The Dartmouth 2/28/19

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SNOWY HIGH 29 LOW 9

HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2019

VOL. CLXXV NO. 144

Student Affairs and Q&A with PEN finalist Alexander Chee Student Assembly

commit to racial bias B y SUNNY DRESCHER The Dartmouth Staff

OPINION

PAK: THE UGLY MESS UNDER THE RUG PAGE 6

ELLIS: GABBARD GETS IT PAGE 6

KHANNA: LIKELY TO GET LABELED PAGE 7

SIVARAJAN: IN DEFENSE OF D’SOUZA PAGE 7

ARTS

‘INTO THE WOODS’ CHALLENGES US TO BREAK THE CURSE IN OUR OWN LIVES PAGE 8 FOLLOW US ON

TWITTER @thedartmouth COPYRIGHT © 2019 THE DARTMOUTH, INC.

COURTESY OF ALEXANDER CHEE

English professor and writer Alexander Chee specializes in fiction.

B y LORRAINE LIU The Dartmouth Staff

English and creative writing professor and writer Alexander Chee grew up wanting to be a fashion designer and visual artist. Taking writing classes at Wesleyan College, however, changed Chee’s mind and prompted him to think of writing as a professional career. As the author of two award-winning novels — “Edinburgh” and “The Queen

of the Night” — Chee recently became a finalist for PEN America’s PEN/DiamonsteinSpielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay for his essay collection “How to Write an Autobiographical Novel.” For three years at Dartmouth, Chee has taught fiction writing, first-year writing and English 87, “Imaginary Countries,” a course on speculative fictions. SEE Q&A PAGE 2

Tuck team wins global policy contest B y EILEEN BRADY

The Dartmouth Staff

A team of students from the Tuck School of Business was awarded first prize in the Global Universities Challenge at the World Government Summit in Dubai this month. The competition asked participants to craft a 10year plan for the sustainable

development of the fictional Middle Eastern country of “Urmania,” according to executive director of the Tuck’s Center for Business, Government and Society John McKinley, who served as the faculty adviser for Tuck’s challenge team. The invite-only challenge brought students from 19 SEE GUC PAGE 5

In response to a Student Assembly resolution and a subsequent meeting with SA leadership regarding racist vandalism found in dorms in Oct. 2018 and more recent racist emails targeting students and faculty, interim dean of the College Kathryn Lively publicly responded with a letter detailing three action items that Student Affairs was committed to taking in the coming weeks and months. Action items included Student Affairs updating their website to include information about the current process for undergraduates to report incidents of bias by the first day of spring term classes; assembling a working group to examine that process and make recommendations for potential modifications by mid-summer; and working with Residential Life to evaluate safety practices in

residence halls. “[Walters] and I had received lots of concerned messages from students who were either reporting biased incidents made against them or who had friends who were being threatened by emails or by vandalism on the doors,” SA vice-president Nicole Knape ’19 said. She added that she and SA president Monik Walters ’19 believed that the resolution was the best way to call for urgent action on the part of Student Affairs and to “elevate [students’] voices to the administration” regarding how they felt these cases were being handled. Knape said that a meeting was scheduled with herself, Walters, Lively and senior associate dean Liz Agosto for the Monday following the promulgation of the resolution, which was emailed to campus on a Thursday. She added that the quick turnaround between the resolution being sent out and the meeting indicated that

the administration was taking their resolution and their call for urgent action seriously. At the meeting, Knape said, they discussed students’ concerns and came up with a plan to make the process for reporting racial bias more transparent. “[The lack of transparency] is one of the barriers to reporting [incidents of racial bias] because students don’t understand how these processes follow through,” Knape said. Lively said that she understands that it can be frustrating to students when Student Affairs is unable to share publicly what steps have been taken in an investigation. “I was thrilled that student leaders were really willing to take a public stand for inclusivity and diversity

SEE RESOLUTION PAGE 5

León studies self-driving cars B y EMILY SUN

The Dartmouth Staff

Geography professor Luis Alvarez León proved his passion for geospatial data after writing his master’s thesis on how Netflix tailors its movie recommendations based on a customer’s location. But, in a recently published study in the journal Cartographic Perspectives, Alvarez León looks into the future of spatial data collection relating to self-driving cars, particularly its political and

social implications. “The way I got to self-driving cars is, I was really interested in different applications of new spatial technologies and how new forms of data commerce were changing the economy,” Alvarez León said. “New navigation technologies … and new forms of informational or digital capitalism are really converging in self-driving cars because … self-driving cars rely on very advanced arrays of spatial technologies to navigate.” Not only do self-driving

cars require GPS, they also require cameras, sophisticated computing and other developing technologies, Alvarez León said. He added that among different companies — including Audi, General Motors, Google and Uber — there is active competition to provide the most advanced spatial information. This would provide the best service and technological development to customers. “A lot of companies today SEE CARS PAGE 2


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