The Dartmouth Winter Carnival Special Issue 2020

02.07.2020

VOL. CLXXVI NO. 131

The Dartmouth

@THEDARTMOUTH / WWW.THEDARTMOUTH.COM ARTWORK BY SAMANTHA BURACK AND BELLA JACOBY

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2020

THE DARTMOUTH WINTER CARNIVAL ISSUE

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EDITORS’ NOTE

Table of Contents Legacy admissions has a complicated history at selective schools

3

College, PBS department see changes after class action lawsuit

4

Second College Grant provides enterprise, recreation for Dartmouth 5 Opinions differ on state of House system

5

‘It felt very much like a punishment’: Medical leave at Dartmouth

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Gap years offer opportunities to explore passions, take a break

7

Students balance classwork and extracurriculars with campus jobs

8

Verbum Ultimum: Good Terms for Interns

9

Levy: Still in Crisis?

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Khanna: The Necessity of a Natural Education?

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Many students take advantage of College’s study abroad options

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Q&A with Safety and Security officer Teddy Willey

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LORRAINE LIU/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

Stewardship or Stagnation?

As we enter into a new decade, it is crucial that we consider what should be cared for at Dartmouth, and what should be phased out. In this year’s Winter Carnival Special Issue, we’ve chosen to examine stories with deep roots and long lives in the consciousness of the College. What traditions and ideas deserve our mindful preservation for future generations, and what vestiges are stunting our growth?

Stewardship takes both the humility to keep what works and the confidence to change what doesn’t for the better. Stagnation happens when bad practices become tradition and remain unexamined by their inheritors. At an institution with as long a history of achievements as failures, understanding the difference is more important than ever.

Growth is a slow process that can’t be measured in four-year college careers, but the stewardship of the College deserves an occasional thought to the long view. We hope the articles in this issue achieve that end.

Sincerely, Chantal and Savannah

DEBORA HYEMIN HAN, Editor-in-Chief

AIDAN SHEINBERG, Publisher

ALEX FREDMAN, Executive Editor CHANTAL ELIAS, Special Issue 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 ELIZA JANE SCHAEFFER, Social Media Editor WILLIAM CHEN & AARON LEE, Data Visualization Editors

SAVANNAH ELLER, Special Issue 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

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2020

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Legacy admissions has a complicated history at selective schools

SAMANTHA BURACK AND ZOE CHEN/THE DARTMOUTH

Among Ivy League institutions, Dartmouth College and Princeton University recorded the lowest percentage of legacy enrollments for the Class of 2023.

B y emily zhang The Dartmouth Staff

In 2014, Johns Hopkins University made waves when it ceased legacy preferences in its admissions process — reflecting a growing nationwide attitude of resistance toward the practice.

But at Dartmouth, as well as other highly selective schools, legacy status has had, and continues to have, a noticeable presence in admissions.

In contrast to the stark change in Johns Hopkins legacy admission policies, dean of admissions and financial aid Lee Coffin wrote in an email statement to The Dartmouth that the College has not changed its legacy admission practices over the past decade.

This past year, roughly 12 percent of the incoming Class of 2023 are legacy students. Though Coffin wrote that “[legacy] relationship is considered as one factor among many in our holistic evaluation process,” former dean of admissions and financial aid Maria Laskaris ’84 wrote in a 2011 article in the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine that legacy applicants not only receive “at least one additional review in this process,” but also are admitted at a rate “two-and-a-half times greater than the overall rate of admission.”

Laskaris noted in the article that “it’s never easy to turn away the children of Dartmouth alumni.”

Dartmouth is not unique among its peer institutions in legacy admission practices, and many U.S. colleges herald it as a longstanding tradition. A study by Purdue University found out that Dartmouth was the first college to start the practice of legacy preference in

1922, as “part of a much larger nativist response to the growing presence of religious minorities who did not share the nation’s Protestant heritage.”

Today, though a number of universities — such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the California Institute of Technology and the University of California Berkeley — either abandoned or never adopted the preference for legacy applicants, a greater number of schools still retain this long-established preference for legacy students. For the enrolled Class of 2023, Dartmouth recorded the lowest percentage of legacy enrollments of the Ivy League, while Cornell University had the highest percentage of legacy students that year with 16.7 percent, followed by Princeton University with 14 percent.

Enrollment data published by Dartmouth’s Office of Institutional Research document an initial increase in the percentage of legacy student enrollments at the beginning of the millennium, followed by a overall decreasing trend starting in 2014.

From 2000 to 2013, the proportion of legacy students grew from around eight percent to 14 percent, with a notable 35-percent jump in the number of legacy students from 2009 to 2010.

Starting from 2014, the proportion of enrolled legacy students began to gradually decline, from over 13 percent in 2014 to around 12 percent in 2019.

As Johns Hopkins president Ronald Daniels wrote in a recent article in The Atlantic magazine, “Defenders often argue that legacy preferences are a powerful tool to strengthen multigenerational bonds within a university community.” For institutions like Johns Hopkins, Daniels said these

schools rely on a strong network of dedicated alumni for counsel, outreach and support.

Similarly, at Dartmouth, legacy preferences has played a crucial role in fostering a sense of community for alumni and students across generations.

“Dartmouth alumni are very passionate about their alma mater and that generational connection to the College is an important element of the Dartmouth community,” Coffin wrote.

Nevertheless, from the perspective of current legacy students at Dartmouth, their legacy identity does not necessarily boost their sense of community on campus. For example, Talia Pikounis ’22, whose mother, uncle and aunt went to Dartmouth, said she values her family connection to the school, in the sense that they share many common topics regarding their college experiences. But she said that her actual Dartmouth experience has not depended much on her family’s connection to the school.

“When [my family] visits, they can go to their old dorms,” Pikounis said. “I led a First-Year Trip and my uncle led a First-Year Trip, so we can talk about how much it changed. But I don’t think it means I have more of a community here than anybody else. As soon as you get to Dartmouth, it really doesn’t matter whether you are a legacy or not.

Everyone finds a community here, and people don’t look at you as ‘Oh,you are a legacy’ versus you are not.”

Many colleges believe that legacy preferences drive alumni donations.

A Harvard University committee that sought to examine the school’s admissions practices concluded

that ending legacy preferences would “diminish this vital sense of engagement and support” from its alumni’s “generous financial support.”

Nevertheless, a study that compared legacy admissions and alumni giving across the top 100 national universities found that “the presence of legacy preference does not result in significantly higher alumni giving.” According to the study, the data demonstrates a strong correlation between alumni giving and legacy preferences, but only prior to controlling for wealth. This suggests that the greater alumni giving comes from elite colleges’ ability to “overselect from their own wealthy alumni population.”

Dartmouth vice president of development Andrew Davidson said that his office does not track statistics on legacy donors — for example, whether legacy donors give more or give at a higher rate — and declined to comment further.

Admissions Ambassador program director Margaret Lysy ’99, who is in charge of alumni interviews in the admission process, said that knowledge of an applicant’s legacy status is not passed to any alumni interviewers.

To avoid any conflict of interest with alumni interviewers, if alumni volunteers have children applying to Dartmouth a certain year, the Alumni office doesn’t work with them that year.

In an email statement to The Dartmouth, Johns Hopkins vice provost of admissions and financial aid David Phillips wrote that the preference for legacy applicants hinders the inclusiveness of their college community, as the unfair advantage given to legacy applicants precludes the admission of equally or more qualified

students from lower socioeconomic statuses without legacy connection.

Phillips wrote that in 2009, Johns Hopkins’ entering class had more legacy students (12.5 percent) than students who qualified for Pell Grants (9 percent). Having eliminated legacy preferences, only 3.5 percent of this year’s freshman class has a legacy connection and 19.1 percent is Pelleligible.

“Ending the practice of legacy admissions has accelerated our work of recruiting and matriculating students from all walks of life who demonstrate the academic rigor and exceptional talent we expect of all Hopkins students,” Phillips wrote. “[It] is one important step in the process of building a more socio-economically diverse student body.”

Conversely, for many people, the higher admissions rate for legacy students is understandable. For instance, a non-legacy student, Jiayuan Liu ’23, said she believes the higher legacy admissions rate is not necessarily an unfair advantage given to those applicants during the admissions process.

“Graduates of Dartmouth College typically have a higher educational background than people in general, so I guess it is more likely for their children to receive better educational opportunities and achievement compared to students from a middle or lower class family,” Liu said. “Even if our [legacy admissions] rate is higher, it can just be a result of [those applicants] being more qualified.”

Director of admissions Paul Sunde and representatives from the Development Office declined to comment for this story.

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FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2020

College, PBS department see changes after class action lawsuit

MICHAEL LIN/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

Moore Hall houses the psychological and brain sciences department.

B y AMBER BHUTTA The Dartmouth Staff

In the aftermath of the federal class action lawsuit that brought forth allegations of years of sexual misconduct by three former professors in the psychological and brain sciences department, the Dartmouth community has experienced a number of changes.

In November 2018, seven students — both current and former — sued the College, claiming that it had ignored over 16 years of sexual harassment by former professors Todd Heatherton, William Kelley and Paul Whalen of the PBS department.

Two additional plaintiffs joined the suit in May 2019. This past August, the College and the plaintiffs reached a settlement, which was preliminarily approved by the judge last week.

The settlement includes a $14-million compensation for the current plaintiffs along with any other current or former student who can attest to having experienced sexual harassment by the three professors.

The settlement also sets aside a number of provisions on behalf of the College to prevent future incidents.

It includes a pledge to add two more members to the Campus Culture and Climate Initiative’s external advisory board and a commitment to use the provost’s diversity recruitment fund to hire faculty with experience in gender-based discrimination and violence.

The settlement also reaffirms Dartmouth’s support for WISE — an Upper Valley organization committed to ending gender-based violence that the College has worked with in the past — by calling for adding additional WISE staff on campus or providing $500,000 to the organization over the course of five years.

Since the filing of the lawsuit in 2018, the PBS department has experienced a number of

changes. College spokesperson Diana Lawrence wrote in an email statement that in the past, graduate students in the PBS department were typically supervised only by their Ph.D. advisor during the first two years of their program. The department has now implemented advisory committees for each student consisting of the student’s Ph.D. advisor, two other faculty members and a senior graduate student. The chair of the committee is required to be someone other than the student’s Ph.D. advisor.

“These committees will provide regular, individualized guidance for students and allow them to develop strong relationships with multiple faculty in PBS,” Lawrence wrote.

She went on to explain that a department-wide committee called the Inclusivity, Diversity and Climate Committee has been created.

Comprised of faculty, staff and students, the IDCC has worked to “identify and implement departmentlevel changes informed by input from faculty, staff and students in the department,” Lawrence wrote.

Members of the committee will also look to other institutions for practices that can be implemented here at Dartmouth. The IDCC has also begun the process of creating a department manual that lays out expectations for professional behavior and informs people looking for support and assistance about available resources, according to Lawrence.

The PBS department has also added a diversity tab to the department website that lists resources and “affirms its commitment to an inclusive community,” Lawrence wrote. The page also includes an online, anonymous suggestion box to solicit ideas to improve the department.

Lawrence also noted that the Title IX Office and Institutional Diversity and Equity Office have worked with

the PBS department to provide information sessions and training to prevent factors such as implicit bias from interfering in the workplace. All members of the department also have access to a “diversity page” on Canvas that has information and resources regarding professional behavior and sexual misconduct.

In addition to these new resources and internal reforms, a number of changes regarding faculty have been made. PBS professor Brad Duchaine began his term as chair of the department on July 1, 2019. Duchaine succeeded David Bucci, who presided over the department during the time of the initial allegations, investigation and lawsuit. Bucci died by suicide on Oct. 15, 2019.

Lawrence said that the College has also made offers to five new faculty members in the PBS department during the current academic year.

Tor Wagner was hired from the University of Colorado Boulder this past October as the inaugural Diana L. Taylor 1977 Distinguished Professor of Neuroscience. The other four offers were made to junior faculty members.

Viola Stormer of the University of California in San Diego will begin at the College in April, and Emily Finn, Mark Thornton and Arjen Stolk will begin in the upcoming summer.

Changes within the College extend beyond the PBS department. Though College President Phil Hanlon announced the creation of Sexual Violence Prevention Project in 2015 as part of his Moving Dartmouth Forward Plan, the class of 2023 was the first to undergo SVPP’s First-Year Experience beginning in 2019.

Programming for this initiative includes several workshops and online courses about topics such as developing healthy relationships and the role of bystanders. SVPP is currently developing programming for sophomores, juniors and seniors, and all of which will culminate into an overarching four-year experience.

For this four-year experience, SVPP drew inspiration in part from the United States Naval Academy, the only other college or university in the country with a similar four years of training in sexual assault prevention and response.

The College also unveiled a new, unified sexual misconduct policy last year. The new policy, which was voted on and unanimously approved by the faculty of the College, integrates procedures for all members of the College community and outlines the mechanism for resolving reports against faculty, students and staff.

Significant reforms to the policy include the right of both parties involved in a complaint to respond to questions posed by a hearing panel and trained investigator.

“The sexual misconduct policy was really meant to bring clarity to both policy and process,” said provost Joseph Helble in a previous interview with The Dartmouth. “To have a single policy that applies to every member of the Dartmouth community: faculty, staff, students and visitors alike.”

Overall, the new policy is similar to that of some peer institutions across the country. Many colleges and universities include specified procedures for the resolution of complaints against staff, faculty and students, typically overseen by a Title IX investigator or equivalent.

Other institutions, such as Oberlin College, also include similar hearing panels comprised of faculty members for the formal resolution of sexual misconduct reports against faculty members.

Despite the implementation of the new policy, some students feel that the College has not done enough to make students aware of the new changes.

In a poll conducted by the Dartmouth from Jan. 27 to Jan. 31, out of 261 respondents, 50 percent said they were very unaware, somewhat unaware or neither aware

nor unaware of the policy.

“I didn’t know what the Campus Culture and Climate Initiative was, and all I knew about the new sexual misconduct policy is that it was implemented during this school year,” said Diego Perez ’23. “We know about things like [Sexual Violence Prevention Project], but Dartmouth hasn’t really publicized the new policy beyond an email I think they sent out.”

Rachel Florman ’21, who served on the Student Advisory Board for SVPP for five terms and is a trained Sexual Assault Peer Advisor, said she believes that more students would be aware of the new policy and how it affects them if the College took a more targeted approach spreading information.

“For example, if the Office of Greek Life sent a memo to every president of every Greek house explaining the new policy, then affiliated students would know about [the new policy],” Florman said. “If the athletic department sent a letter explaining what the new rules are to every team captain, then more students would know about it.”

F lor man suggested that the College hang up informational posters in public spaces such as Novack so students could read them while waiting in line.

“I think that we get really hung up on the College doing or not doing something and not enough on how,” Florman said. “It really would be easier for the College to do something if they broke it down into bits and considered what our lives as students actually entail, rather than just sending out press releases or memos from the Office of the President that get lost in our inboxes.”

Florman added that by more effectively communicating policy changes and understanding students’ lives, she hopes that the College would spread awareness to the broader community and reduce the risk for future incidents.

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Second College Grant provides enterprise, recreation for Dartmouth B y MARCO ALLEN The Dartmouth

In the rural region of northern New Hampshire lies an area of land roughly the size of San Francisco owned and operated by the College.

Managed by Dartmouth since the turn of the 19th century, the Second College Grant serves three roles: a commercial logging enterprise, a prized recreation spot and a unique forest area in need of stewardship in order to preserve its ecological value.

First granted to the College by the state of New Hampshire in 1807, the 27,000-acre area is located in the North Forest region of Vermont and New Hampshire and includes a nearly 2,840-foot peak.

The land proved too rugged for early settlers, but the steady sale of timber has given the College a source of consistent income throughout its history, according to associate director of facilities operations and management Timothy McNamara.

According to McNamara, the College focuses on three main issues in managing the Grant.

“We look at the Grant as a threelegged stool: there’s commercial forestry, recreation and research,” McNamara said.

Commercial forestry in the grant has been going on for more than 200 years, according to McNamara.

In recent years, Dartmouth has managed the Grant in accordance with sustainable forestry. This includes not cutting more trees than can be replaced by new growth in order to maintain the forest cover and avoiding “clear cutting” — the complete harvesting of a section of land. Sustainable forestry also means that loggers must maintain a varied number of tree species, according to McNamara.

Forest production is often measured in terms of “cords” such that one cord is equivalent to 128 cubic feet of racked wood pieces.

McNamara said his department

makes sure the number of cords harvested matches the amount grown.

“Let’s say the forest produces 8,000 cords of wood a year; so then we would try to not, on average, cut more than 8,000 cords a year,” he said.

In balance with the restrictions, McNamara said that the goal remains to try “to grow the highest value timber you can.”

L o g g i n g i s d o n e by b o t h contract harvesters and truckers competitively chosen for the job.

“We are very particular in who we use,” McNamara said. “They need some special skills so as to ensure they are cutting the proper trees using the College’s sustainable practices.”

Rick Samson, a Coos County commissioner who oversees the Grant, said that he admires Dartmouth’s sustainable forestry practices and that the College is a “very good steward of the land.”

Wood harvested in Coos County is subject to a 10-percent tax, which goes back to the local community, according to Samson.

Northern Forest Center program director Maura Adams stressed the importance of this practice.

“Much of the Northern Forest was very heavily cut over the past decades, and it does need to be stewarded back across the region,” she said.

Not all forests in the region are subject to the same sustainable practices as the Grant. Yale University also owns land in northern New Hampshire through its investment manager Bayroot LLC. Their land is managed by Wagner Forest Management.

In a 2017 controversy, New H a m p s h i re e n e rg y c o m p a ny Eversource leased a portion of Yale’s land holdings in the North Forest in order to build a 192mile transmission line, called Northern Pass, from Quebec into New England. Wagner and Yale

came under fire for the company’s handling of the university’s forests.

According to Sampson, who along with other local and state concerned parties reviewed and testified against the proposed project, Yale’s land use was not sustainable.

“T hey’re clear-cutting the land and selling everything that’s profitable to sell,” he said.

Adams added that the power lines built for the pipeline would be “incredibly tall, making a really significant impact on the visual landscape.”

According to Sampson, Northern Pipeline leaders refused to meet with him and other county commissioners opposing the change. He said they also struggled to get a significant response from Yale about their concerns.

The project went before the New Hampshire Site Evaluation Committee and was rejected based on environmental issues.

Eversource appealed the ruling to the state Supreme Court in 2019, but the original ruling was eventually sustained, effectively burying the project, according to the Concord Monitor.

Samson says he used the example of Dartmouth’s stewardship in the Grant during testimony against the project, going so far as to suggest showing reporters from the Yale Daily News the Grant to demonstrate good land stewardship.

“You can see a clear difference between the land,” he said.

McNamara pointed out that the Dartmouth’s grant is also unique in its research output in the last five years.

For instance, the Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change Project, studying several forest ecosystems, has “really turned things on big time for us with research and the U.S. Forestry Center,” according to McNamara.

Four hundred acres of the grant have been set aside for the study,

Opinions differ on state of House system B y Emily lu

The Dartmouth Staff

East Wheelock House Professor Sergi Elizalde’s home on campus is neatly sur rounded by the East Wheelock residence halls: Andres, McCulloch, Morton and Zimmerman. This was the plan for all six of Dartmouth’s House communities; however, five years since the implementation of the House system, East Wheelock House remains alone in fitting that ideal.

This is only one of the many differences across the House c o m mu n i t i e s, a s y s t e m f i r s t introduced in fall 2016 as an attempt to promote a sense of continuity and community within residential spaces. As a pillar of College President Phil Hanlon’s Moving Dartmouth Forward plan, the House system has faced criticism from some students — columnist Tanner Jones ’22 called it a “failed social engineering project” in an opinion piece in The Dartmouth this fall.

There was also backlash against the now-retracted restricted dorm access policy, first enacted in Se ptember 2019. Under this protocol, students would only be able to access College residences within their own housing community, including restricted access to event spaces such as House Centers A and B, colloquially known as “the Onion” and “the Cube.”

This policy was amended after a Student Assembly petition gathered nearly 3,000 signatures to return to universal access with added time restrictions.

West House member Akash Chadalavada ’22 expressed his frustration about the continued dorm restriction at night and how this turned his impartiality toward the House system into disdain.

“The dorm restrictions are a cause of annoyance and create difficulty,” Chadalavada said. “It is not pleasant to stand outside and wait to be let into a campus building.”

Chadalavada added that he thought the house system was unnecessary since Dartmouth is already small and has existing close communities.

First-year students are randomly assigned one of six houses when they receive their room assignments.

The Class of 2023 is the first class to be collocated within their House communities, so each first-year residence hall now belongs to a particular house.

Prior to this change, first-years were grouped in their Houses by

floors, and first-year residence halls featured students from various different House communities across the floors. This meant that a student in South House could be living in the River dormitories but attending house events in the Onion.

According to Dean of the College Kathryn Lively, the grouping of House communities this year has improved accessibility and proximity to various House events. “[Last] winter, fir st yea rstudents were either away from the upperclassmen dorms or their house professor’s house by location; it was dark, it was cold, it was icy,” Lively said. “We’ve seen a massive uptick of first-year students participating in house events across all [two] terms.”

Because the House system was superimposed on the campus’ existing buildings by relative location, the number of students in each house differs, with South House as the biggest with approximately 370 students and North Park as the smallest with around 220.

According to Lively, the budget allocated to each House is calculated by the number of students in the community, and more jurisdiction has been given to students regarding the budget.

“We’re ceding more control of the budget because now most houses have very active executive councils,” Lively said. “Students are wanting to plan their own programming.”

The opportunities offered to students in each house vary. One example is alternative spring break trips, which began last year with East Wheelock House traveling to Puerto Rico and Allen House going to New Orleans. Lively said that these trips were spearheaded by the Dartmouth Center for Social Impact, and East Wheelock House and Allen House volunteered as the first cohort of houses to run such trips. DCSI then connected East Wheelock students with a sustainability and food justice collective in Puerto Rico to aid recovery efforts from Hurricane Maria.

“The students who went last year really enjoyed it,” Elizalde said. “I think we all had a life-changing experience, and then we decided to do the same thing again this year.

It’s possible that if it’s successful in a few years, all of the Houses will be doing them.”

This year, West House will join the two houses from last year in leading an alternative spring break trip; students will be traveling to Portland, ME. Students from three of the houses will not have the same option to apply for these trips, but Lively recommends that a student reach out to their House leadership

if they feel strongly about creating similar opportunities.

“Students could talk to their House professor; they could attend an executive council meeting and they could start to lobby,” Lively said. “I think if a student actually said, ‘This is what I’m passionate about, this is the problem, this is where I think we can contribute as a House — and I would be willing to work on this issue,’ I think there might be some uptake.”

Perhaps the most visible sign of distinction between the House communities is the type of gear each House offers its members for free. This can range from pastel blue School House sweatshirts and Allen House quarter zips to South House camping mugs and East Wheelock scarves, which are produced at the discretion of House executive councils.

“That’s one of the ways students actually get really excited about being on executive council — that each executive council is charged with swag,” Lively said. “They get a certain part of the budget for that, and each house has a different approach.”

Lively said that such significant changes as the House system are often highly controversial when first implemented, but eventually become the norm. In addition, the system is receptive and continues to change each year.

“Any change that you make is really horrifying, and then four years later, everybody’s used to it. Now, it’s what everybody knows,” Lively said. “[Houses are] just another place, a smaller and somewhat porous community within the larger community. Every year, it gets better.

We get more student involvement and we’re much further along than we thought we would be when started the planning phase six years ago.”

The House system is a highlight for some Dartmouth students. West House student Mariano ’23 said she believes it has helped shape her sense of belonging at Dartmouth.

“I think community dinners really foster relationships between house members through good food and a good time,” she said. “The [House] system provides me with connections with students not only across the College, but also with students from the graduate schools.”

But those feelings may not be universally shared. A survey conducted by The Dartmouth from Jan. 27 to Jan. 31 found that 73 percent of 261 respondents disagree with the statement, “I feel a strong sense of community with those in my House.”

which looks at how forest owners can adapt their practices to keep up with climate change. The Grant is one of five sites across the country dedicated to the project, according to McNamara.

Environmental studies professor David Lutz, who is involved with the silviculture project, reiterated the importance of the study in regards to logging, saying that foresters must think decades into the future to anticipate climate change.

He added that the most aggressive action to combat this would be to plant seedlings that are growing well in Pennsylvania to anticipate the warming climate.

McNamara said that this is one of the first projects in the grant that has taken a large part of the land and studied it. He said the study has brought increased national interest in the Grant for research on a nationwide basis, and that one of the goals of managing the Grant was to build research infrastructure.

He also pointed out that few pieces of forest land have been owned by the same owner for over 200 years and have the same detailed records as the Grant keeps.

Lutz said he believes that research in the Grant is a “confluence of all the things that Dartmouth does well,” and hopes that in the future Dartmouth grows the program and invests in more infrastructure for research.

Most Dartmouth students interact with the Grant primarily through their First-Year Trips, since many trips are runs there.

Community members can also access the land and get access to cabins in the area through requesting a key in the mail.

However, there are restrictions for people who are not Dartmouthaffiliated, according to McNamara.

“You can’t drive into the grant unless you’re an alum, guest of an alum or a student — so if you’re from the outside world you have to walk in,” McNamara said.

The limited access allows the Grant’s three main uses to coexist in a sustainable way and to continue to allow people to use the Grant as a retreat, according to McNamara.

“We’re unique in that we can have the ability to show other forest owners what you can really do with long-term forest management,” McNamara said.

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THE DARTMOUTH WINTER CARNIVAL ISSUE

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2020

‘It felt very much like a punishment’: Medical leave at Dartmouth

STAFF PHOTO

Counselors at Dick’s House must first give approval before a student can return from medical leave.

B y ALEKA KROITZSH The Dartmouth

In spring 2018, a student visited her friend Jeremy Hadfield ’21’s room after not hearing from him for several days and found a carefully-crafted suicide note on his desk. After panicking over what she thought meant the loss of her friend’s life, Hadfield entered the room. With much encouragement, Hadfield decided to seek help at Dick’s House, And after meeting with a counselor the next day, Hadfield agreed to the terms of voluntary medical withdrawal.

The College’s medical withdrawal policy states that in cases where students “experience health issues that significantly impact their ability to function,” they will either be able to apply for voluntary medical withdrawal, or be subjected to mandatory medical withdrawal as per the recommendation of Dartmouth College Medical Care.

According to Dick’s House director of the Counseling Center Heather Earle, medical withdrawal concerns both mental and physical health, and Dick’s House helps facilitate around 50 medical withdrawals per year.

During the first few weeks of that spring ter m, Hadfield said he “started to feel [himself] collapsing” and was experiencing symptoms of chronic depression, including isolation from family and friends, excessive sleeping, feelings of extreme hopelessness, lack of motivation — to the point where he became suicidal. At that point, he said, he had stopped being able to complete school work and had begun drafting suicide notes for his family and friends.

“I’m going to die, why would I do any of this?” he recalled thinking. “I was very certain that I was going to be dead within a month,” he said.

Hadfield said he did not seek help because he didn’t want to be forced to leave campus and was worried he would not be able to return.

“I was worried that [going home] would make it worse, especially because I would be alienated from the support networks I had at Dartmouth, including my friends, Dick’s House and professors,” Hadfield said. “Some people have [that support] at home, but I personally don’t.”

According to Hadfield, his apprehension around seeking help at Dick’s House and going on medical leave is not unique.

“I’d heard a lot of scary things about medical leave,” he said, “Most people here don’t reach out for help, and I think it causes a lot of suffering here at Dartmouth.”

Sanat Mohapatra ’20, a creator of the mental health app Unmasked, which is an anonymous mental health conversation platform, said that there is a “persistent fear”

around going to a counselor about suicidal ideation because students think they might be forced to go on medical leave.

Earle told The Dartmouth that although students are not allowed on campus during medical withdrawal, those who do not feel safe or comfortable returning home have the option of staying in West Lebanon or in areas near campus.

However, Hadfield said that he did not have the financial ability to pay for rent or to support himself while living alone in these areas, and therefore saw returning home as his only option.

After Hadfield confided in a counselor at Dick’s House for around an hour, the counselor asked him if he was willing to be admitted to the hospital.

Hadfield said he was eventually given the options of accepting voluntary or involuntary medical leave, which he said felt like an “illusion of choice,” so he chose voluntarily medical leave.

“I wish he had asked me, ‘What do you think your ideal plan of help and survival would be right now?’”

Hadfield said.

Earle said that mandatory medical leave is very rarely administered, though when a student meets the criteria for mandatory medical withdrawal, they are of fered the option of voluntary medical withdrawal. She added that, most times, students choose voluntary rather than mandatory.

“We would take steps to see ‘can they be safe?’ If the answer is no, then we will have them sent to the hospital and have them assessed over there,” Earle said. She added that not all students with suicidal thoughts are sent to DartmouthHitchcock Medical Center — it is only those with plans and means to act on them.

Earle noted that only around half of students who go to the hospital end up going on medical leave, whereas the other half are able to remain on campus — though this can be difficult, considering they have to make up for the work they missed.

“Sometimes we’ll find that professors are willing to work with them, but when they come back [from DHMC], they feel so far behind that a medical leave becomes an option,” said Counseling Center associate director Bryant Ford.

“They are still given the option to persist academically.”

In situations in which it is possible, Dick’s House and the College administration attempt to find ways to keep students on campus by encouraging them to drop a course and by supporting them with regular counseling and meetings with their undergraduate dean, according to Earle.

After agreeing to go to the hospital, Hadfield said he was

escorted into a Safety and Security car by two police officers.

“It was weird to be in that very depressed state, and then have police officers come to me and tell me, ‘You need to come with us,” Hadfield said. “It felt very much like a punishment.”

Hadfield described riding in the back of the Safety and Security car alone with dispatch calls coming in via the radio as a “very negative” and “scary” experience.

Upon arrival at the hospital, Hadfield said he was patted down and potentially harmful items were removed from his body, including his phone. He said he was then locked in a room where he sat on his own for several hours before he was formally admitted.

According to Hadfield, two police officers also entered his dorm after his departure and removed any potentially harmful items from his room, as well as his “extremely personal” suicide notes, which were never returned to him. He said this felt like a breach of confidentiality, and was concerned that people in his dorm suspected that the officers were there for criminal reasons.

Following his stay at the hospital, he returned to Dick’s House for a few days, where he was allowed to visit with friends for a few hours at a time before he returned home on medical withdrawal.

While being at home for over a year, Hadfield said he was formally diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder I. During this time, he said, he was contacted by the College only once.

He identified this as the “single-most devastating thing about medical leave,” saying that because he was not contacted or supported by the school after returning home, it felt like an expulsion. “ I h a d d eve l o p e d wh at I thought was a relationship with this counselor, and then he just kind of ghosted me,” Hadfield said.

According to Earle, because a student on medical withdrawal is no longer registered at the College, they cannot get counseling or other services at Dick’s House. However, Earle noted that Dick’s House counselors help students locate a counselor in their local area, preferably one covered by their insurance plan.

Earle said that there is no maximum or minimum number of terms students are required to remain on medical withdrawal; however, students must remain offcampus for the subsequent term.

She added that the College believes it will likely take longer than that in order to “get to a solid place.”

As requirements for returning, Dartmouth expects students to present documents of having been employed or engaged in “sustained productive activities” while being off-campus, as well as documents proving they have received clinically

appropriate medical treatment.

According to Ford, after the student has submitted documentation of these requirements, a team of counselors meets at Dick’s House in order to review the process to ensure that their decision to admit or deny the student’s return is correct and unbiased. This decision is then sent to the undergraduate dean and the student.

Hadfield said he had submitted a request for return after being off campus for three terms, but his request was denied.

Hadfield described the College’s response as “very skeptical,” adding it felt like they didn’t want him to return.

“What should happen is the College should welcome you back with open arms, but instead it feels like they’re distancing themselves,” he said.

Hadfield said that he seriously considered transferring or dropping out of college.

“The prospect of spending another term of medical leave was really painful to me,” he said.

After the initial denial of his request to return, Hadfield said he decided to attempt to appeal the denial, but found that there was no in-place process in order to do so. He therefore decided to appeal the denial on his own terms: by submitting letters from his parents, employers, psychiatrist and personally writing to the College advocating for his return.

According to Hadfield, the College approved his return after he submitted his appeal.

Earle said that the vast majority of students that go on medical withdrawal return to campus. She added that after a student returns

to campus, Dick’s House will reach out to the student over Darthub’s secure messaging feature to make sure they are receiving support and have knowledge about the medical leave support group.

A recent study by the Ruderman Family Foundation, “The Ruderman White Papers on Mental Health in the Ivy League,” found that 40 percent of students had been so depressed in the past year that they found it difficult to function, and 10 percent of undergraduates had seriously considered suicide.

The study criticizes policies such as not being allowed to return to campus while on leave on grounds of causing social isolation. It also advocated for better accommodations on campus, citing the Americans with Disabilities Act, which states that students with disabilities are entitled to on campus accommodations. It also finds issue with policies which require a minimum amount of time students stay on medical leave, considering the trajectory of healing for mental health issues can differ from student to student.

The study gave the highest grade (D+) to the University of Pennsylvania, and the lowest grades (F) to Dartmouth College and Yale University. The study’s goal was to reveal the underlying discrimination within medical leave policies in relation to mental health.

“I loved Dartmouth at first,” Hadfield said. “I applied here early decision. I fell in love with it. Overall, I don’t think people at Dartmouth recognize disability exists, and they don’t understand the challenges people with disabilities face.”

THE DARTMOUTH WINTER CARNIVAL ISSUE

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2020

PAGE 7

Gap years offer opportunities to explore passions, take a break B y COALTER PALMER The Dartmouth

E ach year, two - to threedozen incoming students decide to postpone their matriculation to Dartmouth, opting to spend a year in between their senior year of high school and college working, volunteering, traveling or engaging in a combination of these experiences, according to director of admissions Paul Sunde.

“Our office makes the pursuit of a gap year as simple and straightforward for our admitted students as possible,” Sunde said, noting that the admissions office typically responds favorably to gap year requests.

After graduating from high school, Ian Hou ’22 and Kysen Osburn ’23 both opted to defer their admission to Dartmouth for a year and enlisted in the military.

Though each enlisted in different branches of the armed forces — Hou signed up as an intelligence analyst, while Osburn enlisted in the National Guard. Both spent the first 10 weeks of their gap year at a basic training camp.

On why he chose to enlist, Hou said that, upon accomplishing a long-held goal of getting into college, he felt he had lost his sense of purpose and thought that joining the military might fill this void.

“I used to have this dream of joining the military,” Hou said. “My brother’s friend joined the Air Force and had a really good experience, so for a long time I was leaning toward the Air Force. What convinced me to join the Army instead was that they give you more freedom to pick your job, and they were also better at reaching out in general, so I ended up going with the Army.”

Hou also added that his high school experience had felt very

regimented. He also described feeling burned out at the end of high school, and said that he didn’t feel socially ready to make the leap to college right away.

On why he enlisted, Osburn also described feeling a sense of purpose.

“I was an able, fit young man, and I thought it would be my duty,” Osburn said.

Hou, who attended basic training Fort Sill, OK, described an intense first couple of days. He said that, after being bussed into the camp along with around 200 fellow enlistees, he spent three days in reception on limited sleep with the other members of his battalion, filling out paperwork and going through an arduous medical and financial screening process.

“I met some guys, and the next morning they had us all get buzzcuts, and I couldn’t recognize any of the guys that I had met the day prior,” Hou said.

After basic training, Hou went on to an advanced specialized training camp in Arizona, where he spent four months learning intelligence analysis.

Hou said that his experience in the military has made him conscious of the privilege he has as a Dartmouth student.

“I feel very privileged every day I’m here, just because I know what a lot of my friends in the army are going through,” Hou said. “A lot of them are on active duty; some of them are in Iraq and Syria.”

Osburn said that, after training, he spent the remainder of his gap year substitute teaching at a local elementary and middle school and working at a supermarket.

He also volunteered for the Red Cross, hosting two blood drives and recruiting potential donors.

Other students who took gap

LEST THE OLD TRADITIONS FAIL

years also engaged in service.

Blake McGill ’22 spent the first three months of her gap year traveling through Southeast Asia with Youth Inter national, an experiential program that aims to immerse participants in other cultures. While there, McGill stayed with local families in Nepal, India and Thailand and completed service projects through the local schools. These projects ranged from building stairs and painting walls to teaching.

Of the experience as a whole, McGill expressed some ambivalence.

“I think because we were there for such short periods of time, it felt a little weird to be dropping in on these kids and then just disappearing,” McGill said. “I don’t know if it was the right thing to do ... in retrospect, but I also know that I’m so grateful for the cultural experience.”

On her gap year, McGill also went on a backpacking trip through Bolivia and Chile, spent three months in Buenos Aires — where she took Spanish courses and lived with a host family — and lived for six weeks in London, where she worked as a teaching assistant at the School for Ethics and Global Leadership.

McGill said that, before her gap year, she had grown up in a “very white, Catholic, conservative bubble” and had left the United States only once before. “[My gap year] definitely gave me more of a global lens with which I can go into life and my studies,” McGill said. “I think that I knew this before, but I had been raised in such an Americentric way that I don’t think I really fully understood the scope of the world.”

Luke Collins ’23 spent the first three months of his gap year at the National Outdoor Leadership

WINSTON CHEN ’22

School, engaging in a wide variety of outdoor activities — backpacking, canyoneering, rock climbing and backcountry skiing — in the Rockies and in Lander, WY. Three days after completing his semester at NOLS, he moved to Utah, where he would spend the rest of his year as what he calls “a ski bum,” skiing during the day and working in a restaurant in the mornings and evenings. By the end of the year, Collins said he had skied more than 1.7 million vertical feet.

Collins described deciding to take a gap year after an intense four years of high school.

“I felt really burned out at the end of high school, and I wanted to be really excited about college.

I wanted to feel really ready to go back to the classroom,” Collins said.

“I thought that a gap year would be a great chance to see a bit more of the world and put some money in the bank.”

Now that he’s at Dartmouth, Collins says his experience here is very informed by his gap year. He said that, over the course of his gap year, he encountered a lot of people that didn’t have the opportunity to go to a school like Dartmouth, and that meeting these people made him more aware of other paths available to him.

“There are so many paths out there for me, and a lot of people always say that but to actually see people who took those other paths and thrived was really valuable,” he said.

While Collins expressed that taking a gap year came with “mostly advantages,” he also described experiencing some drawbacks early in his freshman year.

“No one really had the same experience I did, so I did feel a little disconnected from people because of that,” Collins said. “I sort of

felt like people were entrenched in their high school ways in the same way I was, but I had already sort of gotten out of that.”

Like Collins, Catie Stukel ’23 also enrolled in a three-month NOLS course. After completing her Wilderness EMT certification, she spent two months backpacking in Escalante, UT, climbing in Red Rock and backcountry skiing in Wyoming. From there, Stukel traveled to Colombia and Costa Rica, where she worked on a farm for a month, and then went on to couchsurf across Europe for three months. The summer before coming to Dartmouth, she also worked for a raft-guiding company and at an Indian food stand at a Seattle farmer’s market.

On why she took her gap year, Stukel said she felt that she needed a break from school to recover from a series of bad head injuries, and added that she felt a general sense of burnout after 12 years of school.

Entering her fir st year at Dartmouth after her gap year, Stukel recounted experiencing doubt about her decision to attend college.

“I did not want to go to college anymore,” Stukel said. “I really liked the real world and was ready to continue in it, and so I really did contemplate not going to school.

But once I got here, I loved it.”

Stukel also said that her gap year afforded her invaluable life skills and gave her a new perspective on the world.

“I learned a lot,” Stukel said.

“I’ve gotten used to dealing with different types of people, I got used to living on my own and cooking for myself and doing my own laundry and problem solving and getting around — which I think a lot of people coming out of high school don’t have that experience.”

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THE DARTMOUTH WINTER CARNIVAL ISSUE

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2020

Students balance classwork and extracurriculars with campus jobs B y pierce wilson The Dartmouth Staff

At Dartmouth, where 10-week ter ms keep students busy and pressure runs high to participate in extracurricular activities, compete for employment opportunities and have a vibrant social life, it can be difficult to imagine students have time for anything else.

But despite how busy student life can be, Student Employment Office senior program manager Kari Jo Grant wrote in an email statement that a total of 1,858 undergraduate students were hired to work in hourly-paid student positions between Sept. 9 and Nov. 30, 2019.

Upon review of hours submitted to Kronos in the fall term, the average number of hours worked in a twoweek pay period was between 13 and 15 hours according to Grant.

“Most students are able to work 6-10 hours each week,” Grant wrote. “Depending on their academic course load and schedules, some students may find it reasonable to work more or less than this.”

Even though student employment tends to be manageable, Jose Her nandez ’23 said that his employment as a sales associate at Traditionally Trendy and as an on-floor facilitator at the gym requires precise time management and planning ahead because he does not have as much free time to do homework or relax.

“I work anywhere between 10 to 15 hours a week between Tuesdays and Thursdays and weekends,” Hernandez said. “So, I have to balance my time with when I want to do homework. Sometimes, I have to do all of my homework on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

If I don’t do that, it stacks up on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It can be rough.”

Sayuri Miyamoto Magnabosco ’21, who cur rently works on research at the Thayer School of Engineering and has previously worked in the library, snack bars, Academic Skills Center, Tutor Clearinghouse and Portuguese department, said she recently decided to cut back on the number of hours she works each week in order to prioritize her academics.

“Sometimes there [were] days I would start doing my school work at 10 p.m., and I would have to pull an all-nighter or something because I had to work beforehand,” she said.

However, according to Iva Devic ’22 who works as a research assistant, sustainability office data analyst and library clerk, the pressure to budget time while working isn’t all bad.

“I’m the type of person who works best when very occupied, so doing this so jobs stimulates me to be more focused with the small amount of free time I have,” Devic said.

Devic added that on a few occasions, she has asked her professors to reschedule office hours due to her work schedule and they tend to do their best to accommodate. She said most are surprised when they hear how much she works.

Brandon Abiuso ’23, who worked in production for the Hopkins Center last term, said that his supervisors often tried hard to make schedules flexible to aid students in managing their time. “[The Hopkins Center has] a very forgiving system, because you just sign up for different calls when you’re available, and you have to work a minimum number of hours per term but not per week,” Abiuso said.

Hernandez also said that his

employers tend to accommodate his academic schedule, and that he never places work before his academics.

“For example, finals week last term I called off the whole week,” Hernandez said. “I let [my boss] know a few days ahead of time, and she happily gave me the whole week off.”

Brandon Crosby, a general manager at the Class of ’53 Commons, echoed Hernandez’s sentiment, and said that getting an education should always be a student employee’s number one priority.

“We’re very flexible here at DDS,” Crosby said. “We have a group email where students can just send an email if they’re going to miss a shift, and usually another student will be able to pick [the shift] up.”

Other student workers also said that they have group emails, GroupMe chats and other masscommunication methods where they can exchange shifts should scheduling conflicts arise.

In addition to putting pressure on students to manage time exceptionally well, campus employment can also make it more difficult for students to participate in extracurricular activities which could potentially contribute to their resumes.

W h i l e h e re c o g n i ze d t h i s challenge, DDS director Jon Plodzik said he hopes participating in the College community comes before working in his employees’ priorities. He also noted that many campus jobs, especially within DDS, can provide meaningful professional experiences in management, customer service and food preparation.

“Not a lot of our student workers end up in the food service industry, but I think our goal is to teach a lot of skills that are transferable to the real world setting,” Plodzik said.

“You know, some of the day-to-day things you do in working a two or three hour shift; you may never run a register or fill a salad bar again, but our goal is to have them progress into more of a leadership role. I think that kind of leadership and management will work well outside of the food-service industry.”

Devic also noted that while some of her choices in employment have contributed to her resume, she’s often had to take more lackluster jobs when she simply needed money.

Hernandez said that working in his first term made it difficult for him to get involved in clubs and organizations, as he had to spend most of his time outside of work doing schoolwork, so he has recently cut down on the number of hours he works each week.

In addition to taking away from academic and extracurricular time, campus employment can also present social challenges. As Miyamoto Magnabosco put it, “I felt like I had very little time to socialize with other people. For example, that is one of the reasons why I decided to join a sorority my sophomore year.”

Still, some students who work are able to make friends on the job, especially in the Sustainability Office, where camaraderie between interns is encouraged, as well as at DDS jobs like Novack and snack bars.

However, some student workers noted that they relate differently to students who don’t work than to other students who do.

“Sometimes when I do group projects, people just don’t look that tired, or they don’t understand why you can’t meet throughout the day, and it might be because they don’t

NAINA BHALLA/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

Novack Cafe is a major employer of students on campus.

work,” Miyamoto Magnabosco said.

Hernandez said he feels that there is a divide between students who don’t work and those who do, as students who don’t work have much more freedom when it comes to how they spend their time. “[People who don’t work] always talk about things they do, activities they’re doing, and so I’m always wondering, ‘Well, could I be doing the same things that they’re doing if I didn’t have to work?’” Hernandez said. “And so, I’m always comparing myself in a negative way, and thinking that maybe I’m wasting my time working.”

Although students work in a variety of different positions on campus — from DDS jobs, to library

jobs, to UGAs, to tour guides — according to Devic, some jobs are much harder to get.

“I feel like it’s hard to get a good job as a freshman because campus employers tend to employ students who have worked before,” Devic said. “I would not have gotten this library job unless I was here for a short period between summer and fall.”

Miyamoto Magnabosco, who also serves as the Student Outreach Coordinator for Inter national Students Association, identified unique challenges that international students seeking on-campus employment may face.

“We can only work 20 hours per week, and whatever job we’re doing, it has to be on campus, so

we cannot get any jobs outside of campus,” Miyamoto Magnabosco said.

She added that the rules for international can be confusing, like one that stipulates that international students cannot be paid through a national grant, which has made it hard for her to pursue research and positions at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in the past.

Miyamoto Magnabosco also felt that Dartmouth does very little to support international students in employment. Many campus employers are not aware of the rules and may act ignorantly as a result.

“They just have very little cross-cultural competence or understanding,” she said. “And I wish they knew about these rules.”

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2020

THE DARTMOUTH WINTER CARNIVAL ISSUE

PAGE 9

THE DARTMOUTH EDITORIAL BOARD

Verbum Ultimum: Good Terms for Interns The College must support a diverse set of off-term pursuits.

For the coming spring term, Dartmouth’s Center for Professional Development failed to provide off-term funding through the Student Experiential Learning Fund program. This funding stream is intended to support students pursuing unpaid or lowpaid internships, non-Dartmouth research and social sector experience.

We won’t comment further on this specific lapse in funding. What we will point out is the broader issue this incident brings to light: the College’s shortage of internship funding disproportionately affects students pursuing careers in certain industries and students who can’t afford the often-prohibitive costs of internships. To address these realities, the College needs to offer greater financial support to students pursuing unpaid and low-paying internship opportunities.

Students who need the greatest financial assistance with off-term internships are generally those who choose to pursue unpaid or low-paid internships. High-paying — or simply “paid” in any form — internships are largely restricted to the finance, consulting and technology sectors. Think companies like McKinsey, Bain or Google.

But despite Dartmouth’s reputation as a corporate pipeline, many students here don’t want to pursue those lines of work. Students who venture outside the corporate bubble are often hard-pressed

to find relevant internships that offer any monetary compensation. An off-term that does not bring in a salary is very difficult for many to sustain and can force students to take a paid position much less applicable to their interests than an unpaid position would have been. This fact gives an unfair advantage to students with enough family wealth to support an unpaid off-term.

The lack of specific attention by the Dartmouth administration to this reality is disheartening. Surely, the College must recognize that the current costs of living and covering basic needs are too high for most students pursuing unpaid positions.

This funding paradigm afflicts almost all students at Dartmouth. The College advertises sophomore summer as an opportunity for students to pursue opportunities on an irregularly timed off-term when there is a reduced level of competition for internship positions.

Because of sophomore summer, a student must take off a term in either the fall, winter or spring. Dartmouth’s undergraduate admissions website states that an advantage of the D-Plan is that it allows students to “Pursue internships during any season of the year — a huge competitive edge over students from schools that funnel internships into summer breaks.”

Considering its unique D-Plan, Dartmouth

should be leagues above its peer institutions in its internship funding offerings. It turns out the College does not deserve a pat on the back in this regard — Brown University, as a basis of comparison, has a very similar funding platform, offering partial or full funding for unpaid summer internships. The reality is that not all Dartmouth students are currently able to pursue career-building internships, and this should be a major concern for the Dartmouth administration.

An undergraduate student’s four years at Dartmouth, whether currently enrolled in a term or not, should be educational and full of exciting new opportunities. Education is not restricted to the classroom, and students should be able to have equal access in pursuing off-terms, especially since this is a direct consequence of a term model mandated by the College.

One baffling aspect of Dartmouth internship funding writ-large is that there is likely a surplus available, and for a large fraction of the student body, it is inaccessible.

In addition to the Center for Professional Development, internship funding is offered through the Rockefeller Center for Public Policy, the Dickey Center for International Understanding and the Center for Social Impact. Unfortunately, funding through the Rockefeller Center is focused on public policy and nonprofit internships, the Dickey

Center seeks an international focus and the Center for Social Impact is linked to nonprofit community service internships.

This leaves every student whose interests do not fall into those three categories (which is a big segment of the student body) reliant on the Center for Professional Development for internship funding. Any internship positions in purely STEM fields, for example, are reliant on grants from the CPD. A loosening of internship funding restrictions at the Rockefeller Center, Dickey Center and the Center for Social Impact could provide an immediate fix to this problem. However, and more to the point, Dartmouth has money to spend — and while the College may not like to admit it, money could be reallocated to CPD internship funding.

The College must recognize the gravity that internships hold in a student’s career development. The job market is only getting more competitive, and it is necessary to build one’s portfolio during college off-terms.

We encourage the College to develop a more sustainable, accessible and plentiful internship funding program that works for all students.

The editorial board consists of the special issue opinion editor, the opinion editors, the executive editor and the editor-in-chief.

STAFF COLUMNIST GABRIELLE LEVY ’22

Still in Crisis?

Dartmouth’s mental health services are stuck.

They always say that you can never truly understand something until it happens to you. Personally, this realization hit me as I struggled with my mental health for the first time last term. I had always known that there were major shortcomings in mental health services on college campuses — and that Dartmouth was no exception. It was only when I first considered taking advantage of them for myself, however, that I began to truly question why Dartmouth’s mental health resources seem so stuck in the past.

As an institution, Dartmouth has a certain level of responsibility to take care of both the physical and mental well-being of its students — a stewardship so to speak. Yet, Dartmouth’s provision of mental health services has stagnated in recent years. The main problem is that there is a demand for mental health services that is far outpacing the available supply of care.

This makes sense; an article in The Dartmouth last year found that mental health-related admissions to Dick’s House had increased by 45 percent from 2013 to 2019, while the utilization of Dartmouth’s on-call counseling services had increased by 60 percent in the same time period. Another recent article quoted Counseling Center director Heather Earle, who cited the unequal “student-to-counselor ratio” as the reason

why students are unable to receive timely or adequate counseling.

Whatever the root cause might be, the current lack of mental health services on campus negatively impacts students’ Dartmouth experiences—and also undermines Dartmouth as an institution.

Indeed, because of the lack of counselors available, Dartmouth’s mental health services are mocked and criticized by students on social media platforms. One popular meme circulated among Dartmouth students earlier this term featured a notification screen displaying a message from a sender named “Anxiety” asking “What if you’re not good enough” followed by a message from “Depression” saying “Everyone hates you” and finally concluded with a message from “Dick’s House Counselling” saying “Hey! I’m so glad you reached out. I’m actually at capacity/helping someone else who’s in crisis…” It is clear that student needs are not being met.

Even if students are able to find help at the Counseling Center, those with long-term issues are often told to seek external help from a community provider. Such services can put both a financial burden on students and also a logistical one because of transportation requirements. Also, as Dartmouth is situated in a remote location, there are simply not that

many community providers who are available to take on new patients or that are financially accessible to all students.

Despite these issues, it must be said that there has been a lot of recent progress in the provision of mental health services, spearheaded by student initiatives. For instance, the new mental health app ‘Unmasked Project’ launched earlier this year allows Dartmouth students to anonymously share thoughts on mental health and support each other by commenting on threads.

There is also the Dartmouth Mental Health Union, a student-run organization devoted to increasing awareness of mental health services and issues.

The College itself has also worked toward targeting mental health issues from an upstream vantage point. For instance, Dartmouth intentionally clusters dorms of the same House together to ensure that students have familiar faces surrounding them as they progress through various dorms during their time at Dartmouth, as a means of combating the loneliness and uncertainty caused by the D-Plan.

At the end of the day, problems with the supply and demand of mental health services are in no way unique to Dartmouth; on average, college counseling centers provide only 17 consultation hours a week per 100,000

students. The so-called clinical crisis, in which the demand for help has rapidly outpaced the available mental health resources, is affecting college campuses far and wide. Dartmouth’s focus on short-term care is also not unique.

Because most college counseling centers were only designed to help students through adjustment problems like homesickness and acute rather than chronic mental health issues, their staff are often unprepared to deal with more serious mental health crises.

Although Dartmouth is not alone in its challenges to provide care, the College’s rural location makes its resource inadequacies more visible and detrimental. Thus, Dartmouth will need to shoulder the burden more than other institutions and find a way to ensure that all students can access the help they need on campus. One way to achieve this may be to look into developing separate facilities, resources and funding for mental services for graduate and undergraduate students.

In terms of other solutions, Dartmouth might also consider looking to student groups and using student feedback (perhaps on the new ‘Unmasked’ app) to find ways to make its resources more accessible. If Dartmouth can harness the growing momentum of student leadership and response to the “crisis of care,” it might be able to bring its mental health services into a new age of respect and utility.

CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST MAYA KHANNA ’21

The Necessity of a Natural Education Dartmouth should renew its commitment to outdoor education.

Over 70 miles from the nearest major city, and half-hidden by the pine forests that surround its borders, Dartmouth College is not a school that you happen upon by chance.

For many Dartmouth students past and present, love for our small school in the middle-of-nowhere-New Hampshire has long been tied to the College’s secluded nature. While the outdoors remain a crucial part of Dartmouth’s identity, the school is not immune to national trends that have, in recent years, seen the decline of American engagement with the natural world. It is therefore crucial that the College’s undergraduate experience teaches students not only how to engage with the outdoors, but also see participation in outdoors spaces in a myriad of ways.

A 2017 study by the Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Science found that more than half of adults are now spending less than five hours a week in nature.

Increased use of social media, smart phones and a migration away from rural areas were to blame for this decrease in outdoor activity.

Moreover, these changing lifestyles are setting a precedent for younger generations — perpetuating a conceptualization that regards the outdoors as an afterthought, rather than

an integral part of everyday life.

The question that remains is, what is to be done about the pervasive disregard of the outdoors that has invaded the American psyche? Though the solution to this complex question is inarguably multi-faceted, Dartmouth’s historic connection with the outdoors uniquely positions the College to integrate outdoor programming into all areas of student life.

Though student organizations such as the Dartmouth Outing Club can facilitate some of these opportunities, the College has the singular opportunity to allocate resources to areas of outdoor engagement that the Outing Club doesn’t cover — namely, social, professional and academic programming.

This outdoor engagement could include the offering of more interdisciplinary classes focused on the outdoors, offering workshops and leadership seminars in natural spaces, and recommitting the College to supporting events dedicated to being outdoors — such as Winter Carnival, which has been heavily curtailed in recent years.

Integrating natural spaces with student life would provide students who do not traditionally consider themselves to be “outdoorsy” alter native methods of

exploring ways in which the outdoor world can fit into their lives. Moreover, by introducing the outdoors into student life in “alternative” ways, the College can help students envision the continuation of outdoor engagement in their frequently urbanized and hectic lives after Dartmouth.

Besides simply facilitating opportunities for students to engage with the outdoors, Dartmouth has the chance to address and begin to break down many of the barriers that all too often keep students out of wilderness spaces, both during their time as undergraduates and afterward. One of the largest obstacles to participation in outdoor recreation for many students is the prohibitive cost. Though many may argue that the College simply “does not have the funds,” Dartmouth should consider reallocating funds from preexisting pots that are allocated to social, academic, professional and residential programming.

Actions to increase student engagement with the outdoors does not need to be drastic; one simple step could be reorienting preexisting events to build programming that integrates the natural world.

Some may argue that a commitment to outdoor education detracts from Dartmouth’s

goals as an institution of higher learning. To these skeptics, I would invoke Dartmouth’s mission statement as a reminder that the College is not simply responsible for cultivating the intellectual minds, but also seeks to “instill a sense of responsibility [in students] for each other and for the broader world.”

T he benefits of an institutional commitment to increased outdoor student engagement is two-fold.

Firstly, students will benefit from the many mental and physical benefits of being outdoors such as improved immune systems, elevated mood, enhanced creativity and mitigated pain.

Second, this step will open up the outdoors as a space for discourse among students who are divided by differing identities, commitments to various campus communities and a host of other barriers.

Thus, the integration of the outdoors into the lives of students will not only help Dartmouth fight national trends that are keeping Americans out of wilderness spaces, but will also ensure the creation of a future in which these spaces serve to help students connect more deeply to each other and the broader world.

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Many students take advantage of College’s study abroad options

JULIA LEVINE/THE DARTMOUTH

A significant majority of Dartmouth students report being very interested in studying abroad.

B y DEBBY Cobon The Dartmouth Staff

Dartmouth strives to make its student body global citizens through a curriculum which reaches beyond Hanover through domestic and international study programs. One aspect of Dartmouth that draws students to the College is its study abroad offerings and the College’s commitment to the value of global learning through international study and global engagement.

According to the 2018 Survey of New Students conducted by the Office of Institutional Research, 75 percent of Dartmouth students say they are very interested in studying abroad.

Dartmouth currently offers a total of 44 officially recognized off-campus programs, including 19 language study abroad programs, 23 foreign study programs and two domestic study programs. However, Dartmouth also offers the opportunity to pursue an exchange term at 27 recognized institutions sponsored by the Frank J. Guarini Institute for International Education.

The most popular study abroad programs include the DartmouthOxford exchange program, the Rome FIRE program in the summer, and the Spanish, French and Italian LSAs according to Guarini Institute executive director John Tansey.

D a r t m o u t h ’s s t u d y a b r o a d opportunities are spread globally with four programs in Africa, nine in Asia, four in Australia and the Pacific Island, two in Central America, 38 in Europe, two in the Middle East, 19 in North America, six in South America and two in the West Indies.

Winter term is the most popular time to study abroad, with 38 programs available. There are 46 programs offered in the fall, 27 in the spring, 12 in the summer and five year-round.

Despite many students’ expressed interests, there has been a recent decrease in foreign study programs offered. Many off-campus programs have been canceled due to low student enrollment and a decrease in student and faculty interest.

Both off-campus and exchange programs exist for many departments but exclude some, such as chemistry, comparative literature, neuroscience, quantitative social science and studio art.

Tansey said that whether a program is available for a department comes down to student demand and faculty interest.

“It’s pretty clear why the language departments would have a program, and others like art history, geography and biology,” Tansey said. “Those faculty have recognized the value of bringing students elsewhere and engaging them in learning that involves being there and interacting with people in other places.”

Many students choose to study something other than their major when abroad, either due to the lack of availability or interests.

Kayla Hamann ’22, a math major, is currently abroad in Barcelona, Spain on the Spanish LSA. She said she strongly considered other programs but was not interested in studying math abroad.

“The math department only has a domestic study program, and I wanted to study abroad to experience a new culture, get closer to my heritage and travel internationally for the first time ... [thus] a program in Tampa, FL was not particularly appealing,” Hamann said. “I’ve started applications to study abroad in both the Spanish and government departments — departments I’ve only dabbled in –– but haven’t even thought twice about the math program.”

Hamann also said that pursuing the math DSP would require extensive

planning that wasn’t feasible, whereas for her LSA, the prerequisites only included taking language courses she would have had to take anyway as part of the foreign language requirement.

“The [math] DSP is also only offered every other year, and there was no way for me to have completed all the prerequisites in time to participate in the program this winter — nor could I go senior winter due to the College’s residence requirements which would require me to be on,” Hamann said.

Studying abroad can additionally present many challenges for students planning their courses of study and those wishing to utilize abroad credits upon their return to Dartmouth.

Michelle Yao ’20 is a math and economics double major who did an exchange term at Keble College at Oxford through the economics department and the Rockefeller Center for Public Policy.

Yao applied to several programs through the economics department, which included exchange terms at University College London, Bocconi University and Oxford. She said she ultimately decided on Oxford because of its immersive nature.

“There were only four of us, and we lived on campus separately in different dorm buildings,” Yao said.

“Everything that was available to Oxford students was available to us.

We got to participate in orientation week activities and I even joined the rowing team. I very much felt that I was an Oxford student for the entire term.”

As a study abroad institution, Dartmouth does a good job at handling the logistics of arranging exchange ter ms and integrating exchange students, said Andreas Hansen, an exchange student from the University of Copenhagen.

“Dartmouth was really helpful — they were always super quick to reply,”

Hansen said. “Exchange students are looking to be part of the normal fabric of life here, and Dartmouth has been very welcoming.”

Yao said that the economics department also offers an exchange prog ram in Bu d ap es t, bu t its curriculum does not align with her major concentration requirements.

She also said that because you can only take two courses at Oxford, she has lost the ability to take a twocourse term at Dartmouth, whereas she would have received four course credits at UCL or Bocconi.

“I’ve had to stay on this track of taking three classes every term rather than having the flexibility to take an additional off-term or take two classes if I have a particularly heavy workload outside of school that term,” Yao said.

Another option available to students is non-Dartmouth programs through the Dartmouth Registrar’s Office — referred to as a transfer term.

On a transfer term, students often take courses at another university during an off-term. The process for applying for a transfer term involves providing an academic rationale which addresses how individual courses will offer intellectual opportunities not available at Dartmouth, applying for credits, and paying a fee of $2,200 unless the transfer term is taken during the fall, according to the Office of the Registrar.

Katie Shi ’21, a QSS major, did a transfer term at the University of Cambridge and said there could be improvements to the way transfer ter ms are ar ranged and their affordability.

“T he most dif ficult ste p of doing this specific transfer term was getting the credits approved

by Dartmouth,” Shi said. “I was cautioned that I would have to make an exceptionally strong case for my transfer term because Dartmouth already has a partner program with Oxford. It would be really nice if, in future years, Dartmouth could do a partner program with Cambridge because I know that other American students had their tuition fees either partially or fully covered by their home universities, but for me, it cost more

than a regular term at Dartmouth.”

The cost associated with offcampus programs is calculated by the Guarini Institute; however, for all Dartmouth-recognized programs, tuition stays the same. Most changes in price reflect differences in room and board, travel fees and meals.

Hamann said she spent her summer saving money to cover the costs of her time in Barcelona, but was pleasantly surprised that she had overestimated the price of being abroad.

“I saved up for travels, flights and other associated increased costs,” Hamann said. “But I’ve felt like money has been less of a concern than I initially expected. My family was comforted by the fact that the price would be relatively the same as a normal term on-campus with the same aid.”

However, Hamann added that she felt excluded from participating in a non-Dartmouth program since financial aid does not transfer for transfer terms. Aid for transfer terms is only available in the form of federal assistance and outside scholarships and excludes Dartmouth scholarship and loan assistance, according to the Office of the Registrar.

Financial aid director Dino Koff said that his office works to make sure all students can go abroad without financial restraints. Currently, students who receive financial aid can expect an additional scholarship to cover half of the additional expenses associated with studying abroad and a loan is available for the remaining costs, Koff said.

However, one goal of Dartmouth’s ongoing “The Call to Lead” capital campaign is to allocate enough funds to the rest of that additional cost.

Out of the campaign’s goal of $15 million, two-thirds has been raised so far, according to Koff.

“We saw 59 more students last year go on off-campus programs who are on financial aid, which is really exciting,” Koff said. “The goal is to have it be the same exact price to study in London or South Africa as it is to study in Hanover and make sure that everybody that wants to do it has the opportunity to do so.”

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Q&A with Safety and Security officer Teddy Willey

LORRAINE LIU/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

Willey has been a Safety and Security officer for over 20 years.

B y JACOB STRIER The Dartmouth Staff

Safety and Security Officer Teddy Willey has kept a close eye on campus from his cruiser, and when the weather permits, his bicycle, for over 20 years. The Dartmouth went on a ride-along for an hour as Willey started his night-shift rounds, providing a look into the daily effort Safety and Security officers make to ensure Dartmouth students’ wellbeing.

During the ride-along, Willey drove by nearly every spot on Dartmouth’s campus — stretching from the rowing tanks by the bank of the Connecticut River to the sports fields behind Leverone Fieldhouse — surveying his surroundings for anything out of place.

In between responding to multiple calls and an injured student transport, Willey discussed his West Virginia background, his life as a Safety and Security officer and how he connects to the wider community.

Tell me about a typical night shift.

TW: We start our shifts with a briefing. At 4 p.m., our sergeant will recap the events which have happened since we were last here.

Then, we go out and check our cruisers. We do an equipment check to see we have our AED, jump pack and other emergency equipment.

Then, it’s patrol — scanning, keeping an eye out.

How often do calls come in?

TW: Night shift is not as busy as the day shift, but the severity of the calls are typically much worse.

The typical day would be three to five reports, and the typical night is four to eight. The main job is to be a presence on campus and observe.

Probably every other day, I’ll see something where I will say, “Hmm, that shouldn’t be there.”

How have the concerns of Safety and Security changed since 20 years ago?

TW: Our concerns are always the same in terms of keeping students safe and protecting them from themselves. But, we have to be extra cognizant of bias. We are more careful about protecting different students’ rights. We are more sensitive. It’s different today.

Any concern, we will look into, no matter how trivial.

Have you had experiences where trivial concerns became larger concerns?

TW: What I may feel like is not a big deal, the student may feel is a very big deal. For instance: a fraternity tradition that has been going on for 100 years. We may find

it harmless, but someone may find it super, super offensive. We treat all concerns as legitimate until they are investigated.

We are passing a blue light — do you ever respond to blue light button pushes?

TW: It used to be really common, but that was back before cell phones were really popular. Now, it’s like once a month. You can even use it to call for an unlock; we wouldn’t care. We have around 70 of them on campus, so we would respond immediately.

How did you end up in security work, and at Dartmouth?

TW: My father was a small town police chief in Hinton, WV. I always felt like that was something I wanted to do. But instead, I got married real young and went right into the coal mines. I was an underground coal miner for 20 years. The mines went kerplooey, just all at once. I went back to school and started teaching computer classes for adult education. I moved up here 23 years ago and I just love it up here. When I came here, I heard about this position from a friend and I applied.

Are there other skills you brought from your mining experience to Dartmouth?

TW: Not really, other than people skills. Because I was a supervisor in the mines, I felt I could do this type of work, because I managed people. That was a different world, I’m telling you.

Te l l m e a b o u t h o w yo u interact with the Dartmouth community and why it is important.

TW: When I say community, it means our neighbors as well. Let’s say I see a dog running loose. Is it from Theta Delt or from the lady who lives on Occum Ridge? It would be normal for me to knock on her door and say, “Hey, is Fluffy missing?” In terms of community on campus, you really need to know a lot of people. There is an incident.

Do we call risk management? Is it at dining? Is it at the grounds garage? We need to know who to notify when something happens.

The more people you know in the community, the better off you are.

Do you meet and talk to students on a regular basis?

TW: In student transports, it is constant talking. In the summers, when I am on a bicycle, it is heaven.

You are actually saying, “Good morning,” stopping and helping. I know a lot of students, and I know a lot of staff.

Can you describe the best

things about the job?

TW: The satisfaction from when you’ve helped people, and even when it’s in an uncomfortable situation. Let’s say it’s a Good Sam — the kid’s a total mess. They were a total jerk. The next day they see you and say, “Listen Officer Willey, that wasn’t me. I need to apologize.”

It makes you feel good, that you handled it professionally with a little bit of compassion and not just the law. I think that’s the biggest thing about Safety and Security. It’s not about enforcement, it’s about education. Just because it should be a report doesn’t mean we are going to write one. Our department has allowed us enough leeway to where we can play it by ear a little bit.

If a student is somewhere between sober and dangerously intoxicated, what happens?

TW: A lot of it depends on how it was received. Let’s see I see two students, one is helping the other. One is struggling a little bit. I would pull over and hold a conversation with them. With years of experience, we are good at assessing the level. Tonight, for instance, Dartmouth EMS is on, which takes a lot of pressure off.

Sometimes I will give them a ride home and tell them, “If you need to call about this person, do not hesitate.”

What’s hard about your job?

TW: It’s stressful. We have had untimely deaths and untimely suicides. No one can treat that lightly, no matter how much training you have had.

Then there’s the pressure of

trying to get the job done. And the hours. We work so many hours.

Has there been an increase in the use of drugs in recent years?

TW: Drugs like cocaine, no.

Marijuana use is growing. It is more and more common that we are called to dorms for odor investigations. If we feel someone is intoxicated, we will call DEMS or take them to Dick’s House or call an ambulance.

We go to a room and someone just got through smoking and it reeks.

To tell you the truth, I have never experienced someone really messed up just from marijuana. Typically it is nothing to be concerned about.

But we have had hallucinogens and other drugs where people are just out of their mind.

Tell me about your days off.

TW: I’m blessed, because I have been here so long that I have Friday, Saturday and Sunday. My girlfriend and I will get on our motorcycles and just go. We will find a hotel wherever.

We have nowhere in particular we are going. If she is busy, I’ll just go and throw my camping gear on. I do a big trip every year either to the Carolinas or home to West Virginia.

In July, I am going to do a month and circle the United States.

What were the most tense or difficult moments of your career at Dartmouth?

TW: There are a couple of them that I really can’t repeat. As far as tense, anytime we respond to someone unresponsive, you are going over in your mind the steps you are going through. Hopefully,

by the time you get there they are breathing. That is always stressful.

We have them routinely. Students don’t eat well enough, they don’t drink well enough. They pull an all-nighter; they’re exhausted.

Tell me about thefts on campus.

TW: Thefts around our campus, typically it is bicycles, “frackets.” I had a stolen laptop last week. He found it. We haven’t had a true stolen laptop in years. It’s incredible given how students leave them out.

Do you have handcuffs, can you arrest somebody?

TW: Good question. We do not have the power to detain. I can detain you with my words: “If you do not do what I am asking you to do, I am going to call the police.” I can’t detain you physically, but I will follow you. We have no self-defense other than our words. My wife used to say, “He’s got a flashlight and he’s not afraid to use it.” Almost all of us have been trained in verbal judo.

It’s using your words to persuade someone to do what you want.

If you could give yourself advice when you were starting out 20 years ago, what would you say?

TW: Compassion. It is all about being empathetic and compassionate.

Putting yourself in their shoes.

We have all made bad choices.

Understanding it is not the student but it is the alcohol, or drugs, or mental state. We don’t understand the stresses you are under.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.

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