The Dartmouth Mirror 01/23/15

MIRROR 01.23.2015

Alternative Social Spaces| 2

the student as critic|3

an afternoon at the president’s house|4-5

places ON CAMPUS THAT MATTER| 6 Shuoqi Chen/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

2// MIRROR

EDITOR’S NOTE

Alt To Some, In To Many Story

You can become attached to a place very quickly.

I endured quite a bit of abuse from friends about how often I studied in the 1902 room during my early terms at the College — and I’ll admit that I still like the place today. The room’s grime and vague stench of despair can really get the neurons firing. I have produced my strongest writing (not this column) in that space.

If you think about it carefully, it’s hard to deny how essential spaces and buildings are to shaping an experience. I’m excited to publish a magazine that makes the case for architecture as a crucial element of campus life.

As I wrestled with this Editor’s Note, I was reminded that there are many ways to write a bad sentence about architecture. I could’ve written something about how architecture is “inscribed in the soul,” or “makes the heart sing” or “inspires deep-seated joy.” Icky. Considering that this Note will be read by the legions of Mirror readers from coast to coast has certainly forced me to tone down my writing. Score one for personal growth.

Also score one for my editors who have to try to decipher these Notes each week and pretend to be amused. There is one key difference between my editors and you, dear reader. Even though they may think it, my editors can’t get away with calling this Note “complete trash” or “boring as hell” to my face because they need to work with me each week. But I have hardly made it into Collis this term without being forced to dodge a barrage of the last week’s crumpled-up Editor’s Notes chucked at my face by hordes of jeering students.

Perhaps those students are simply clamoring for an updated Editor’s Note photo. ‘Who is that svelte and sultry man-child,’ some readers are wondering. ‘And why is the photo above his Notes from the spring?’

I take my readers’ inquiries very seriously. Unfortunately, however, updating the photo that comes alongside this Note is the only reader demand that this diligent Mirror editor will never be able to satisfy. To those of you who want to know what I look like today in 2015, I say this: I am capable of being photogenic approximately once every 13 months, so you will have to make due with Charlie circa spring 2014. To my online readers, who do not see a photo adjacent to this column, I can only apologize for a paragraph that made no sense.

Here’s hoping this issue on architecture becomes inscribed in your soul, makes your heart sing, inspires deep-seated joy, etc.

follow @thedmirror

MIRROR R MIRROR EDITOR CHARLIE RAFKIN

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF KATIE McKAY

PUBLISHER JUSTIN LEVINE

EXECUTIVE EDITORS LUKE McCANN JESSICA AVITABILE

What are the ugliest buildings on campus?

B y Mary liza hartong

“Dartmouth is a party school.” It’s hard to guess how many times I heard this phrase when I was accepted to Dartmouth, but if I had to make a approximation for the sake of this article, I’d guess it was somewhere in the thousands. I heard it from snarky adults who had never been north of the Mason-Dixon line.

I heard it from friends at graduation parties.

I heard it from concerned elderly people in the grocery store. Sometimes I even heard it from the small, scared voice inside of my head.

Nevertheless, I lugged my straight-laced, sleep-loving, decidedly sober self all the way to New Hampshire and hoped for the best.

Spoiler alert: I was just fine. Like most students at Dartmouth, I found a group of people and a way of life that fit my comfort zone.

Sometimes that comfort zone meant watching “The Emperor’s New Groove” (2000) in the common room with my floormates, other times it meant heading to Webster Avenue for a dance party or watching my friends in performances at the Hopkins Center. Are there parties to be found at Dartmouth? You bet, nosy high school classmate. Is there so much more than that going on around campus? Absolutely yes, skeptical grandparent.

The finger-waggers do have a point. About 70 percent of sophomores were affiliated by the winter of 2014, the last year data is available. So there’s something to be said for Greek life having a central role on campus.

But why do the people think Greek life is the only thing here? I took a look at what many people here would call “alternative social spaces,” a phrase that, like its counterparts “alternative medicine” and “alternative lifestyle choice,” seems to have a negative connotation. Having spoken to the people who work hard to make spaces like the Hop Garage, Foley House and One Wheelock fun, I find that using the word “alternative” to define them is demeaning. For some on campus, they are not just a second choice to the Greek system. They are not alternative social spaces — just social spaces.

Panhellenic Council president Rachel Funk ’15 weighed in on why the Greek system draws so many students, noting that many Greek organizations occupy a very central location on campus.

“I think that it’s also just tradition,” she said.

In terms of referring to social spaces, Funk agreed that the word “alternative” should alternate out of our collective vocabulary. Like me, she feels that deeming one sort of space “alternative” normalizes Greek spaces, and places non-Greek spaces on the periphery.

While many people assume Greek life and other social spaces are mutually exclusive, Funk explained that many people choose to

Why haven’t the Choates been torn down yet?

move through multiple social settings.

“I don’t see these spaces as in opposition to the Greek System,” said Funk. “I see them as equal standing organizations that I go to half the time. I don’t think every person can say that, but they are all equal aspects of the social scene.”

One of those non-Greek spaces that thrives on campus is the Dartmouth Outing Club. President Hunter van Adelsberg ’15 attributes the success of the organization to its ability to meet a simple goal — organizing trips outdoors on the cheap.

Van Adelsberg, who is also a member of a single-sex Greek house, had his own ideas about what makes the Greek system so successful, saying that he thought its longevity comes from the fact that Greek houses not only serve as social spaces, but are also residential spaces that students make their homes. He said that providing spaces where students can live and host social events would “invest these places with more of a flavor.”

If the answer to building thriving spaces lies in living with people, places like La Casa, Cutter-Shabbaz, the Triangle House and the Sustainable Living Center seem to underline that idea.

