The Dartmouth Mirror 02/20/15

MIRROR 02.20.2015

Inclusivity in our song|3

SMALL CHANGES RUN DEEP|4-5

TTLG: Luke Katler ’15|6

Where You can Live with Whomever|8 Alyssa Schmid/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

2// MIRROR

Inclusivity In Our Song

EDITOR’S NOTE

SPOTLIGHT

This week’s Mirror discusses change, and as such, it has been an extremely upsetting few days for me. Few will raise an eyebrow upon learning that I have long counted fear of change among my most fundamental values. For fear of change underpins all the other qualities — particularly my stubbornness and sloth — that I hold dear. I spring from my seat at the thought of switching toothpaste brands. I awaken in cold sweats each Monday morning as I anticipate a tectonic shift in the weekly selection at World View. And — if you are somehow so self-flagellating that you could care to inquire about my personal life — anyone who has ever had the misfortune of knowing me well can attest that I quiver at the slightest glimmer of personal growth.

Take me — half-matured and of mediocre quality — or leave me. I’m the wine you open right away, because aging will do absolutely zilch to improve my condition.

I should note that it was already a miserable week.

Recently I had the misfortune of meeting a student whose belief system has been so utterly corrupted — whose very worldview I find utterly anathema to any value framework I have ever encountered. The crime?

This person had the gall to approach me with a positive remark regarding this Editor’s Note. Expulsion is the only punishment commensurate with such an offense against taste.

The Dean of the College is, by now, exhausted with my letter-writing campaign to expel this offender, but I refuse to relent. I encourage all those who cherish this College and its history to join me.

My editor’s father, who must have taken paternal pity on my pathetic attempts at scrawling a column each week, also said a nice word about the Notes in recent weeks. In this case, Maria Laskaris, I recommend this person be admitted and then swiftly expelled.

So with that displeasure already weighing on my mind, you can imagine the nightmare that editing an entire magazine devoted to change has been for me. The stories of profound shifts in these pages — of housing reformed, UGAs better trained, an alma mater rendered inclusive — scared the living hell out of me.

Open The Mirror if you dare. You may even be forced to rethink something you had previously taken

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MIRROR R MIRROR EDITOR CHARLIE RAFKIN

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF KATIE McKAY

PUBLISHER JUSTIN LEVINE

EXECUTIVE EDITORS LUKE McCANN JESSICA AVITABILE

What’s the most startling change you’ve witnessed since arriving on campus?

B y Matthew garvey

Within an instant, the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge goes black. “Dear old Dartmouth, give a rouse / For the College on the hill...”

The inexperienced members of the Class of 2018 mutter along and then briefly pause as the banner with the lyrics falls to the ground.

One student, though, has her own concerns other than the fallen banner. Heads turn as Dondei Dean ’17 recites her own amended version of the alma mater over the silence. She waits for the lines, “For the sons of old Dartmouth / For the daughters of Dartmouth,” and then cries out, “And everybody else!”

Dean’s decision raises a new concern about the lyrics of our school’s song — namely that, as it stands, the song implies a gender binary. While the attention to including more than just two gender identities may be a newer consideration of the lyrics, her protest marks just one of many historical moments to change the alma mater since the song was officially composed by Harry Wellman of the Class of 1907 and adopted by the school in 1926.

According to “The Alma Mater,” a piece

by Barbara Kreiger that appeared in “Miraculously Builded in our Hearts: A Dartmouth Reader,” the words to the alma mater were originally written in 1894 by Richard Hovey, a member of the class of 1885. Then known as “The Dartmouth Song,” the College’s first alma mater represented the student body comprised almost entirely of men until the College introduced coeducation in 1972. In 1926, the College officially titled the piece “Men of Dartmouth.” The piece was to be sung as a tradition at commencements and important College events. During the years of World War II, the College and its students reverted to singing a piece titled “Dartmouth Undying.”

After the school allowed women to enroll in 1972, however, the lyrics to “Men of Dartmouth” did not change to represent the female student body until then-College President James Freedman oficially recognized and adopted new lyrics 16 years later.

In 1972, then-College President John Kemeny began the academic year with a speech addressed to the “men and women of Dartmouth” and ended convocation by singing “Dartmouth Undying” instead of Men of Dartmouth,” a decision made with the approval of the College’s Board of Trustees in order to respect the women entering the new class. Kemeny’s move was controversial, but a poll in The Dartmouth of women in the first-female inclusive class found that many women did not object to the lyrics originally written by Hovey. One woman said, “If men want to sing about rocks in their heads, it’s

What’s the bucket-list change you’d like to see happen at the College?

There have been overwhelming — and very positive — changes in campus A bolstered non-Greek social climate even since the ’16s arrived here. scene? Non-exploitative meal An honorable mention goes to the loss plans? A swimming pool on the of the FoCo salad bar where you could Green? A kid can dream! order salads at your convenience. R.I.P. A not-so-honorable mention goes to the introduction and sudden popularity of Yik Yak and Friendsy.

Annika Park/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

fine with me.”

As subsequent female students enrolled at the College, the alma mater was met with more opposition and calls for reform. In May 1986, the College’s Council on Diversity met to consider revisions to the lyrics of “Men of Dartmouth.”

It was not until two years later, in 1988, that the College officially changed the alma mater to include women, including the lines “for the daughters of Dartmouth” and “stand as sister stands by brother.” The new version of the alma mater was conceived and edited by several students, then-music professor Charles Hamm and then-Dean of the College Edward Shanahan. The revised addition included eight changes to Hovey’s original lyrics.

Even after the College officially adopted the new “Alma Mater,” many students protested the change to the longtime tradition.

Enrolled in one of the first classes to include women at the College, Ellen Oppenheim ’79 reflected back on her experiences when the College was made up of roughly two-thirds male students.

Oppenheim said she found the lyrics exclusive at the time.

