VOL. CLXXVI NO. 106
SNOW HIGH 35 LOW 26
OPINION
TUNG: FOSTER CHILDREN: IN DANGER, AND HELPLESS PAGE 4
MALBREAUX: ADDRESSING #ADOS PAGE 4
ARTS
2019 MUSIC IN REVIEW: THE 10 BEST ALBUMS OF THE YEAR PAGE 7
HOPKINS CENTER FESTIVAL HOSTS EIGHT ALUMNI IN FILM INDUSTRY PAGE 8
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COPYRIGHT © 2019 THE DARTMOUTH, INC.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2019
HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE
Changes in financial aid awards College restores force some students to leave College full access to dorms during daytime hours B y The DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
After restricting access to residence halls within students’ House communities at the beginning of fall term, the College will now allow universal student access to residential facilities between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. daily. Overnight access to residential facilities is still restricted to residents and House members. The policy change was
announced on Monday evening in separate emails to the student body by associate dean of residential life Mike Wooten and Student Assembly. Both emails noted that a working group on student access — which includes Wooten, members of Student Assembly and the Inter House council, House professors and Dean of the College Kathyrn Lively — will continue to meet SEE DORMS PAGE 2
Buttigieg, Warren lead in Dartmouth students’ 2020 preferences B y WILLIAM CHEN AND AARON LEE
The Dartmouth Senior Staff
As the days become colder in New Hampshire, the 2020 presidential race has been heating up, with a little less than three months remaining before the first-in-the-nation primary. The Dartmouth conducted a poll last week collecting students’ views on the upcoming presidential race and current political issues. Here, we present some of the key
results. A more detailed analysis of survey results will be published online in the near future.
Trump and Buttigieg gain while Biden and Harris lose ground The Dartmouth’s survey found that Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) leads among Dartmouth students, with 20 percent of the student body responding that they would have SEE POLL PAGE 2
LORRAINE LIU/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
Two students told The Dartmouth they had to leave the College after seeing changes in financial aid.
B y ARIELLE BEAK The Dartmouth Staff
Ky l i e P a l a c i o s w a s finishing her second year at Dartmouth when she received her financial aid award letter in May 2019 for the upcoming sophomore summer term. “I remember seeing it and immediately being like, ‘I don’t think I pay this much,’ and being really confused,” Palacios said. Though Palacios’ situation is somewhat rare relative to the cases of most Dartmouth students, her situation is one that affects students who struggle to make ends meet for tuition payments — some of whom are forced to leave Dartmouth.
After inquiring further with the College’s financial aid office, Palacios learned the her financial aid package had changed because her older sister had graduated college and her father’s income had increased. However, Palacios noted that her father had an increased salary because he had picked up several hours a week of overtime in order to pay off her tuition last year, while her sister had attended her university on a full-ride scholarship. “It wasn’t extra hours, it was all overtime that he’d been killing himself over,” Palacios said. Following advice from the financial aid office,
Palacios wrote a letter of appeal explaining her situation, including her accomplishments at the College and factors such as the high cost of living in southern California. After about a week of waiting, her family received a response. “It pretty much said we looked over everything, but this tuition stays,” Palacios said. “This is how our math works — sorry, bummer.” After meeting in person with a financial aid officer, she received the same answer. “She said I could take out more loans, but I’m like 40 grand in debt and I’m a sophomore,” Palacios said. SEE FINANCIAL AID PAGE 5
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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2019
THE DARTMOUTH NEWS
Dartmouth students continue to express low approval of Trump FROM POLL PAGE 1
voted for her if the election had been held at the time of the poll. South Bend, IN mayor Pete Buttigieg came in second with 18 percent, followed by President Donald Trump (17 percent), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) (15 percent), former vice president Joe Biden (10 percent), Andrew Yang (9 percent) and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) (3 percent). All other candidates polled below two percent. Compared to the The Dartmouth’s earlier survey conducted last spring, Buttigieg and Yang have surged ahead, gaining seven percent and five percent, respectively, while support for Warren and Sanders increased moderately. This change may come at the expense of other candidates — particularly Biden and Harris, whose support among Dartmouth students dropped four percent and eight percent of Dartmouth students, respectively. As a result, Biden dropped from second to fifth in the rankings, while Harris fell from fifth to seventh. The exit of some candidates from the race may have contributed to these changes as well; for instance, around eight percent of students had supported former U.S. representative Beto O’Rourke in The Dartmouth’s spring poll. Trump has also captured a notable amount of support, with a gain of seven percent since the spring poll. Much of Trump’s increase in popularity was driven by increased support from his own party: 80 percent of Republicanidentifying students now support Trump, up from 64 percent in the spring poll. Trump has also increased his standing among independent students to 10 percent, up from four percent previously. Fifty-one percent of Dartmouth students said they plan to vote in the New Hampshire primary while another 39 percent planned to vote in another state’s caucus/primary. Among students who said they plan to vote in the upcoming Democratic primary, Buttigieg leads with 30 percent and Warren closely follows with 27
percent. Sanders (13 percent), Yang (11 percent), Biden (10 percent) and Harris (four percent) trail those two. All other candidates in the Democratic field polled below two percent. The Republican primary, however, remains essentially uncontested. Among Dartmouth students who plan to vote in the New Hampshire Republican primary, more than 91 percent supported Trump, while former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld and former U.S. Representative Joe Walsh received only five percent and three percent, respectively. Students’ views on President Trump Dartmouth students remain significantly opposed to Trump’s actions as president. When asked whether they approve or disapprove of Trump’s performance as president, only 17 percent approve while 78 percent disapprove. Democratic students very strongly disapprove of Trump, with 99 percent disapproval versus only one percent approval. Other nonRepublicans also generally disapprove of Trump: 78 percent of independent students disapprove (versus 13 percent who approve), and 60 percent of Libertarian students disapprove (versus 13-percent approval). On the other hand, Republican students rate Trump’s job performance highly: 79 percent of Republican students approve of Trump’s performance as president, while only 18 percent disapprove. In August 2019, a whistleblower complaint alleged that Trump had improperly pressured the government of Ukraine to begin a politically motivated investigation into Biden and his family by withholding approved U.S. military aid. As a result, Congress opened an impeachment inquiry into Trump’s actions. Dartmouth students generally remain aware of these current events, with 77 percent reporting that they were very or somewhat aware of the details of the Trump-Ukraine situation. Furthermore, 66 percent of students
CORRECTIONS We welcome corrections. If you believe there is a factual error in a story, please email editor@thedartmouth.com.
WILLIAM CHEN/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
Respondents to The Dartmouth’s recent survey show a preference for Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg in 2020.
support the impeachment inquiry against Trump, while 20 percent are opposed. This support for the impeachment inquiry also correlated strongly to support for Trump’s removal from office: 63 percent of all respondents also agreed with the statement “President Trump should be impeached and removed from office,” while 24 percent disagreed. Among Democratic students, 87 percent support the inquiry while three percent are opposed. Among Republicans, only 20 percent support the inquiry while
73 percent are opposed. Independent students are also generally averse to Trump, with 59 percent support for the impeachment inquiry and only 17 percent in opposition. Another article with more details be published online in the future. Methodology: From Wednesday, Nov. 13 to Monday, Nov. 18, The Dartmouth fielded an online survey of Dartmouth students on their views about the
upcoming election and other political issues. At that time, Deval Patrick had yet to announce his intention to run in the election. The survey was sent out to 4,845 students through their Dartmouth email addresses. Five hundred and thirty-two responses were recorded, resulting in an 11.0 percent response rate. Using administrative data from the College’s Office of Institutional Research, responses were weighted race/ethnicity and graduation year. Weighting was done through iterative post-stratification (raking). Survey results have a margin of error +/- 4.01 percentage points.
Change comes after student criticisms FROM DORMS PAGE 1
to discuss additional “safety issues” such as access to individual rooms and door locking. “I think it finds an appropriate balance between security needs and campus openness,” said Student Assembly president Luke Cuomo ’20 in an interview with The Dartmouth. “A cooperative process necessitates compromise.” T he original dor m access restrictions were announced on Sept. 14, just before the start of fall term. Wooten told The Dartmouth at the
time that the change was in response to a request from Student Assembly to improve security after a series of racial bias incidents in October 2018. Cuomo and Student Assembly vice president Ariela Kovary ’20 rejected this justification and criticized the restrictions in an email to the student body, stating that the Student Assembly had no prior knowledge of the changes and suggesting that the restrictions would not achieve its goal of improving student safety. In the weeks that followed, Student Assembly circulated a petition demanding a reversal of the
policy which garnered nearly 3,000 signatures from the student body. A survey fielded by The Dartmouth found that 94 percent of students either strongly or somewhat opposed the restrictions. On Oct. 18, the Office of Residential Life restored universal access to several common spaces: House Center A, House Center B, the lounges in Fahey Hall, Brace Commons and Occom Commons. Both email announcements welcomed student participation and input in the next stages of the working group’s discussions.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2019
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THE DARTMOUTH NEWS
Admissions director asserts College does not market unfairly
B y LAUREN ADLER
The Dartmouth Staff
Dartmouth and other elite colleges and universities across the country hope to admit top students. But according to a Nov. 5 Wall Street Journal article, some of these institutions will market themselves to weaker applicants as part of the numbers game of acceptance rates in college admissions. When asked about this practice, Dartmouth’s director of admissions Paul Sunde said that Dartmouth does not engage in it. He also argued that other schools likely do not engage in it as well. The Wall Street Journal article, titled, “For Sale: SAT-Takers’ Names. Colleges Buy Student Data and Boost Exclusivity” asserts that some of the country’s top 100 colleges and universities buy testing data from the College Board in order to woo students with scores below their desired benchmarks who will apply and
inevitably get rejected. In this way, the practice artificially reduces that school’s acceptance rate and turns those students into “unknowing pawns.” “I can’t literally speak for other places, because I don’t work at other places,” Sunde said. “But what I can tell you is that it is not in any institution’s best interest to market itself to students that it knows won’t be viable candidates. Maybe I’m just speaking for [Dartmouth], but that doesn’t make sense to me … You can see by the expression on my face that that’s just baffling to me.” The article describes a nationwide trend of rapidly dropping acceptance rates and universities’ use of the Student Search Service or “Search” — an optional College Board program that point consenting students towards elite institutions. “I was surprised that [the article] highlighted a recruitment practice that colleges have been using for decades,” wrote vice provost for enrollment and
dean of admissions and financial aid Lee Coffin in an email statement. “The [Wall Street Journal] article seems to suggest [Search] is a new practice. It isn’t.” Sunde confirmed that Dartmouth does participate in Search, and said that in his nearly 30 years working in college admissions, he had “never heard of the use of Search not going on.” College Board spokesman Zachary Goldberg wrote in an email to The Dartmouth that Search is used by 1,900 colleges and universities and that it is both free and optional for students, but participants can opt out at any time. He noted that participants are also eligible for $300 million in scholarship opportunities through various scholarship organizations that partner with Search. “Search helps launch a student’s future by connecting students with college and scholarship opportunities at the time when they begin thinking about postsecondary education, so they have time to get to know various colleges
and make informed college choices,” Goldberg wrote. However, “[s]tudents must affirmatively declare their desire to begin a conversation with colleges and scholarship providers.” Dartmouth also uses SAT and ACT testing data, as well as scores on AP and IB exams, alongside Search data to target especially promising applicants. “The big way we’re using data is with standardized test scores, [which are] an important element of the holistic review process,” Sunde said. “That’s the vast majority of our dealings [with the College Board]. We participate in Search a relatively modest amount, because it’s only with very high expectations on student performance that we acquire a record [of student data].” Sunde also noted that Search is just one part of Dartmouth’s much larger promotional effort toward prospective applicants. “The work that we’re doing on our website, with social media,
with our blogs, the travel that our admissions officers engage in, the visitor programming that we’re offering here on campus — those are all essential to what we do,” Sunde said. Dartmouth tries to root its marketing in stories from current students and faculty members in order to help potential applicants get a sense of “Dartmouth’s values and Dartmouth’s strengths,” according to Sunde. “And then, Search gives us the opportunity to invite some students who, based on what we can tell, look promising in the context of our applicant pool to participate in that process,” he added. Even without Search, though, Sunde said that Dartmouth’s applicant pool gets better and more diverse each year. “What we’re trying to do is develop an applicant pool that is robust, diverse, incredibly talented and promising,” he said. “It’s the students’ choice to be in our pool, and ultimately, the students’ choice to come to Dartmouth.”
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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2019
THE DARTMOUTH OPINION
CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST GEMMA TUNG ’23
SENIOR STAFF COLUMNIST TYLER MALBREAUX ’20
Foster Children: In Danger, and Helpless
Addressing #ADOS
We must eliminate private state Child Protective Service Departments. On Sat., Nov. 9, two dozen citizens of Topeka, KS rallied on the steps of their statehouse for better laws for the safety of children in the foster care system. Something needed to be done. In November of last year, a lawsuit was filed by local advocates and two children’s rights groups on behalf of 10 children in the foster care system against the Kansas Department of Children and Families. The lawsuit accused the Kansas DCF of being responsible for children running away, being neglected, sexually abused in homes, moving homes 30 to 100 times and even housing children in contractors’ offices. One of these children in the foster care system was a 13-year-old girl who was raped in a child welfare office, where she stayed for the night as the system had no home for her. The foster care system in the United States is extremely flawed, and laws must be put in place to eliminate the profit motive factor in the lives of foster children. Children are being taken away from impoverished families, disproportionately impacting families of color, where the terms “neglect” and “poverty” are confused. Children are taken from homes with guardians doing everything they can to keep them safe, to homes where foster parents are known to abuse or rape children or group homes where children are neglected. Unfortunately, the over 7,500 children in the foster care system in Kansas are not the only ones with this experience. The root of the problem, however, begins with children being removed from their families. The stories are horrifying. In 2016, Iowa Department of Human Services took two 10-month-old boys from their parents with no paperwork, court orders or warrants to
DEBORA HYEMIN HAN, Editor-in-Chief
remove the children from their home. DHS illegally terminated the parental rights, giving the reason of “possible future abuse.” There had been no prior reported instances of abuse in that particular household, and the officers gave no reason for entering the household. In another household, three girls were taken from their grandmother’s home, to be placed in a home that was already reported for abusing a teenage girl. Why is this important? Unlike many other human rights issues in the United States, this one is not as public. On the news, you very rarely see stories like the ones mentioned earlier. For this reason, students like us who have been privileged enough to be able to attend an institution like Dartmouth should begin to bring light to this issue. Not only could we go on to jobs in public policy and make real changes to the system, but we can start a very necessary nationwide conversation about the foster care system. Under the current laws, when state agencies enter people’s homes to take children away, they must either have a warrant or consent from the parents or homeowners. This happens very rarely. When families are getting paid to keep foster children in their home, there is no incentive for the foster parents to do anything to help the children find a more permanent home. Effective solutions to the foster care system are not going to come from the state level. Currently, each state has a Child Protective Services or equivalent department such as DHS or DCF, which are required to abide by state and federal laws. However, many of them don’t. When claims are made, the proper protocol is for SEE TUNG PAGE 6
AIDAN SHEINBERG, Publisher
ALEX FREDMAN, Executive Editor PETER CHARALAMBOUS, Managing Editor
PRODUCTION EDITORS CAROLINE COOK & EOWYN PAK, Opinion Editors KYLEE SIBILIA & NOVI ZHUKOVSKY, Mirror Editors LILI STERN & ADDISON DICK, Sports Editors LEX KANG & LAUREN SEGAL, Arts Editors DIVYA KOPALLE, Photo Editor SAMANTHA BURACK & BELLA JACOBY, Design Editors HATTIE NEWTON, Templating Editor JESS CAMPANILE, Multimedia Editor
ANTHONY ROBLES, Managing Editor
BUSINESS DIRECTORS JONNY FRIED & JASMINE FU Advertising & Finance Directors HIMADRI NARASIMHAMURTHY & KAI SHERWIN Business Development Directors ALBERT CHEN & ELEANOR NIEDERMAYER Strategy Directors VINAY REDDY & ERIC ZHANG Marketing, Analytics and Technology Directors
ELIZA JANE SCHAEFFER, Engagement Editor WILLIAM CHEN & AARON LEE, Data Visualization Editors
ISSUE LAYOUT
HAYDEN WELTY
SUBMISSIONS: We welcome letters and guest columns. All submissions must include the author’s name and affiliation with Dartmouth College and
should not exceed 250 words for letters or 700 words for columns. The Dartmouth reserves the right to edit all material before publication. All material submitted becomes property of The Dartmouth. Please email submissions to editor@thedartmouth.com.
A seemingly harmless acronym masks vitriol. “African Americans are struggling.” “Democrats have not done enough for them, and the best way to punish the latter is at the ballot box.” Those are just some tweets you’ll find with the hashtag “#ADOS,” or “American Descendants of Slaves.” It is a nascent fringe movement seeking to convince African Americans that racial equality is a zero-sum game. ADOS says that immigrants pose the largest threat to affirmative action, which they believe should exist solely for the benefit of African Americans. This scapegoating of immigrants, this attempt to sow racial division, is not an exercise in “agenda politics” as its founders claim — unless that agenda is aiding President Donald Trump’s reelection. ADOS is a small group of only a few thousand activists. Their direct ancestors, they say, toiled under the United States’ brutal regime of chattel slavery, a historical reality different from that of other self-identifying black people — who, even though they may live in the United States, trace their heritage to the Caribbean or Africa. ADOS says these black immigrant groups unfairly enjoy higher levels of household wealth and education attainment than African Americans. (African immigrants earn college degrees at a higher rate than both U.S.-born black and white people.) But ADOS, while fairly pointing to injustices and inequalities, flounders under the weight of its own members’ treacly hashtag activism. Take, for instance, a tweet questioning the heritage of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. Harris, whose mother is Jamaican and father is Indian, failed ADOS’ black purity test. One user mockingly called her “Kamala Dolezal,” an ignominious reference to Rachel Dolezal, a white woman who claimed to be “transracially black,” outed by her white parents three years ago, after serving as an NAACP chapter president. Trump fanatics and provocateurs have already seized the most vicious of ADOS’ rhetoric to further their own agenda. Donald Trump Jr. later retweeted the Harris post to his millions of followers, inquiring, “Is this true? Wow.” ADOS also garnered the attention of nativist pundit Ann Coulter, tweeting “I like #ADOS,” and suggesting a name change to DOAS, for Descendants of American Slaves. ADOS officially stands as a nonpartisan group. But to see the right-wing coopting of their cause is like watching a “Chappelle
Show” sketch — a self-drawn cartoon of a movement, satirically undermining its own raison d’être. ADOS employs almost verbatim Trump’s strategy for sowing racial discord within the black electorate — Harris is “not black enough” to represent your interests, immigrants take away benefits you should have, all while the Democratic establishment does nothing, save for empty promises. ADOS members have cavalierly suggested not voting Democratic in 2020. Some even flout the idea of voting for Trump. Antonio Moore, a California attorney, and Yvette Carnell, a former Democratic aide, are the group’s founders. They both refute claims of harboring anti-immigrant sentiment and that ADOS would support President Trump. Instead, they propose a “New Deal for Black America,” at the heart of which is a multitrillion-dollar reparations program. But why would so many ADOS members punish the one party which, sort of — although vaguely — entertains the idea of reparations in earnest? Some 2020 Democratic candidates have hinted at hazy plans for its implementation. Cory Booker, Harris, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren all support studying how reparations could be distributed. It’s not nearly satisfying enough, but it beats the actions of the current president, who blithely remarked about the idea of reparations in June, “I don’t see it happening.” Perhaps a certain level of incoherent messaging plagues any nascent political movement. But ADOS does not have the strong leadership it would need to correct its many members’ missteps. Carnell indulged in the same Harris phobia concerning her ancestry. And, despite distancing ADOS from nativist hacks, Carnell has defended the use of “blood and soil,” a white supremacist slogan, on her Twitter account. As seen on ADOS’ official website, the group does consider serious issues facing black America. But serious issues cannot mask the fact that ADOS does not take itself seriously, as evinced by its careless approach to rhetoric and messaging. They are the Kanye West of political advocacy. I’m sure that they start with well-intentioned premises, but too quickly have they become drunk off the power of a loud microphone and an audience. The mixture achieves a painfully wrong conclusion — one which, unfortunately, only empowers their greatest foes.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2019
PAGE 5
THE DARTMOUTH NEWS
Dartmouth one of fewer schools that promise full need-based aid FROM FINANCIAL AID PAGE 1
“I can’t do that.” Palacios noted that she would have been a member of the Class of 2021. Because she received her financial aid package after transfer university deadlines had passed, she said she is currently working at home and plans to apply to transfer to a different university for the upcoming fall after fulfilling classes at her local community college. In an interview with T he Dartmouth, Dartmouth’s director of financial aid Dino Koff noted that his office works with students to support them and problem-solve when their financial aid packages change. Despite these efforts, students sometimes have to leave the College, which Koff said was the case for a couple of students this year. “We lost a couple of students this year, and the parents — one of them was very frustrated because they’re not paying another school tuition and they wanted us to do the same award with two kids in college — well, we can’t do that,” Koff said. “It’s both a federal and institutional issue, and it’s always very difficult. I think our goal is to be as transparent and up front as possible.” Dartmouth’s total cost of attendance for the 2019-20 school year, including direct and estimated indirect costs, is approximately $77,000. According to Koff, though a shrinking number of schools are actually offering 100 percent demonstrated need-based aid, Dartmouth and its peers in the Ivy League still stand by the commitment. Need, as described on the College’s website, is the total cost of attendance, including direct and indirect expenses, minus family contribution. For families with a total income of $100,000 and less, tuition is free and the financial aid offer does not involve loans. Koff noted that the College used both the federal methodology as well as its own institutional methodology to determine financial aid for students. He also noted that his office
will work with the ability of families to create a financial aid package that covers all the demonstrated need while considering work-study, summer earnings and scholarships. “[If a] family has the ability to pay, say, $10,000 in this example, we will come up with an award that will cover the rest.” He said that the financial aid office takes several factors into account for financial aid packages, including federal income tax returns, savings, investments and asset information. According to Koff, the office begins by working with prospective students. Prospective students fill out federal, institutional and college scholarship service forms to contribute to a greater in-depth needs analysis review — ideally during the admissions cycle so that they can receive a financial aid award letter with their admissions letter. Current students must reapply for aid every year by submitting documentation about their family’s financial situation, which includes the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, college scholarship service documentation and Dartmouth’s scholarship application. Even with this process in place, students with evolving financial situations like Palacios can find their changing aid offers to be a financial burden. A former student from the Class of 2022 who spoke with The Dartmouth on the condition of anonymity shared a similar situation. “I dreamed of going to Dartmouth ever since I was a kid, and when I did finally get accepted it was this crazy dream come true,” she said. “I had an incredible year. I met all my best friends, I was on the equestrian team, part of the Native American department, in Global Leaders, Christian Union, met my boyfriend — it was an absolutely perfect year and I couldn’t have loved Dartmouth more.” However, when the student’s parents visited for parents’ weekend last spring, her parents said that her financial aid might change, which they attributed to not reading the “fine print” of her financial aid
documentation carefully enough. On the last day of finals, the student received a letter from the financial aid office informing her that her expected family contribution had more than doubled. After meeting with a representative from the College’s financial aid office, the student said that she learned that the change was caused by an income increase from both her parents, as well as her older brother’s graduation from college. She noted that these changes were not representative of her actual situation, as her parents are divorced and her mother does not contribute to her education financially. She also noted that her older brother was enrolled in medical school for the coming year. Additionally, she said that her father, who is her primary caregiver, had not received an actual income increase, but onetime payouts for working at his job for 29 years. The student applied for an appeal after communicating with the financial aid office, which led to an increase in aid by $6,000, according to the student. However, she noted that it was “not much of a dent” compared to her expected contribution. According to the student, to continue her education at Dartmouth, she would have had to go into $62,000 of debt. “The only reason I left Dartmouth was because I couldn’t pay for it anymore ... it made me realize that the school is more of a business than I thought it was and that it didn’t hurt them to let me go,” the student said. By the time the financial aid office responded to her appeal at the end of the summer, the student said that most schools had closed their transfer applications. She added that the delay led to her having to take a year off before continuing her education at a public college with lower tuition. A similar factor affecting the financial aid packages of both Palacios and the anonymous student is a sibling graduating from college. “For families that have two students in college at once, our whole
goal is transparency,” Koff said. “For the first year when we’re admitting a student, we’ll put our direct and indirect costs, [and] what family contribution would be if there was only one in college ... so we put that on all award letters and we even take that a step further on the second page to put estimated bills.” Koff declined to comment specifically on individual students’ cases, citing FERPA regulations. Because families are required to apply for financial aid each year, financial aid packages differ depending on changing factors. Expected family contribution can fluctuate depending on how many siblings are enrolled in college at the same time. According to Koff, the College’s award letter and sibling verification forms note that if a sibling is no longer enrolled in college, it will impact their financial aid package. “We’re constantly, ahead of time, working with families if we’re talking to them on the big picture,” Koff said. “It goes in both directions as a positive.” Koff said that the College employs a “teamwork approach” in which parents, the government and possible outside community resources support a financial aid recipient. According to Koff, when it comes to families with children graduating, Dartmouth considers need-based aid with expected parental contribution on a case-bycase basis. “The emphasis on undergrad is the goal for everyone to have an undergraduate degree,” Koff said. “As we go to graduate schools, it is much tougher financially. There’s a lot less aid that’s available.” Koff also noted that there is a discrepancy between demonstrated need and willingness to pay. “Everybody’s perception is different. We’re giving out a $112 million this year of need-based aid ... sometimes the willingness to pay is different than the need we’re coming up with,” Koff said. Palacios said that Dartmouth could be more transparent about financial aid changes.
“There’s always the small print at the bottom that says stuff, but it’s one of those things where my family had never known how to navigate a college before since my sister was on a full ride,” Palacios said. The anonymous student also expressed similar sentiments about the College’s transparency regarding changes to financial aid packages. “There’s no doubt that it was under the rug,” the student said. “It’s there if you bring it up — they can say it was there in your letter but it’s very under-emphasized. On the financial aid website it’s just the big letters, ‘We meet 100 percent of demonstrated need,’ but I would have benefited [from] a better understanding of how things were going to go.” The College is currently working to decrease its reliance on loans. The Call to Lead, Dartmouth’s $3 billion capital campaign that was announced in April 2018, includes around $500 million for financial aid and a commitment that Dartmouth students will not have to take out loans. According to Koff, the College is currently “no-loan” for families earning under $100,000, which constitutes around 270 students in the Class of 2023. For families making over $100,000, Dartmouth awards between $4,500 to $5,500, along with scholarship and workstudy to meet student need. “Our goal with the capital campaign is to be able to remove the loan being awarded,” Koff said. “It won’t mean loan debt will go away, because we’ll still have students borrowing on their own, but it does mean we won’t be awarding that loan.” Despite initiatives such as The Call to Lead, fluctuations in financial aid packages still carry uncertainty. For students such as Palacios, those fluctuations meant that staying at Dartmouth was not an option. “I couldn’t pay for college anymore — it got too expensive,” Palacios said. “If I had known that I would’ve had to pay those costs before coming to Dartmouth, I wouldn’t have gone.”
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DARTMOUTHEVENTS
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2019
THE DARTMOUTH EVENTS
MATCH MADE IN SECTION J HIKING 2
NATALIE DAMERON ’21
TODAY
11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Lecture: “M Dwarfs Rule the Universe!” with Harvard professor Jennifer Winters, sponsored by the Physics and Astronomy Department, Wilder Hall, Room 202.
4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Lecture: “In-Line Non-Equilibrium Ionization Calculations in a Solar Eruption Simulation,” with Harvard professor Chengcai Shen, sponsored by the Physics and Astronomy Department and the Thayer School of Engineering, Wilder Hall, Room 202.
6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Open House: “Technigala,” sponsored by the DALI Lab, Berry Library, First Floor.
TOMORROW 1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Screening: “On the Waterfront,” sponsored by the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Dartmouth, Nugget Theater.
SEE TUNG PAGE 4
these agencies to get consent to investigate your home and speak to your child. Many of these agencies enter people’s homes with no consent and manipulate families into signing papers allowing the agencies to take their children with little to no reason. Many state CPS/DCS services are privatized, allowing such organizations to operate with an excessive profitable interest. One issue with privatized health care is the potential incentive to receive payments from the government for the months that foster children are under their care. For example, in Kansas, the Development of Children and Families have two nonprofit organizations serving as contractors. One writer, Jamie Schwandt, points out that these payments to these two private contractors stop when the child is adopted, retur ned to their
biological families or receives permanent custodianship. With payments on the line, foster families have less incentive to help children leave their home. In addition to this, although the contractors Saint Francis Community Services and KVC Behavioral Healthcare, are nonprofit organizations, there is still pressure to make money, and they make money from the state per child in the foster care system. When it comes to children’s lives and futures, money should never be an incentive to decrease opportunities or care. Currently, taxpayers are paying $22 billion a year on the foster care system. Some might say that families should be grateful for a foster care system to exist in America and leave it at that. However, while $22 billion is going into the foster care system, nobody seems to think the system needs any more help than that. These children are American c i t i ze n s wh o a re wo r t hy o f everything it means to be one.
To throw money at this problem and call it fixed is proof that our government doesn’t care about the children in the foster care system. What really needs to be done is to put laws in place to eliminate the privatized money-making factor in the foster care system and place the focus back on the children in need.
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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, YEAR
THE DARTMOUTH ARTS
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2019 Music in Review: The 10 best albums of the year B y jack hargrove The Dartmouth
From start to finish, 2019 has been a whirlwind year for music. It has been a year of innovation and excitement in nearly every genre, whether it be hip-hop, folk, pop or any other. While there were dozens of albums that could be recognized for their brilliance this year, I’ve had to narrow it down to only 10 for this list. These 10 albums have all introduced new ideas into their respective genres while still being an enjoyable listen from start to finish. In a way, all of them manage to reflect the issues of the time while still sounding distinctly human. 10. “Nothing Great About Britain” by slowthai — With “Nothing Great About Britain,” slowthai has brought UK rap to the forefront of the hip-hop consciousness. Reflecting the turmoil of the Brexit era, slowthai masterfully balances political commentary with lines like “I love you like a crackhead loves crack.”Slowthai manages to channel the same rebellious energy of the British punk bands of the ’70s, which is the most apparent in the second track, “Doorman.” The song possesses a strong postpunk instrumental combined with slowthai rapping with the energy of a punk singer, resulting in a musical combination fresh to the British hiphop scene. This genre fusion is an asset to the song as the aggression from its punk influence underscores the political focus of the piece. Best Song: “Doorman” 9. “2020” by Richard Dawson — Richard Dawson is the master of illustrating the mundane in a detailed, interesting way. In “2020,” he delivers nine slice-of-life stories from the points of view of various narrators, including a young boy in a soccer match and a worker at an Amazon fulfillment center. He manages to powerfully portray a boring dystopia over progressive folk instrumentation. For example, this is best done on the opening track, “Civil Servant,” in which Dawson describes the monotonous daily routine of a British bureaucrat while also lamenting his hatred for his job, which includes denying people their Disability Living Allowance. Dawson’s clever insights
into modern life and brilliant guitar work make this one of the best albums of this year. Best Song: “Civil Servant” 8. “1000 Gecs” by 100 Gecs — “1000 Gecs” is easily the strangest album released this year. It sounds like what would happen if the Internet of 2009 became sentient and decided to create music. The feeling of listening to this album is akin to an extreme sugar rush. There are elements of electronic dance music, rap, metal, bubblegum pop, ska and so many other genres blended together and sped up in the most hyperactive way possible. On the track “Money Machine,” 100 Gecs provide the most coherent and catchy song on the album — the song combines belligerent verses with a repetitive and mesmerizing chorus. Words don’t do this album justice, and I am excited to hear what 100 Gecs create in the future. Best Song: “Money Machine” 7. “Magdalene” by FKA twigs — In “Magdalene,” FKA twigs sounds unlike anyone else in the music industry. It’s really impossible to even categorize her music into any one genre. Her combination of R&B, hip-hop, electronic, classical, choral and pop music gives her work the sound of its own genre. While she has been developing this sound all decade, never has it been more coherent than on “Magdalene.” On standout track “Fallen Alien,” twigs describes dormant anger in a relationship. The lyrics are dripping with suppressed indignation, which slowly build into the chorus, an explosive culmination of the musical ideas in the track. From start to finish, the album is an exhilarating ride that makes it one of the most exciting and distinctive albums released this year. Best Song: “Fallen Alien” 6. “CALIGULA” by Lingua Ignota — “CALIGULA” is the angriest album released this year. Using her experiences as a survivor of domestic violence as fuel, Kristin Hayter, Lingua Ignota’s real name, cathartically screams lyrics of violence and despair. Taking equal influence from Nine Inch Nails and the topic of her undergraduate thesis, Johann Sebastian Bach, Hayter creates discordant, foreboding classical
background music over which she unleashes her anger. In “CALIGULA,” Hayter puts the listener through hell, with an abrasive and primal delivery of lyrics that piece together her emotions. The second track, “DO YOU DOUBT ME TRAITOR,” is a disarming nineminute masterpiece. The song starts out very slowly; Hayter sings quietly for the first two minutes, allowing her anger to simmer, eventually reaching a point of screaming the lyrics halfway through the track, including the powerfully raw refrain: “I don’t eat, I don’t sleep/I don’t eat/I let it consume me.” This track is stunning from beginning to end and is the best example of the tone set by the album. While it’s not for everyone, listening to “CALIGULA” is an incredibly rewarding experience. Best Song: “DO YOU DOUBT ME TRAITOR” 5. “All My Heroes Are Cornballs” by JPEGMAFIA — On “All My Heroes Are Cornballs,” JPEGMAFIA refines his abrasive, experimental sound and improves upon his last album, 2018’s “Veteran.” Eschewing typical song structure, many of the songs in this project bleed into each other, without defined versechorus structure. The production is as loud and in-your-face as ever, and his lyrics explore the depths of Internet culture. On album-opener “Jesus Forgive Me, I Am A Thot,” it is immediately clear that the instrumental is much smoother than anything JPEGMAFIA has released before. However, there are occasional moments in the song where his abrasive industrial tendencies break through. Compared to his previous work where the instrumentals were purely grating, the reprieve of melody in this track presents a better listen and an interesting contrast without losing his experimentalism. JPEGMAFIA continues to be on the cutting edge of modern hip-hop, and “All My Heroes Are Cornballs” solidifies him as one of the most experimental in the hip-hop genre. Best Song: “Jesus Forgive Me, I Am A Thot” 4. “Titanic Rising” by Weyes Blood — In “Titanic Rising,” Weyes Blood has perfected the sound of chamber pop. Every song
features gorgeous instrumentation, accompanied by Blood’s disarmingly beautiful voice. The songs are theatrical and cinematic, with each track feeling absolutely massive. The lyrics primarily convey a sense of longing for times past when things were simpler, but some also deal with mundane topics. In “Everyday,” Blood describes the relatable trials and tribulations of online dating. She describes a fear of being alone and laments a culture affected by dating apps, saying, “And someone sincerely looked at me/And said “Is this the end of all monogamy?”/And I said, “Not today.””Everyday” is theatrical, with larger-than-life instrumentation; a stark contrast to the unexciting content of the lyrics. While Blood clearly draws inspiration from the works of the Beach Boys (primarily “Pet Sounds”) and Joni Mitchell, she provides a stunning update to the chamber pop of the past. Best Song: “Everyday” 3. “Norman F—ing Rockwell!” by Lana Del Rey — After nearly a decade of growth in both her lyrics and her music, Lana Del Rey has finally created a truly great record in “Norman F—ing Rockwell!” Del Rey proves herself as a great songwriter in this album, in which she features her most mature lyrics to date. She muses about a failing relationship with a pretentious poet, while also providing commentary on the traditional idea of the American dream. “Mariners Apartment Complex” stands out purely because of her lyrical talent shining through in this track. For instance, the opening lines “You took my sadness out of context/At the Mariners Apartment Complex/I ain’t no candle in the wind”are particularly beautiful. Her voice and lyrics are complemented by alluring piano riffs and Jack Antonoff’s pristine production. On “Norman F—ing Rockwell!” Del Rey has risen above her influences to finally come into her own as an artist and as a songwriter. Best Song: “Mariners Apartment Complex” 2. “IGOR” by Tyler, the Creator — In 2017, Tyler, the Creator stunned the world of hip-hop with the release of “Flower Boy,” an album that stands in stark contrast to any of
his previous releases. His violent lyrics and harsh production were abandoned, replaced with introspective songs about loneliness and unrequited crushes set over jazzy production. With IGOR, Tyler expands and improves on “Flower Boy” in every single way. On “A BOY IS A GUN*,” one of the softer tracks on the album, Tyler showcases his heavy Kanye West influence. The song utilizes a repeated soul sample as the backing instrumentation over which Tyler grapples with the superficiality of his partner. The track features Tyler at his most vulnerable lyrically and his most genius sonically. Over 12 tracks, he tells the story of a relationship from beginning to end, accompanied by his beautiful production and quite a few features, including Solange, Playboi Carti and Jack White. Without a doubt, IGOR provides the most thrilling ride of any hip-hop record this year. Best Song: “A BOY IS A GUN*” 1. “Charli” by Charli XCX — Charli XCX is a once-in-a-generation pop talent. While her first two albums consist of more or less “normal” pop music, her career took a major turn in 2016 when she began to make music with artists on the British label PC Music. Her EP “Vroom Vroom,” released in 2016, sounded nothing like any music she had released before — it was abrasive, experimental and pushed the limits of what can be considered pop music. She continued this sound with two more EPs, “Number 1 Angel” and “Pop 2.” “Charli” is the first full album that she has released since this shift, and it is truly the culmination of her career up to this point. The instrumentals are punchy and explosive, and her vocals work perfectly with the music. The first track on the album, “Next Level Charli,” features her punchiest vocals yet. She hardly takes a breath through an incessant stream of lyrics, which feature classic Charli imagery such as cars and partying. This track sets the tone for everything on the album to come. In addition, nearly every song has at least one feature, ranging from artists like Troye Sivan to Lizzo to Cupcakke. This album was everything that fans had been hoping for and more and is far and away the best album released this year. Best Song: “Next Level Charli”
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THE DARTMOUTH ARTS
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2019
Hopkins Center festival hosts eight alumni in film industry By macy toppan The Dartmouth
This past weekend, the Hopkins Center hosted a number of events for students, alumni and community members to come together and explore the fields of film and media through a variety of lenses. The inaugural Film and Media Alumni Fest brought eight alumni from across the industry to discussions and panels. The conference also incorporated a number of the alums’ recent works in film and media and a series of networking events for students to meet alumni and learn about their respective fields. In putting together the event, organizers Johanna Evans ’10, the Hop’s film programming and operations manager, and Sydney Stowe, director of Hopkins Center Film, operated under the goal of creating a forum for student experiential learning about the film and media industry. “It’s always great when we have an opportunity for us to reestablish and strengthen our connection to alums who really enjoyed their time here and really feel strongly about Dartmouth as a school where you can go to learn about the arts and to pursue an arts career,” Evans said. “We want to strengthen this relationship so maybe these alums will come back and share more with future students.” The series of events opened with a student documentary showcase. The four student-made short films, created as final assignments for FILM 30, “Documentary Videomaking,” shed light on a wide range of topics relevant to the local community, including homelessness, car-racing and hookup culture. The following night presented another film: Trey Edward Shults’ “Waves” presented audiences with the shattering of a suburban African American family and their ensuing efforts to pick up
the pieces. A heart-rending story built on beautiful cinematography and a distinctive pop soundtrack, “Waves” tells two tales in one, commencing with a dramatic, fast-paced spiral and following with the calmer, quieter reconciliation. After the screening, Mac Simonson ’16 of A24 Films joined Dartmouth’s visiting history professor Derrick White and Devin Powell ’22 to discuss the personal basis of the movie. “From a production standpoint, this seemed like [Shults’] most ambitious project,” Simonson said at the post-film discussion. “He worked with the lead actor here ... It’s based loosely on both of their lives; the father character is a combination of both of their fathers, and the central relationships in each half are based on things in their lives.” As the first event open to the community, “Waves” served as an additional kick-off to the cinematic theme of the event. Following the showing and discussion, students had the opportunity to attend an after party where they could speak with Simonson directly as well as with peers interested in film and media about their thoughts on the film. The final day of the event hosted another two movies beginning with Oualid Mouaness’ “1982,” a retelling of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon through the eyes of students and teachers in a school on the edge of Beirut. As the conflict escalates, 11-year-old Wissam works up the courage to speak to his crush, and his teachers espouse different political ideologies while attempting to shield the children from the collapse of the world outside. Producer Alix Madigan ’84 explained to Stowe the deep truths of this story, drawn directly from Mouaness’ own experience as a 10-year-old during the initial bombing of Beirut. “The film is really entirely autobiographical,” Madigan said. “Mouaness went to a school very similar
to this one during the 1982 invasion — he witnessed the bombing of Beirut from that perspective. But then there were so many images of children in war zones, and it became a topic that I felt should be explored cinematically.” As a cinematic finale for the conference, Craig Brewer’s “Dolemite Is My Name” presented the true story of comedian Rudy Ray Moore. Evans explained the organizers’ decision in presenting this particular film as the concluding event. “We wanted to balance genre of film,” Evans said. “We had two relatively heavy films already with ‘1982’ and ‘Waves,’ so we picked ‘Dolemite’ for that reason.” “Dolomite Is My Name” perfectly fit that need; the film explores topics of race in media through a hilarious telling of Moore’s story. Acclaimed comic and actor Eddie Murphy embodies the unwavering perseverance, spirit and humor of his character through his rollercoaster of successful and innovative misadventures. In the following discussion with producer Michelle Brattson Majors ’96 of Netflix and music supervisor Barry Cole ’93, Evans spoke to the importance of representation in film. “One of the things I found interesting about the film is it’s hysterical, and yet, it’s covering a lot of interesting ground in terms of representation in cinema,” Evans said. While the post-movie discussions highlighted a few of the attending alums who held relevance to the specific films, the aptly named “Alumni Storytelling Roundtables” provided a space for all attending alums to detail their respective journeys, goals and fields of expertise. The films and roundtables continually linked back to another focus of the event: beyond creating a space for industry education for students, the fest generated discussion surrounding intersectionality in film and media, according to Evans. “Intersectionality was not an official
theme of this weekend’s festival,” Evans said. “But it was unofficially guiding what kind of conversations we wanted to have and what we wanted to talk about.” Allie Young ’13 of Harness, an organization focused on the intersection of social justice and entertainment, presented her work in fostering native representation, particularly for women, in media. “When you look at film history, a lot of the content that exists is white savior narratives,” Young said at the first roundtable. “I always say native people in Westerns are merely a prop, and when we do get an opportunity to have the stage, those stories are always centralized on native men. There’s nothing out there that tells the stories of native women, and that needs to change.” Other speakers like Young came from a wide variety of careers across the film and media industry beyond traditional production work. City University of New
York Queens College professor Noah Tsika ’05 studies Nollywood, the Nigerian film industry; Rochester Institute of Technology professor Owen Gottlieb ’95 researches and works in game design; Tara Paniogue ’14 writes about fashion and entertainment for the Los Angeles Times; and music supervisor Barry Cole works on the music side of film, building soundtracks and managing licensing. Looking forward to the winter term, Evans promised interesting film viewing opportunities and continued chances for students to learn about creative industries and cinema. “One of the things we hope is that weekends like this help reengage students in cinema culture,” Evans said. “Winter, with Oscars season, is always a great time to have deep conversations about where cinema is going and what kind of movies deserve awards, and we hope students will join us in the winter for tons of great movies as well.”