Ledyard Canoe Club member Michael Baicker ’15 agrees that a shared living space is a huge part of building a community. He said that some of the non-Greek social spaces on campus are less successful precisely because they don’t also double as spaces where students live.

“Looking at places like Sarner Underground and One Wheelock, you never see people there, and you have to wonder why you don’t,” Baicker said. “I think it boils down to the fact that they’re essentially large empty rooms that are based around programming so you’re not going to have people walking down there. If you have something like the Ledyard Club House, where you know people are living there and you know people will constantly be there you’re more likely to hang out there.”

Baicker expressed his desire for similar living and social spaces around campus, including a house for Cabin and Trail, the Dartmouth Mountaineering Club and perhaps even a Webster Avenue DOC house.

Yet, while many students agree that the atmosphere of a residential space makes it more enjoyable or comfortable for hosting social events, it’s not a unanimous sentiment among the student body.

Tiffany Wang ’16, a member of Programming Board, disagrees with Baicker. She said that while places like Sarner Underground and Collis Common Ground are not living spaces, the performances and events held there represent a vibrant social scene.

Why are these questions so negative?

A challenging question. Are they the I never lived in the Choates, but this quesThe secret’s out: I wish our campus Choates? Berry Library? Unlike many tion still plagues me. It is seemingly a had a more innovative approach to of you, I actually like the Blunt Alumni rite of passage that roughly one-third architecture. There are some nice buildCenter. At least the architects tried to do of the incoming class must be subject ings that border the Green — a space something different from the fakey blah to a hellish existence in these dorms. that is undeniably our campus’s treasure style that marks much of this campus. If I I don’t really buy the line that the — but that’s about it. So am I pushing an had to choose, I’d go with Fahey-McLane, Choates build community. If you anti-Dartmouth-architecture agenda with this the pseudo-Georgian affront that really can’t build community without issue? Despite my best attempts to publish a rag could have been something unique or modsleeping in a whitewashed that erodes all faith in Dartmouth’s architecture, ern. These dorms were built in 2006, so why prison chamber, you should the writers here managed the produce a group of do they pretend to the same style as Lord? try harder. insightful and well-reasoned takes.

“The events that we do hold have a decent showing every time and the vast majority of people who attend our events do stay and do enjoy them,” she said.

When it comes to the Greek scene, Wang believes that comparisons are inapt.

“We don’t make as many stories. You don’t hear someone say ‘Oh I sat down and watched a show for two hours’ because it’s less interactive,” she said. “It’s a different form of entertainment.”

In terms of entertainment and social activity, the Hop Garage serves as a middle ground. Kirby Spivey IV ’16, who works as a DJ for the Hop Garage, cited the organization’s flexibility as its main strength.

“They also have license to provide exactly what students and visitors are looking for, if they are looking for any alternate scene at all: an alternate social space, a less patriarchal social space and a space for dancing and/or relaxed drinking for those who legally qualify,” he said.

According to Spivey, hyping up the Hop Garage is a straightforward task.

“I honestly believe that promoting a space is as simple as spreading word of mouth and physically being there,” he said.

When it comes to forming a community, Luke Katler ’15 believes you have to start with the stomach. Katler is the undergraduate adviser at Foley House, an off-campus cooperative living community that centers on the basic idea of residents cooking for one another five nights a week.

“To break bread together is the most conducive way to get to know each other,” Katler said. “To cook for a group of people is to literally give them life. We’re supporting each other socially, but we’re also supporting each other physically.”

Foley House’s off-campus location also affects the type of resident who chooses to live there. As the building is located far from campus, students who live there typically want to get away, said Katler.

Katler, who is also a member of a single-sex Greek house, believes that living in spaces like Foley House could be very beneficial for students, and hopes that as Dartmouth builds new dorms they will create a homey feel.

“Something I like about living in Foley house better than living in a fraternity is the wooden stairs,” said Katler. “When you’re in Foley, something as small as the stairs makes it feel much more like home.”

So maybe Dartmouth is a party school.

Maybe it’s a canoeing school, or a cooking school or a dancing school. The point is, don’t yuck my yum.

Hunter van Adelsberg is a former member of The Dartmouth staff.

MIRROR //3

The Student As Critic

THE D RUNS THE

In defense of Dartmouth’s architecture SPOTLIGHT

B y Andrew kingsley

We could all be flâneurs — the ambling, idling scholars of 19th century Paris. We could all soak in the rich, historic landscape of our frigid hamlet.

Balzac called the activity the “gastronomy of the eye.” Baudelaire deemed them “botanists of the sidewalk.” They feasted upon the urban sweep as if it were a museum — the citizens its patrons and the architecture its pieces, curated and juxtaposed to maximize experience.

Yet rarely do we think of Dartmouth’s campus as a museum.

Rather than gastronomy, we drive through our buildings in a manner more akin to a fast food restaurant.

We see everything as its utilitarian interiority — the Hopkins Center contains the arts, Collis Center houses a cafe, etc. Like rock strata, our history is marked by our architecture, revealing 250 years of artistic and cultural evolution.

I’m not asking you to be some snobbish, croissant-loving Frenchman, but merely an observer with a curiosity for how Dartmouth took its shape.

Why do we glance over our architecture so easily? To an untrained eye, Dartmouth is just brick, mortar, green shutters and copper roofs. Even the newer buildings, like Fahey-McLane and McLaughlin residence halls, maintain this theme. It all seems — to use the technical art history term — meh.

Are we just an uninspired campus, mired by conservatism and waging a Sisyphean battle with our past?

Why don’t we join the über-modern Gehry bandwagon like MIT and Princeton? Is there some old architectural staunch atop Baker Tower, demanding the good ol’ days when brick was strong and manly, only conceding the Black Family Visual Arts Center to appease the liberal “youts”? To find these answers we must look back into our very beginnings as an institution to understand the complexities we face with such a classical, colonial heritage.

Our history can be read in a simple panorama of the Green. In the center, Dartmouth Row stands as our bedrock, containing some of the oldest buildings on campus.

“As a set of condensed, coherent original buildings, Dartmouth Row is unmatched in collegiate architecture, only rivaled by the University of Virginia’s Rotunda and pavilions designed by President Thomas Jefferson,” art history professor Marlene Heck said.

Dartmouth Hall embodies the quintessential colonial New England look, the Georgian style standing church-like, white, grand and pure to emblematize our heritage as a school for Native American missionaries.

We are also the only Ivy which still has its founder’s home, she points out. (Granted, Cornell University was

founded by Satan, but even he didn’t live nearby.) Eleazar Wheelock’s original house is now Robert’s Flowers on West Wheelock Street across from Collis.

The 19th centur y presented many architectural movements, each introducing an incredible variety to the basic Georgian unity. We see buildings like Rollins Chapel, with its Romanesque arches and warm granite tones that enliven the austerity of our New England traditionalism. We also get neoclassicism, a return to robust and geometric ancient Greek models, in Webster Hall, Collis, McNutt Hall and Richardson residence hall, which simultaneously diversify yet compliment their surroundings.

Then there’s Georgian Revival, a nostalgic referral to our College’s and nation’s past, which brings us Silsby Hall, Sanborn Library and Baker Library (modeled after Independence Hall), A movement Dartmouth failed to follow in this century was the gated campus. Think of the famous gates of Harvard, Yale, Brown and Princeton Universities, where gates like St. Peter’s distinguish their ethereal campuses from the everyday Purgatory of their surrounding towns. Naturally secluded, Dartmouth maintains a humble unity with Hanover, meaning we open ourselves to the everyday ragamuffins of the non-Ivy world. The horror! Like Troy we allow ourselves to be invaded by townies. Yale laughs at our inclusivity.

Then things took a turn after the Second World War when President John Sloan Dickey came along. A diplomat during the war, he came to Dartmouth seeking to revitalize the campus and turn toward global affairs. In order for Dartmouth men to confront these new issues, the campus had to be international, interactive and of the moment, and architecture was an integral part of that vision. Modernism — that antihistorical, angular, glassy, metallic style, part of the post-war inventive spirit — was certainly of the moment.

It was all about ethos: “Build modern, be modern!”

The Hop, the Choates residence halls, Leverone Field House, Thompson Arena, Fairchild and the former Bradley and Gerry Buildings all came out of Dickey’s modernist movement.

To some, this may seem to be the Razzies of Dartmouth architecture.

“Modernism eschewed color, decoration, history, where the front door is, all the things people liked and expected out of buildings,” Heck said.

In other words, it’s the middle finger of art movements. It’s no surprise that these new buildings shocked many. I mean, a building without a clear entrance is at the very least a safety hazard. It strove to be unfamiliar, unknown, unapproachable, unreadable, essentially un-architecture. To have

NUMBERS

235 The age of campus’s oldest building, the Webster Cottage.

Abiah Pritchard/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

The buildings around the Green reveal the history of architecture at the College. the hallowed Green perverted by the glassy monstrosity that is the Hop was sacrilege. The Hop is our Eiffel Tower in a way — hated at first for perverting sacrosanct ground, but gradually favored as rigid tastes softened and we became croissantloving Frenchmen at long last.

Many schools tuck their modernist buildings away, as UVA has done to its architecture and education schools, but Dartmouth proudly asserts its boldness. Modernism promised to change the world, and that’s exactly what Dickey wanted — to transform Dartmouth into the best liberal arts school in the world.

Why don’t we just tear down the Choates or Leverone, and like in an architectural “Weakest Link,” wave a curt good-bye with a wrecking ball? Miley Cyrus for a Green Key dual concert and demolition fest, anyone? Granted 1950s construction wasn’t the best. It often leaked or rusted, but that’s the price of progress. Each building is a vestige from another time, which preserves our past. Like an appendix or tailbone, each building tells a story of who we have been. It’s not enough to say, “We took pictures, so here’s a scrapbook, history nerd.” Think of how dull college tours would be if all the buildings were shiny, ultra-sleek monoliths?

Most often, colleges demolish and rebuild, demolish, rebuild. But then there would be no variety left in our dorms. What makes us unique, according to the chair of the department of architectural history at UVA Richard Wilson, is our juxtaposition between our historic buildings, especially on the Green. Dartmouth director of campus design and construction John Scherding points out that many schools, such as Princeton, have binary campuses, which fail to integrate their modern buildings into their older ones as well as Dartmouth has.

Therefore, with such an entrenched historical standard, we must innovate within our framework, or as Scherding calls it, build “contemporary contextual.” Every new building can’t be the showpiece,

otherwise we’d end up with, as Scherding’s colleague calls it, “a petting zoo of famous architects’ projects that don’t match.”

Or as Heck puts it, dorms and classrooms are background, so they want to be good neighbors and remain contextual.

We shouldn’t be subser vient to our past, however, freezing our campus in time like Ted Williams’ head. Big name buildings, like the VAC, the Hood and Geisel Medical School, are where experimentation takes flight. We have to learn from our modernist past, and not ruffle the same feathers we did 50 years ago.

Modernism taught us that people desire continuity and classical beauty.

