VOL. CLXXVI NO. 117
SUNNY HIGH 14 LOW -9
OPINION
LETTER TO THE EDITOR: RESPONSE TO THE NYT PAGE 4
VERBUM ULTIMUM: AN EXPEDIENT DECISION PAGE 4
ARTS
REVIEW: ‘1917’ IS VISUALLY STIMULATING BUT LACKS EFFECTIVE SCREENPLAY PAGE 7
SPORTS
SKI TEAM HAS HOPES SET ON TITLE WITH AN IMPRESSIVE FRESHMAN CLASS PAGE 8 FOLLOW US ON
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COPYRIGHT © 2020 THE DARTMOUTH, INC.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2020
New app with focus on student mental health launches B y Pierce Wilson The Dartmouth
Dartmouth Unmasked, an anonymous social media mobile application focused on mental health, launched on iOS on Jan. 13. According to Dartmouth Unmasked founder Sanat Mohapatra ’20, he first had the idea for the app during his freshman spring, when many community members were using Yik Yak — a now defunct app on which users could post to anonymous message boards
Students learn lessons in counterterrorism in Middle East trip B y Caitlin MCCARTHY The Dartmouth
Over winter break, 12 students in the War and Peace Fellows Program — a program run through the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding that allows students to directly interact with leaders in government and foreign policy — traveled to Israel and the West Bank for a “field
College updates student org management system to Engage
viewable by anyone within a five-mile radius. Mohapatra recalled that when Yik Yak was popular on campus, some students would anonymously post about their mental health struggles at Dartmouth. After observing the effects of Yik Yak’s unmoderated nature, Mohapatra wanted to create a safer, more focused platform where peer support could take place. “Yik Yak wasn’t moderated, so people would respond very SEE UNMASKED PAGE 5
seminar” in counterterrorism. The students were accompanied by Dickey Center director Daniel Benjamin as well as War and Peace Studies program coordinator and government professor Benjamin Valentino. “My hope was for the students to appreciate just how complicated the conflict in the SEE WAR AND PEACE PAGE 3
HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE
OLYMPIA NAGEL-CALAND/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
The Council of Student Organizations held training sessions to assist with the transition to Engage.
B y DEBBY COBON The Dartmouth Staff
The College has replaced the online student organization management system OrgSync with Engage, effective this winter. The system allows student groups to manage records, store and share important documents, communicate with members, publicize events and track participation. While the change brings a modern upgrade to the College’s system, the transition led to some brief confusion — most of which was remedied by training for student organizations. According to director of student involvement Anna Hall, the College is one of the last universities to make the switch. Campus Labs, a company
which bought OrgSync in 2016, developed Engage as a platform to replace OrgSync. Because of the program being replaced, the College had no choice other than move to Engage, according to Hall. Program director of student life Steven King said the College waited to make the decision to ensure the platform would run as smoothly as possible. In order to support students with the transition, the Council of Student Organizations held a training session the first week of the term and offers open office hours. “At the beginning of each term, COSO has a big policy meeting where we review existing procedures like how to apply for funding,” Hall said. “Because of
the new system, we incorporated a training for leaders.” Hall noted that the training included a demonstration of the system, a highlight of the program’s features and an explanation of assistance available on campus to get help with the program. Hall said that she has witnessed minimal concerns from students so far and that many students seem to like the change. “Some students have just come in saying they need administrative access to their group pages because they have taken on a new leadership position and were not given that access in the fall,” Hall said. According to King, the SEE ENGAGE PAGE 3
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THE DARTMOUTH NEWS
FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2020
Rockefeller Center transitions to reusable cutlery for catered events B y Eliza Gallant
would be a good way to start.” Curtis said that she found replacing plastic cutlery with metal more The Rockefeller Center for Public logistically challenging than she had Policy recently transitioned to using originally thought. The Rockefeller only metal cutlery at all of its events Center did not have a dishwasher, and in order to reduce its plastic usage. according to Curtis, to pass health and With a large portion of meals at safety codes, the Center would have dining locations and catered events to work with other organizations on using disposable plastic cutlery, the campus. Curtis said she then reached transition to reusable cutlery marks a out to Class of 1953 Commons dining significant effort to reduce plastic waste manager Brandon Crosby for help with the initiative. on campus. “Brandon had a lot of great ideas This initiative was started last fall and was incredibly by Ellie Curtis ’22 supportive of the as a challenge for “I found that if you project,” Curtis the Rockefeller take the initiative, said. “I found that C e n t e r ’ s if you take the M a n a g e m e n t other people will go initiative, other and Leadership along with you and people will go Development match your energy on along with you and Program. match your energy A f t e r the problem you are on the problem attending her first trying to tackle.” you are trying to MLDP dinner, tackle.” Curtis said she Crosby said that realized how -BRANDON CROSBY, he realized that mu ch p l a s t i c ’53 Commons was silverware was ’53 COMMONS DINING storing cutlery that u s e d a t t h e MANAGER had been retired. event and chose He added that he to expand her personal goal of reducing plastic offered to donate 60 to 70 extra sets cutlery usage to the Rockefeller Center. of silverware to the Rockefeller Center She pitched the idea of purchasing or and to clean the silverware after borrowing metal cutlery for events to events. To enact Curtis’ initiative, the Rockefeller Center program officer Rockefeller Center had to buy a few Robin Frye and then got in touch with silverware carriers, which would be assistant program officer Bob Coates. used to bring sets of silverware to ’53 “I have always called myself an Commons to be cleaned and returned environmentalist, but I hadn’t always to the Center after events. This effort is not the first undertaken practiced what I preached,” Curtis said. “I thought that starting with by a College student to reduce plastic reducing my plastic silverware usage waste. Dartmouth Dining Services The Dartmouth
CORRECTIONS Correction appended (Jan. 16, 2020): The Jan. 16 article “Hanover Co-op phases out plastic bags at checkout” originally stated that starting Feb. 1, customers at the Hanover Co-op can purchase paper bags at 10 cents each. However, customers in Hanover will not be charged a per-bag fee; the state of Vermont does have a per-bag fee for retailers that will affect the Co-op’s White River Junction store starting in July. Additionally, the photograph for the article was originally labeled as a “Staff Photo,” but it was taken by Greg Hubbard and provided to The Dartmouth courtesy of the Hanover Co-op. We welcome corrections. If you believe there is a factual error in a story, please email editor@thedartmouth.com.
LORRAINE LIU/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
The Rockefeller Center will only use metal utensils in catered events in an effort to reduce waste.
began using “Green2Go” containers in 2017 to replace disposable take out containers. While the containers are used at both ’53 Commons and the Courtyard Cafe and have replaced the approximately 1,000 disposable containers DDS used before the program was enacted — the containers have presented their own challenges. According to Crosby, one of the biggest issues with the Green2Go program is that students fail to return the containers. With that issue in mind, Crosby expressed concern with similar issues for the metal cutlery. “The issue with offering metal cutlery to-go would be that students wouldn’t always return it and it is very expensive,” Crosby said. Crosby noted that while DDS sells sporks for students to use instead of disposable cutlery, few students have embraced the option. Curtis said that she believes this initiative will work well for other centers and organizations on campus that host events with catered food. Like Curtis, Sustainability Corps program manager Marcus Welker
expressed concern over plastic cutlery “A big issue is that the group that is usage on campus. According to Welker, buying the materials doesn’t also pay plastic cutlery is difficult to recycle for the waste to be managed,” Welker because of its size. said. “There is no direct incentive for “A material recovery facility is a dining to reduce the amount of plastic huge recycling sorting machine that silverware. There are a lot of systems is able to sort different materials from in sustainability that function like this one another,” Welker said. “However, with disconnects between behavior and plastic cutlery is outcome.” difficult to sort Sustainability because it is too “A big issue is that Corps waste and small, and so it the group that is materials Team will fall out of Lindsey buying the materials member the machine and Reitinger ’20 said will be sent to the doesn’t also pay that she believes landfill.” students can make for the waste to be Welker said more sustainable that one of the managed.” choices; however, biggest issues with they often do not out sustainability at of convenience. -MARCUS WELKER, the College is “A small amount the misaligned SUSTAINABILITY CORPS of inconvenience incentives with PROGRAM MANAGER can end up being recycling. He a big bar rier,” noted that those Reitinger said. “If who purchase plastic silverware on every student on campus uses three campus in bulk are not the ones pieces of disposable silverware a day, who pay for Dartmouth’s waste that is an incredible amount of waste management. that could be reduced.”
FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2020
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THE DARTMOUTH NEWS
Engage implementation Students toured West Bank, Golan still in first week FROM WAR AND PEACE PAGE 1
FROM ENGAGE PAGE 1
structure of OrgSync and Engage are fairly similar and the only major differences are in terminology. For example, what were called “umbrellas” on OrgSync are called “branches,” and “portals” are now “organizations.” “In terms of the structure, it’s pretty much the same, and the bulk of the components that existed in the portals are still there,” King said. King said that Engage has simplified and fixed a lot of the common issues students had with OrgSync. Students are also able to easily access the site by searching for ‘engage.dartmouth.edu,’ according to King. “In many ways, it’s streamlined how things work and how students can access their information.” Alisya Reza ’22 said she appreciates the organization and look of Engage. “It’s a prettier interface, and that makes navigating it kind of nicer,” Reza
said. “It’s not a big thing, but it is better to navigate when the page looks nice.” King said he was satisfied with students’ positive reactions. “With OrgSync, I would receive unsolicited feedback of how awful it was,” King said. “With Engage, I’ve been receiving unsolicited feedback about how much students like it, which has been a nice change.” Although students haven’t reported many concerns at this rate, the implementation of Engage is still in its first week. “It’s taking us a little bit of time to train everyone and make sure that students are where they need to be and have access to their organizations,” Hall said. “We’re all still learning how the system works and haven’t even fully seen how it works. However, if there is something students are hoping it can do or are not sure how to make something work, I encourage them to come in and see if we can help.”
Middle East is, and just how intertwined the problems are,” Benjamin said. The trip, which was organized in collaboration with the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya in Israel, connected Dartmouth students to different perspectives on counterterrorism through small-group meetings. The Interdisciplinary Center, a private research university, organized most of the trip’s events, including a day of lectures at the beginning of the trip as well as a half day of lectures at the end of the program. In between the lectures, Fellows traveled to the Golan Heights, Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip surrounding with experts from the Interdisciplinary Center. In addition, the Dickey Center coordinated a visit to the West Bank. During the trip, the group met with such experts as Justice Aharon Barak who served as attorney general of Israel and president of the Israeli Supreme Court. The students also met with Major General Nidal Abu Dukhan — commander of the Palestinian Authority’s National Security Forces in the West Bank — Noga Tarnopolsky, a freelance journalist reporting on the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and former director general of Mossad Shabtai Shavit. In Ramallah, the group met with Palestinian students at the Arab American University and Ibrahim Jibril Dalasha, executive director of the Horizon Center for Political Studies and Media Outreach. Lucas Bienstock ’20, one of the participants, said he appreciated “the fact that we had everything from academia to military to intelligence to news on both sides of the issue, not just Israel but Palestine, as it related to counterterrorism.” Sydney Kamen ’19, who also went on the trip, said that the group was supposed to travel to Gaza but the trip was dropped due to security reasons. Despite the lack of travel to Gaza, Kamen said she was impressed by how much the trip accomplished in a short period — all of which helped her understand the complex issues in the region better. “When you gain any kind of realistic exposure outside of the classroom you realize how much more complicated an issue is,” Kamen said. Carson Smith ’20, who had traveled previously to Washington, D.C. and Qatar with the War and Peace Fellows
program, noted his satisfaction with the trip. Smith said that he was particularly impressed with the opportunity to meet key figures such as Shabtai Shavit and Barak. “[Barak] also was the negotiating lead at Camp David, which is one of the most influential foreign policy events of the 20th century,” Smith said. “To have undergrads get that kind of access to these types of figures doesn’t really happen in a lot of other universities in the country.” The War and Peace Fellows program operates independently of any academic department, and attendees of the trip had majors including geography, mathematics, Middle Eastern studies and government. The trip was paid for by anonymous donors, according to Valentino. Valentino said that the program has about 50 members and offers opportunities for members to personally connect with speakers that visit campus. “The students really get a lot out of [the program] in terms of learning about major issues in international affairs and coming into contact with really an extraordinary array of people in places of great responsibility,” Benjamin said.
COURTESY OF BENJAMIN VALENTINO
The War and Peace Fellows visited Jerusalem during the trip.
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FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2020
THE DARTMOUTH OPINION
DIANA WHITNEY ’95
THE DARTMOUTH EDITORIAL BOARD
Letter to the Editor: Response to the NYT Verbum Ultimum: An Expedient Decision
We are disturbed by The Dartmouth’s reporting on the New York Times story about the tragic suicide of Professor David Bucci. The angle of the Times’ piece was misguided and regressive: Its narrative missed the nuances of mental health and the institutional failures of Dartmouth College, while perpetuating harmful victim-blaming. The nine student-victims in the Psychological and Brain Sciences Department courageously sought legal remedies to address the longstanding abuses of their predatory professors. Calling their class action lawsuit a “scorched-earth legal strategy” (as Times reporter Anemona Hartocollis did) is a classic example of what Dr. Jennifer Freyd terms DARVO (Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender). Rather than condemn the plaintiffs, the Times should have analyzed the actions and inactions of Dartmouth leadership and counsel as they sought to minimize liability at all costs. As members of the advocacy group Dartmouth Community against Gender Harassment & Sexual Violence, we believe the Times and The Dartmouth owe it to the victims to consider how the perpetrators themselves
DEBORA HYEMIN HAN, Editor-in-Chief
— and the denials, misrepresentations and silences of powerful institutions like Dartmouth — create concentric ripples of suffering. Both of these news stories neglect to recognize that by protecting only its reputation, Dartmouth repeatedly failed to protect the individuals in its community, students and faculty alike. Stan Colla ’66, Hanover, NH Ruth Cserr ’88, Orford, NH Lydia Lazar ’81, Chicago, IL Carol Muller ’77, Palo Alto, CA Veronica Wessels ’81, Ottawa, ON, Canada Diana Whitney ’95, Brattleboro, VT
The writers are members of the Dartmouth Community against Gender Harassment & Sexual Violence and alumni of the College. The Dartmouth welcomes guest columns and letters to the editor. We request that they be the original work of the submitter. Letters should not be longer than 250 words and must include the name, location and contact information of the author. Submissions may be sent to both opinion@thedartmouth.com and editor@thedartmouth. com. Submissions will receive a response within three business days.
AIDAN SHEINBERG, Publisher
ALEX FREDMAN, Executive Editor PETER CHARALAMBOUS, Managing Editor
PRODUCTION EDITORS TEDDY HILL-WELD & MATTHEW MAGANN, Opinion Editors KYLEE SIBILIA & NOVI ZHUKOVSKY, Mirror Editors ADDISON DICK & JUSTIN KRAMER & LILI STERN, Sports Editors LEX KANG & LUCY TURNIPSEED, Arts Editors NAINA BHALLA & LORRAINE LIU, Photo Editors SAMANTHA BURACK & BELLA JACOBY, Design Editors GRANT PINKSTON, Templating Editor JESS CAMPANILE, Multimedia Editor
ANTHONY ROBLES, Managing Editor
BUSINESS DIRECTORS JONNY FRIED & JASMINE FU Advertising & Finance Directors HIMADRI NARASIMHAMURTHY & KAI SHERWIN Business Development Directors ALBERT CHEN & ELEANOR NIEDERMAYER Strategy Directors VINAY REDDY & ERIC ZHANG Marketing, Analytics and Technology Directors
ELIZA JANE SCHAEFFER, Social Media Editor WILLIAM CHEN & AARON LEE, Data Visualization Editors
ISSUE LAYOUT PIERCE WILSON SUBMISSIONS: We welcome letters and guest columns. All submissions must include the author’s name and affiliation with Dartmouth College and
should not exceed 250 words for letters or 700 words for columns. The Dartmouth reserves the right to edit all material before publication. All material submitted becomes property of The Dartmouth. Please email submissions to editor@thedartmouth.com.
Binding commitment warps the application process.
This past December, the College offered admission to some 547 early decision applicants for the Class of 2024. These applicants applied under a binding agreement — if accepted, they had no choice but to attend Dartmouth. While this admission cycle’s numbers are a slight decrease from the 574 students admitted through early decision last year, they are still startlingly high; the College admits almost half of its freshman class through early decision. For the Class of 2022, early-decision admits made up 49 percent of the incoming class. This trend is consistent with practices in the rest of the Ivy League — but that doesn’t make it a good idea. Early decision traces its routes back to the so-called “ABC system,” an admissions process used in the 1950s by Harvard, Yale and Princeton. Admissions officers would visit a few elite New England prep schools and assign A, B or C ratings to students according to the likelihood of their admission. Crucially, this special line of admission was only available to students at the most elite high schools in the country. To compete with the ABC system, Dartmouth joined with a number of other colleges in the late 1950s to introduce early decision. As time went on and preferential admissions for the elite became less palatable, the justification for early decision changed. The baby boomer generation had already gone through college and applicant pools were shrinking. Schools began to justify their early-decision programs as a means to offer admission to a reasonable number of applicants who where most likely to attend their institution. Since then, and as the college admissions process has become increasingly competitive, early decision programs have remained — particularly as a means for elite institutions to select high-quality candidates without fear that another school could pillage their incoming class. Yield rate — the percent of accepted students who attend — is a key statistic in many college rankings, and it’s no secret that a large early decision class helps bump a school up in the U.S. News & World rankings. As such, early applicants get in at a higher rate. Perhaps, as some admissions officials claim, early acceptance rates are higher due to a higher average quality of early applicants. But as early as 2000, researchers from
Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government found that across 14 selective colleges, an early-decision application gave an advantage comparable to an extra 100 points out of 1600 on the SAT. People paid attention; the former editor of U.S. News urged the 10 most selective schools in 2001 — Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Stanford, Yale, Brown, CalTech, MIT, Dartmouth and Georgetown — to take five years off from early decision programs in order to determine whether the programs had any real merit. There are a number of reasons why a student might choose not to apply to a school through a binding agreement. Chief among them, at least when considering ability to actually attend, is that students might want to compare the different financial aid packages offered by all of the schools that they might be able to get into. While Dartmouth deliberately states that any student who does not receive sufficient financial aid may be released from an early decision agreement, applying early still prevents a student from exploring aid offers from comparable institutions. In 2006, both Harvard and Princeton announced plans to eliminate their early application programs for students entering college in 2008. Each school explicitly stated that their decision was based on a desire to level the playing field for students who needed to wait to compare their financial aid packages before they could make a decision — a move which was comparatively less risky for the two Ivies due to their consistently high yield rates. But after a few admissions cycles, both universities determined that they needed some form of early admission to compete with the early options offered by other schools. Harvard and Princeton decided to implement a restrictive early action program, which functions like early decision save for a key difference: admission is non-binding, and students can still apply to other schools during the regular application process and compare financial aid. Restrictive early action has hardly reduced Harvard and Princeton’s early application yields; Harvard maintains the single highest admissions yield rate in America. In 2006, this Editorial Board recommended that the College move away from binding early decision — and that was before SEE VERBUM PAGE 6
FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2020
THE DARTMOUTH NEWS
PAGE 5
Dick’s House, Student Wellness Center directors helped with app FROM UNMASKED PAGE 1
violently and negatively, and there were a lot of trolls,” Mohapatra said. “I spent a lot of my freshman spring on Yik Yak trying to help people through their issues, so that made me very aware that Yik Yak is not a good forum for mental health.” In aiming to fix the problems associated with Yik Yak, Mohapatra said that he and the team of developers have implemented measures to ensure that Dartmouth Unmasked remains a safe, supportive environment, free of trolls and bullying. “Obviously, it allows students to be more honest, but because of trolls or the potential of people to just post without consequence, we developed a whole other side of the app that’s for moderators,” said Jenna Salvay ’20, a member of the Unmasked leadership team. According to Salvay, all of the moderators underwent student support training in collaboration with Dick’s House and the Student Wellness Center. Furthermore, moderators are able to identify and communicate with trolls, as well as remove harmful content from the app. Mohapatra said that the app features “community flagging,” which allows a post to be taken down if three or more users flag it. He added that because users sign in with their Dartmouth NetIDs, if a user is banned for being a “troll,” that same user cannot make another account to continue trolling since each student has only one NetID. “We also think that having the specific focus [of] being a mental health platform kind of dissuades trolls, whereas like if it’s just a general message board you can just say whatever, and it’s funny to troll,” Mohapatra said. “But with the community so far, now that the app has been out, has been very focused on being supportive.” Mohapatra said that within the first 24 hours of the Unmasked’s launch, 246 users signed up, and the app received 64 posts and 248 comments. Mohapatra added that in those first 24 hours, users discussed issues of self-harm, rape, severe anxiety, OCD
and hypochondria, among others. Because Dartmouth Unmasked is an independent corporation, it cannot officially refer students to College resources such as Dick’s House counseling or the Student Wellness Center due to liability concerns, Mohapatra said. However, the app does include links to dozens of anonymous public hotlines, and students can refer one another to Dartmouth resources. Additionally, Dick’s House director Heather Earle and Student Wellness Center director Caitlin Barthelmes have been advisers on the project since it began. The app has undergone several phases of development. Mohapatra first started developing the app when he applied to DALI Lab as an independent partner his sophomore spring. From there, he worked with a DALI Lab team, then a team of independent developers in India, and — for the final stage of the app — a small group of volunteer student developers at Dartmouth who had an interest in the project. LORRAINE LIU/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF According to Mohapatra, the app also underwent beta testing, which Founder Sanat Mohapatra ’20 said he first developed the idea for the app his freshman year. helped developers realize the need for moderators. According to one of the developers, Soo Hwan Park ’19, the Android version of the app is currently under development, but the developer team does not currently have a timeline on when it will go live. “We just launched a few days ago, and we’re starting with the Dartmouth campus, but we hope to go beyond Hanover and New Hampshire — and hopefully this can be like the next big thing that can help with hidden mental health issues everywhere,” Park said. Salvay said she feels that Unmasked fills a gap in Dartmouth’s existing mental health resources and is excited to see how the app can help students. “When I was a sophomore in the fall, I was going through a tough time, and the only resource I wanted was to be able to talk to other students without feeling like I had to make an appointment at Dick’s House or talk to an adult who might not necessarily know what I’m going through,” Salvay said.
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DARTMOUTHEVENTS
FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2020
THE DARTMOUTH EVENTS
RESOLUTIONS VS. REALITY
CECILIA MORIN ’21
TODAY 6:30 p.m. – 7:15 p.m.
Artist Talk: “Martha Graham’s Artistic Legacy.” Sponsored by the Hopkins Center, Top of the Hop.
7:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.
Film: “The Lighthouse.” Sponsored by the Hopkins Center, Visual Arts Center 104 Loew Auditorium.
7:30 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.
Film: “Ford v. Ferrari.” Sponsored by the Hopkins Center, Spaulding Auditorium.
TOMORROW 2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Performance: “Martha Graham Dance Company.” Sponsored by the Hopkins Center, Moore Theater.
7:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.
Film: “Mountainfilm on Tour.” Sponsored by the Hopkins Center, Spaulding Auditorium.
8:00 p.m. – 11:00 p.m.
Performance: “WiRED: The 24-Hour Playwriting Experience.” Sponsored by the Department of Theater, produced by Nishanth Chalsani ’20, Bentley Theater. FROM VERBUM PAGE 4
Harvard and Princeton announced their proposed changes. That editorial prompted a response from then-dean of admissions Karl Furstenberg, who argued in a guest column in The Dartmouth that his office was not any less selective with early applicants than those who chose the regular deadline. At that point, only 35 percent of the incoming class was admitted through early decision. Interestingly, Furstenberg also argued that early action programs could raise the size of the applicant pool and drive down acceptance rates, and that students appealed financial aid at similar rates regardless of which pool they were admitted from. But it’s hard to account for high schoolers who may have foregone an early decision application to better weigh their financial options or those who simply did not have the time or resources to fully explore the educational opportunities they were interested in. None of this implies that there is
something inherently bad about those students who enter their senior year set on pursuing a life in Hanover. But wanting to commit to the College as your first choice does not necessitate an early decision program, and could be substituted with a number of alternative mechanisms that would still encourage prospective students to declare their interest early and often in a way that does not advantage them unnecessarily. Dartmouth’s peer universities have already turned away from early decision. It’s time that Dartmouth does the same. If yield rates are such a pressing concern, then the College should switch to restrictive early action. But by no means should the College continue to raise its yield statistics through a process that prioritizes financial means and an amorphous concept of “commitment” over real merit. The editorial board consists of the opinion editors, the executive editor and the editor-inchief.
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FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2020
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THE DARTMOUTH ARTS
Review: ‘1917’ is visually stimulating but lacks effective screenplay B y WILLEM GERRISH
though a few sly tricks move time forward while you’re focused on The Dartmouth Staff other details. I can now say that I Thanks to surprise wins for Best retrospectively approve of Mendes’ Director and Best Motion Picture — Best Director Golden Globe, and Drama at the Golden Globes, Sam I wouldn’t be surprised to see him Mendes’ bold cinematic experience repeat at the Oscars, hopefully with “1917” has been a buzzy film, the appropriate credit for Deakins garnering a spike in attention it in the cinematography category as hopes to carry into the Oscars in well. February. Set during World War I A film is made up of more than and focusing on two British soldiers its visual elements, though, and this in the trenches of France, “1917” is where “1917” begins to drop in is shot and edited to look like one quality. The plot is good enough: take. This is much like Alejandro The British army enlists a soldier, G. Iñárritu’s masterful 2015 Oscar Blake, and his friend, Schofield, winner for Best Motion Picture to deliver an overnight message of the Year, “Birdman.” Unlike that will stop a British attack from “Birdman,” though, “1917,” lacks walking into a German trap. Upper a scintillating script or multifaceted command chooses Blake because of characters, but it makes up for some a vested interest in the matter — of that loss with the sheer grandeur his brother is one of the soldiers of its cinematic vision. who is about to charge out of the Mendes, already a brilliant trench and into certain death and director in his own they know Blake right, enlists the help “The effect is a will undertake this of the legendary for the sake film that pulls you mission Ro g e r D e a k i n s of family. Schofield as his director of into its grasp and is the unlucky p h o t o g r a p hy — doesn’t relent until partner of choice, and the two of and he initially them treat “1917” the final credits resents Blake for as a sandbox for roll, feeling like dragging him along astounding visual on what could very it unfolds in real gymnastics. Liquid well be a suicide a n d e n g ro s s i n g, time.” mission. the camerawork Inevitable is certainly a bonding ensues, magnetic factor for the film. In of course, but much of it falls one instance, the cameras show flat. Drawing out human depth in viewers a character floating down characters embroiled in combat a river and over a waterfall, and in is often a challenge in war films, another, Deakins tracks a frantic but it’s been done well in the past, escape through a shattered French most notably in Steven Spielberg’s town lit only by overhead flares. landmark “Saving Private Ryan.” The effect is a film that pulls you “1917” has a twofold problem into its grasp and doesn’t relent of an inferior script — Mendes’ until the final credits roll — feeling writing has never been a selling like it unfolds in real time, even point — and an inherent focus on
action. The movie is very much a film about motion, which forces any sort of character development into the realm of an afterthought. You could make the argument that well-crafted characters and writing aren’t the point of a movie like “1917,” and that’s certainly true, but it doesn’t make it a better movie, per se — just a movie that lived up to its own ambitions. I also have a bone to pick with the whole one-shot gimmick, as much as I love the concept and the fact that its execution is near-impeccable in “1917.” The problem is that “1917” would be a better movie, at least in a classical sense, without the narrative limitations of a single shot. The one-shot idea creates the necessity for down moments, as life that unfolds in real time doesn’t jump from scene to scene but follows natural lulls between excitement. The way to make up for the problem is with invigorating dialogue — I’m thinking of “Birdman” once again — so that quiet moments still sizzle. Because characters and dialogue are a natural weakness of “1917,” the one-shot method actually
enhances the film’s flaws. Deakins and Mendes could have still achieved their masterful scenes without threading them together into one continuous shot, and in this way, the cinematography would have dazzled without the creeping boredom of the film’s slow moments. And then there’s the acting. Mendes makes the intriguing choice to cast two relative unknowns — George MacKay and Dean-Charles Chapman — in the two lead roles, and then populate the extras with some bona fide acting talents. Colin Firth, Benedict Cumberbatch and Andrew Scott all make brief appearances. I admire the effort to subvert expectations, but star power is a genuine factor, and instances like Cumberbatch’s two minutes of riveting screen time make the dearth of experienced talent in the lead roles feel like a mistake — or at least a lost opportunity. “1917” emerges as a movie with impressive features, namely t h e d i r e c t i n g, e d i t i n g a n d cinematography. But it lacks some of the essential aspects of film that extend beyond the visual and the
aural — writing and acting, or at least proper dispersion of acting. Its nomination for Best Original Screenplay at the Oscars is a headscratcher and its Oscar nomination for Best Picture feels slightly overblown but understandable in the 10-film category. Where it deserves attention is in its technical features, and I expect Deakins to reap the rewards of his work — while Mendes faces some tough competition but may well emerge victorious. I can only hope that “1917” doesn’t take home a Best Picture Oscar next month, as it doesn’t exhibit the fullness of cinema that the category demands. Don’t let that sway you from going to see “1917,” though. It’s worth a watch, especially in a real movie theater where the sights and sounds consume you. My advice: let them. Allow the movie to swallow you and enjoy the way it uses its technical virtuosity to encapsulate 18 hours on the brutal battlefields of World War I. The faults may drag it down, but not enough to nullify what is a true achievement in grandiose cinema.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2020
THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS
PAGE 8
SPORTS
Ski team has hopes set on title with an impressive freshman class B y caitlyn mcgovern The Dartmouth Staff
Dartmouth’s ski team will hit the slopes this weekend for its first races of the season. Last season, the Big Green finished in fourth place at the NCAA Championships and won its third-straight Eastern Intercollegiate Ski Association title. Brayton Osgood, the men’s Nordic head coach, is looking forward to the team improving its consistency and depth this season. “Compared to last year, I think we should improve upon our depth,” Osgood said. “We are looking to have more skiers and more of the team finishing in the top 10, top 20 and top 30 in each race. And having everybody contributing and being part of that scoring group.” John Dwyer, the women’s alpine skiing head coach, is confident in the team as it heads into its first competition of the season. “I feel like our team is solid top to bottom in both slalom and in [grand slalom], so between the ability and then the leadership I think those are our greatest strengths,” Dwyer said. “We should do quite well this year.” While the team has been training hard throughout the fall and early winter, Osgood predicts that it is going to be a close season in the EISA; however, he thinks this year’s batch of freshmen may help the team rise in the ranks. “They came in from the first day of fall practice and brought the level of the training group up,” Osgood said. “The training pace and focus has been higher, which has generally been a good thing. They’re pushing the upperclassmen, and they’re ready to step right in and also contribute when it comes to a scoring and results
perspective.” With Tanguy Nef ’20 leaving the Big Green to compete with the Swiss National Team, this year’s incoming class will add important depth to the team. Two men’s freshman Nordic skiers in particular, Cam Wolfe ’23 and Alex Nemeth ’23, will be making their Big Green debuts this winter. Wolfe narrowly missed finishing in the top 50 at the U.S. National Championships this year, while Nemeth had an excellent fall training, according to Osgood. Dwyer noted Abi Jewett ’22, Gwen Wattenmaker ’23 and Bri Trudeau ’23 as underclassmen to look out for this season. Jewett is a member of the U.S. Ski Team, and Wattenmaker will be racing in this weekend’s carnival, according to Dwyer. “I think they should do fine,” Dwyer said. “I mean we have a lot of veterans right now on the team that are really, really good skiers, and the freshmen have a lot to learn from them, but overall they should do just fine. I think they’ll definitely contribute and play a significant role on the team for sure.” Katharine Ogden ’21 — the two-time reigning United States Collegiate Ski Coaches Association Women’s Nordic Skier of the Year — will be returning to the team this winter. She said she sees this year’s team as a cohesive group with the potential to succeed together. “I think that we are, as a team, in a really good place in terms of team dynamics and team culture,” Ogden said. “I think we have a really positive community-esque feeling on our team — which is something that we’ve been working really hard to achieve — and I think that’s something that we’re looking forward to and hoping to have that translate
into our racing as well.” Ogden is a decorated veteran of the team — her list of accomplishments also includes three personal national championships and four All-America First-Team selections — and is optimistic going into the season. “In terms of our Nordic team specifically, I think that our strengths are definitely in some of our longer races,” Ogden said. “I think our team as a whole really does well on especially the 15k to 20k races, and I also think that we are really lucky because our coach/wax tech, [Osgood] and [women’s Nordic skiing head coach Cami Thompson Graves], are really good at waxing, so I think another strength of ours is definitely going to be the class skiing days because they are so good at giving us a really good kick for those days.” The team recently traveled to the beautiful Silver Star Mountain in British Columbia, Canada, for its two-week long December training trip, according to Ogden. Ogden said she was not in attendance because she was racing in the U.S. SuperTour, a professional ski circuit that determines who qualifies for the World Cup. The team will find itself traveling more often this winter, as Dartmouth’s Winter Carnival will be carnival-less. “This is probably the first year in over 100 years that we haven’t been on the calendar,” Osgood said. “The EISA ... has recently changed the way that hosts are allotted for each season.” Osgood explained that there are 11 schools in the EISA but only six race weekends. Dartmouth, Middlebury College and the University of Vermont have historically always been on the race calendar, but
Osgood said that this past fall other teams in the league applied pressure to the EISA to change its carnival rotation rule. As a result, schools now have the opportunity to host only three out of every five years, meaning Dartmouth will not have a home race this season. While the Dartmouth Skiway will not be hosting any EISA events this season, Ogden is looking forward to traveling to other carnivals, particularly this weekend’s season opener. “I always love the opening carnival, just because everyone is so jazzed up and ready to go, and there’s so much good energy, good people you haven’t seen in a while
on other teams, which is really cool,” Ogden said. Both Ogden and Dwyer noted their enthusiasm for the Vermont Carnival, which will take place on Jan. 24 and Jan. 25 in Stowe and Craftsbury, VT. The season starts this weekend with the Harvard Carnival in Craftsbury, VT and Waterville, ME. “We’re just really excited to be into Carnival season and racing,” Osgood said. “This is something we’ve been preparing for since May, and it’s nice to finally get out on snow in the competitions that people have highlighted as the biggest ones of the season and be ready to go and see where we stack up.”
COURTESY OF KATHARINE OGDEN
Ogden headlines a strong Dartmouth roster in defense of the EISA title.