MIR ROR 5.30.2018
SAMANTHA BURACK/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
2 //MIRR OR
Editors’ Note
TTLG: Defending the Comfort Zone TTLG
MICHAEL LIN/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
The last word. When everything is said and done, what is left? You spent four years here. Twelve terms. 2,103,795 minutes. 126,227,704 seconds. How do you condense it all — the friendships, lessons learned, heart-to-hearts, sweaty dance party nights and 2 a.m. cram sessions — into just a couple of words? Once you graduate, how will you look back on your time here? Will your time here by defined by terms? Defined by that term you fell in love, that term you met the people you can’t imagine life without, that term you decided to pursue your passion? Or will you define it by year? Will you look back on your second year as a “sophomore slump” or reminisce fondly about lazy days on the Green during sophomore summer? Those who won’t be graduating any time soon, how will you choose to spend your remaining time here? Luckily for you, members of the 2018 directorate of The Dartmouth impart some of their wisdom in this issue of the Mirror — the ’18s are back for one last time, for one last word.
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5.30.18 VOL. CLXXV NO. 47 MIRROR EDITORS MARIE-CAPUCINE PINEAUVALENCIENNE CAROLYN ZHOU EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ZACHARY BENJAMIN PUBLISHER HANTING GUO EXECUTIVE EDITORS IOANA SOLOMON AMANDA ZHOU
By Haley Gordon
When I walked away from my parents on Robinson Hall’s lawn for Dartmouth Outing Club First-Year Trips, laden with a heavy backpack leftover from my father’s Eagle Scout days and several items of mild contraband, I knew that I wouldn’t be talking for a while. Faced with the prospect of introductions and icebreakers, I contemplated how I could survive the next few days saying as few words as possible. When faced with the opportunity to make a bad impression or a good impression, I tend to split the difference and do my best to make no impression (at all). Coming from a relatively small suburb and having had the same best friends for ages — a neighbor I’ve known my whole life and a best friend I made the first day of kindergarten — this tendency never cost me anything before college. I knew everyone around me, and they knew me, and that was comfortable. Dartmouth is not like that, not for me. I made friends on Trips almost despite myself, though I cemented the relationships more during orientation-week activities than I ever did sitting around a fire and sharing stories about myself based on the color of jellybeans. Then I lived in a four-person quad, having never even shared a room before. I managed to befriend my roommates too, and soon I had manufactured a comfort zone on Berry/Bildner 1 that I loathed to leave, except to hang with my Tripees. The rest of my time at Dartmouth has been spent testing the limits of that comfort zone. My most notable expansions came again from forced constrains that I initially hated, like the D-Plan taking nearly all my floormates from me sophomore fall. It’s amusing and completely predictable that my current constellation of friends is composed largely of those I met or knew of in my circles freshman year, although re-arranged into new dynamics and contexts. I do not buy into the notion that getting out of your comfort zone is an inherent good, though nor matively it is inescapably encouraged. It’s so overrated. Your comfort zone can contain what you are good at and the people that you care most about. That sounds pretty great to me. Deepening those abilities and relationships excites and motivates me much more than the possibilities of a wide-spread network and a resume packed with short-term involvements. Involvement in the theater department since my first year has
allowed me the opportunity to get some too. But, if I were to examine involved in various capacities, not whatever success I have had on just playwriting, the realm I came to this campus, I would attribute it to college knowing I could do. Joining prioritization. Know in what order, The Dartmouth’s staff freshman fall day-to-day even, you rank your and sticking to it led to a promotion goals, your aspirations, your grades, to section editor by sophomore your friendships, your romantic year, and I learned so much more relationships. Then let that order working with different directorates be flexible. It sounds too codified, than I could maybe, but if have if I had you do it right “I do not buy into the abandoned it it all comes from for some other notion that getting out what your heart extracurricular. of your comfort zone wanted all along The College anyway. offers a plethora is an inherent good, As I of ways to spend though normatively look toward your time. The graduation, I sheer amount it is inescapably know that there o f c h o i c e s encouraged.” are some aspects available can of Dartmouth overwhelm an I’ll miss — undergraduate, professors I especially bonded with, someone who has spent their high classes I never had room in my school career jamming in clubs, schedule to take, places on campus sports and honors societies in I’ll think of in future falls. However, the hopes of making it here. But I am not sad about leaving the we should all allow ourselves the people. Everyone I care about will chance to relax for a moment. Not still be in my life, if I want them in the sense that there’s nothing left to be and if they want the same. to work for, but instead to recognize I know that because that’s how it the value of free time and the value has worked for the last four years. of focus, which can sometimes pay That is how it has been through off in greater dividends. off-terms abroad and stuck at home Perhaps I should clarify that I am and in times between. That is how still a busy person. And that I have it has been with my neighbor and made a great deal of friends since my best friends from high school freshman year: lovely, funny and too. Another great thing about the strikingly important to me. I’ve lost comfort zone: it’s portable.
COURTESY OF HALEY GORDON/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
Haley Gordon ’18 has had extensive involvement in the theater department.
MIRROR //3
Through The Looking Glass: Learning How To Remember TTLG
By Madeline Killen
Last week, when I learned that defensively. Apparently, people Philip Roth had died, I searched with young children rate their my Notes app for the line from baseline happiness as lower than “American Pastoral” that I’d copied people without children do, but down last spring: “And since we once their children are grown up, don’t just forget things because they they look back on the time that their don’t matter but also forget things children were young as the happiest because they matter too much ... time of their lives. That way, they each of us remembers and forgets can tell themselves that having kids in a pattern whose labyrinthine was not, in fact, a very expensive windings are an identification and time-consuming mistake but mark no less distinctive than a actually the best thing that ever fingerprint...” happened to I was sitting them. Tricky. “Have you ever on the grass I suspect I’m outside of the noticed how almost going to do River apartments all alumni seem to the same thing on one of those with my thesis. first warm days be so gung-ho about I also, of spring when Dartmouth that sometimes being anywhere cynically, listening to them, you and except in the sun suspect that felt like a sin, almost feel like they I’m going and I remember went to a completely to do that reading that line with all four and thinking that different school but years here at it put into words with eerily similar Dartmouth. something that I do love traditions?” I’d always known Dartmouth, without knowing. don’t get me Now, with all the w ro n g, a n d nostalgia I’d put I think that on hold until my thesis was finished this journey of extreme highs finally rushing in, Roth’s words and lows that is “My Dartmouth won’t stop running through my E x p e r i e n c e ” h a s u l t i m at e l y head. balanced out to a net positive. (Sort I know a couple of things about of unrelated, but I recently read memory from my two terms as a an article about how contestants psychology major and from the on “The Bachelor” franchise pop psych books that, unlike my have to re-tape their on-camera textbooks, I actually did read. confessions if they accidentally First, I know that our memories say “this process” or “this show” can depend on our current mood; instead of “this journey,” and now I if we’re depressed, we can only can’t stop thinking about that every recall times when things didn’t go time I hear, say or see the phrase our way, and if everything is going “Dartmouth experience.” Okay, great, we feel like everything has carry on.) Have you ever noticed always been going great. Second, how almost all alumni seem to be we reassemble our memories self- so gung-ho about Dartmouth that
MADELINE KILLEN/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
Madeline Killen ’18 reflects on the pitfalls of rewriting her memories of the past four years.
listening to them, you almost feel like they went to a completely different school but with eerily similar traditions? One of my ’16 friends has made multiple comments to me this year about how nice Dartmouth people are, which is something that I don’t think anyone who is currently a student here would ever say. I’d literally think you were on drugs if you said that “All Dartmouth students are SO nice.” You would
have to put probably six qualifiers funding in the state . I never in that sentence to get me to agree imagined confronting the kind with you. “All Dartmouth students of privilege that is so common at wh o a re n’t Dartmouth, the writing a kind of privilege “I’m really proud of thesis and are that makes boys only taking the kind of balance think they can two classes that I’ve achieved in g r a b yo u i n a this term frater nity and and who are my relationship with hold you tighter g r a d u a t i n g Dartmouth, feeling w h e n yo u t r y this year and to get away, the happy somewhere, who were kind of privilege raised right loving something that keeps them are SO nice that I know isn’t behind you in the at 4 p.m. on KAF line, two perfect.” G reen Key rows in front of Friday if the you in a class weather is over sophomore nice.” Okay, s u m m e r, r i g h t fine. beside you at the I — hopelessly, futilely — want Green Key concert. I’m really to remember Dartmouth just how proud of the kind of balance that it was, with some boring classes I’ve achieved in my relationship and unsavory characters and with Dartmouth, feeling happy terms when I just felt sad all the somewhere, loving something that time and couldn’t put my finger I know isn’t perfect. I don’t want on why. I want to remember to water that down by editing the Dartmouth with the things I don’t bad bits out of the story. like making up a significant portion I do think that part of the reason of the labyrinthine fingerprint, why I’m so scared to look back on too, because I think learning my time at Dartmouth with rosethat I didn’t like those things was colored glasses, though, is that I’m as important as anything that I scared of missing it. But I don’t learned in my classes. I grew up think that’s avoidable. I’m going in a tiny town in North Carolina to miss Dartmouth — flaws, bad in a county ranked in the bottom bits, low grades, mean people, sad fifth percentile for public school terms and all.
4// MIRROR
Through The Looking Glass: A Campus of Conformity TTLG
By Caroline Berens
COURTESY OF CAROLINE BERENS/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
Berens reflects on the pressures to conform on campus — and the moment when she realized she didn't want to follow the crowd anymore.
Ever since I was a child, in response to practically any concern I have, my parents have always given consistent, simple advice: be yourself. Worried about fitting in at summer camp? Just be yourself. Scared about that job interview? Just be yourself. Nervous about making friends at Dartmouth? Just be yourself. I never found this advice particularly difficult to follow. For instance, in middle school, while our peers were discussing their first kisses and Justin Bieber, my best friend and I brought books and silently read alongside each other during lunch. When a teacher approached me about this “abnormal” behavior, my response was unabashed: I would rather read than socialize. In high school, this confidence still held true; largely unfazed by what the “popular” people were doing, I confidently spent Friday nights watching Shark Tank with my parents, maintained a small but close group of friends and wore outfits that resembled those of a middle-aged kindergarten teacher. Granted, being myself wasn’t always beneficial; my inherent lack of competitiveness, for example, didn’t bode particularly well for my athletic endeavors. Nor was I entirely immune from social influence or pressure. But for the most part, I had no problem embracing who I was and living according to my own rules. It wasn’t until I got to Dartmouth
that being myself suddenly became incredibly challenging. With the omnipresence of my evaluative peers, Dartmouth’s intense culture of conformity, and the constant pressure to make college the “best four years” of my life, I found myself basing decisions not on my own preferences, but on whatever seemed the most “Dartmouth” thing to do. On weekend nights, feeling compelled to go out because that’s what Dartmouth students did, I sat on cheap leather couches in cramped dorm rooms and descended into grimy frat basements, wholeheartedly wishing I were anywhere else. I made plans with people for every single meal, including breakfast, because Dartmouth students — at least, the kind I wanted to be — never ate alone. I traded in my pastel cardigans for plaid flannel shirts and copious Dartmouth gear, learned to play and pretended to care about pong and feigned excitement for big weekends, despite finding them consistently underwhelming. I did trivial things, like studying in the library even though I was more productive in my room, or standing in the outlandish KAF line to get coffee even though I preferred Novack, simply because I considered them more “Dartmouth” than the alternative. I posted pictures of Baker Tower on Instagram and convinced myself that I was in love with Dartmouth, despite my immense homesickness and loneliness, because above all, Dartmouth students really love
Dartmouth. None of this made me any happier, but I feared that defiance of this unspoken but ubiquitous Dartmouth code would lead to social exclusion. More importantly, I was convinced that the extent of my participation in what was “Dartmouth” was directly correlated with the quality of my experience here. This blind conformity followed me into sophomore year. Of course, without a second of critical thought, I rushed and became involved in my sorority, because what was more “Dartmouth” than that? I quieted my internal hesitations about the superficiality and exclusivity of Greek house “communities” and the inauthenticity I often felt in the house. My sophomore summer, I took on a leadership role in my sorority, partly because I thought it was so quintessentially “Dartmouth.” I r o n i c a l l y, t h i s c l a s s i c “Dartmouth” experience ultimately brought an end to my intense conformity. Social pressure to do “Dartmouth” activities and make the most of my time peaked sophomore summer. Additionally burdened by the frustrations of my leadership role and other personal difficulties, I found myself enormously, and irrevocably, disillusioned. Standing in a fraternity basement at tails one night, miserable and forcing myself to make shallow small talk with an ease and lightheartedness I did not
feel, I was overwhelmingly struck by utter exhaustion. I couldn’t be the aspirational “Dartmouth” ideal, but suddenly, I didn’t want to be. In losing the varnish of my own conformity, which I had mistakenly believed was the fulfillment of a genuine “Dartmouth” experience, I began to see how performative, inauthentic and problematic it all was. Obsession with image — whether in physical appearance, so-called “social capital” or social media — is pernicious at Dartmouth, and both facilitates and perpetuates its conformist culture. Moreover, the qualities and activities I considered most “Dartmouth” were often extremely exclusive of entire segments of campus, particularly marginalized communities. In beginning to evaluate my complicit role in this harmful conformity, I questioned why I had ever sacrificed my values or cared in the first place. Fortuitously, this shift coincided with seven much-needed and restorative months away from Hanover between my fall Foreign Study Program in London and winter internship at home in Boston. The peaceful solitude of London which afforded distance from Hanover and without any standards to which I felt compelled to conform, I felt renewed, content and centered. At home, I was reminded of the middle schooler who shamelessly read Harry Potter during lunch for the simple reason that she wanted to, and vowed to recapture that
confidence. When I returned my junior spring, I approached the rest of my time at Dartmouth with a simple guideline: just be yourself. Barring necessities, if I genuinely did or didn’t want to do something, I followed that desire. The social judgment, FOMO and subpar Dartmouth experience I feared did not materialize; instead, doing Dartmouth on my own authentic terms — whether that meant exclusively drinking Novack coffee, limiting my trips down Webster Avenue, distancing myself from my sorority or openly discussing what I resented about Dartmouth — was instead empowering and liberating. When I graduate from Dartmouth in two weeks, I won’t measure my experience here in hikes up Mount Moosilauke (zero), Lou’s Challenges (two) or pong games won (<five). What gave meaning to my four years were the experiences that challenged me, this campus that simultaneously enchanted and disappointed me, and above all, the people here who made me unafraid — even proud — to be my authentic self. How “Dartmouth” it all was, or I was, was ultimately inconsequential. So to those of you who still have time left here — whether this results in a Dartmouth experience that resembles those advertised in its glossy brochures, something entirely different or somewhere in between — I echo my parents’ frequent refrain: just be yourself.
MIRROR //5
Through The Looking Glass: Ask Me Something TTLG
By Annette Denekas
I ask a lot of questions. was doing a day after my grandma My friends frequently joke passed away last term, I caught that I “grill” them with all that myself answering, “I’m fine! I’m wondering about. When Anyway, how did the midterm go my roommate arrives home in for you?” the evening, an approximate 15 But as the conventional story inquiries about her day await her. usually goes, I am not fine. I In general, I like to know details, I disguise my self-doubts with enjoy learning about people and I (what I try to present to others as) hate silent pauses in conversation. visible bubbliness, friendliness and I prefer to hear about someone curiosity in order to compensate else than talk about myself — for the vast, pernicious dilemmas that’s how I’ve always been most that exist out of sight. comfortable. I take daily medication for This inquisitive trait is not a depression and anxiety. I’ve seen quality I dislike about myself. I a therapist on and off since my suppose there are a few people sophomore year of college. I have who find it annoying (i.e. think to days when I must physically force themselves, “Why won’t this girl myself to leave my room. My leave me alone already?!”) but relationship with food and body generally it is quite handy in social image, quite frankly, really sucks. situations, such as women’s rush I’ve stopped attending most events or all the various mingling events with crowds because of my social I’ve attended in my four years at anxiety. I often go to bed feeling Dartmouth. fearful of what But it’s what my mood will be the questions "Talking about myself upon waking up. m a s k t h a t — especially the My dad told me is m o r e deeper parts of myself he did not think problematic. I should return T a l k i n g that dive beyond the to Dartmouth about myself shallow Collis lunch for my senior — especially year of college, conversati on topics the deeper and instead parts o f surrounding classes, suggested I take my s el f th at m en t a l h e al t h what happened last dive beyond leave. I refused t h e s h a l l ow night or who else got to speak to my Collis lunch a job — is terrifying. I mom, whom I conversation love more than t o p i c s hate it. I do not mesh anyone, all of surrounding well with attention; last summer for classes, what reasons I still my constant questi ons happened cannot pinpoint. last night or serve as a quick and I silently shake who else got foolproof method for with anger when a job — is someone jokes shift ing the spotlight terrifying. I a b o u t h av i n g hate it. I do away from myself." an anxiety not mesh attack, because well with I know what an attention; actual, crushing, my constant terrifying anxiety questions serve as a quick and attack really feels like. foolproof method for shifting Most of my friends do not know the spotlight away from myself. anything about these internal and Smiling, nodding and listening is thought-consuming problems, and so much easier than uttering words probably would never even suspect for judgment. If I do begin to talk I struggle with them. I never talk extensively about myself, a nagging about them. And I’m really good voice in my head echoes, “Annette, at hiding them. she does not care. See? She just Though I am just one in the looked away. She’s bored.” Swiftly, crowd (according to the 2016 I finish my sentence and change Dartmouth Health Survey, a the topic with another inquiry. quarter of the student body has Questions are my defense been diagnosed with depression mechanism. I cannot begin to and anxiety), the fact that I am count the number of conversations not alone does not discount I’ve come away from feeling like I the reality of my struggles — a learned everything about someone thought that I write really as else but revealed basically nothing an attempt to convince myself about myself — and feeling that my inner dilemmas are consequential relief. I refuse to worth sharing, and a notion open up to people, to the extent that applies to any individual that when a friend asked how I suffering from mental illness.
COURTESY OF ANNETTE DENEKAS/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
Denekas opens up about her struggles with mental health and explains how she is beginning to grapple with them.
Furthermore, I am not writing to give another commentary about how Dartmouth fosters shallow superficiality. I am one among many, yet again, who contributes to an unhealthy, Duck-Syndrome-steeped campus culture that expects perfection in all senses of the word. We should go out three days a week but still perform well academically; drink but stay thin; study or chat with friends late into the night but wake up early to get KAF before class; maintain strong friendships but take various abroad and offterms; be happy and healthy while functioning in this high-stress, high-achieving environment that is Dartmouth. This perfectiondriven, competitive atmosphere in which we immerse ourselves for four years allows mental health issues to fester and exacerbate, as it did for me. We are a community composed of starkly paradoxical expectations, but that fact has been established. The true purpose of this piece is far more personal for me. It is an
exercise in opening up, in exposing my flawed self, in releasing deep insecurities, in revealing something that has profoundly impacted my Dartmouth experience. I should be honest in that writing this column causes me a fair amount of anxiety in itself, not only due to the stigma surrounding mental health problems but also because my own words are now “out there” in cyberspace for others to judge from behind their screens. As always, the nagging question of “Will people actually care what I have to say?” echoes through my thoughts. But I refuse to maintain the unhealthy, cyclical façade any further. As my Dartmouth chapter closes, I feel a staggering need to share this exposé of sorts with the community in which I have been deeply, and sometimes suffocatingly, enmeshed for four rollercoaster-like years. It has taken me a long time to realize that shrouding problems in secrecy only perpetuates and worsens them, considering that my countless
attempts to stifle down feelings inevitably result in bubbling-over breaking points. This piece is a conscious effort to talk about me, a seemingly simple action that is inexplicably difficult. Here’s the honest, open Annette: the same girl who enjoys taking Occom walks with her wonderful friends to gossip, who snuggles with her supportive roommate every night, who laughs hysterically when she FaceTimes her sister and best friend from home, who loves watching “Jeopardy” with her parents and who takes numerous selfies and unflattering Snapchats of herself everyday, but who also struggles with very real depression and anxiety. I still like to ask questions. And to some degree, those Collis lunch conversations are enjoyable. Yet the next time someone inquires about me, I want to really answer, to talk about myself, to expose my true thoughts rather than shifting the attention or responding with a surface-level disclosure — or at least try. So ask me something.
6 //MIR ROR
TTLG: An Alternative Definition of Passion TTLG
By Ziqin Yuan
As of Week Nine my senior seniors — students who entered spring, it has finally hit me that I college at the same time as I did will soon be leaving this place for but somehow seem to be leaving good. Some things that I already it far more developed than I am miss include: the plentiful piles — told stories about following of DBA I use to supply, guilt-free, their passions despite pressure my daily caffeine fix; my student from others to change. Was there discount; something wrong N e w with me, then, if Hampshire’s “Panels of graduating I couldn’t figure lack of local seniors — students mine out? taxes. Some It took me four who entered college things that I years to come to will definitely at the same time as this point, but n o t m i s s I did but somehow I now fir mly include: the believe that not K A F l i n e seem to be leaving it everyone will have (actually, any far more developed a passion, at least line on this not in the way that than I am — told campus); a our society paints nagging sense stories about following it. The idea of an that I should their passions despite inherent, inborn be finding a passion that one passion that pressures from others gravitates toward sustains me to change. Was there i s ove r- hy p e d , in the way due in part to the e v e r y o n e something wrong with prominence put else on this me, then, if I couldn’t on individualistic c a m p u s v a l u e s figure mine out?” seems to be byAmerican sustained. society as a Over the course of the last year, whole and in part to the relative I have been seeking out advice on prominence of those with passions. how to best live my post-grad life. The media is full of “rags to riches” The passion question has come stories of entrepreneurs who took up endlessly. In coffee chats over their one idea — their one passion the summer, various “real” adults project, as some may put it — and (meaning people who are over the turned it into an enterprise. Of age of 30 and/or seem to have course, I also heard stories of those their lives together) instructed me who pursued their passions as side to figure out what I’m passionate projects, living part of their life about and mold my future career to sustain the other part. Unlike to fit that. Panels of graduating those whose passions became their
work, these people worked to feed their passion. Yet they still had the commonality of a consistent activity to look forward to and work at. On a high level, the emphasis on passion makes sense, since it’s much less interesting to talk about the behind-the-scenes work necessary to make a project happen. That being said, as I scroll through Instagram and watch yet another 30-second video of a scrappy business owner who successfully accomplished her dream of providing edible raw cookie dough to the masses, it can be difficult to remember that these entrepreneurs succeed not just because of their passion, but also because of their work. The emphasis that we put on passion for an activity, rather than passion for an achievement, can devalue the role that sheer hard work plays. When you’re passionate about a project, work may seem easy, but that doesn’t mean the work’s not hard. At the same time, hard work does not exist solely in the presence of passion, and passion can come out of hard work. My friend shocked me the other day when he commented that I seemed to have my life so put together. On paper, I look like a stereotypical Dartmouth almost-alumna, with a clear path for the next few years and a general sense of my future path. Yet the thread that ties all of my endeavors together is a constant, nagging doubt about my one true calling.
COURTESY OF ZIQIN YUAN/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
Ziqin Yuan ’18 believes that society tends to over-emphasize “passion” and overlooks hard work in stories of success.
COURTESY OF ZIQIN YUAN/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
Yuan is a self-proclaimed Yelp expert – ask her for recommendations!
This thread led me in and out of some may have, but with a passion various organizations, professions that comes directly out of the hours and even friend groups. I put into the things I stuck with. When my friend mentioned H av i n g s a i d t h a t , I s t i l l what he h ave t ro u bl e considered my convincing “As I worried relative success myself that I in Dartmouth, throughout these have a passion. I was surprised past four years about But I am also because what starting to h e s a w a s my lack of a passion, accept that like success, I saw as my life moved everything else, my inability to passion is to an forward, and I came pinpoint what extent a social I wanted out to successfully define construct, and of life. But his myself by the things I if Dartmouth comment also has taught me made me realize worked at – writing, a n y t h i n g, i t t h a t d e s p i t e creating, the sport of is that social this inability constructs can eating.” that I saw in only affect you myself, I was if you let them. doing just fine. For four years, I As I worried pushed myself throughout to find that these past four years about my elusive, all-consuming passion that lack of a passion, my life moved everyone seemed to have, without forward, and I came to successfully realizing that passion isn’t always define myself by the things I an inherent quality that you see worked at — writing, creating, portrayed on TV or in student the sport of eating. And I slowly panels. Now that my time here is became passionate about those almost over, I am slowly realizing activities, not necessarily with the that with or without a passion, I inherent, born-with-it passion that am doing just fine.
MIRROR //7
Through The Looking Glass: A Billion Dartmouths TTLG
By Parker Richards
Believing in a defined Dartmouth to define the College. As opinion is a flaw on our campus and one editor at The Dartmouth, much of almost every student sinks into. my job came in defining a vision There are the Dartmouth rampers, for the College in the future. We those who build up the College to wanted it to focus on undergraduates be something it never can fully be: and the liberal arts. We said the a place of traditions and pong and community could help stop sexual brotherhood. Then there are the misconduct. We argued natural detractors: to them, Dartmouth is spaces are essential to the Dartmouth ever oppressive, a place of privilege character. We believed an enrollment to be dismantled. increase would be disastrous. We But can there ever be a single, set out a vision for Dartmouth four unified Dartmouth? Can it be just years down the line. Of course, the one thing, one image of itself ? Of Dartmouth we believed in — small, course not. Perhaps we all know this, undergraduate-focused, naturebut in the day-to-day discussions on driven, inclusive and progressive — campus, that is hardly ever apparent. only exists as a facet of the broader Dartmouth must be all things to Dartmouth. As a defining idea, it all people while being defined by was always a fiction. those same groups as one thing, a In my own life, the College has monolithic entity that embodies evolved not just term to term, but what they see in it (good or ill) and almost day to day. I see it in a new nothing else. light each morning — sometimes as I have seen Dartmouth metastasize a place of friendship and wonder, and shift; it’s not othertimes as that the College is “The obvious a lonely, sad a different version blot along the of itself to each paradox is that meandering of its students Dartmouth cannot Connecticut. (though it is), but The College be all things to all rather that even to of sophomore a single student, people, yet it is summer was it is engaged in a different thing an isolating near-constant e x p e r i e n c e. evolution. The to each of us, a The College College in one different thing even that traveled term is not the with me s a m e a s t h e to us today than it to London College the next. was to us yesterday.” was one of Its spaces change, camaraderie its peoples shift, its a n d very core strains and evolves. togetherness, an experience that I’ve spent a lot of time trying made me a more curious and
COURTESY OF PARKER RICHARDS/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
Parker Richards ’18 poses with Opinion co-editors Ziqin Yuan ’18 and Ioana Solomon ’19.
engaged person — not that my grades were any better. From one month to the next, from the end of sophomore summer to the beginning of junior fall, there was a shift. Yes, I flew across the North Atlantic. Sea-green behemoths chopped against icebergs in the swell
COURTESY OF PARKER RICHARDS/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
Parker Richards ’18 argues that the college can’t be all things to all people, and that’s it’s a different entity for each.
and separated the one from the other. Dartmouth, as a physical place, was behind me. But it was more than that. The College around me shifted, which is really to say that I changed. Perhaps it was being abroad. Perhaps it was being around different people. But there was a seismic alteration in what Dartmouth was for me, a breaking of the monolith. And when I left London, the College reformed again. And it continued its evolution into my junior spring and thence in to senior year, and it has kept shifting. It will continue to do so, I think, for each new student. Dartmouth has over 6,000 students. It has hundreds of faculty and staff. The College is different to each of those people each day they are part of it. There is not a monolithic Dartmouth but rather an infinite one; if Dartmouth changes each day, for each member of its community, and represents something unique to every one of us, there are about four million Dartmouths each year, almost 200 million Dartmouths since coeducation and close to a billion since the College was born. I once had a professor passionately tell a class that the College was its own sort of Hell. I’ve also heard people extol the virtues of Dartmouth to the umpteenth degree, talking of the College as if it could do no wrong, as if the only faults the College was capable of
were the occasional bad decisions of the Hanlon administration. To say both of these views are wrong should be a truism. To say each is obviously right? That may be just as accurate. The obvious paradox is that Dartmouth cannot be all things to all people, yet it is a different thing to each of us, a different thing even to us today than it was to us yesterday. This community spends an almost laughable quantity of time arguing not about what it should be but about what it is. We might remember what Alexander Pope once wrote: “What mighty contests rise from trivial things.” And we might all be better off worrying about how we can make the College better, in all its forms, rather than debating ad infinitum what it is today. I do not know what sort of alumnus I will be: if I’ll be active, if I’ll be uninvolved. I don’t know if I’ll be like my friends’ parents who come back regularly, who would have their young children eat at Everything but Anchovies for the memories at each visit. I don’t know if I’ll be like the senior editor at one of my internships, who graduated in the late 1990s and hadn’t come back to the College since. That’s because I don’t know which of the many Dartmouths I have experienced will be the one that defines my memories of the College. I hope it will be the best of them.
8// MIRROR
Signs of the Times PHOTO
By Michael Lin