“I absolutely remember that my female friends and I came up with our own version to say ‘Students of Dartmouth’ instead of ‘Men of Dartmouth,’ to be a more inclusive version when we would link arms and sing together,” she said.

While Oppenheim and her female friends protested the male-oriented lyrics, she recalls that the majority of students at the time did not take issue with the song.

“Where we saw some kind of issue was when we’d be at football games, and the alums — who still preferred the College to be a male institution — would heckle us and even sometimes boo and hiss if they heard us improvising the lyrics to represent ourselves,” she said.

Oppenheim believes that the issue was not

How can I start a new campus tradition?

So I love traditions. Tears start welling up when I hear the “Alma Mater,” and I happily leapt into Occom Pond freshman year for the polar plunge. Not sure where to locate the steering committee for Dartmouth traditions, but please petition them ASAP.

with the students, but more with alumni who were opposed to the idea of coeducation.

Elizabeth Moder ’79, who was a member of the Dartmouth Glee Club during her time at the College, remembers learning the original lyrics to the song early in her Dartmouth career.

“I sang it all the time,” she said. “So I didn’t think much about the words at the time, and it seemed normal to me. I didn’t feel like it was exclusive. I just thought it was generic.”

Moder said that in her generation, men dominated social and verbal interactions, so she was accustomed to the feeling.

“I had a great experience,” she said.

“But I would guess that a lot of my women classmates thought that the language [of the alma mater] was inappropriate.”

Moder did note, however, that while enrolled at the College, she avoided older alumni who did not always approve of the College’s decision to allow women to enroll.

Michael Stutz ’89 recalled a tense atmosphere immediately following the change.

“We had all been used to seeing the lyrics one way, and then it was weird to see the lyrics change out of nowhere,” Stutz said.

“It makes sense now, and it really didn’t affect the spirit or the meaning of the song, but I just remember it was hard to change the words in [1988] when you’d be singing it one way up to that point, and then it was changed right there.”

Stutz also recalls that many of his classmates were upset with the new lyrics and continued singing the song the original way.

“I don’t recall anybody saying ‘I’m glad the lyrics changed to better reflect the student body,’” he said. “I think some people didn’t understand why it needed to be changed, so there was a very slow acceptance of the new changes.”

Reflecting back on his college years, Stutz notes that when he attends class reunions now, everyone sings “Alma Mater” with the new lyrics.

MIRROR //3

Tracks Fiction

B y Lauren harris

Down the Rabbit Hole is a section of The Mirror that showcases student work from across campus. Submissions of all genres are welcome — please send works of 3,000 words or fewer to editor@thedartmouth.com.

The following is a work of fiction.

I do not go quietly. My heart pounds with feverish anticipation.

Breathless, my footsteps fall with heavy thuds as I rush down the stairs. I heave open the door, slide out and slam it shut behind me. I shove my key into the small hole below the doorknob and rotate it counterclockwise until the old lock clicks with finality. Leaning back against the door, I stop to catch my breath and watch as the small clouds materialize in the cold air.

Outdoors, a hush of silence falls, so sudden and so complete that it’s dizzying.

Slowly, I take my first steps into the frigid darkness. I’m tempted, almost immediately, to turn around and go back inside. The air has a particular quality about it — it’s almost tangible somehow, like sleet — and I imagine that I can feel it pressing into my skin, each molecule like a tiny acupuncture needle. A shiver runs down my spine, but I shove my gloved hands deep into my coat pockets and set out on the icy path.

I tread cautiously at first, but soon begin to pick up speed.

There’s no sense prolonging the inevitable. Frozen pockets of snow crunch beneath my boots, protesting against my determined footsteps. I imagine I must be disturbing nature. The wind howls, or perhaps it is an airplane. I glance up at sky and nearly stumble, taken aback by the forceful beauty of the stars. For some reason, I had assumed that they wouldn’t be visible this time of year. I remind myself that stars are immune to frostbite.

Already I can feel the numbness radiating through my fingers.

For weeks, things have been changing. That’s not to say that things hadn’t been changing before. It would have been more unusual had the world suddenly

stopped changing — as helpless victims of inertia, we’d be thrown off-balance. But these particular changes have been laser-focused, concentrated solely on me, as if there is an uncontrollable metamorphosis taking place beneath my skin. I have never felt so untethered, and yet I have been unable to pinpoint the source of my newfound desire for motion.

I clench my jaw to stop my teeth from chattering, to convince my body (if not my mind) of my resoluteness. I am leaving.

The straps of my backpack are digging into my shoulders, and the wind whips at my face.

The ground beneath my feet has changed abruptly — slick asphalt.

I’ve reached the street. Overhead the streetlamps glow faintly, as though they understand that I will be the only one walking the streets on a night like this one, that I am the sole presence who will benefit from their light. Yet already I am feeling less alone.

Perhaps this is a juvenile idea, and I am merely fulfilling some capricious daydream of running away from home left over from childhood. The footsteps I leave behind me in the snow make a path to directly the door. They seem to beckon me back to the warm indoors, the mild and unreasonable sense of security provided by the click of a lock. But tonight I am on the other side of the door, and I am not turning around. The narrow trenches left behind by my boots will disappear by morning, filled with fresh snow. It will not erase my path, but it will fill in my tracks, which is the next best thing.

I think that maybe it is impossible to leave without a trace.

As I make my way along the salted pavement, I reassure myself that I am not avoiding my problems by leaving. I’ve learned that the only way for me to escape an anxious mental loop is to travel in a straight line, at least until I can resist the pull of its gravity and tear my thoughts from its orbit. I wonder how long it will take for all of the cells in my body to die and

regenerate. Maybe that is when I will go back — when I have an excuse for why I had started to feel so unquiet. “I’m a different person now,” I’ll explain, winded from rushing back up the snowy path.

You will stare at me with suspicion, and I will hold my breath until you open the door to let me back in.