As Scherding observes, we would metal monstrosity sitting in front of Sanborn right? We’ve made this mistake before. Both Scherding and Heck agreed that the Murdough Center, that angular, modernist black hole at the end of Tuck Drive is the bane of the campus. Architects and snobs loved this stuff. People don’t.

We have a great opportunity with the Hood expansion to innovate within our historical framework. A four-year project, the Hood addition will be a strong marker of where Dartmouth is headed architecturally, and could be our next great leap forward.

So where are students left in all this? If Baker is just the pointy KAF building and Sanborn where all the future homeless people read dusty paper PDFs, who cares about George’s Revival?

When you take the time to consider and value your surroundings, they appreciate in worth. You become a patron and a steward, not a user.

As James Baldwin claimed in his essay “Stranger in the Village,” “People are trapped in history, and history is trapped in them.”

At Dartmouth, you are stuck in a campus of historical surfeit, and you become part of its timeline. Talk a walk, ponder. Anyone can be the flâneur. Then put it on your resume.

Employers will wonder how you hold down so many jobs. And speak French!

$40 million The cost of renovating the Hanover Inn. (Pine is pretty yummy, though.)

140 The number of square feet per person some one-room doubles in some McLaughlin will get you.

87 The number of square feet per person some oneroom doubles in the Choates will get you.

217,800 The size of the Green in square feet.

4// MIRROR

An Afternoon With Gail Gentes Gail Gentes takes The Mirror on a whirlwind tour of the President’s House SPOTLIGHT

B y lauren huff

As I timidly approached the President’s House, walking up the long drive to the house nestled between a patch of trees, the first thing I noticed was that the house has two mailboxes. To the left of the wreath-clad door is a wooden box marked “Hinman,” and to the right, an identical box marked “Mail.” If being exempt from the ordeal of waiting in the Hinman line for packages doesn’t qualify as true presidential treatment, then I don’t know what does.

Earlier this week, Gail Gentes, director of action-based learning programs and College President Phil Hanlon’s wife, graciously allowed me and my editor Charlie to come into her home for a private tour of the President’s House. Though she didn’t quite understand our over whelming enthusiasm about the tour, she welcomed us warmly.

It’s no secret that some Dartmouth students make plans to “visit” the President’s Lawn during their four years in Hanover, a right of passage instilled in many of us as early as freshman fall. Far fewer students, however, have taken the time to visit the actual building that sits on the property that holds, well, a special place in Dartmouth’s culture. For that reason, I was particularly excited to get a glimpse inside the place Hanlon and Gentes call home.

After traversing the front walkway, narrowly escaping death (or at least a concussion) as we slipped and slid over the ice rink that is Hanover, I rang the doorbell.

Moments later, Gentes opened the door to

greet us, and soon we were standing in the entr yway, hanging our coats.

It seems as though the house was originally built so that both facades resemble the “front.” While currently the main entrance faces Webster Avenue, the House’s address is often listed as 1 Tuck Drive, and, according to Gentes, she and President Hanlon frequently receive mail addressed as such.

Perhaps this was purposeful in order to maintain the legacy of Edward Tuck, the house’s benefactor.

Before the current residence on Webster Avenue was erected, 10 dif ferent houses had been occupied by Dartmouth Presidents. The first, Wheelock House, was built in the late 18th centur y for Dartmouth founder Eleazar Wheelock, which miraculously still stands today. Wheelock’s descendants owned the house until 1838, when it was bought by the College and resold for removal.

The new owners of Wheelock House

Alyssa Schmid/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

dragged the “executive mansion” to its current location on West Wheelock Street, where it later became the original Howe Librar y. The building is now Robert’s Flowers.

Upon our entrance into the house, Gentes immediately led us to a plaque commemorating the house’s creation. We caught a glimpse of the first floor bathroom on the way, appropriately outfitted with custom wallpaper bearing the image of the Lone Pine.

Gentes was eager to show off what are likely the most uniquely Dartmouth artifacts in the house — the dining room chairs.

The dining room, according to Gentes, seats up to 20 guests, although she thinks 12-15 makes for a much more comfortable dinner. Each chair boasts a custom-made needlepoint cushion that commemorates a College President Emeritus.

“When a President leaves, they have cross-stitched symbols that characterize

aspects of their presidency,” Gentes explained. “[Former College President] Jim Kim’s cushion is being made as we speak.

There’s one for ever y President.”

We inquired about what Gentes expected to see on her husband’s cushion in the future. Could it be a Moving Dartmouth For ward plaque?

“Well, I think it’s too early to tell,” Gentes said. “We have many more years of Phil’s presidency.”

Next, attention was directed to the art on the walls. As we learned on our tour, one of the perks of living in the President’s House is access to a custom selection from the Hood Museum of Art for decoration.

The first step in choosing works was a long conversation with a curator from the Hood who deduced Gentes’s preferences and presented her with artworks she might like.

“From that she gained my philosophy,” Gentes explained. “I couldn’t tell you what

MIRROR //5

my philosophy is, but from the kinds of questions she asked me, she gauged what I might like.”

Across from the dining room is the living room, which tends to be used primarily to entertain guests. Considering Hanlon and Gentes host about 150 events per year, the room sees a fair amount of use.

The guests run the gamut, from students and faculty to foreign dignitaries. One highlight for Gentes was hosting former Secretar y of State Madeleine Albright last spring. After a packed lecture in Spaulding Auditorium, Ms. Albright headed to the President’s House for dinner.

“She had dinner here and talked for another three hours,” Gentes said. “It was unbelievable.”

Just this year, Hanlon and Gentes hosted each member of the Class of 2014 who was writing a senior thesis and heard a short explanation from each student about their respective areas of study. Gentes and Han-

lon plan to make this a tradition.

In order to feed so many guests, Gentes and Hanlon use catering, but even on offnights, Gentes prefers not to cook.

“When we’re just home alone, Phil does most of the cooking,” Gentes said. “Early on in life I decided I was not meant to be in the kitchen.”

Although Gentes and Hanlon don’t order in often, they have been known to make the occasional call to EBAs. They keep it classic — onions, green peppers, mushrooms and jalapeños. The pizza deliverer often calls, rather than ringing the doorbell, Gentes said, noting that perhaps the deliverer expected that the order was actually a prank call from a student.

Next, we were led to Gentes’s favorite part of the house, a porch-like room with brick walls and big windows that allowed for ample natural light. There were plants all around the room and a table where Hanlon often eats his breakfast.

Our next stop on the tour was Hanlon’s home office, although Gentes admitted that, like most of us, he does most of his work on his laptop in the kitchen. The office is spacious, with bookshelves and a Dartmouth green rug. Among the items on Hanlon’s shelves are a calculus textbook and a signed Michigan football. And yes, there is a pong paddle on the wall — although the handle is not snapped off, raising important questions about its authenticity.

Noting the piano in Gentes and Hanlon’s living room, we asked Gentes about her music preferences. She explained that although she considered asking for a playlist from one of her children for Christmas, she never followed through on the plan.

“I do not have a playlist,” Gentes said.

“I’m not really a music person.”

Despite her lack of playlist, Gentes does frequent the Alumni Gym to get some exercise (sans-music).

“I tr y to go twice a week,” Gentes said.

How’s that for some winter workout motivation?

Speaking of offices, I was curious how Hanlon commutes from his office at home to his daytime office in Parkhurst. Despite his reser ved parking spot, Gentes said the President always walks.

“I don’t think he’s ever driven to work,” Gentes said. For the lucky portion of the Dar tmouth population with cars, that’s great news. Next time you’re dreading that walk back from A-lot, you may want to scan the lot outside Parkhurst.

Finally, we made our way into the kitchen, separated from the rest of the house by a hallway. As we opened the door to the kitchen, we were greeted by Cassie, Gentes and Hanlon’s yellow lab.

Your reporters here at The Mirror were dismayed to note that the Valley News, and not The Dartmouth, was lying on the kitchen counter, though Gentes did say that she frequently reads these pages.

Gentes said that she and Hanlon spend the majority of their time in the kitchen.

“This is kind of where we live,” she said.

As our tour came to a close, we couldn’t help but ask the most pressing question on our minds. Yes, Gentes said, she is aware of her house’s special place in Dartmouth culture. Her thoughts on the students who come near the lawn looking to cross off one of the Dartmouth Seven?

“I just want people to know that there’s cameras outside, so they should beware.”

6// MIRROR

More Than Just Any Space Students across campus describe the places that matter to them SPOTLIGHT Bartlett Hall Nicole Simineri ’17 I’m an AMES major, which means that I spend a lot of time in Bartlett Hall, the red brick structure at the end of the long line of buildings that characterize College Street. The building stands out in contrast to the white simplicity of Dartmouth Hall and its neighbors. Like my major, this building is relatively unknown among the Dartmouth community.

Yet the first time I came to the College, this castle-like building that looked so out of place immediately caught my attention. Whatever it was, it was beautiful, and I wanted to know more.

When I began taking AMES classes, I was happy to discover that the inside of Bartlett was just as odd as the outside. Huge, old wooden doors lead to the short hallway that branches off into two cozy, yet distinct, classrooms and into a bright, warm common area. It’s surrounded by faculty offices, the doors which are almost always open. The widest staircase — which also has the shortest stairs — leads upward to a relatively unknown, but impeccably clean and spacious study room, where I have wrapped up many homework assignments and Japanese exams. Even the bathroom is unlike any other on campus, with its thick wooden door that constantly jams and the huge stained glass window that comprises most of the bathroom wall. Because of how familiar I have become with its strange quirks — jamming door and all — Bartlett Hall has gone from being an unnamed building that I had to look up on a map to my home.

Panarchy Sam Van Wetter ’16 I was speaking with a small Russian woman in Collis recently. She has a granddaughter who is a member of the Class of 2018, and the woman was delighting in interviewing various students to learn the wild variety of Dartmouth paths. When I told her I live in Panarchy, however, her face crinkled. “Sounds dangerous. Is it very dangerous?” I told her no, of course not — the fire department has ensured it’s livable, and don’t believe the hype,

for we were never condemned to start with.

“I mean the concept,” she insisted. “Panarchy. Anarchy everywhere. No order for everyone, it sounds like.”

I explained that, no, the word doesn’t really mean anything. An early ‘90s Phi Psi probably found the name vaguely edgy and suitable for the newly non-Greek, totally inclusive space.

But that woman got me thinking. What’s in a name? What does it mean to be part panda, part anarchist? Is it the very word that allows for a Dartmouth existence more free and undefined?

Does this arbitrarily chosen term coined by an irrelevant Belgian botanist define our haus or has our haus become a definition of its own?

To me, Panarchy is a permission. It’s the mischievousness of the Greek faun and the irreverent ideal of lawlessness. It’s the cooking tool, the hunt for gold, the assurance that it will all pan out. It’s an ark, a vessel in Dartmouth’s often rough seas.

It’s the second-oldest building on campus, built circa 1835 for Hanover’s town doctor. It’s a singular experience to live in a haus that has evolved so much, having been home to a family, a fraternity, a co-ed and a host of wall-dwelling squirrels throughout.

Reminders of its history are everywhere, from a thin strip of original jungle-themed wallpaper uncovered in recent renovations to occasional visitations from our resident ghost, Emily. Still, the past is a foundation — not a limitation — for the future. We host rave to honor the countless souls who have walked the floors, not to spite them. Panarchy is a place to cook, cry, read, sleep, dance, dance!, sing, shout, hold and be held. The word, like the haus we occupy, is but a frame within which we can be all and anything we want. The big secret is that we are all Panarchists, even you — and especially if you don’t know it yet.

“Yes,” the sweet old lady repeated. “It’s very dangerous.”

The Tower Room Caroline Hansen ’17 When thinking about my favorite place at Dartmouth my mind immediately went to the Tower Room. What’s my favorite part of the Tower Room, you ask? The views of the Green?

The austere portraits of Dartmouth men long past? The green velvet interior? The petite, dollhouse staircases that are — for reasons unknown to me — forbidden for students to use to access the second level? Despite the guy next to you wearing Beats by Dre and chewing beef jerky, there’s something about the Tower Room that makes you feel like you’re in a period piece.

It’s a room full of surprises. Did you know it holds a copy of a portrait of William Legge, Second Earl of Dartmouth? Did you know that the only person still there with you at 2 a.m. on a Saturday night your freshman fall was actually sleeping the whole time because it’s not lit at night? People hate when you talk in the Tower Room, or when you spill Cocoa Krispies all over their problem set — also something I did freshman fall. Being in the Tower Room is rewarding, beautiful and reminiscent of a Dartmouth long, long ago. Just don’t stay past sunset.

Foley House Nicholas Thyr ’17 People, I have found, do not quite understand the appeal of Foley House.

“Wow,” they say. “Isn’t that a really long walk?” Or, “Wait — you have to cook? A meal?

For 10 people? I could never do that.”

Both of those things are true. Foley is a long way from campus (turn right at the gas station, walk three blocks). Yes, it is required that each member cook for the other members roughly once every two weeks — we’re technically a living learning community, and our “focus” is, vaguely, cooking. But that’s not what the house is “about.”

What has stuck with me most about my time at Foley House are the conversations I have had, both one-on-one and around the dinner table, ranging over innumerable topics from the agenda of Pope Francis to historical patterns in shark attacks off the coast of Australia.

The discussions have spilled on and on, each one of us knowing we have some pressing assignment to churn through, but also knowing, just the same, that no assignment is worth breaking the conversation off. More than just the conversations we have, the allure of Foley is watching the small community of nine people gel over the course of the term, from the initial awkward encounters at the start of the term (“Hi.” “Hi.” “What’s your major?”) to the freedom at the end of the term to be truthful, silly, foul-mouthed — to be ourselves.

Quite simply, living at Foley has been the best decision I have made at Dartmouth.

8 School Street Nkenna Ibeakanma ’16

Alice Harrison/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

For Caroline Hansen ’17, the Tower Room is a sanctuary full of surprises.

I came to Dartmouth fresh off a gap year, unsure of my ability to thrive in an academic setting again and uneasy about being in a class of younger people. I was downright scared after nine months of notifications from the Class of 2016 Facebook group — but I was excited. I craved the difference my new home would bring.

A week into Dartmouth, I believed I was a failure. I hadn’t gotten into my first choice a capella group. I didn’t know I was to become a member of a group that would shape my life in such a profound way — it is almost ridiculous to believe an a capella group could have such

deep ramifications.

When I think of the my freshmen year in the Rockapellas I think of the members of the Class of 2013, most of whom lived together off-campus. The group was my home. It was security and comfort encapsulated in a unit of diverse women who taught me so much about the complexities of womanhood — just by being themselves. It was the insecurity and discomfort of unlearning obstinate ideas that I held true. It was where I learned to deal with my feelings instead of putting them in a nicely sealed envelope at the back of my brain. I think about the Rocks, and I think of rehearsals in the front room and sneaking through the back door into my friend’s room. I think of 8 School Street.

The once-crumbling house isn’t technically a Dartmouth space, but my time at Dartmouth would be different without it. The home at 8 School Street reminds me of the beautiful whirlwind of being new here, of being too caught up in transformation to be held down by the things about this place that make me sad. Even now, post-rose-tinted Ray-Bans, the house makes me think of the woman I’ve become. I think of how lucky I was to have thoughtful women who loved me right from the beginning, and I feel oh-so-lucky that I failed that one time.

The Graveyard Aaron Pellowski ’15 Call it macabre, but one of my favorite places to chill on campus is the graveyard behind FoCo. I have always had a queer affinity for graveyards and cemeteries. (Don’t ask me to tell you what the difference is between the two.

I don’t know!) In elementary school, I built a graveyard behind my garage out of stakes and mossy stones for all my imaginary friends.

If you think an imaginary friend is already sufficiently abstract for an eleven-year-old, imagine how precocious I must have been, sitting cross-legged in this dismal arena, fancying that I could commune with the ghosts of my dead imaginary friends!

Anyway, I was enormously pleased as a freshman to discover our graveyard, just a five-minute putter from Russell Sage, brimming with stones, tombs, tables and more. The little trips I’d take to the graveyard siphoned off hours of my time, fall, winter and spring. I read the names inscribed, the names of men and their nameless wives, laid to rest and decomposing in series with their memories, already forgotten to time before I was even born. I found relics of initiation rites of senior societies and Greek houses, including mannequins, tea-lights and low-grade wine.

The thing I really treasure about graveyards, though, has more to do with space and atmosphere. You can cloister yourself in your room, or find a hidden crevice of the library in which to study and ponder and pout, but only in a graveyard can you feel the liberating breath of solitary experience while still in the open air. The graveyard is a sacred space. You can go there to sing at the face of God and not fear onlookers. You can just sit, uninterrupted, and imagine all the corpses, converted to earth and reconverted to vegetation, that have found new life in the silent growth around you. The same human carbon that flows in circles through my blood is circulated up the xylum of the pines, from the center of the earth, starward. That’s what’s neat about graveyards. Check one out.

FRIDAYS WITH MARIAN

MIRROR //7

Boots and RallIES COLUMN

By Aaron Pellowski

COLUMN By Marian Lurio

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a day where many reflective individuals rejoice for a three-day weekend. Dinesh D’Souza, however, refuses to be reflective. D’Souza took the opportunity to draw comparisons between Martin Luther King Jr. and himself.

Call me crazy, but I just don’t think D’Souza represents any part of Dr. King’s legacy. Honestly, I feel secondhand embarrassment for D’Souza for having made this comparison in multiple tweets.

And I thought I had a big ego.

Of course, D’Souza blames his eightmonth sentence at a community confinement center on President Obama’s quest for vengeance. If this were indeed the case, I can’t blame Obama for incarcerating the creep who stalked his half-brother in Kenya for his movie “2016: Obama’s America” (2012).

As soon as I finished this column, Dinesh D’Souza made another series of ridiculously idiotic statements to Fox News’s Megyn Kelly. D’Souza utilized his time on air to claim that Obama “hasn’t actually had the African American experience” in this countr y because (a) he is not descended from slaves and (b) he lived in Hawaii, as well as Indonesia, and has “made multiple trips to Kenya.” I think that statement speaks for itself. Perhaps what confuses me most is how, despite his temporar y forced removal from society, his presence still per vades all forms of media.

Speaking of President Obama, who watched his State of the Union address? I watched a few minutes, but being the conscientious student that I am, I can’t spare the time to watch the entire address. Or maybe I just can’t endure an hour-long speech that could be much shorter if Obama would speak without his signature pauses between ever y sentence. And, of course, I can only endure the Oompa Loompa that is John Boehner for so long before I am inspired to watch “Charlie and the Chocolate Factor y” (2005).

Before I allow my mind to wander away from the hallowed House chamber, I have a single grievance to air. My Facebook and Twitter were blowing up after Obama made the comment that he has won both presidential elections, so he is no longer on the campaign trail. If the American people think that statement was such a shocking and even badass joke (and according to my social media newsfeeds, they do), our nation is going to hell in a handbasket.

Now onto the hottest topic in foreign affairs these days. I am talking, of course, about the controversy over the selfie involving Miss Lebanon and Miss Israel. My

feminist instincts cause me to cringe at the idea of beauty pageants in which women parade around in bathing suits. Yet, I feel I owe it to my readership — including but not limited to College President Phil Hanlon — to weigh in on this important issue.

I would like to use this opportunity to inform my fellow “Serial” fans of some semibreaking news. (Brace yourself for another column about “Serial,” devoted readers!)

I’ve got two words for you: Asia McClain.

She’s back. This could blow the whole case wide open — leaving me free to snuggle up to Adnan sooner than I had ever dreamed.

The real question is if the #freeAdnan movement is successful, who gets to be Adnan’s main squeeze? It’s a love triangle between one perhaps wrongly-convicted felon and two reporters. I may not have worked for the Baltimore Sun and National Public Radio (and much to my chagrin, I certainly have not won a Peabody award for my work), but I do some pretty hard-hitting reporting on these ver y pages. Who will win Adnan’s heart — his original confidant Sarah Koenig or his soon-to-be pen-pal, an underdog who is known to some as Marian Lurio (and to others as that ______, depending on who you ask)?

Of course, Koenig will have to leave her husband (or become polyandrous, which I think is a great idea) if she’s in it for the long haul. I plan on spending my weekend writing some letters — sealed with a kiss — to send to the Mar yland Correctional Facility in advance of Valentine’s Day. I don’t want to take any chances with the mail-sorting process in said prison. It’s on, Sarah.

Speaking of all things taboo, Beyonce is “vulgar,” or so says former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee (who is no stranger to this column). Maybe if Huckabee’s show were still on the air and we had the pleasure of listening to the Little Rocks (the band that closes his shows), then we wouldn’t have to listen to Beyonce’s sinful music.

And there you have it — all the news from this past week. No need to watch the news, read CNN.com or open those Skimm daily news emails. In the meantime, there’s no rest for the wear y. A hard-hitting — and completely qualified — reporter like myself is always on the job. I’d be nothing without my fanbase, so thanks for your support and love. I would like to dedicate this column to “Anonymous” who commented on last week’s column online. Your support means the world to me. And I will continue to produce this “kitchy” “drivel” with a “lack of substance” in your honor.

I know there’s some Japanese show where they put large, exotic insects in glass jars in order to induce fights between them — this is the kind of thing some people find entertaining. I don’t find as much entertainment value in the spectacle, but I know how it feels to be an insect like that, trapped in others’ personal space.

Unlike a certain peer institution of ours located in Connecticut, Dartmouth is totally without walls. But “stone walls do not a prison make.” Like the cockroach pawing frantically at the glass, fighting against a barrier it cannot even understand, so I feel on some nights, like I’ve been swaddled in invisible bonds to the core of this place. I twist my neck and wince to avoid the feeling of so much eye contact and breath down my neck. Even when I’m home on breaks I don’t feel released, but like I’ve just picked up my ankle chain and dragged it hundreds of miles down to Texas — a single tug from its keepers at the other end could wrench me to my knees.

It is peculiar how we meet and re-meet people. It is also peculiar how we remember and re-remember them. Freshman year, I’m at the Avicii concert, spangled in neon, but just not pumped up enough to feel fun.

Briefly I see a girl whose name I know from Facebook. I snap some judgments, wonder whether I could or should ask her to dance, disappoint myself and choose not to. A meaningless event.

Well over a year later I get a blitz two-feetlong in all blue text from this same human about something that I had written, a blitz that launched over a year of meaningful and wonderful and painful events. I remember so well the first time I ever saw her. Why? Another time I’m distraught in a huge graveyard in Berlin, trying to disinfect myself of memories of something different altogether. I’m a quarter of the way across the world, but the cutting loop of Hanover is still around my waist. I’m sitting for hours in front of hundreds of graves of Italian boys who were killed at my age. I’m returning to Dartmouth the next term, straight to the center of the glass jar to see all the people I want to see yet petrified at the almost certain eventuality that I’ll see one person. In the course of one evening, a name you hear tossed around becomes a person, then by

morning your entire world, and after many sprains and snaps and lacerations, back to a name.

Even that name can’t be flattened down dead — it tugs too. It resists death with as much aching fortitude as the roach in the jar.

A thrashed memory of love that felt true at the time lies in the dark on the floor of the mind, still twitching horribly. At FoCo I’m eating alone and a friend walks by. “Alex, look at this,” I say as I hand him my phone and he thumbs through a couple harsh texts. “I guess this is just like, really over.”

“Nah,” he laughs. “It’s never over.”

“But I want it to be.”

I actually, honestly, pathetically sent the following quotation in an email once, seized from a very sad, very good book. It was about how months of silence was not working to stamp out how violently haunted I continued to feel by my memories: “I caught him with an unseen hook and an invisible line which is long enough to let him wander to the ends of the world and still to bring him back with a twitch upon the thread.”

No one ever falls out of love, and no one ever leaves your life. You are pierced through with hook after hook, all tied to all the people you trusted enough to puncture you, make you vulnerable. But vulnerability is irreversible.

At such a small school, with tall psychic walls that keep us in such close quarters, people will enter and re-enter your life no matter how far you retreat into the inner citadel. They will tug open closed wounds in ways that can feel masochistically ecstatic. You get older as you hurt and are hurt by more people. One by one, the worst days of your life drop from the high, imperceptible branches of the hypothetical future down onto lawn around you to rot, never to be completely washed away.

This is how life is worse than prison. An inmate knows that iron bars and cinder blocks confine him in only a material sense — for what human hands can make, human hands can break. Yet we are fastened to our past in a chain gang with everyone we’ve loved and there is no escape, no matter how we cry and claw at it. A bell cannot be unrung. You cannot take back a kiss. Happiness begs that we give up and learn to feel affection for the stinking, unkillable albatrosses that swing around our necks. Or else die young.

8// MIRROR

“Green Space” Two intrepid reporters take on Taylor Swift with a challenge to the big hit of 2015 song

B y Mary Liza hartong and andrew kingsley

In this frightening post-Dimensions show landscape, there is a real demand for more parodies of popular songs set to Dartmouth lyrics. And even if there isn’t a real demand, we will draft the song anyway.

Sing to the tune of Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space” (2014).

Can I meet you, on the Green?

We could find some incredible things.

Farmers, frisbees, falling leaves, Saw the lines and I thought: Oh my god, Look at those crepes, kettle corn and pink cupcakes.

Grab my cash, and stuff my face.

Now frisbees start to fly.

I can tell that’s the A-team.

Running towards me is some guy Who I think I met in Math 3.

I say, let’s be friends.

I think I’ll send this guy a flitz.

Grab the frisbee and his hand.

Maybe we’ll go backpacking for a weekend.

Hang on the Green whenever, During lunch or walks of shame.

Pick some four leaf clovers, Or get psyched for a football game.

Even when there’s dense cloud cover, You won’t hear me complain.

Cause you know I put on layers, In wind, sun and rain.

I love the Green at breakfast.

Or underneath the brilliant stars.

I love it when I’m breathless Running to a seminar.

Even when there’s dense cloud cover You won’t hear me complain.

Cause you know I put on layers In wind, sun and rain.

Take a trip Round the fire.

How many laps? Yep I did 18.

Couldn’t touch it, didn’t try.

But the girl who did is our queen.

Creepy alums, with their kids Talkin’ ’bout, things they did While someone gets arrested.

Oh no, Winter, coming, bad snow storms, I haven’t ordered my duck boots.

Goose coat, keep me warm.

On this crazy ice rink, like oh my god, That’s the Green?! How’s it this slippery?

There’s no turning back: I must cross.

Tell my mom I loved her cause I won’t make it.

Winter’s gonna be forever.

All I want are some flames.

Hibernation ’til its over.

Too cold to feel pain.

Gonna throw some snowballs.

Someone might get maimed.

Oops hit my crush with an ice chunk.

Now at least he knows my name.

Now it’s spring, #stillblessed, The winter left me emotionally scarred.

But I can’t be depressed.

When 15S is about to start, Gonna go crazy during Green Key. They’ll tell you I’m insane.

But I got a blank space baby, It’s my liver, bye bye brain.

Leaves growing, sun shines, shorts comin’ back.

Don’t stay in, stay out on the Green, yeah.

Leaves growing, sun shines, shorts comin’ back, Don’t stay in, stay out on the Green, yeah.

So now it’s graduation.

Four years have fried your brain.

All the parents are crying.

But you’re rocking your cool Sphinx cane.

Should’ve been an econ major.

French and psych were in vain.

Cause you know I won’t earn money.

But tonight I got champagne.

Cause we’re young, and we’re reckless.

Sophomore summer is the bomb.

Chill and get sunkissed.

Layups all day long.

Got a long list of to-dos: Copper mines and the rope swing.

No more blank space baby.

Cause this College is my thing.

Anthony Chicaiza/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF