonscopies performed in 7,972 patients over the course of two years, doctors concluded that a nine-minute withdrawal time is a good standard practice for colonoscopies. During the procedure, doctors pass the colonoscope through the colon in order to find and remove polyps. Polyps are the main cause of colon cancer, which is the secondmost frequent cause of cancer-related deaths in the U.S. — Compiled by Jose Burnes
Sorority house construction continues FROM KD PAGE 1
College’s trustees approved the $3.5 million construction project for a new 23-bed house. The project has remained within its budget, said director of residential operations Woody Eckels. The house’s frame has reached its intended height, and the contractors are currently finishing the exterior frame and weatherproofing the roof, Broemel said. No windows have been installed yet, but contractors have sealed the house, protecting it from inclement weather. Tests on the building’s roofing and framing have met or exceeded expectations, Hanover building inspector Ryan Borkowski said. Along with his assistant, Borkowski said he has overseen and inspected the building materials and structure and found them to be of good quality. Plumbing is expected to be installed soon, Borkowski said. In the coming weeks, KD members may be able to tour completed areas of the house under supervision, Broemel said. Members of the sorority currently reside on the top floor of Hitchcock Hall. In 2010, KD became the most recent sorority to receive College recognition. Sorority members say they are excited to have a house, and KD members from the Class of 2015 and the Class of 2016 are looking forward to using the house in the fall, KD president Alison Levens ’14 said.
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Construction on the Kappa Delta sorority house is expected to finish in July.
The building plans for KD’s new house resemble those used for Alpha Phi sorority’s plant, completed in 2012. On Jan. 31, the A Phi house suffered water damage, forcing residents to find temporary housing. Borkowski said there is no reason to be concerned about a similar incident at the KD house. Hanover Fire Inspector Jeryl Frankenfield confirmed that the water damage at the A Phi house resulted from a clog in the pipes and not from defective parts. Early in the process, construction noise was also identified as a potential problem. In order to preempt noise complaints, Broemel said he sends a biweekly newsletter to the sororities, fraternities and Occom Ridge residents with construction updates and special notices about activities that might be louder than usual. Construction noise at the property
line is limited from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, with special consideration given to exam periods, the Valley News reported. There have been very few complaints regarding noise, Eckels said. In the beginning of the summer, when construction began, Eckels discussed the construction with presidents with the presidents of nearby Greek houses, Broemel said. Eckels said he has not received many complaints from residents of the surrounding houses. KD is located between Delta Delta Delta sorority, Epsilon Kappa Theta sorority and Alpha Chi Alpha fraternity. Tri-Delt sorority president Claire Stewart ’14 said she was not aware of formal complaints from members of her organization regarding the construction. She said members of her sorority are excited for KD to join them on Occom Ridge.
Lawmakers urge OCR to be transparent FROM OCR PAGE 1
Corrections
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2014
spokesman said in a statement that the Department will respond to the letter. “We agree that this is a very important issue, which is why we have prioritized civil rights enforcement and galvanized a national effort to help prevent sexual assaults and to better support survivors of sexual violence,” the statement said. The letter’s timing coincided with President Barack Obama’s Jan. 22 announcement of a task force focusing on sexual violence at universities. Dartmouth general counsel Robert Donin said in an email that the Office for Civil Rights’s second campus visit will follow a similar procedure as the first, which occurred during the last week of January. The federal office will prepare a message that the College will send to campus, inviting individuals to contact the officers by telephone or e-mail to schedule an appointment during the visit. Several members of student groups that provide support for sexual assault victims and promote awareness of sexual violence — including Mentors Against Violence, Sexual Assault Peer Advisors and the Student and Presi-
dential Committee for Sexual Assault — said the office had contacted them as part of the investigation. SPCSA chair Will Scheiman ’14 said in an email that he and several other committee members had been contacted by the Office for Civil Rights, along with dozens of other students. “I know that there have been a large number of students who have already spoken with the OCR and that plan on speaking with them in the future,” he said. “Anecdotally, there were numerous students being interviewed, as well as waiting for interviews, on the day that I went.” Members of MAV and SAPA also confirmed that they had been contacted. Scheiman said he was not asked to inform other students about the open office hours, as a campus email advertised the sessions. The campus-wide message advertising the January visit was included in the College’s daily email update sent at 1 a.m. Jan. 20, the Monday of the week before the Office for Civil Rights visited. It was the fifth of five announcements, following an advertisement for lunch in “Dartmouth’s tropical paradise” and an Olympics preview.
National campus sexual assault activists said the investigation into the College is unique because it was initiated by the Office for Civil Rights rather than by a complaint, and because the Office for Civil Rights visits have been advertised publicly. Andrea Pino, a member of End Rape on Campus, an advisory group for Title IX and Clery Act complainants at universities, said that the Office for Civil Rights’s decision to reach out to campus is not the norm. Pino said that compared to other investigations she had worked with, including those conducted at Swarthmore College and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, investigators at Dartmouth seem more active in engaging the community. Occidental College professor Caroline Heldman, a co-founder of End Rape on Campus who led a Title IX complaint against Occidental, also said the fact that Title IX investigators reached out to the College in addition to the original Clery Act complainants is significant. “Dartmouth is unusual,” she said. “Your peers filed a Clery complaint, then Title IX investigators reached out on their own volition.”
THE DARTMOUTH NEWS
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2014
PAGE 3
Online attacks began last fall, target of anonymous posts alleges FROM POST PAGE 1
investigation to determine if the law has been violated. “From what I’ve seen of the content, it is clearly disgusting and morally irresponsible, but I’m not convinced that we have a crime that we would be able to prosecute,” Moran said. New Hampshire defense attorney Andrew Winters said it is unlikely that the post’s author would be arrested and charged with a crime. “It’s obviously very hateful and vile, but I think that it’s highly doubtful it would be sustainable as a criminal case,” he said. “It’s not a specific enough threat against the person.” The post, however, may qualify as criminal defamation, which is a class B misdemeanor punishable by a fine under New Hampshire law, Winters said. Moran, who was unaware that the post’s author had been identified when interviewed on Tuesday afternoon, said that one consideration during the investigation was the improbability of identifying the poster given the department’s resources. Due to Bored at Baker’s design, it is nearly impossible to identify website users, even with assistance from its administrator. After an individual threatened in a Bored at Baker post to bomb last year’s commencement ceremony, Hanover Police contacted the FBI, which identified the source of post, Moran said. In this case, however, Hanover Police did not contact the FBI.
“We can only go to the FBI for what we consider the most heinous of crimes and the most serious of threats to the community,” he said. Moran said that the police may reevaluate the case since learning that the post’s author has been identified, Upon hearing the initial news that the police would not prosecute the author of the post, the target of the post decided to bring the post to public attention on Feb. 4. She posted a screen shot and a description of her experience in the Class of 2017 Facebook page. “I can’t do this alone,” she said of her decision to post in the Facebook group. “We can’t have a culture where it’s okay to harass me and call me names like that. I thought I should address this to my classmates, so I did.” After the Hanover Police department chose not to pursue the case, the College launched its own investigation into the post. The female student said she was unaware at the time of her Facebook post that the College would commence its own judiciary process. When a criminal investigation is underway, the College yields to Hanover Police’s authority and does not start its judicial proceedings, Clemens said. “That’s the lag time that I think people are asking questions about,” she said. The post’s author is currently subject to the College’s judicial process. Under the typical judicial process, Safety and Security compiles a report for the Office of Judicial Affairs, which
determines if the Dartmouth Standards of Conduct have been violated. Clemens said that as a private college, Dartmouth’s policies sometimes hold students to a standard higher than that of the law. The target of the post said she first spoke with her assigned dean, Hoyt, in November about being harassed on Bored at Baker. She was also seeing a therapist at Dick’s House. “I passed the person going to class one day, and it made me tear up because I felt like he was responsible,” she said. “What if this person gets angry at me and tries to come after me?” She alleged that the assault occurred following a residence hall party that took place during the first six weeks of fall term. At that time, the Greek First-Year Safety and Risk Reduction policy, which barred members of the Class of 2017 from entering Greek events where alcohol was served, was still in effect. She said she chose not to report the assault. The name-calling on Bored at Baker began in November, she said, with anonymous online posters identifying her by name and labeling her “Choates whore,” as well as commenting on her intelligence. There are currently 21 posts on the website from between November and Jan. 10 that use the phrase. All posts referencing her name or initials have been deleted. “I talked to the dean’s office because I was really depressed about it and upset and mortified that someone would be saying those hurtful things, and they
told me there was nothing they could do,” she said. “I had to stay at Dick’s House because of how I was feeling.” While the target of the post did not file an official report with the College in the fall when the harassment began, she said the response from administrators she spoke with seemed to indicate a lack of options. The target of the post said she contacted her alleged assaulter in November via email, asking him if he had written comments about her online, and he responded saying she should contact the administration if she felt she was being harassed. The posts continued. The female member of the Class of 2017 said the Jan. 10 post stood out from the others. The post advocated providing the target with alcohol and assaulting her. The student body has reacted passionately to the Bored at Baker post. Panhellenic Council, along with the presidents of each of the eight sororities
that it represents, and the Interfraternity Council sent campus-wide emails condemning the post. “As women on campus, we are only as protected and safe as the least safe member on campus,” Panhellenic Council president Eliana Piper said. The incident also inspired a gathering on the Green Monday night, where student leaders addressed hundreds of students, then sang the alma mater. “I feel like a lot of people have been really supportive, and that shows how Dartmouth really is,” the target of the post said. She also said that she is pleased with the administration’s response. “They’re doing everything they can, and I feel like I have so much support there,” she said. “I just wish that it had happened sooner.” The Department of Safety and Security could not be reached for comment by press time. Hoyt, citing a desire to respect the students’ privacy, declined to comment.
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THE DARTMOUTH OPINION
PAGE 4
Staff Columnist Katie Wheeler ’15
Guest Columnist Blaine ponto ’14
Redressing The Review
Weary of Whining
The Review’s critique of professor Russell Rickford was flawed. In its most recent issue, The Dartmouth Review published history professor Russell Rickford’s speech at the 22nd Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Candlelight Vigil in full. He explains the ways in which King’s legacy — the legacy that mainstream American culture has embraced — serves to blind us from the structural racism that still plagues our society. Our annual honoring of King — rather, his sanitized, commercialized counterpart who never actually existed — is a means of self-congratulation on our nation’s supposed achievement of racial harmony. In reality, King was a democratic socialist; he fought for collective bargaining rights for laborers and condemned American imperialism and militarism. Yet, as historian August Meier explained, it was King’s employment of the Christian symbols of love, nonresistance and redemption that was “reassuring to the mentality of white America.” Indeed, white America loves the King who dreamt of desegregation. It loves the version of his vision that could simply be realized through the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This King shows resistance, but not too much resistance, to the status quo and, more importantly, signifies the perceived end of the era of racism — something that white America needs to believe occurred to ease its own conscience. It comes as no surprise that a writer at the Review lambasted the speech in an article about “Rickford’s musings.” The piece refused to acknowledge the distortion of the mainstream understanding of King’s legacy but also denied that this legacy could be employed as a sort of propaganda to obscure the failings of our current political and economic system. These failings, though they cannot all be properly examined here, include inequalities in health, housing, income, education and employment, especially in regard to persons of color. Yet the article’s insistence that “minorities are sometimes” — only sometimes — “still discriminated against” shows that the post-racial ideology that holidays like MLK Day are meant to instill in us is alive and well. It also criticized Rickford’s portrayal of Ameri-
can democracy as a capitalist system ruled by the rich and corporations. The Survey of Consumer Finances, published by the Federal Reserve and the best provider of data for examining the distribution of wealth, shows us that 35 percent of our nation’s wealth is distributed to the top 1 percent of our nation. The next 9 percent alone possesses another 39 percent of the wealth. The article’s sole rebuttal is that the top 1 percent contributes 40 percent of overall federal tax revenue. Actually, it contributes 40 percent of the revenue generated by individual income taxes, which is predicted to constitute only 46 percent of the total federal tax revenue in 2014. Corporations, on average, just contribute 11 percent to this total. A country with such severely skewed allocations of wealth is, as Rickford points out, “radical” indeed. The piece went on to — surprise, surprise — demonize affirmative action as an inversely racist system of quotas that reward the “unqualified” at the expense of the “hard-working,” and, in doing so, completely ignored the indispensible opportunities for advancement that such a system has provided for women and minorities. For instance, he overlooks the racial and economic segregation of the “new Jim Crow” that fuels inequality in educational opportunities and outcomes between school districts. Indeed, schools of concentrated poverty, which are often racially isolated, include less experienced and less qualified teachers, high levels of teacher turnover, less successful peer groups and inadequate facilities and learning materials. Affirmative action, among many other things, is crucial in compensating for the immense failings of our public school system. Rejecting the ideology of MLK Day, as Rickford did, does not reject the man himself. It instead points to the harsh reality of contemporary racism and classism and the ways in which they intersect. This is a reality that we must acknowledge. It should be compelling not only for minorities and the lower and middle classes but also for the upper class that thrives off of their subjugation. For how can we boast of America as the leader of the free world when such maladies are staring us in the face? We must reject indifference and look to real, effective reform.
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ISSUE
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2014
NEWS EDITOR: Nancy Wu, LAYOUT EDITOR: Sonia Robiner, TEMPLATING EDITOR: Meg Parson, COPY EDITORS: Gustavo Mercado Muniz and Mac Tan.
SUBMISSIONS: We welcome letters and guest columns. All submissions must include the author’s name and affiliation with Dartmouth College, and should not exceed 250 words for letters or 700 words for columns. The Dartmouth reserves the right to edit all material before publication. All material submitted becomes property of The Dartmouth. Please email submissions to editor@thedartmouth.com.
To remedy Dartmouth’s problems, we need plans — not lip service. Dartmouth has a problem. There, I said it. If this concession is all that you were waiting for, if this makes you happy on its own, then you are in luck. You can go home now. Your work is done. But I am not going home, because I am not satisfied with mere statements. The real problem with Dartmouth is that we have a culture of inactivity and, worse, whining. My mother did not tolerate whining in her house, and I share as much disdain when it occurs in my community. I am done with protests, vigils, sound bites and Facebook reposts. We all click “share,” agree/ newsworthy, nod and snap. We loudly agree that something needs to change, then we go home, hang up our caring hats, find three for pong and become part of that same culture of irresponsibility. After all, we have been working hard. We have said our bit, and now it is somebody else’s problem. But lip service is not enough. I am done talking about what Dartmouth needs to do as a community — I am talking about what we as individuals continuously fail to do. We, as incredibly intelligent and capable Ivy League students, need to recognize our own power to effect change. We need to apply our considerable brainpower and resources to asking for actual solutions. I would have liked to see the participants in the Dimensions protest hold signs that said “Increase discussion about LGBTQ issues in freshman floor meetings.” Or the participants in the protest against former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert yell, “We demand the U.S. push for elections to create a recombined secular Palestine and that all Palestinians currently in refugee camps be resettled into the rest of the country and be compensated!” Or the Panhellenic Council uphold its policy to boycott houses at which members get sexually assaulted. The conversation needs to shift toward real, achievable options. We are better than empty statements. We do not need catchy slogans — we need a plan. Most of all, we need to stop blaming the administration, the Greek system, Bored at Baker, the rush process and every other Dartmouth institution for our own lack of motivation to make
a change in our community. While there certainly are some things that the administration could do, including renewing Green Team funding and implementing a zero tolerance policy for sexual assault, we have to recognize that we cannot wait for someone else to solve our problems for us. An incredible number of students who I have talked to about sexual assault have never even heard of the Student and Presidential Committee on Sexual Assault, let alone read its recommendations. We can write great research papers, but apparently doing the research necessary to turn the sentiments that we express on our Facebook pages into reality is beyond us. The push toward change at Dartmouth suffers from the same weakness as the Occupy movement did. If we do not have a coherent list of demands, we too will crumble. We need to approach our own beliefs with the scientific method: identify the problem, put forth a hypothesis and create a method to put our ideas into action. Dartmouth has no shortage of resources, from the SPCSA to Sexual Assault Awareness Program coordinators Rebekah Carrow and Amanda Childress to Safety and Security officer Rebel Roberts, all of whom assist survivors of sexual assault. Panhell, the Interfraternity Council and the Greek Leadership Council are all potential resources for issues with the Greek community, and even the Dean of the College’s office is (unbelievably, to some) stocked with people who care intensely about the Dartmouth community and would love to discuss how to turn concepts into plans and plans into actions. Vigils or Facebook posts are not inherently bad. Increasing visibility is fine, and expressing solidarity with victims is laudable. But we owe it to ourselves, our community and even prospective students not to stop there. All we have to do is take some of our Facebook rage, a pinch of blitz-writing creativity and 15 minutes of brainstorming to find a real way to fix these problems without waiting for Mama Administration to come along and make everything better. I will not and cannot take you seriously unless you are offering a viable solution. Anything short of that is just whining.
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2014
THE DARTMOUTH NEWS
PAGE 5
Media attention cited as possible cause for admissions decline
Hill School in Kansas City, Miss., said the 2012 Rolling Stone article applicants. Harvard University detailing allegations of fraternity received 34,295 applicants, a 2 hazing “ripped the scab off ” the percent decrease from last year, and image of the College’s Greek Princeton University received a total system. While “Animal House” of 26,607 applications for the Class (1978) may have faded from public conception, the of 2018, markRolling Stone ing an approxiarticle refocused mately 0.4 per- “It’s going to affect attention on the cent increase in Dartmouth. Do I College’s social total applicants. believe in those life, he said. Experts and O n e current and po- rankings? Absolutely tential students not. But the rest of the applicant to the Class of 2018, interviewed who wished to s u g g e s t e d a population does remain anonynumber of fac- believe in those mous due to tors that may rankings. Talented the pending have contribstatus of his aputed to the drop students believe in plication, said in applications. those rankings.” he applied to Again and again Dartmouth after this year, the being deferred College found - BEV TAYLOR, IVY COACH by Yale’s early itself engulfed FOUNDER decision proin media scrugram. tiny regarding “I think the one thing that worharassment and sexual assault, which many consider a factor in ries me is that it has a reputation of being conservative and isolated,” he the decline of applications. Although the rising cost of tuition said. John Boshoven, a counselor for and rural location are factors in the declining number of applications, continuing education at Commustudents said, some have pointed to nity High School in Ann Arbor, recent events, media attention and Mich., said students do not consider the campus culture as motivating Dartmouth because most families assume they cannot afford a Dartthe drop. Sadia Hassan ’13 said recent mouth education, Boshoven said. With tuition and fees, Dartmouth protests have made it harder for the College to maintain its public image. is the second-most expensive college Students protesting an admissions in the Ivy League behind Columbia event last spring received threats University. Burke identified the rural locafollowing their demonstrations. It is not an accident, she said, that tion, among other factors, as posprospective students apply to other sible reasons for the decline. “You have to be willing to go to institutions. David Burke ’89, director of a rural place, a cold place and you college counseling at The Pembroke have to be able to get in,” Burke FROM ADMISSIONS PAGE 1
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said. “The increasing competitiveness in some ways discourages the marginal applicant.” Boshoven also said state schools in places like Georgia, Florida and Wisconsin have increased their efforts to attract top students with in-state scholarships, possibly contributing to Dartmouth’s lower application numbers. Bev Taylor, founder of The Ivy Coach, a New York-based college consulting firm, said she noticed that many students she coaches do not have Dartmouth on their radar. “They know Ivy League universities, but they never heard of Dartmouth,” Taylor said. “Or they never thought Dartmouth was an Ivy League school.”
Boshoven and Taylor said that even though the College downplays the effect, the number of applicants matters, as the U.S. News and World Report takes student selectivity into account when ranking academic excellence. “It’s going to affect Dartmouth,” Taylor said. “Do I believe in those rankings? Absolutely not. But the
rest of the population does believe in those rankings. Talented students believe in those rankings.” The College has hired communications agency Brodeur Partners to conduct a survey of non-applicants and talk to alumni interviewers and high school guidance counselors to determine possible causes of the shift.
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2014
The Dartmouth Employee Arts Festival March 19 Kickoff Reception @ Top of the Hop 5pm-7:30pm
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PAGE 6
DARTMOUTH EVENTS
THE DARTMOUTH COMICS
Chemistry Jokes
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2014
Jack Neustadt ’17
TODAY 3:15 p.m. Music department colloquium, “Electronic Made Acoustic,” with Jeff Snyder, Faulkner Recital Hall
4:15 p.m. Computer science colloquium, “Machine Learning for Social Systems: Modeling Opinions, Activities and Interactions,” with Julian McAuley of Stanford University, Steele 006
7:00 p.m. “Voices: An Original Production,” Spaulding Auditorium
TOMORROW 10:30 a.m. “Capitalizing on the Remarkable Reactivity of Iron,” with Jeffery A. Byers of Boston College, Steele 007
4:15 p.m. “In Search of Defiant Subjects: Queer Theory and the Ethics of Opting Out,” with Mari Ruti of the University of Toronto, Carpenter 013
6:00 p.m. “The Latina/o Century: Path Breakers and New Directions in Latina/o Studies,” Rockefeller Center 003
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THE DARTMOUTH ARTS
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2014
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‘Voices’ emphasizes Art history lecture explores ‘Olympia’ inclusivity, storytelling B y Maya Poddar
TRACY WANG/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
“Voices: An Original Production” features the stories of self-identified women.
B y Kira Witkin The Dartmouth Staff
Addressing criticisms that the Vagina Monologues do not speak to some women’s experiences, V-February organizers added “Voices: An Original Production” to this year’s lineup in an attempt to make the programming more inclusive. The performance will showcase personal stories of selfidentified women at Dartmouth through original monologues, poems and stream of consciousness recitations. The “V” in the College’s 16th annual V-February stands for “voices.” In previous years, event organizers have used the themes of victory, violence and vaginas for the program. “Voices: An Original Production” was added to provide a more inclusive outlet for those interested, co-director Sandi Caalim ’13 said. “It’s about self-identified women, genderqueer, genderfluid people of the Dartmouth community sharing a piece of their story,” she said. “We haven’t had anything similar to that on a widescale production.” Caalim said that the production will give performers the opportunity to empower their peers. “One of the parts of our mission for V-Month and what ‘Voices’ is trying to do is to encourage people to speak, to show that every voice matters,” Caalim said. “There are so many people here whose voices have been marginalized. No one should feel like they’re being shut out.” Michelle Hector, assistant director for the Center for Gender and Student Engagement, said “Voices: An Original Production”
will emphasize the importance of storytelling. Annie Gardner ’15 will read “Casual,” an original monologue, which another student performed in last year’s Vagina Monologues production. She said performing her own piece will allow deeper reflection about the College’s casual hookup culture. “My monologue kind of was me coming to terms with what it meant, a casual hookup,” she said. “I was trying to connect the idea of intimacy and casual sex, to see how the two of them fit together.” The directors will lead a discussion after the show. Jessica King Fredel ’17, who is co-directing the show alongside Caalim and Semarley Jarrett ’14, said that having a post-show production emphasizes the community that the directors are trying to foster and allows the audience to immediately respond to the show. The public response to recent threatening Bored at Baker posts, which included a gathering on the Green on Monday, may make community members more receptive to the production, King Fredel said. “I think the community is realizing how important it is for these voices to be heard,” she said. “The Bored at Baker posts are a concrete example of some of the ways women are oppressed at Dartmouth, and I think the show stands as a response to that oppression. I think there’s something significant in the stark contrast between anonymous posts on the Internet about rape and these women getting up on stage to share their stories and experiences.” The free performance will take place in Spaulding Auditorium at 7 p.m. tonight.
In the foreground of Edouard Manet’s noted 1863 painting “Olympia,” a nude, white woman lies across a bed, and some art historians do not concentrate on the African maid delivering flowers in the background. Tuesday, however, University of California at Berkeley professor Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby spoke about the maid’s social significance in the annual Angela Rosenthal Distinguished Lecture. Grigsby, an art history professor who specializes in French visual and material art and colonialism’s influence on works, said she is concerned with the piece’s racial, colonial and societal overtones. “I have a deep personal connection with the issues of empire and colonials, and the tenacity of racial mobility,” she said. She began the lecture by discussing Manet’s early exposure to slave markets in Rio de Janeiro and letters he wrote describing the nude female slaves’ bodies. Grigsby also explored how Manet’s treatment of the maid was as a
reaction to his childhood experience, a way for him to psychologically resolve what he had seen in Brazil. “He inverted his childhood trauma by clothing this woman,” she said. The most likely model for the maid in the painting was a woman named Laure, a wet nurse and nanny. Manet is believed to have painted Laure three times — first in a quick park sketch, again as a study for “Olympia” and finally in “Olympia” itself. Grigsby also analyzed critiques of “Olympia” from the Salon of 1865, where it was originally exhibited. She pointed out the undercurrent of racism that ran through nearly every criticism of the work and considered it a function of a French society that did not understand African females’ entry into the workforce. At the time, African women found themselves in various domestic positions and in brothels and artist’s studios, but none of the practices were socially accepted, Grigsby said. The maid’s portrayal makes her different from those of sexualized African models of the period, she said.
After outlining the general sexualization of African women in French artwork throughout the 1800s, Grigsby contrasted common portrayals with the fully clothed maid. Manet paid a great deal of attention to the draping and opacity of Laure’s oversized pink dress, she said. For Grigsby, Laure’s clothing serves as her “entry into class relations,” a reversal of past trends. Grigsby said that the maid’s depiction was significant because Manet did not paint a prostitute and a “prop.” Instead, he painted two working class models. Art history professor Kristin O’Rourke said that she enjoyed the lecture because of Grigsby’s unique historical argument and her adept presentation. “[Grigsby] was investigating very small points and making larger arguments and taking a work that everybody knows and doing interesting things with it,” O’Rourke said. The Angela Rosenthal Distinguished Lecture series, established after Rosenthal’s death, is an annual series of talks that cover Rosenthal’s fields of study.
Friday, February 14, 2014 OPEN 9-5:30 DAILY
THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS
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SPORTS
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2014
WEDNESDAY LINEUP
MEN’S SQUASH VS. WILLIAMS 6 PM
WOMEN’S SQUASH VS. WILLIAMS 6 PM
Men’s tennis wins two home matches, women fifth at tourney
B y HAYDEN ALDREDGE The Dartmouth Staff
The men’s tennis team took two home matches last weekend while the women’s team captured fifth at the ECAC Division I Women’s Indoor Tennis Championship. The men’s team extended its unbeaten streak at home to six, defeating Buffalo 6-1 and sweeping Boston University 7-0. In the first match versus Buffalo, the Big Green won the doubles point before winning five of six singles matches including a pair of three-set victories from Brendan Tannenbaum ’16 and Diego Pedraza ’17. “Our mindset from the beginning was to take them out on our home courts and dictate the pace,” Brandon DeBot ’14 said. Against BU, Dartmouth cruised to a relatively easy victory, losing only one game in the three doubles matches and taking all six singles matches in straight sets.
“The afternoon crowd against BU was very vocal, and I think we really benefited from their rowdy support,” George Wall ’17 said. “It’s great to see them get a little bit rowdy, maybe even get in the heads of our opponents a little bit and of course cheer us on.” Wall was dominant for the Big Green at the number one position, winning his match against BU 6-1, 6-0. The freshman “destroyed the opposition,” Cameron Ghorbani ‘14 said. “I think everyone on the team was really proud to see just how far he’s come,” Ghorbani said. The men’s team is in the middle of an extended homestand that started on Jan. 31 against East Tennessee State and runs until Feb. 28 when the team travels to take on Ball State. “We lucked out with our schedule,” DeBot said. “We played a lot of road matches last year, and now those teams are coming back to play us. It’s great playing at home, we know the courts and we get a lot of support from our friends and fans.”
NATALIE CANTAVE/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
The men’s team has now won six consecutive matches at home.
The women’s team headed to New York to compete against five other Ivy League opponents in the ECAC Indoor Championship. Originally ranked sixth out of six teams, the Big Green dropped its first match against third-seeded Princeton University but rebounded to defeat fourth-seeded Cornell University
in the fifth-place match. In its first match against Princeton, the team started strong and won the doubles point with victories from the teams of Akiko Okuda ’15 and Melissa Matsuoka ’14, and Julienne Keong Si Ying ’16 and Suzy Tan ’16. However, the Big Green ran into
trouble in the singles matches, dropping the overall match 4-2, with only Tan winning her match 6-1, 6-3. “In singles, Princeton recognized that they were down 1-0 and they were a little bit more consistent than we were,” women’s head coach Bob Dallis said. The team bounced back on Saturday, upsetting the Big Red 5-2 to take fifth place. The Big Green started by dropping the doubles point before taking five of the six singles matches. Taylor Ng ’17 and Okuda wrapped up their matches in straight sets, both winning 6-1, 6-4, while Katherine Yau ’16, Matsuoka and Tan had to go into the super-tiebreaker to decide their matches. “Going into the match, we talked about being more consistent,” Dallis said. “We do a fair amount of mentalskills work.” The men will host the ECAC tournament in Hanover next weekend while the women hit the road to take on the University of Louisville and the University of Wisconsin.
Swim and dive teams fall at Columbia in final dual meet
B y GAYNE KALUSTIAN The Dartmouth Staff
In their final dual meet of the season, the men’s and women’s swim and dive teams fell to host Columbia University last Sunday in the 17 events. The women, who turned out five first place finishes, were beaten by the Lions 167-124 while the men took seven firsts for a final score of 170.5-129.5. At the event, several individuals claimed Dartmouth and pool records. Most notably, Brett Gillis ’16 smashed the oldest record in the Dartmouth men’s swim and dive record book in the 3-meter dive set by Mike Brown ’70 with a score of 377.55. Brown’s record sat on the board at 358.7 for what would have been 44 years this Valentine’s Day. “Brett absolutely killed it,” cocaptain Andrew North ’14 said. “I’ve never seen a diving performance that good since I’ve been here.” The second-place diver from Columbia, junior Micah Rembrandt, sat 61.65 points back from the Big Green frontrunner. “I’ve been going at this record all season,” Gillis said. “This was our last meet before Ivies, so I knew I had to get it. In the past I’ve had trouble with consistency, but at this meet it all worked
NATALIE CANTAVE/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
Several swimmers broke Dartmouth records at the Columbia University meet.
out.” Gillis said he has crossed paths with the previous record holder more than once, but most recently the two met during the diving training trip in Hawaii where Brown is a coach at the University of Hawaii. “When I met him again in Hawaii, he was joking and saying that I had to go out and take his record,” Gillis said. “I guess I’ll have to give him a call.” The diving team, comprised of only eight male and female athletes in total, consistently pulls team points on both the men’s and women’s sides. Ryan Shelley ’15 took second place in the 1-meter
dive with 295.13 points, while Kendall MacRae ’15 took second with 250.13 points and first with 235.13 points in the 3-meter and 1-meter dives, respectively. Male and female swimmers faced different challenges and saw different results from the Lions’ split strategies across their men’s and women’s team. The women at Columbia, cocaptain Christine Kerr ’14 said, take the dual meet season more seriously than many other Ivy competitors, competing in fast suits and training in a different order than the Big Green does. “They’re undefeated in the Ivy League, but they’ll still probably get third
at Ivies,” she said. “They are clearly the best dual meet swimmers. Our coach just told us to swim our own races.” Several Dartmouth women held their own against the suit-equipped Lions, including Charlotte Kamai ’16, who won the 100-yard freestyle with a time of 51.65. “I always say that once you beat someone wearing a fast suit, you own them,” Kerr said. Kamai was also a part of the 400yard freestyle relay team that closed out the meet by taking down Columbia’s own pool record from 2013. The Big Green suited up for the event, Kerr said, to show the Lions what the swimmers could do. “The last relay was probably the highlight of the meet,” Kerr said. “Dartmouth was miles ahead of everyone. They wanted that win, the came and took it. They crushed it.” Kamai anchored the relay team which was made up of lead off swimmer Kendese Nangle ’16, Mary Van Metre ’14 and Siobhan Hengemuhle ’15. The four Big Green swimmers pulled out a 3:26.51 when Kamai touched 9.03 seconds before the second place team. The men’s team went up against an altogether different challenge, North said, because the Columbia men’s team trains hard through the dual meet
season to taper down for the Ivy League Championships, which will take place the last weekend in February. Nejc Zupan ’14 still broke two pool records in both the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 55.06 and 200-yard breaststroke with a 1:59.95. Jun Oh ’16 continued his string of distance wins by taking first in both the 1,000-yard and 500-yard freestyle but was joined in the latter by two Dartmouth swimmers who showed their ability to focus, North said. “The alternates who won’t be swimming at the Ivies really showed some serious mental fortitude,” he said. “James Thompson [‘17] and Joby Bernstein [‘17] took second and fourth in the 500 for their last meet, out touching some Columbia guys. It really shows the depth of the team.” Both the men and women began tapering this Monday to prepare for their biggest meets of the season. The women will head off to the Ivy Championships at Brown University, which start on Feb. 20, and the men will travel to Harvard for the Ivy Championships the next weekend. “There’s not really time to be sentimental because the most important thing by far is still ahead of me,” North said. “Only then will I have time to sit with my thoughts.”