A streetlight above me flickers, then loudly sputters out. The resulting darkness that comes after is deeper than I would have expected, and I’m forced to pause and regain my bearings. The street is deserted, and as I stand in the middle of the pavement waiting for my eyes to adjust, it dawns on me that perhaps I have put myself in a dangerous situation. For the first time since the lock clicked behind me, I begin to consider the extent of my solitude and the magnitude of the risk I have taken. At once the wind roars so fiercely that I am thrown off balance, and I fall to my knees, my palms grazing the frozen ground. Shaken, I take a few moments to recover before I feel ready to continue on my way.

Soon the streetlights have returned to their neutral state, their faint light fading with the first signs of morning. The sky has transitioned from star-studded black to a pale, muted gray. I am almost at the train station, which is fortunate timing as my boots are soaked through and what started as a stark determination to take drastic measures against my uneasiness has begun to fade to a vague stubbornness. Even now, moving for wards is more intuitive than turning back, and my mind resists the oppressive silence that surrounds me when I am motionless.

The train arrives, and I slide into the first window seat in an empty car. Soon I have the unsettling feeling that I am hurtling through the countr yside alone, that this dreamlike sunrise and flickering landscape will go unseen by eyes other than my own. I’m accustomed to solitude, but something about the situation is uncanny. I understand that I am fundamen-

Kelley Lin/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

tally alone, now more than I have ever been before. I am away from home, but I’m also a different kind of away — disconnected, outside.

More than just a physical distance separates me from where I was. I close my eyes and drift into a fitful sleep, lulled by the low rumble and click of the wheels on the tracks below.

My eyes fly open with a start.

My short sleep ends abruptly. I am no longer moving. I blink quickly, willing my environment to come into focus, wondering why the train has stopped. I realize that I am much more comfortable than I ought to be, that I am lying down.

Slowly, I raise myself up onto my elbows and squint in the bright light. I am back in my room, the blinds open halfway, the sunlight creating dappled patterns on my bedspread.

My mind sluggishly attempts to piece together what had happened before waking up back in my room.

Last night, lying in bed, the sensation of imprisonment had been overpowering. Displeased by my inability to escape the labyrinth, I had been seized by a desire to crawl out of my own skin.

I had nearly made up my mind.

I had nearly left again.

I slide the covers off my body and set my feet on the wooden floor, walking toward the window.

I open the blinds the rest of the way.

Immediately, my eyes are flooded with light — the whiteness of the fresh snow is dazzling.

There are no footsteps leading from the door way, and nothing but a few stray pine needles litter the cr ystalline blanket covering the ground. The memories of that faraway night, so deeply entrenched in my past, had been reawakened with such sharpness and clarity that they had taken on a visceral, lifelike quality. It was not the first time that I had relived the experience of my escape, but it did not fail to shake me with each recurring dream.

The idea of leaving — the thrill of setting out on a journey, of leaving ever ything behind — has always been intoxicating. But I have never again tried something as drastic as I had on that other winter’s night, to once again tr y severing all the tethers that tie me to the one place where I am expected to remain. I understand now that a physical journey is not always necessar y. It is possible to induce a change in scener y by assuming a different perspective — but the mind will often ner vously resist the imposition. Sometimes, it is necessar y to leave.

This morning I am as at home as I ever have been, both mentally and physically. But I am unable to shake my conviction that, although it appears that nothing is different, it once again feels as if ever ything has changed.

THE D RUNS THE

NUMBERS 7

The number of campus housing locations that are gender-inclusive.

119 104 115

The respective ages of Homecoming, Winter Carnival and Green Key.

32 The number of stairs in Foley House.

16 The number of years between coeducation a n d re v i s i o n of the “Alma Mater.”

32

The number of years between the composition of the words of the alma mater and recognition as the College’s official song.

4// MIRROR

Small Changes Run Deep A deeper look at shifts in UGA training illustrates how campus has changed analysis

B y sam forstner

The new undergraduate advisors packed into Brace Commons to begin their fourth day of training for an exercise called “behind closed doors.” Each of them must open a door without knowing what they will find behind it, and apply their knowledge of College regulations and protocol — as well as their own intuition — to respond to the scenario.

“It’s always the most emotionally draining part of UGA training, but also the most important and informative,” second-year UGA John Damianos ’16 said.

“Behind closed doors” is just one example of several training modules that UGAs must complete to be certified each September. During an intensive, week-long training, UGAs participate in activities designed to educate them on all aspects of residential life, as well as prepare them for any potential situation.

These students act as peers, mentors and advisors, and are a constant presence in the lives of fellow undergraduates living on campus. Tasked with enforcing College regulations encompassing everything from possessing alcohol to lighting candles and playing loud music in dorm rooms, undergraduate advisors are a close link between the policies adopted behind the doors of administrative offices and the students who those policies affect.

Consequently, UGA training functions as a window through which to view changes in College policy as a whole, and an individual UGA can be viewed as a microcosm of largerscale administrative action.

Due to the range of skills required of UGAs, the preparation they receive does not remain static. The past decade at the College has been rife with administrative and social change, and training for undergraduate advisors has been fine-tuned and tweaked as a result.

The College began to test first-year-only residence halls beginning with the Class of 2004, and soon adopted a first-year housing program, creating communities — or clusters — of all first-year students for the first time in the College’s history. This in turn demanded increased UGA specialization, and two cat-

egories were created: First Year Residential Experience UGAs and upperclassmen UGAs. Damianos says that an essential component of UGA training under FYRE is the concept of radical hospitality — creating inclusive communities for everyone — while upperclassmen UGAs are taught motivational interviewing, a conversation style that functions as a means of counseling.

Aside from the housing overhaul that grouped first-years exclusively with their peers, associate director of residential education Jeffrey DeWitt said most adjustments to training have occurred over the past three or four years. For DeWitt, UGA training can be viewed as a reflection of larger institutional aims. “[The recent changes] very much are in response to institutional priorities,” he said.

The past decade has seen three different College Presidents, and DeWitt ties the recent changes to the tenures of College President Emeritus Jim Kim and College President Phil Hanlon.

“When President Kim came in, there was a strong look at harm reduction around alcohol abuse and around sexual assault, which of course is continuing to this day,” DeWitt said.

“So we started implementing some changes that were targeted at those institutional priorities.”

Additionally, when a particularly current issue or possible crisis that may affect campus surfaces, UGAs must be trained to respond.

DeWitt said that during the H1N1 outbreak in 2009, for example, UGAs were trained to respond to the possibility of a global pandemic.

A few years ago, UGAs were given one-time targeted training for how to respond to a campus shooter.

Not all modifications are inspired by potential crises, however, as many changes have occurred simply due to the addition of new staff members who bring ideas from other institutions, Dewitt said.

UGAs also receive bystander intervention training to bolster responsiveness to timesensitive real-world scenarios.

“You don’t really know how much you need to know until you have someone in front of you,” East Wheelock community director Josiah Prioretti, who oversees all UGA training, said.

With an increased awareness of mental health nationwide comes a strengthened focus on the mental health of college students specifically. College students, after all, must navigate a particularly transitional, stressful period of life.

The most recent change to the UGA program has been the implementation of Campus Connect — a new suicide prevention program that began last year and trains students and campus personnel on how to recognize warning signs of suicidal behavior.

UGAs also receive first-responder training, and they are educated in topics including social justice, diversity and inclusivity.

While many typically associate UGAs with cracking down on students, Prioretti maintains that this is not their primary role.

“We have made great progress in helping our students understand that when they are checking in with students with dangerous behavior, it’s really a lot less about punitive stuff and a lot more about care and concern,” Prioretti said.

Damianos echoed Prioretti’s sentiments, and said that for him it is a misconception that UGAs primarily crack down on social events.

“That’s not the most important part of the UGA job — busting parties,” he said. “The most important scenarios are when you are concerned that a resident is depressed or suicidal. Those are the ones that are very important.”

In addition, UGAs — by definition — are more than just resources and leaders in their community. UGAs are campus security authorities, a term specific to the Clery Act that denotes someone with significant responsibilities for student and campus safety.

As campus security authorities, UGAs are required to report all violations of the law to the College.

Despite these changes, DeWitt, who has

ALICE HARRISON/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

Undergraduate advisors, who act as both peers and mentors, hold regular floor meetings to help foster a sense of community among floormates.

been at the College for 17 years, says that when looking at the big picture it is remarkable how little things have shifted.

Undoubtedly, the changes that will come with Hanlon’s “Moving Dartmouth Forward” plan will affect UGAs’ daily life, as new policies like the hard alcohol ban will require them to adapt their enforcement policies and role as campus security authorities.

Russell Sage UGA Sigan Chen ’17 speculated that big changes are in store for her fellow advisors in terms of policy enforcement.

“Supposedly UGAs are going to be doing rounds Wednesday, Friday [and] Saturday every single week from nine to 12 because of the hard alcohol policy,” Chen said. “It’s possible that we’re going to take a harderline stance on room parties and stuff like that.”

Second-year UGA Cynthia Madu ’15 said that the possibility of higher expectations for strict enforcement by UGAs frightens her.

“A UGA is more of a health and safety role, where we’re trying to make sure students are healthy and safe,” Madu said.

“We’re not policing you. We didn’t apply to this position to be police.”

Damianos, who was a member of the “Moving Dartmouth Forward” presidential steering committee, said that the main role of UGAs is to foster community, and that this will only be improved by the plan.

“The most important aspect is building community on the floor, [and] “Moving Dartmouth Forward” will enhance UGAs ability to do so,” Damianos said. “The consensus now is that upperclassmen housing is like living in a crappy motel. The new system will extend the strong community that first-year residence has to everyone on campus, and UGAs will be central to doing so.”

While policy enforcement and reduction of harmful behavior are essential components to being a UGA, it is understandable why some UGAs feel uncomfortable with a heightened role in student social lives.

Chen says she thinks the new policy will have an impact on whether potential future UGAs want to take the job or not.

“If the job does entail rounds three nights a week, I’m sure there are some people who would shy away from that,” Chen said. “Even myself, I’m not sure if I’m up to the task to take on three nights of rounds. Personally, I’m not a very confrontational person.”

Madu also believes that “Moving Dartmouth Forward” could have an adverse impact on how UGAs view their responsibilities.

“We took this role to be advocates for the student body and build community, by connecting students with resources that will help them succeed,” Madu said. “We did not take it to police you. We don’t have the time or the energy.”

In addition to the hard alcohol policy, the implementation of the residential college system will cause a shift in the tenor of residential life and a corresponding reverberation in the role of UGAs in their communities.

What is cer tain, however, is that UGA training and responsibilities will continue to ser ve as a useful barometer of swings in campus climate.

MIRROR //5

Kathy Rao/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

6// MIRROR

Through the Looking Glass:

Fewer Likes, Better Friends COLUMN

B y Luke Katler

I’m facetimey. I enjoy attention, engaging with mainstream social life and being liked.

I am the youngest of three, after all. I equate my self-worth to the amount of “likes” I get across social media platforms, and I’m crushed by suffocating insecurity when someone acknowledges my faults. I sang to prospies during Dimensions, dyed my hair for HCroo and wore a speedo in a Mainstage show. I’ve participated in most Dartmouth propagandistic activities in exchange for social capital. These transactions make me happy (see: my above values system). I will, however, defend myself by admitting that climbing the social ladder was not so high on my priorities list as being an accessible upperclassman mentor or finding a group of equally social people with whom I relate.

I figured that my closest social connections would be the students who had also successfully infiltrated Dartmouth’s labyrinthine social networks. But I assumed, and made an ass out of you and me.

In examining the relationship of tradition and change at Dartmouth, some definitions are in order. “Tradition,” as I see it with regard to Dartmouth’s social structure, is defined by the type of social lifestyle typical of a white, cis-hetero male (myself) or someone who engages in the above facetimey activities (myself). The “change,” in my case, began last spring when I moved into Foley House.

Foley is a cooperative living house at the corner of West and Maple built around cooking and mutually caring for a free-standing physical space. It’s known for attracting a diverse group of students who appreciate engaging in meaningful conversation around the dinner table. Last spring, a friend’s suggestion that I live in Foley gave me pause. I had never lived off-campus, and the scene seemed like venturing into the Harr y Potter universe — ever y house had its unique personality and history, and only purebloods knew how to identify School Street. Living in Foley would also mean a dramatic lifestyle change with regard to the house’s geographic distance from campus proper. My fraternity, the librar y and my friends’ dorm rooms would be left in my wake as I walked half a mile to get home ever y day. Finally, moving into Foley meant a commitment to developing meaningful relationships around unbridled relaxation. That’s intimidating to anyone like myself who’s spent Dartmouth running themselves ragged with extracurricular overcommitment.

The change, I am thrilled to say, has been my most profound quality of life improvement since investing in Spotify premium.

The transition into cooking for myself and others was rocky — I’m the guy who once tried to bake cookies right on the heating coils of the oven. Venturing to Foco was an unwelcome inconvenience, and having a class in the Life Sciences Center was enough exercise to justify avoiding the gym. Even eating at Collis (less than a 10-minute walk) seemed like a day-defining commitment. I found the distance from Webster Avenue in particular pulled me away from my fraternity more and more. Over time, however, I have replaced a colorful Google Calendar with listening to records from a 1970s record player that we Foleyites repaired ourselves.

I’ve opted for healthy, home-cooked meals

rather than sushi out of condensationspecked, week-old containers. The blue, college-regulated stairs up to my room in my fraternity have been supplanted by creaky, wooden stairs straight out of 1917 rustic New England. Foley has represented my commitment to individuality and evolving self-awareness throughout my time at the College. It has helped me to car ve out my niche in the social experience of my closest friends. I’d much rather invite them to a home-cooked meal than force myself into a mold that I had to convince myself fit like a glove. Foley taught me to pity square pegs in round holes.

I’m proud to say that my facetiminess has since given way to a personal brand of hermitism. I’m still inherently facetimey — I am friendly to and enjoy meeting new people, and it’s in my nature to tr y making sure ever yone around me is enjoying themselves.

My varied social network, however, has been reduced to a choice number of friends across diverse academic and extracurricular interests. Of course, some of these students were on HCroo and others in Mainstages, but others still don’t nominally do anything other than take classes. The latter categor y — Dartmouth’s rugged individualists — has brought about some of my most challenging and valuable relationships. Now, if only they’d get a Facebook.

There are two camps of friends, particularly among the College’s most charmingly Type A, self-centered students like myself.

The first camp — I’ll call them the “keepers” — consists of the people whose amount of excitement to see you is unrelated to the amount of time you have spent out of each others’ physical or virtual presence. This group is thoughtful, self-aware and understands that we still care about each other despite our busyness. The other group is dispensable. I’ll call these the “guilters.”

These are the friends who pushily ask questions such as, “Luke, like, why aren’t we friends anymore?” after not having seen me for a while, with the misguided intention that it will make me want to seek them out more often. These friends take me handling my life or making myself available for other friends in need as a personal attack. Ever y time I hang out with guilters, it feels as if I’m starting from square one. These friends, for me, are toeing the first circle of facetimey hell. I don’t need the anxiety attached to their friendship. I bite my nails badly enough already.

My list of friends has shortened, but my relationships with select people have become more meaningful and substantive over the last three terms than they had in the rest of my time here. Last term, I helped friends navigate seemingly insurmountable challenges, and being there for them would have been impossible were I to fill my schedule with Collis lunch dates. I’m emotionally and physically available, and I find myself more actively engaged in conversations.

I’m careful how I advise, and I treat each friend’s problem through the lens of their experience. I am more grateful for the fewer friends that I have. Once the Dartmouth bubble pops for me after next term, these are the people that I’ll keep close to my heart. Cutting out shallow relationships in the interest of strengthening meaningful

Gabrielle Kirlew/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

The decision to move to Foley House marked a significant change for Luke Katler ’15. ones inevitably leads to regret about having left the former neglected. I have to remind myself that those people have other, better friends to confide in. I’ve done myself and my faltering relationships a favor and chosen to drop them or deepen them. I’ve obligated myself only to myself and those whom I most love and respect.

I was talking to a friend earlier this term who mentioned offhand that I’m known to “sometimes just stop talking to people entirely.” Unsure of how to take this, I spiraled into negativity and self-criticism, obsessively taking stock of my social relationships to see where I had given someone the cold shoulder. As my grudges typically manifest themselves in uncomfortable verbal confrontation, I couldn’t imagine why this friend — or what I thought to be his army of co-conspirators — would label me as an uncommunicative monster. But I stepped back long enough to consider that maybe this soul-crushing insult was, instead, validation. I do stop talking to people. It’s never intentional — it just happens. It’s not even that I don’t care about their friendship — I don’t talk to some of my best friends for months. To say I stop talking to someone because I have a personal vendetta against them is giving me too much credit. I just know that the keepers don’t need the vali-

dation of my constant time and energy. It’s neither good nor bad. It’s just me. Whenever I do interact with the keepers, we’re able to enjoy each others’ heightened sense of self rather than lament our lack of communication.

Since becoming a Foleyite, my social network has been reigned in. I don’t go out on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday or Saturday.

In fact, I don’t go out all that much, period. I receive the “Let’s get a meal, I haven’t seen you in forever” text on a bi-weekly basis.

I’m derided for spending so much time in Foley by outside friends. Being a Foleyite won’t go on my resume. It won’t earn me any points in the dating world (although, ladies: I can cook). It won’t get my name more upvotes on Bored@Baker or make me a more desirable formal date. It won’t get me on table (pong-speak for social capital).

It will, however, give me perspective that is sorely lacking among so many people I interact with at Dartmouth. I wish there were less op-eds or student profiles about “finding your place” or “being true to your individual self because that’s what got you here,” as the message is tired and cliché and deser ves a cynical 20-something eyeroll.

If that’s all you took away from my stor y, don’t tell me. As a self-involved facetimey jerk, my ego is fragile.

FRIDAYS WITH MARIAN

MIRROR //7

Boots and RallIES COLUMN

By Aaron Pellowski

COLUMN By Marian Lurio

Why did no one get me a vong for Valentine’s Day? The vong may be a far cry from high fashion, and yet it will never go out of style. Speaking of style, did you catch New York Fashion Week?

Me neither. A certain 20-month-old, however, seemed to be all over the fashion week scene. North West was a front row attendee at some great shows, including the debut of her father’s fashion line. If you’ve seen the pics, North — known also by her adorable nickname Nori — didn’t seem to be feeling any of it. Let me just say that if I were in Nori’s position, I certainly wouldn’t be kicking and screaming about it. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again — I wouldn’t mind spending some time on Kim Kardashian’s lap.

But Nori’s not the only small creature who didn’t enjoy the show. Karl Lagerfeld’s cat, Choupette (a past animal of interest in this column), is one member of the high fashion world who has spoken out on Yeezy’s collection. She writes, “@ChoupettesDiary If I wanted to wear tights & leotards, I would’ve had Daddy @KarlLagerfeld sign me up for ballet as a kitten. #NYFW #KanyeWest #SorryNotSorry.”

While writing the above, I had an epiphany — North West is my fashion icon. Despite the questionable pieces in the show, I must admit that Kanye certainly knows how to style his ladies (including Kim, whom he dresses on the reg). I love North’s edgy look and “all black everything” theme. I can’t wait to see what Kanye has in store for her post-toddler style. I hope she keeps this look going forever, though, because I’m obsessed with it. I’m sure by this time next year North will have her own fashion line as Kim and (grand)momager Kris will do anything to pimp out their closest kin.

I hear Kim is a big fan of the “Fifty Shades of Grey” books/film, although you wouldn’t know it looking at her boring AF sex tape.

According to her online presence, Kim had a private viewing of “Fifty Shades.” Many have been inspired by the BDSM-laden cultural phenomena, it seems. Jessica Simpson uploaded a series of risque photos with her husband, Eric Johnson, which she hashtagged as #FIFTYSHADESOFJOHNSON (yes, in caps). My question is as to who took these

pictures because they ain’t selfies. Thanks for sharing your intimate moments with us, Jessica!

I know you all want me to go off on another Kardashian-Jenner tangent, but I won’t stoop to the level of the feuding Kourtney and Amber Rose over 17-year-old Kylie’s relationship with rapper Tyga, who is 25. More newsworthy, in my humble opinion, is the arrest of Robert Van Winkle. Who is this man I speak of? The descendant of the fictitious time-traveling Rip Van Winkle? A son of the revolution, whose descendants voyaged to the New World on the Mayflower? That last one could actually be a possibility. Prepare to be shocked. Robert Van Winkle = Vanilla Ice. He burglarized a seemingly abandoned Florida home next to a home he was renovating on his DIY Network home-improvement show, “The Vanilla Ice Project.” Interestingly enough, Vanilla (can I call you Vanilla, Mr. Ice?) allegedly stole a pool heater. Oh, the irony.

Speaking of grown men who have bizzare aliases/who make you want to shower every time they cross your mind, I have some sad news to report about Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino. The “Jersey Shore” star’s tanning salon, which just opened in 2014, was shut down by the landlord over unpaid rent.

Shame on you, Landlord, for ruining one of New Jersey’s finest establishments.

The state of affairs in the state of New Jersey, which I think should be the pride of our great nation but which is sometimes considered to be the zit on the face/facade that is America, is but a reflection of the hopeless future of this cruel world. Maybe that is why people want to take the seven-month-long journey to live on Mars without any hope of ever returning to this planet ever again.

Living on Mars is my worst nightmare. In fact, all forms of space travel seem like the worst level of Dante’s Inferno. I find space travel/the existence of space, which goes on infinitely (something the human brain — or maybe just mine — cannot comprehend) to be an upsetting subject. I would rather live on this rapidly deteriorating Earth!

This doesn’t mean I’m not interested in a fling with an extraterrestrial creature. But they’ve got to come to me.

For some time now it has been a convention — almost an obligation — among the sensitive, narcissistic literary types (of whom I am an unabashed member) to quote certain poems, even certain lines, in a tactic of romance. The aim is the flattery and self-endearment to some obscure object of desire. That object, as often as not a girl of similar pretentious and sensitive disposition, will not necessarily know that E.E. Cummings line, “No one, not even the rain, has such small hands.” They may not be familiar with the scene from “Hannah and Her Sisters” (1986) in which the bookish, bespectacled and sensitive Michael Cain marks out that exact line for recommendation to the titular sensitive and world-worn woman whom he covertly adores.

I, however, saw this movie many times, and in high school I saw older boys of my species pass notes bearing the “not even the rain” line to girls with glasses and French T-Shirts with whom they desperately desired to read aloud pages of Nabokov and Deleuze. Something about the image is so delicate, perfect and tender that no one could withstand its romantic power, even if the ulterior intentions for its delivery were laid bare and plain.

So, fully matured and in every last way grown to emulate that despicable stereotype that the world of vitriolic online cultural criticism has managed to pin down and eagerly title the “alt bro,” I would hardly surprise anyone who were to look into my textual activity and see that I scatter that line willy-nilly into the inboxes and Facebook chats of every such girl upon which my kind is reported to lustingly prey.

And yet not. Perhaps because the aforementioned world of vitriolic online cultural criticism does get something wrong from time to time (engaging that most dangerous game of articulating the ever-complex taxonomy of post-modern stereotypes), the propensity to quote Cummings at female aspiring English majors is not a thing I do. It’s not that I never find poetry a reliable promontory from which to cast forth filament after filament of nascent romantic hopes and affection, nor is it the case that I don’t find that one line as transcendentally exquisite as everyone else seems to. I just feel that it belongs to one person alone — and in an altogether different way — and that is my best friend, Nalini Tata.

I first met her during Dimensions. I happened to mention another college that was competing with Dartmouth for my matriculation, and she spoke up that her older brother had gone there. She was a slim girl, studded with two huge jewels for eyes that had bright shades of dark green like burning pine needles, deeper than all roses. She spoke in the quietest voice that made you lean way in the hear it — that made you feel close and trust her instantly.

She had, too, a cute way of biting into her lip (that she doesn’t even know about), one such apparently frail gesture that instantly unclosed me.

I have written recently about the Sisyphean pain of feeling people enter, exit and re-enter one’s life without any apparent reason. Nalini is the exception. From the moment she entered my life she has never left. She has brought with her unbelievable qualities of kindness and loyalty, taking my calls at an instant when I feel I am clinging to the last threads of life, knowing the ins and outs of my hopelessly knotted saga of love and despair, being the warm neck into which I can cry infinitely and upon whom I can pour the infinite love I struggle to keep down when not in her presence.

She left Dartmouth after freshman year, but we have managed to see each other every term since — sometimes multiple times a term.

I have met her parents, both so impressively kind and genuine that I have concluded they are angels. Only angels, after all, could raise such another angel and true friend as Nalini has been to me. Were all the vast privileges that decorate my life laid out before me, I would find few that make my life so splendid and worth living as the inclusion of Nalini — the unbroken hugs, singing together at the Lone Pine, the ceaseless stream of Snapchats of our respective cats (one of my cats, Penny, I officially made Nalini’s goddaughter). We are, I sometimes joke, each other’s human security blankets, or, to use another metaphor, binary stars that revolve around another — even at a great distance — bound by a gravity of pure affection.

Nalini is brilliant, and with her hands she will do such good work for the world as doctor.

But she is the therapy to so many other kinds of intangible sickness as well. No one can resist her power to better the lives of everyone she meets by being so sweet and so selfless. So much goodness is packed into her frame, so much of just one thing, something so strong and perfect. Nothing that we perceive in this world equals the power of such intense fragility.

She came up for Winter Carnival, and I stood with her before she boarded the Coach to go home, the snow carefully descending everywhere. In what could have been our hundredth farewell hug, I felt each petal of snow light on our hair and eyelashes and a rush of feeling unlike any other, crying and crying well after she was gone. I remembered how long it’s been since I first walked down West Wheelock Street with her, talking — how little I knew of what college had in store for me! Of all the things that were to come, Nalini proved to be the one unaltered and unsurpassable point of my happiness. Cummings’s poem — the most beautiful love poem in the world — is not just about her, it is her.

8// MIRROR

Where You Can Live With Whomever Gender-neutral housing represents one part of a larger campus dialogue on gender.

SPOTLIGHT

B y CAROLINE BERENS

At times, 2007 seems like the ancient past.

That year, the first iPhone was released, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” sold 15 million copies in 24 hours and, crucially, archaeologists uncovered a 2,100-year-old melon in Japan.

Gender issues were also coming under scrutiny on an enormous scale as Hillary Clinton became a leading presidential candidate. And while the outside world seemed tumultuous, a similar change was implemented in Hanover that would have significant and far-reaching impacts, although on a less massive scale than the possibility of a woman in the White House.

In the winter of 2007, then-dean of residential life Martin Redman said he was made aware, through his position as a senior administrator, that a Dartmouth non-discriminatory policy had recently been updated to include gender identity.

“Quite honestly much of that was simply due to the American public and institutional policies becoming current,” Redman, now the executive director of college houses and academic services at the University of Pennsylvania, said.

Redman also noted that Dartmouth administrators had already been discussing gender in terms of employee benefits.

“Healthcare issues related to same sex partners not being able to acquire health coverage was a big issue nationally in the late ’90s and 2000s,” he explained. “So the College was engaged in that conversation for employees and benefits.”

He also said that the student body expressed desires for support services and living environments not solely based on the “heterosexual norm.”

Redman approached his colleagues at the office of residential life, including director of undergraduate housing Rachael Class-Giguere, with thoughts about making Dartmouth’s housing more inclusive to adhere to the new policy.

“We decided that we had to look at that policy in regard to housing, because we clearly look at gender when making housing assignments,” Class-Giguere said.

Subsequently, a small committee formed to pursue implementing some form of genderneutral housing on Dartmouth’s campus. The committee included Redman, Class-Giguere, former assistant dean of student life and adviser to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students Pamela Misener and various other administrators and students.

The committee deliberated on offering the option of gender-neutral housing for students whose biological sex at birth didn’t necessarily match with their current gender identity.

Rather than making all housing gender-neutral, however, they also sought to maintain single-sex housing for other students.

“We also had students for whom having singlesex housing was very important for cultural, religious or personal reasons, so we didn’t want to completely throw away the gender binary for housing assignments,” Class-Giguere said.

Essentially, she said, they needed to find room for everybody.

The committee liked the idea of a genderneutral program floor, where people could engage in conversations about gender issues and form a community.

While the inclusion of an affinity-style program for gender-neutral housing seemed like a solution to many of the committee’s concerns, it wasn’t a silver bullet for solving questions of gender and student living. Class-Giguere said that the committee realized that there were people who wanted or needed the option of living in gender-neutral housing but may not necessarily be attracted to the idea of living on a program floor. Again, the committee needed to accommodate the needs of every student, reiterating the need for find room for everyone to be comfortable at Dartmouth.

In addition to concerns about creating affinity housing and students’ possible aversion to such a program, there was also the issue of the D-plan and its effect on student housing to consider.

“If we made too many rooms gender neutral for fall with all occupants agreeing to that and then in winter or spring term had more students returning who did not want that as a housing option, then how would we accommodate them on campus?” Redman said.

Thus, Redman explained, the committee started out slowly, implementing gender-neutral housing on only a few floors in certain buildings, trying to determine student interest before they did anything on a large scale.

Redman noted, however, that none of these obstacles threatened the possibility of having the housing, only the details of how it would materialize.

“I don’t think anyone saw real disadvantages, just logistical issues that needed to be resolved,” he said.

Taking all of this into consideration, the committee decided on forming a gender-neutral program in the ground floor of McLane Hall, and also provided gender-inclusive housing options in different buildings throughout campus.

Today, the possibility of students living together regardless of gender identity has expanded across campus to include the Ledyard apartments, the River apartments, the Lodge, Mid-Massachusetts Hall, Hitchcock Hall, Gile Hall, the East Wheelock cluster and two floors of New Hampshire Hall.

Class-Giguere said she was especially happy to add the Lodge and Mid-Mass to the list of gender-inclusive housing so that sophomores — who generally don’t have apartments or suites — could have the option in addition to the other classes.

“It should be something anyone can have, and not need to ask for special arrangements,” she said.

Buildings and floors other than these few follow policies based on the gender binary.

Class-Giguere said the committee expected there to be at least some controversy over the new housing policies — that people might think it was a bad idea or could be confused on what the housing constituted.

She noted that there were critical responses from two alums who didn’t understand the aims of the program. They thought, she said, that it was a chance for heterosexual couples to live together. While Class-Giguere notes that this is possible, it is not the intent of the program floor or gender-neutral housing in general.

Redman echoed Class-Giguere.

“As a diverse community in all ways, individuals have opinions,” he said. “Not all students were interested in this as a housing option for themselves. Certainly the same would hold true for some students’ parents.”

While there were individuals who seemed to misunderstand the program and its purpose, Redman noted that “‘controversy’ is too strong a word to use.”

Despite a few less-than-favorable reactions, Class-Giguere said that the overwhelming majority of people at Dartmouth were “receptive and happy” about the housing options, and its effects have reached far beyond providing gender-inclusive housing to students.

“I think the discussion about gender identity has continued to evolve and expand,” ClassGiguere said. “More and more people are comfortable discussing these issues, and that’s a great thing.”

Since implementing the gender-inclusive housing, attention to issues around gender and the concerns of LGBT students have continued on campus.

A few weeks after the gender-neutral housing options had been announced — and the applications for thefall housing were due — Dartmouth kicked off its first official PRIDE week at the end of April 2007.

Pam Misener, who sat on the gender-neutral committee, said to The Dartmouth at the time that there was sufficient acceptance of LGBT issues on campus at the time to enable most of the student body to participate in PRIDE week celebrations.

That fall, when the first groups of residents began living in the gender-neutral program floor and gender-inclusive housing, the organization at Dartmouth formerly known as the Gay Straight Alliance was renamed Gender Sexuality XYZ in hope of increasing its inclusivity of all gender identities and sexual orientations.

Furthermore, the past eight years have seen Dartmouth join IvyQ, a pan-Ivy community of LGBT students, hosting the conference for the first time this past fall.

Alongside this has been the founding of various groups for women empowerment and community like Link Up and Women’s Forum and the creation of Dartmouth Spectra, a group that seeks to enhance community among LGBT students by hosting social events.

A particularly noteworthy change was the implementation of the Triangle House, a living learning community with its own house that is centered around fostering discussion and awareness of LGBTQ+ issues and experiences, this past fall.

The Triangle House, however, brought new

challenges for original gender-neutral programming. Associate director of the Center for Gender and Student Engagement Michelle Hector explained that the gender-neutral program floor changed its name to the gender-equity program floor this past fall, due to Triangle House’s creation.

“The name was changed with the construction of Triangle House to highlight the different focus of each of the living learning communities,” Hector said.

The current gender-equity floor UGA, Gustavo Mercado Muñiz ’16, explained that the floor revamped this past fall to help distinguish it from Triangle House.

“We had to step up our game,” Mercado Muñiz said. “This term there’s more of an involved discussion. Residents are leading floor meetings [and] attending conferences about gender. There are higher expectations.”

Mercado Muñiz did note that the floor’s popularity in recent years could be somewhat attributed to the fact that the floor guarantees nice housing.

Founder and co-chair of Spectra Andrew McKee ’15 said that he never thought about living on the gender equity program floor, instead opting to live in the Triangle House.

“I wanted to live with people with an LGBTQ affiliation,” he said. “Just because the floor is gender-neutral doesn’t mean everyone on it will be LGBTQ-affiliated.”

Kristen Chalmers ’17, who began living on the gender-equity floor this winter, said that floor has a much stronger sense of community than other halls that only include upperclassmen.

“Having weekly meetings helps foster the sense of community,” Chalmers said.

Kelsey Weimer ’16, who lives on the gender equity program floor, said that one of the reasons she applied to live on the floor is because she wanted “a healthy dose of socially aware conversations.” Weimer praised affinity housing as a whole.

“In general affinity floors are really great and really beneficial for their respective student populations,” she said. “It’s also amazing to live in a mixed-gender floor, and something from which a lot of people can learn.”

Mercado Muñiz, who said that he has been questioning his own gender identity for a while, said that being a UGA on the floor has enhanced his own Dartmouth experience.

“Finding this floor has given me a place within the normally hectic Dartmouth life to fully question what it means to be male and to present as male,” Mercado Muñiz explained.

It’s clear that whether anticipated or not, the housing’s implementation has fanned out to affect Dartmouth in several ways.

“A lot more people than the College originally thought are interested in and affected by these topics, and having that space has definitely helped to increase visibility of gender issues on campus,” Mercado Muñiz said. “[It] has especially helped in terms of creating a safe space for those who don’t identity as male or female.”

SAMUEL HEATH/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF