The Dartmouth 01/28/2022

VOL. CLXXVIII NO. 29

FRIDAY, JANUARY 28, 2022

HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE

At least 23% of total student body NH House passes bill has tested positive since Jan. 1 requiring law enforcement to notify public of immigration checkpoints

MADDIE COOK/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

BY SOLEIL GAYLORD The Dartmouth Staff

Unlike peer institutions Harvard, Princeton and Yale Universities, Dartmouth made the decision last December to conduct winter term courses in person amid a global surge in coronavirus infections. Despite other protocols — a vaccine mandate, a face covering policy and a surveillance testing program — a sizable percentage of Dartmouth students living on or near campus this winter have contracted what is likely the omicron variant of COVID-19.

College spokesperson Diana Lawrence wrote in an emailed statement that as of Tuesday, 1,550 students have contracted COVID-19 since Jan. 1, roughly 23% of the total student population — including those not currently in the Upper Valley — of 6,761. Additionally, 2,791 students are still within their 90-day, post-infection exemption period from testing, suggesting that at least 41% of the Dartmouth student body has been infected with the virus at some point since late October. Figures for the number of students on and near campus this winter, and thus participating in testing, were not available by press time.

Nationwide, the U.S. is now seeing over 600,000 cases a day, down from a peak of

more than 800,000 earlier this month.

Geisel School of Medicine biomedical data science professor Michael Whitfield said that 90% of positive cases in the Northeast are omicron.

“As of early January, Dartmouth College is really no different: The majority of the cases we are seeing are the omicron variant,” Whitfield said. “In December, we were seeing most cases were delta.”

Whitfield added that omicron is easily distinguishable using a “very specific” PCR test, as the variant displays many mutations in one of its spike proteins.

“Omicron has mutations that allow it to bind to the receptor that it uses to get into cells more tightly, but it also has mutations that allow it to impart and evade an immune response,” Whitfield said. “It is significantly more transmissible because it can get into cells more easily.”

Community and family medicine professor Eugene Nelson said that the R-naught — the number of people infected by a person already infected — is about twice as high for omicron as for delta.

“Because epidemics move exponentially, we get this incredibly rapid surge and then a rather rapid decline because it has run its course through the population,” Nelson said. He added that antibodies gained from

exposure and vaccinations have a “shelf life” in the population, meaning that immunity decreases over time.

Nelson added that the high number of infections is to be expected but should warrant concern.

“There is a bell-shaped curve, and those on the right side could have severe symptoms and even some fatalities,” Nelson said.

Rockefeller Center policy fellow Anne Sosin ’02 confirmed Nelson, saying that the “uncontrolled transmission” of omicron among students should not be taken lightly.

“Many students in our community are individually at lower risk, however, our community includes people who are at higher risk,” Sosin said. “Our concern is that they can transmit onward to people in our communities who are at higher risk.”

Sosin added it can be difficult for at-risk individuals, who cannot benefit as fully from the COVID-19 vaccine, to stay safe when many infected students congregate in living, dining and classroom spaces.

“This virus spreads through shared air — it’s really hard when we have so many cases on campus for them to shelter safely,” Sosin said.

Sosin added that the categorization of SEE COVID-19 PAGE 2

Students and professors react to Biden’s first year as president

CLOUDY HIGH 28 LOW 10

BY SAM BROOK The Dartmouth

NEWS

Q&A WITH OUTGOING COLLEGE PRESIDENT PHIL HANLON PAGE 2

OPINION

VERBUM ULTIMUM: A TURBULENT TENURE PAGE 3

ARTS

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT: ARTIST ALICE CROW ’22 PAGE 4

SPORTS

MEN’S BASKETBALL LOSES TO PRINCETON PAGE 5 FOLLOW US ON

TWITTER

@thedartmouth COPYRIGHT © 2022 THE DARTMOUTH, INC.

A little over a year since President Joe Biden’s inauguration, Dartmouth professors and students expressed mixed reactions to his first year in office and reflected on his low approval rating.

According to estimates from polling analysis website FiveThirtyEight, as of this week, Biden’s approval rating is at 41% after one year in office. Former President Donald Trump’s approval rating stood at 38% one year into his presidency, while former President Barack Obama’s was 48%.

Students and professors had different reactions and explanations for Biden’s low approval rating. According to government professor Brendan Nyhan, the two biggest factors of Biden’s low popularity are inflation and the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The perception that he’s not addressing inflation or bringing the pandemic under control … is going to hurt him and would hurt any president,” Nyhan said. “He’s had some negative press too, especially on Afghanistan, which probably hurts him on the margin.”

Prescott Herzog ’25, a member of the Dartmouth College Democrats, echoed Nyhan’s sentiment, adding that if Biden can take control of the pandemic, his approval ratings would rise.

Kavya Nivarthy ’25, an ambassador for the Dartmouth Political Union, said the Biden administration reflects a return to normalcy.

“I would say it has certainly been a return to somewhat normalcy in terms of the way that he’s treated by the media and kind of the public discourse around his presidency,” she said.

“Overall, in my day to day life, I really haven’t seen that much of a change,” Jorie MacDonald ’25 said. “I mean, I think politics kind of only affects you as much as you follow it.”

Biden took the presidency just two weeks after a mob stormed the Capitol building in Washington attempting to halt

the certification of the 2020 election and overturn it in favor of Donald Trump.

“We’re only a little more than a year since an insurrection, a violent insurrection that sought to overturn the results of a presidential election. And there are warning signs that efforts will be made to overturn the 2024 election,” Nyhan said.

According to Nyhan, while Biden has been “quite successful legislatively” in passing the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, his agenda such as the Build Back Better Act and voting rights legislation has not garnered enough support in Congress.

“But, you know, the president can’t magically make members of Congress do what he wants,” he said. “That’s the dilemma every president faces.”

Nivarthy said she is disappointed with Biden’s returns on his campaign promises, especially in regards to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The promises that Biden made on handling COVID versus the place we’re at now — [I’m] definitely disappointed,” Nivarthy said. “I think a lot of the rhetoric you see coming out of his administration is unhelpful.”

Part of Biden’s problem is his messaging and communication to the American people, according to Rockefeller Center associate director Ronald Shaiko.

“There’s some good people in the administration, they should be vocal,” he said. “[Biden] should be stepping back and letting them take the lead on these things.”

Nivarthy said that the likelihood of a strong Republican showing in the 2022 midterms elections is high, adding that positive performances by Republicans candidates for Governor in Virginia and New Jersey are evidence of this.

In Virginia, for example, Republican Glenn Younkin won a statewide election in November which the Associated SEE BIDEN PAGE 2

EMIL LIDEN/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

The bill will face its first Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Feb. 10.

BY LAUREN ADLER The Dartmouth Staff

Earlier this month, the New Hampshire state House of Representatives passed H.B. 579, requiring notice to the public before immigration checkpoints are conducted, by a bipartisan vote of 254-85. The bill has been introduced in the Senate and referred to the Judiciary Committee, though it has not yet been assigned a floor date.

Originally sponsored by Rep. Kevin Craig of Coos, New Hampshire, a Republican, the bill will require local law enforcement agencies, which are informed of scheduled checkpoints by federal agencies, to alert the public within 24 hours of a scheduled checkpoint. If passed by the Senate and approved by Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, the bill would immediately take effect to amend RSA 265, “Obedience to and Effect of Traffic Laws.” The amendment would appear directly after sections concerning sobriety checkpoints and motorcycle-only checkpoints.

Craig, a retired officer from the Federal Bureau of Prisons, said that he proposed the bill because New Hampshire has an “inconsistent approach” to road checkpoints, which are a court-granted exception to the Fourth Amendment: while law enforcement agencies are required to notify the public of sobriety checkpoints, they are not currently required to publicize immigration checkpoints. H.B. 579 would require local law enforcement to make public upcoming immigration checkpoints by disclosing the time and location using “various media resources available.”

According to Craig, lack of public knowledge of immigration checkpoints has led to “miles-long” backups along major highways, which can delay emergency service vehicles, cause employees trouble at work due to tardiness and create inconvenience and distress for local residents or visitors who are people of color.

“People should be able to avoid these checkpoints if they want to, and in order to do that, they have to know about them,” Craig said.

“There’s a safety hazard, it takes valuable resources away and decreases [Customs and Border Patrol’s] effectiveness, and of course there are a lot of disparity concerns.”

Craig said that Democratic Rep. Latha Mangipudi of Hillsborough, New Hampshire, the first Indian American to be elected to the state legislature, testified that she and her family members were stuck at an immigration checkpoint while visiting from overseas despite having valid visas, which caused both

inconvenience and fear.

“That’s simply not right,” Craig said. “That’s not good policy.”

Craig added that he believes the bill has garnered wide bipartisan support because there is “something for everybody” in the bill in terms of political objectives — along with the fact that the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire helped work on the bill before its passage.

New Hampshire ACLU leg al director Gilles Bissonette said that the checkpoints “present a real civil liberties issue” because they are conducted “without any reasonable suspicion or probable cause that a crime has been committed,” so the ACLU hoped to help “mitigate that civil liberties intrusion as much as possible.”

“We’re very grateful to the sponsor for [Craig’s] work in pushing this,” Bissonette said. “It’s an important piece of legislation, and we just wanted to provide as much assistance to Rep. Craig as possible.”

According to Bissonette, the ACLU will continue to support the bill “at every step of the process,” including at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Feb. 10. After the hearing, members of the committee will make a recommendation on the bill at an executive session, and the rest of the Senate will vote on the bill. If it passes, it must be signed by Gov. Sununu to become law.

D a f n e Va l e n c i a n o ’ 2 5 , a n ambassador for the Coalition for Immigration Reform and Equality at Dartmouth, said that she hopes the bill will become law so that undocumented students and immigrants who are local residents “feel more comfortable and cared for.” “[T hese people] are humans and shouldn’t have to go through an emotional amount of pain with the constant fear they face already,” Valenciano said. “If somebody is undocumented or an immigrant, if they’re aware of what’s happening, they can protect themselves and take the measures they need to in order to not be scared of deportation or be discriminated against.”

Valenciano noted that unlike her home state of California, New Hampshire does not allow residents to acquire a driver’s license without a social security number, meaning that undocumented immigrants who need to drive face constant “structural trauma” while on the road.

“The state is not a sanctuary for people,” she said. “[Being deported] is a constant fear that somebody is living with. And so I think that H.B. 579 will ensure that they feel a little safer because they’ll be cautioned about what they might be going through.”

FRIDAY, JANUARY 28, 2022

PAGE 2

THE DARTMOUTH NEWS

Q&A with outgoing College President Phil Hanlon

New residence hall set to replace the Onion placed on indefinite suspension B Y BEN KORKOWSKI The Dartmouth Staff

JIN LEE/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

B Y ANDREW SASSER The Dartmouth Staff

College President Phil Hanlon graduated from Dartmouth in 1977 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics. After nearly three decades in teaching and administration at the University of Michigan, he returned to Hanover to take on his current role in 2013, serving as the 18th president of the College and as a professor in the mathematics department. More recently, Hanlon announced that he will step down as president in June 2023. The Dartmouth sat down with President Hanlon on Tuesday to discuss his time as president, including the Call to Lead campaign, the Moving Dartmouth Forward Initiative and the COVID-19 pandemic.

In your email to campus, you mentioned the “ten-year vision” you outlined in 2013. In your opinion, have you achieved that vision, and if not, what steps need to be taken to achieve it?

PH: The vision, if you look back at my address to the general faculty in November 2013, which is where I sort of articulated it for the first time, had three prongs. One was talent. Second was positioning Dartmouth to take on some of the most urgent global challenges. And third was enhancements to the student experience and investments in the student experience. I’m proud of the record in all three of those areas. If you look at the talent side, look at our undergraduate admissions yield. Yield is the fraction of students we admit who decide to come to Dartmouth, it’s our number one indicator of competitiveness, because when we admit students, so do Brown University and the University of Pennsylvania and Duke University. Our yield has gone from 50% when I started to 73% this last year, a phenomenal growth. We become more global in our range. International students were 8% of our entering class when I started here, but we’ve increased that to 14%.

First-gen students went from 9% to 15%.

So that’s on the undergraduate side. We’ve also put in place some really outstanding postdoc programs to attract some of the brightest new PhDs — the Rosenwald fellows, the Society of Fellows, the early career fellowship — all of them are focused on recruiting some of the best new PhDs to our campus. Lastly, on the faculty side, we recruited and retained some amazing faculty. I’m particularly proud of the faculty that we have been able to recruit through the academic cluster initiative. Our faculty has gone from 17% faculty of color in 2015 to 24% today. Underlying all this is that we recognize that our focus on diversity helps us recruit the deepest talent base, and we need that to overcome any uneven opportunities.

I also mentioned positioning Dartmouth to take on global challenges. The measure of any great university is its impact on the world. Impact comes in two ways. One is that we prepare our students to lead lives of leadership and impact. And second, we take on some of the great issues on our campus.

We advance the frontiers of knowledge in ways that have had meaning to those problems. To do that, it’s necessary to create the kinds of centers and institutes which can actually help the campus take on the issues.

As examples, we’ve created the Wright Center for the Study of Computation and Just Communities. Just this year, we launched the Initiative for Global Security at the Dickey Center and the Irving Institute for Energy and Society. We’ve also made big investments at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center. One thing I would say that that is really important that makes these centers and institutes at Dartmouth unique is that undergraduates will be deeply involved in the work that they do. That’s actually not true on many of our peer campuses, but it’s a unique attribute of Dartmouth.

Lastly, there’s the enhancements and investments in the student experience. I’ll lead right off on financial aid. Financial aid is the single largest priority in our capital campaign at $500 million. And we are on our way to achieving that, which I’m really excited by. Along the way, we have become need-blind for all student applicants. We put

in place the funding so that students who need financial aid have the capacity to enjoy study abroads and the complete Dartmouth experience. The last piece yet to go is that we are looking to put in place the funding so that we can eliminate loans entirely from our financial aid packages. But beyond financial aid, we have expanded the FirstYear Student Enrichment Program for firstgeneration low income students significantly.

We have brought new resources to bear on the EE Just program for students of color in the STEM fields. We’ have invested heavily in outdoor programs, including the magnificent renovation of Moosilauke Ravine Lodge, and historic investments in athletics. We have raised $130 million in this campaign for athletics, and have built two new magnificent all season practice facilities and the boathouse.

Those are just a few of the things, but those are the three major areas. Are we done?

No, we are never done. We always want to do better. But we have made just amazing strides in all three of those areas.

During your tenure as president, you launched the Moving Dartmouth Forward initiative, which included the new housing system, ban on hard alcohol and sexual misconduct changes, among other initiatives. In your mind, has Moving Dartmouth Forward been successful in achieving its goals of eliminating high risk behavior and increasing inclusivity?

PH: I think Moving Dartmouth Forward has made a big difference. Has it eliminated high risk behaviors? No, it certainly hasn’t eliminated them completely. But it has made a big step forward in reducing the number of high risk behaviors. One thing I would say is that it’s not just an initiative coming out of the administration that makes these things happen. It’s really the students who are actually doing the really hard work to make a safer and more inclusive social environment.

Moving Dartmouth Forward helps provide some resources and some constraints. What I’m really proud of is the way Dartmouth students have stepped up. We have a much calmer and safer social environment than we did when I arrived in 2013. Part of achieving that was challenging and inviting student organizations to get on board, including Greek houses. I have immense admiration for the student body in the way that students have stepped up and realized that this was an important priority for the entire community.

More recently, you have overseen the College through the COVID-19 pandemic and a transition to and from remote learning.

How would you describe your experience in steering Dartmouth through the pandemic?

PH: As you’ve probably heard me say before, what’s really striking about the pandemic is that there was literally no playbook. Almost any other sort of challenge that I faced in higher education leadership, someone else has experienced that before. But in this case, no one had been through a pandemic — the last one was 100 years ago. That makes it a really unusual challenge. What has really been great this year is that we have vaccines, and our community is fully vaccinated. What that has allowed us to do this year is focus on the really important things of keeping the campus as open as possible, and keeping activities, including teaching, as much in person as possible.

The pandemic has exposed insufficiencies in mental health resources with the rising number of mental health struggles. Students remain largely dissatisfied with the resources available on campus. What is next on this issue? Will mental health be a top priority for the next administration?

PH: Every college president that I know is deeply concerned about student mental health. There has been a rising number of cases of depression and anxiety in 14 to 24 year olds nationwide since 2012.

As a result, we’ve made commitments to try to keep the campus as well and as safe as possible. These include increasing the size of the counseling staff by 50%, from 10 to 15 clinicians. In 2021, we received

an anonymous donation to support the addition of three staff members with three year terms who will focus on suicide prevention. One person has been hired, and we are searching for the other positions right now. We’ve also created two new four-year positions to support the partnership with the JED Foundation. There’s also the JED partnership itself, which is going to offer us the best possible advice on how to keep the campus as well as possible.

The pandemic has also exposed insuf ficiencies in College infrastructure, particularly with regard to undergraduate and graduate housing. The College recently announced a potential location for apartment-style housing near Garipay Fields on Lyme road.

However, dorm capacity has not expanded significantly since the construction of the McLaughlin cluster in the mid-2000s, despite growth in the student body. Why was new housing not a priority for your administration, and will it be for the next president?

PH: One of the things that speaks to the priorities over the last few years for the trustees and the administration is the infrastructure renewal fund, which was approved by the trustees last March. That is an additional half percent payout from the endowment that is directed toward the renovation and expansion of student housing. What that’s going to allow us to do over a period of years is to renovate all of our dorms, and in the process of renovating, we will expand them to the largest extent we possibly can. In addition, there is the graduate housing near [Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center], which will come online next fall. That is 500 beds. That is a major expansion of student housing that will have the benefit of freeing up some housing on the main campus for undergraduates. All of that is to say that increasing housing quality and quantity has in fact, been a priority over the last few years.

What are the biggest long term issues the College faces?

PH: In terms of long term issues, making sure that we remain competitive for talent and making sure we are having the largest impact we can through our academic work. Part of that is continuing to prioritize academic excellence. That’s certainly one area where there will always be challenges.

We work in a very competitive environment and our competitor institutions are doing great things as well, so we can’t stand still. I think that while we have done an amazing amount of work to put the institution on a stronger financial footing, that will always be challenging because our core business, which is high quality residential education, is really expensive. It’s really expensive to house people, to feed them, to provide them the state-of-the-art facilities, the highest quality faculty to work with, and the kinds of extracurricular and co-curricular activities that are so much a part of the learning at Dartmouth. All those things are very costly.

What are your plans after stepping down in June of 2023?

PH: Right now, I am laser focused on the next 16 months. There’s important things coming up. We’ve got to complete the financial aid funding part of our campaign.

There are important diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives that are not fully funded yet. And we also have three really important anniversaries coming up this coming year, which I want to make sure we celebrate fully and completely with all the joy that they deserve. One is the 50th anniversary of the Native American studies program. One is the 50th anniversary of coeducation. And one is the 50th anniversary of the Black Alumni of Dartmouth Association.

What will you miss most about being the president of the College?

PH: It’ll be the people, whether it is students, alumni, faculty or staff. I get so much satisfaction out of just interacting with these incredibly talented, passionate people, all of whom are committed to the College. That won’t end completely when I step down, but it will be less intense once I am no longer president.

The proposed construction of a new dorm complex on the corner of Crosby and East Wheelock Street — the current location of House Center A, colloquially known as “the Onion,” and three tennis courts — is still on hold over a year after its initial suspension.

Originally announced in 2018, designing the 350-bed dormitory had been underway until the pandemic placed numerous construction projects on hold. Since then, other projects, including the construction of the Irving Institute and renovations to Dartmouth Hall, have recommenced, but the College has not established a timeline for the new residence hall.

According to vice president for institutional projects Josh Keniston, the proposed project quickly became more complicated than expected.

“It is a tough site to build on: There is a steam line that runs through it, the Onion and tennis courts are there and it is a relatively tight space,” Keniston explained.

Keniston added that the additional costs associated with these difficulties further complicated construction plans. Despite the delay, Keniston maintains that the site will “likely be used someday” for residence hall construction.

The process of building new campus facilities is subject to Hanover’s zoning laws and permitting processes. However, according to director of Hanover’s planning, zoning and codes department Robert Houseman, the intersection at Crosby and East Wheelock Street is already zoned for institutional use.

Houseman explained that given the town’s limited definition of “institutional use,” which excludes student housing except by special exception, dorm building is likely to be permitted at this location, but may involve a lengthy application process.

“Use cases for institutional zoning are education, government, hospitals and student residents, which can be permitted by special exception,” he said, adding that “[Dartmouth] would need to [first] submit an application to the zoning board of adjustment for special exception, outlining the reasons and addressing the criteria within the ordinance for the special exception.”

With the construction at the intersection of Crosby and East Wheelock placed on indefinite hold, and the announcement of upperclassman apartments on Lyme Road, Keniston noted that the Onion will likely stay in place for the foreseeable future.

Students, notably, seem to have mixed feelings about the Onion itself.

“The Onion is sort of a weird space… it doesn’t have a snack bar like the Cube, it’s not central to campus and there aren’t many places to sit,” South House Student Assembly senator David Millman ’23 said.

Sara Catherine Cook ’23, however, expressed her positive feelings toward the Onion. “[The Onion] hosts a variety of different events such as stuffed animal workshops and other catered events,” Cook said. “Despite it being a temporary structure, it’s pretty much always clean and has nice couches and sitting spaces … it looks pretty much new.”

Although logistical issues made the site harder to build on than Garipay Fields on Lyme Road — where the College has proposed a dorm structure that would be a roughly 30 minute walk from Baker-Berry Library — Millman said the Onion’s location is still more centrally located and desirable to students.

“If there was a choice between the two locations, I think I would prefer the one that doesn’t require a shuttle and is more central,” Millman noted. “If the College is trying to find housing, it makes more sense to build around already existing dorms.”

Omicron remains threat to community, experts say FROM COVID-19 PAGE 1

omicron as mild is a “misnomer.” According to Sosin, at the individual level, many are at lower risk, but a fast-moving variant like omicron poses an “enormous collective threat” to our health systems, which are under “unprecedented strain.” She added that the U.S. has seen record hospitalizations during the surge, including in children zeroto-four years of age.

On Jan. 25, the U.S. seven-day daily average of hospitalizations was 147,841, with 25,807 in the ICU, slightly down from a peak hospitalization rate of 151,892 on Jan. 20. The average hospitalization rates recorded every day since Jan. 10 surpass the highest rates seen over the entirety of 2021, according to data from The New York Times and Our World in Data.

Further reporting by The New York Times shows that New Hampshire has experienced higher hospitalization rates than all of last year, with a daily hospitalization average of 419 on Jan. 26.

The data suggest hospitalizations among people aged 70 or older are lower than in January 2021, but people aged 18 to 49 are being hospitalized so much more frequently than last year that the average rate across all age groups has risen.

Sosin said that while the population now has more underlying immunity due to infection and vaccination, whether omicron is “intrinsically milder” than other variants remains unknown.

“It’s producing many orders of magnitude more severe illness than what we see with the seasonal flu,” Sosin said. “If you’re a competent, young vaccinated and boosted person, you will most likely experience mild illness, [but]

that doesn’t mean that you can’t transmit to someone who is not on equal footing immunologically.”

Sosin said the focus on severe illness and death can obscure the impacts that omicron continues to have on the Dartmouth community.

“This is just so enormously disruptive to teaching and learning on campus, health impacts aside, it’s not easy for students right now,” Sosin said.

In a Jan. 12 email sent to campus, interim provost David Kotz ’86 wrote that the College’s decision to “prioritize in-person classes, academic events, gym access and restricted but congregate dining is directly connected to the imperative of preserving the mental and physical health of our students.” Kotz emphasized that the College expects strict adherence to its current policies, including social distancing, masking and submission of booster documentation.

Nelson also said that the indirect effects of such high infection rates — especially mental health issues — should be a cause for concern. He added that 30-35% of the U.S. population is suffering mild, moderate or even severe anxiety or depression due to the virus, and that 700,000 have been diagnosed with the longer-term effects of COVID-19.

“It’s slightly more common for the younger age groups than the older population,” Nelson said. “When peoples’ lifestyle is upset, when you feel socially isolated, this tends to put stress and strain on people.”

Interim provost David Kotz ’86 and executive vice president Rick Mills did not respond to requests for comment by press time.

Inflation, pandemic weigh on Biden’s approval FROM BIDEN PAGE 1

Press called a “warning” to Washington Democrats.

Prescott noted that throughout history, midterms have often served as a check on administrations with low approval ratings.

According to Nyhan, presidential approval ratings are a key factor in midterm elections. Nyhan added that voters tend to hinge their judgment of other candidates of the same party on the president at the time.

“This next year, 2022, is really going to be do or die,” Herzog said of the Biden administration.

According to Shaiko, the American people have shifted away from giving elected officials the “benefit of the doubt.”

He cited the Trump administration and the highly partisan nature of both parties as causes of the American public’s lack of faith in government.

“Our default is not [assuming] good intentions anymore… that’s the time that we’re living in, there’s just a real distaste for governance,” Shaiko said.

Shaiko added that if Biden is going to “bring a win” for the Democrats in the midterm elections and for himself in 2024, he needs to appeal to his base more, rather than the progressive side of the Democratic Party.

“The American public is not where the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is,” Shaiko said.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 28, 2022

PAGE 3

THE DARTMOUTH OPINION

THE DARTMOUTH EDITORIAL BOARD

GUEST COLUMNIST BARRY HARWICK ’77

Verbum Ultimum: A Turbulent Tenure Home is Where the Heart (Of Campus) Is

President Hanlon’s tenure has been marked by a combination of major strides forward and the neglect of longstanding problems.

On Tuesday, Jan. 25, College President Phil Hanlon announced in a campus-wide email that, after a decade at the helm, he will step down from leadership of the College in June of 2023.

Shortly after this announcement, an email from the Board of Trustees praised President Hanlon for “steer[ing] the institution to ever greater academic excellence, inclusion, and impact.”

Hanlon’s tenure has certainly not been without its successes. Through his Call to Lead campaign, which to date has brought in more than $3 billion to the College, Dartmouth has been able to fund the restoration of need-blind admissions for international students, the elimination of loans for families making under $125,000 per year and the construction and renovation of various buildings around campus, among numerous other research and academic upgrades. These are enormous achievements that will make the College a better place for students, faculty and staff and improve its global standing. Additionally, “Moving Dartmouth Forward,” a 2015 Hanlon initiative that banned hard alcohol on campus and required students to undergo four years of sexual violence prevention and education training, has helped to make Dartmouth’s campus safer, despite shortstaffing issues. Hanlon has also presided over an increase in diversity among faculty, staff, and students during his tenure: People of color represent 24% of Dartmouth’s faculty and staff and almost half of the Class of 2025, both up from a decade ago.

But while these accomplishments are deserving of praise, they present an incomplete picture of the legacy Hanlon will leave behind.

For one thing, Hanlon’s presidency has been one marred by legal action against the College.

Just in the past few years: A 2018 suit alleged that Dartmouth ignored claims of sexual misconduct against professors in the psychological and brain sciences department, the College faced threats of litigation in response to alleged Title IX noncompliance in the athletics department and, most recently, a lawsuit alleged that Dartmouth — along with 15 other universities — conspired to limit students’ financial aid via price fixing. Revelations in August 2020 that Hanlon, as the University of Michigan’s provost, promoted a professor despite knowledge of sexual misconduct allegations against him are also likely to cast a looming shadow over the now outgoing president’s legacy.

Another defining marker of Hanlon’s tenure has been his failure to address the student body’s most pressing needs. As his presidency draws to a close, two crises that have long plagued Dartmouth remain largely unsolved. Despite repeated promises of new housing, the College’s housing shortage — which this past fall caused hundreds of students to be placed on a waitlist and prompted the College to offer students $5,000

to live off campus — has yet to be solved. A mental health crisis on campus, underscored by the deaths by suicide of three first-year students — Beau DuBray ’24, Connor Tiffany ’24 and Elizabeth Reimer ’24 — demonstrated a need to reform the College’s cruel medical leave policies and compassionless academic and institutional policies. Though the College has begun to make strides toward addressing these longstanding issues, Hanlon’s tenure saw them mostly swept under the rug.

Now, as the search for a successor kicks off, we urge the Board of Trustees to prioritize finding a president willing to learn from Hanlon’s failures.

The College’s next leader will, in essence, be faced with using the enormous resources Hanlon raised to fix the problems Hanlon largely ignored. The housing and mental health crises would be good places to start.

We also urge the College to seek and select a candidate who better represents the diversity of their student body. After all, if Dartmouth is going to hold up progress on diversity and inclusion as one of the key successes of Hanlon’s tenure — as the email from the Board of Trustees pointedly did — it would be strange to then select a candidate that offers none of the diversity the College claims to value.

Moreover, we urge the College to consult students as part of the presidential selection process, as students are among the stakeholders who are most impacted by the actions of the president. We are heartened by Board of Trustees chair Liz Lempres ’83 Th’84’s comments to The Dartmouth this week in which she said the Board will “absolutely” consult with students — and we expect the College to stick to that commitment.

In the end, President Hanlon’s tenure will likely be remembered as a mixed bag. Though the College was placed on solid financial footing and made a number of key strides forward in academics and infrastructure, core problems like housing and mental health were mostly ignored, deteriorating to the point of crisis while scandals kept Dartmouth in the national headlines. Now that Hanlon is stepping down, we encourage the Dartmouth community to take this opportunity to reflect on both his successes and failures and on what the College should seek in its leaders.

This is a call for leadership that is progressive, but reflective. With the input of students and other members of the Dartmouth community, we are hopeful that whomever the College selects will be up to the task of bringing about the changes Hanlon has failed to.

The editorial board consists of opinion staff columnists, the opinion editors, the executive editors and the editor-inchief.

Dartmouth students deserve a better solution to the housing shortage.

I retired from Dartmouth in the fall of 2020 after spending 28 years at the College as a coach for the track and cross-country teams. A major part of that job was recruiting, and one of our key strategies involved distinguishing Dartmouth from our Ivy League counterparts. Living on a walkable campus was a real draw, especially compared to the extensive shuttle bus system at Cornell University. We could tell potential students that Dartmouth’s athletic facilities were on campus — unlike Columbia University or Yale University, where students rely on shuttle buses to get to practices and competitions.

With that in mind, I was displeased to learn that Dartmouth is now contemplating building a large undergraduate dormitory complex a mile and half north of campus on Garipay Field, land that has been used for recreation for decades. Not surprisingly, the residents of that neighborhood, including myself, are strongly opposed to the idea.

Our arguments revolve around the loss of green space and the significant increase of traffic on a street that is a residential neighborhood and includes a large day care center, as well as Hanover’s only elementary school.

Having said that, I would make the case that the idea of building a dormitory here is at least as bad for Dartmouth’s undergraduate students as it is for the neighbors. It is hard to believe that the 300–400 or so students who would live in the proposed building would not feel significantly more isolated than the students who live in the campus core. How many trips a day will students need to make to campus for meals, classes and meetings?

Much of the Dartmouth experience revolves around interactions with their classmates, faculty and staff.

Evening events like plays at the Hopkins Center for the Arts, guest speakers at the Rockefeller Center for Public Policy, movies at Spaulding Auditorium and athletic events will shift from an easy walk to a shuttle ride. On sub-zero winter days, it is hard to think of a less appetizing prospect than waiting in the cold for a shuttle bus.

I am sure that when College administrators describe the new dorms, they will do so in glowing terms, describing them as modern apartment-style units surrounded by green space. To this end, I hope that students will do some deep thinking about their response when the College asks for feedback. Is a decked-out, brand-new dorm sufficient compensation for being removed from the heart of campus?

I need to add that I, and the rest of my neighbors, understand the tremendous need for undergraduate

housing and support further dorm construction.

That was a key element of the “Call to Lead” capital campaign and should have already been addressed by now. However, there are simply other sites that are owned by the College that are also much closer to campus. The land next to House Center A (also known as “The Onion”), land abutting the Dewey Field parking lot and the already developing west end of campus are all potential dorm sites that can and should be prioritized over the proposed Garipay Field site. Parts of the former golf course west of Lyme Road, particularly the southernmost section, offer yet another possible building site. It seems that the only advantage of the Garipay Field site is that it is flat and thus relatively easy to build on.

Let me close by saying that I am a realist and I am aware of the fact that Dartmouth’s campus will and must expand. I live across the street from Dartmouth’s Rugby Clubhouse, a beautiful building that blends in with the landscape and, when built, preserved the playing fields and green space around it. The clubhouse represents the type of expansion that makes sense, as it fits in with the environment around it. Building a large dorm on Garipay Field — which would destroy the green space, create more traffic and be a nuisance for both students and residents — fails that test.

If any of this message strikes a chord, I would encourage you to reach out to College administrators and student leaders on campus as quickly as possible. I think Dartmouth‘s Office of Campus Planning would be a good place to start.

Currently, Dartmouth shows every intention of trying to push this proposal on a fast track, intending to break ground later this year. We must not allow the College to negatively impact both the surrounding neighborhood and one of the College’s biggest assets under the guise of solving the housing crisis.

There are other, less intrusive, more logical means of addressing the housing shortage. Allowing our desperation to compromise our sense of reason would be a real shame.

Barry Harwick is a member of the Class of 1977 and the former Director of the Dartmouth men’s and women’s track and field and cross country teams.

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NINA SLOAN ’24: ON THIN ICE

CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST JESSI YU ’25

Early Decision: A Gamble Only the Wealthy Can Afford The college admissions process is plagued with inequalities; Dartmouth and other selective colleges must take steps to make it more equitable.

Watching groups of students and their parents tour Dartmouth, it’s hard not to reminisce about one’s own college admissions experience — an experience perhaps filled with disappointment and reflection or, for many students who were accepted via early decision, a sense of relief marking the end of an often agonizing journey.

However, while the process of early decision is appealing, it often is only accessible for those with the wealth and intergenerational knowledge to utilize it. Students whose parents make more than $250,000 per year are twice as likely to apply early than students whose family makes less than $50,000. The early decision process exacerbates inequalities, and at Dartmouth, where 69% of students come from the top 20%, we need to ban it.

When applying to college, students have the option to apply early through three different plans that are offered: early action, which is offered at most schools and is non-binding; restrictive early action, an option offered by many Ivy League schools — including Yale and Harvard Universities — that only allows one to apply to a single school early but is non-binding; and early decision — the most restrictive of the three options, a binding decision and the one which Dartmouth uses.. Students are incentivized to use these options, as applying early opens the door to an increased likelihood of being accepted at top tier colleges.

Last admissions cycle, 566 applicants were admitted to Dartmouth through the early decision round, making up about half of the Class of 2025. Early applicants to Dartmouth saw an acceptance rate of 21.2%, a percentage nearly four times the regular decision acceptance rate of 6.17%. Even when accounting for inflation in the early decision acceptance rate caused by student-athletes who have already committed, this discrepancy is still significant.

With that said, one of the most important factors — and, often, the determining factor — in where lowincome students go to college is financial aid. While ED is appealing for many students, as it gives them a better chance at getting into selective colleges and allows them to expedite the college application process, it favors students with wealth and resources, disadvantaging students who lack the financial security to commit to a school before reviewing their financial aid package.

Because early decision requires admitted students to commit to a school without knowing how much they will be expected to contribute, it is prohibitive for many low income students, who are also predominantly minority and first generation students.

Proponents of early decision often cite the option to withdraw for financial reasons as a way to deny the inequalities that exist in the process. Indeed, Dartmouth

says on its admissions website that it “routinely” releases students who cannot attend for financial reasons from their early decision agreements. While students who show proof that they are unable to pay their expected contribution can indeed remove themselves from an early decision binding contract, students are still unable to apply early to other schools and compare the aid they would’ve received from these other schools. Even with the appeals process, there is no guarantee that their appeal will be approved, a possibility that could deter many applicants.

On top of this, for low-income, first-generation high school seniors who are already struggling with the college application process, the appeals process adds unnecessary stress and complications that could be alleviated by simply changing early decision to early action or restrictive early action. Colleges often use early decision as a way to distinguish students who are truly committed to the school. Early action, restrictive and nonrestrictive, both achieve this same goal while being more inclusive.

For students with sufficient means and financial security, ED can also prove problematic, as it places an immense burden on high school seniors to commit to a school they may not be entirely confident in.

Early decision eliminates the opportunity to assess and compare other options and choose the best one. Recently, the National Association for College Admission Counseling moved in the other direction, voting to get rid of a ban on using incentives to convince students to apply early. This allows colleges to dangle incentives such as getting a first pick for classes and better dorms to convince students to apply, allowing yet more advantages to accrue to students who are able to apply early — in other words, the disproportionately white and wealthy.

Despite the inequality binding applications foster, many elite schools continue to offer them as a means of increasing their yield — the proportion of accepted students who choose to enroll — which in turn improves a school’s rankings, a tradeoff that seems completely out of line with many of Dartmouth’s core values.

From standardized testing to financial aid, the college admissions process is littered with inequalities. If Dartmouth and other colleges are truly committed to creating the “inclusive and vibrant learning environment” Dartmouth touts on its home page, we need to abolish early decision. As the current admission cycle comes to an end, I hope Dartmouth will make a conscious effort now and in the future to admit a diverse class that accurately reflects the world we live in. The first step is abolishing early decision.

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PAGE 4

FRIDAY, JANUARY 28, 2022

THE DARTMOUTH ARTS

Student Spotlight: student artist Alice Crow ’22 creates multimedia, layered works

BY Alexandra Surprenant The Dartmouth Staff

This article was originally published on January 25, 2022.

Alice Crow ’22 produces abstract works that deal with themes of the subconscious and nature. Double majoring in studio art and history, Crow currently works as a campus engagement intern at the Hood Museum of Art where she helps connect students to the museum and curate an upcoming exhibit.

Though always passionate about art, Crow began to seriously consider majoring in studio art during her freshman spring at Dartmouth. After taking a few art classes, Crow’s focus shifted from representational work — a more traditional style of art that focuses on accurate depiction of the real world — to the abstract as she moved away from portraiture and towards multimedia, painted pieces.

“When I started painting on my own, and not just for class assignments, [my work] quickly became abstract,” Crow said. “I do love making representational work, but if I just let go and see what I paint, it’s abstract. It almost feels out of control in that way that I can’t slow myself down enough to make something representational.”

In her work, Crow builds bright layers using a variety of mediums: acrylic paint, drawings, lettering and collages with photographs. She aims to produce a dynamic relationship among these layers by including both “organic” and “industrial” elements in her pieces.

“I would describe my work as

using overlapping layers of organic and industrial forms,” Crow said.

“There’s rhythmic or pattern based processes as well as more organic and uncontrolled processes. I combine those two processes to create some sort of competition.”

Crow added that her pieces often incorporate natural forms that resemble water features, geological shapes and tree rings, though the features are open to viewer interpretation.

Crow’s longtime friend, roommate and fellow studio art major Ronnie Ahlborn ’22 said that the methods involved in Crow’s art reflect her development as an artist.

“Everything that she’s been doing up to this year has been building a new layer in her work,” Ahlborn said. “[There are] pen drawings that she used to make in high school and freshman year, and those really come through with her current pieces.

Her writing used to be a lot more prominent in her work. Now, the writing is still very present but in a different way. It’s not as literal, but it’s there, and the emotion behind it is there.”

Last fall, Crow worked on an independent study with studio art professor Thomas Ferrara. Ferrara praised the sense of structure and rhythm in Crow’s art.

“She’s a great draftsman, and her drawing is phenomenal,” Ferrara said. “Her paintings have a really strong sense of structure as a result of that, but also a really strong sense of rhythm that moves the eye around.”

During this independent study, Crow concentrated on moving to larger canvases, forcing her to convert smaller sketches to a greater scale.

Last fall, in addition to her independent study, Crow designed an upcoming exhibit at the Hood called “Transcendent Landscapes: Abstracting Nature.”

Through researching for the exhibit, which included pieces from female abstract expressionists, Crow discovered that the central theme of the exhibit has influenced her own work.

“I’m curating an exhibit that looks at abstract art of landscapes and how artists use that to convey spirituality, either within themselves or in their connection to the landscapes in a spiritual or metaphysical sense,” Crow said. “In my own experience, art has had a role in communicating my mind or my emotions, and it does feel like tapping into the subconscious, and it can be somewhat spiritual.”

After curating this exhibit which will be on display in early March, Crow said she began to think about the concept of automatism in art — essentially, when the hand, rather than the mind, guides a painting. Through abandoning a more calculated approach, Crow can more freely and truthfully convey her subconscious.

“I don’t ever approach pieces with a super clear cut concept … The process itself is sort of the subject,” Crow said. “I often end up creating abstract landscapes or an abstract ‘mindscape.’ In other words, because I don’t plan out my work, it turns out to be a landscape of my mind.”

Crow draws inspiration for expressing her mental landscape from the natural world.

“My work is a synthesis of what I’m taking in around me,” Crow said. “I find the most beauty in nature. That’s my most obvious source of color and light and composition … and the

COURTESY OF ALICE CROW

“Tuesday” by Alice Crow, acrylic and ink.

world around me does happen to be very natural and rural.”

During the pandemic while at home in New Hampshire, Crow was able to work more intensely on her work, which helped her realize her desire to pursue a career as an artist.

Looking forward, she hopes to pursue a Masters in Fine arts a couple years

after graduation.

“I always had a sense that, by the end of my life, I would be an artist, but I initially expected to do something else first and then come back to it,” Crow said. “During the pandemic, it just became clearer and clearer … that I could make sense out of my life through making art.”

Dining on campus: the elusive home-cooked meal

BY MEI XU

The Dartmouth

This article was originally published on January 27, 2022.

Given COVID-19 dining changes and closures, a lack of options for students with dietary restrictions and cravings for home-cooked meals, many students are finding ways to adapt to the challenges of college dining.

Hsu Hay Htwe ’25 is from Myanmar.

Before coming to Dartmouth, Htwe was always surrounded by authentic Burmese food. During her gap year before college, she learned to cook so she would have a future alternative to campus dining.

“I was really scared of the food here,” Htwe said. “I’m not used to American food… I started cooking in my gap year and I was like ‘I need to learn how to cook so that I won’t starve.’”

However, she has struggled to cook more intricate Asian dishes due to a lack of ingredients.

“There’s one [Asian grocery store] in West Lebanon, but there are none in Hanover, so it’s really hard to just go out and get food,” said Htwe.

To overcome this challenge, she often goes to Boston to eat out and buys ingredients there to bring back to campus. These days, Htwe cooks for herself and her friends at least once a week. She often cooks simple, authentic recipes in the communal dorm kitchen or in her own room.

“Hot pot and ramen… they’re so easy to make,” Htwe said. “For hot pot, you just get boiling water and put a hot pot sauce packet and then you buy thinly sliced meat and cook that… it’s very stress-free.”

Claire Xu ’25 is a friend of Htwe and has noticed a lack of Chinese food options at Dartmouth Dining Services locations.

“I’m much more used to homecooking compared to what’s at Foco, so I wish I could copy that in the dorm to have a nice hearty meal,” Xu said.

Though Xu doesn’t often cook for herself because, she says, it’s too time-consuming to locate and prepare ingredients, she is fond of the way it brings people together.

“I think food is very important for

BY ZOORIEL TAN/THE DARTMOUTH

connecting people,” Xu said. “Being able to have your friends cooking, sitting around and watching, talking and observing and having that sizzling sound in the background … I think that definitely brings us together.”

While some students have transportation methods to access food from grocery stores, others find sourcing ingredients from outside Hanover to be challenging and time-consuming. This has led some students to gather ingredients from more accessible locations — such as the Class of 1953 Commons.

DDS director Jon Plodzik said that, according to DDS policy, students cannot take food from Foco to cook in their dorms.

“Dining programs and the accompanying meal plans are simply not designed for bulk food ‘purchases,’” Plodzik wrote in an emailed statement. “We are not a grocery store. Our program, like all others in the country, was created to

ensure that all students have access to nourishing food options that were prepared in a safe manner. We offer food that is in proper edible form and control all aspects of the production process.”

He added that, in his opinion, College residence halls “are simply not equipped to have students cooking meals inside them while maintaining food safety and building life safety.”

Despite this policy, some students, displeased with the lack of diverse food options and accommodations for those with dietary restrictions, still collect ingredients from Foco.

One member of the Class of 2025, who asked to remain anonymous because of DDS’s policy, said that she grew up surrounded by culturally authentic food in a Mexican household and was uncertain about how she would adapt to dining hall food.

“I did struggle a bit eating … At first, I’d have to kind of just force myself because I knew I had to eat,

but nothing really seemed appealing,” she said.

One day, she said, observed other students on her dorm floor cooking in the communal kitchen and was inspired to do the same.

“I started going into Foco and doing what I saw some other people on my floor do, which is to go to the vegetable station at the salad bar and then come [back to my dorm] to stir fry it or use those ingredients to make other foods,” she said.

This student disagrees with the DDS policy.

“I think since there’s a lot of students, [DDS] is mass-producing so much food that it’s not as healthy as I would like it … I’m also vegan and there aren’t many options besides tofu for me,” she said. “I’d rather spend my time in the kitchen cooking than waiting in the long [Foco] line Another member of the Class of 2025, who also wished to remain anonymous given the DDS policy,

is concerned about dining options.

On multiple occasions, she has been reprimanded by DDS workers for getting extra containers and filling them with fresh ingredients.

“With two containers, there’s not really enough space for all the food that I want,” she said. “And a couple of times, I’ve tried to put chickpeas in a cup and have gotten in trouble for that … My containers are just full of arugula and broccoli — like, I can’t just live off of that.”

“Our take-out program (Green2Go) allows for a single meal only to be taken from the dining hall,” Plodzik wrote in an emailed statement.

For this student, however, cooking is essential to her identity and wellbeing.

“When I’m at home, I cook all my family’s meals,” she said. “It’s something that’s really fun for me.

Not having the ability to cook … I didn’t realize how it would impact my mental health.”

FRIDAY, JANUARY 28, 2022

PAGE 5

THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS

SPORTS

Men’s basketball loses to Princeton 84-80 in another nail-biter

CAROLINE KRAMER/The Dartmouth Staff

BY JASON NORRIS The Dartmouth Staff

This article was originally published on January 24, 2022.

On Saturday, the Dartmouth men’s basketball team took on Ivy League leader Princeton University in their first home game of the new year open to fans. Cheered on by over 300 fans, the Big Green fought hard against the Tigers but failed to close out the game and fell 84-80. Dartmouth is now 1-4 in Ivy League play and 4-12 in a season marked by narrow losses.

The Big Green hung with Princeton throughout the game. Dartmouth played a clean game, accruing only six turnovers and out-rebounding Princeton 37-34. Forward Dame Adelekun ’23 led the team with 12

total rebounds and added 12 points to earn a double-double, while fifth-year guard Aaryn Rai ’21 just missed out on a doubledouble of his own with nine rebounds and 17 points. Rai’s nine rebounds put him at 507 career rebounds, becoming the 22nd player in program history to break the 500 barrier.

In the first half, the Big Green never trailed, and the team’s nine-point lead with 11:30 left in the half was the biggest lead of the game for either team. As the half wound down, however, the Tigers closed in on Dartmouth and the buzzer sounded with an even 41-41 score.

“I think people really look at the end of the game, but there’s stuff that goes into it before those situations,” Adelekun said. “It’s not the end of the game, it’s when we’re up

seven, up six, having big stops and making that run a bit more out of reach.”

Adelekun, who is averaging 10.6 points and 9.2 rebounds per game against Ivy League opponents this year, has recorded two double-doubles this season. Brendan Barry ’20 GR topped the scoring column with 21 points. Against Princeton, the Big Green recorded its second-highest score of the season behind only the 114-74 win over Northern Vermont University, Lyndon.

The second half against Princeton was a battle. With six lead changes, neither team built more than a six point lead, which Princeton held with 1:40 left to play. Down 80-74, the Big Green’s guards Taurus Samuels ’22 and Barry scored a pair of buckets to close the lead to two with 14 seconds left in the game. Princeton’s Ryan

Langborg was able to convert two free throws after an intentional foul, to which Barry responded with another layup to make it 82-80 with six seconds left. After another quick intentional foul by the Big Green, Lanborg converted two more freethrows and cemented the win for Princeton.

“We played well offensively, really shared the ball well and shot it well,” Rai said. “...

Kudos to them, but I think we could have done a bit more and made it harder for them.”

The Big Green shot well, going 31 for 63 (49.2%) from the field and 10 for 22 (45.5%) from three. Barry drained three of his seven shots from behind the arc and now has 1,026 points in his Dartmouth career, tying him for 27th all time in program history.

“It’s a really cool accomplishment,” Barry said. “At the end of the day, I’m here to win and we haven’t really been doing that. With nine games left, that’s my main focus. I credit my teammates and coaches for helping me get here, but like I said, I’m here to win and that will always be the main focus for me.”

Barry also noted the impact of having fans in Leede Arena for the game. After a long stretch of games where only friends and family could attend, Barry said the support from fellow Dartmouth students made an impact.

“We went on a scoring run and the place was rocking,” Barry said. “Throughout my career that hasn’t really happened too often, so I really loved that support and it made a difference. I wish we could have rewarded it with a win.”

Closing out close games remains a problem for the Big Green this season: nine of their 12 losses this season have been decided by 10 points or fewer. However, the team has proven it can go toe-to-toe with top-ranked teams in the Ivy League, suggesting that Dartmouth cannot be written off just yet this season. Adelekun said that the team is focused on getting one percent better every game.

“We’ve gotta focus on our one-on-one defense, on getting timely stops and not trying to just outscore the other team, versus getting stops and locking people up on defense,” Adelekun said. “That’s when we’re playing our best.”

While the Big Green has proven it can compete with the best, Dartmouth must start winning over the next few games to have a chance at earning one of the four spots in the Ivy League tournament. Sitting in last in the Ivy League, the Big Green has nine games left this season to climb the rankings.

“Everybody’s frustrated,” Rai said.

“Especially when you play well enough to win but don’t win. No one really feels sorry for [themselves] and no one is giving us moral victories, so we just have to go out and be better.”

Dartmouth is slated to take on Columbia University next weekend on the road. With the Lions just ahead of the Big Green in the Ivy League standings, Dartmouth will have an opportunity to improve its ranking with a win — and to build momentum before they take on stronger conference opponents in the coming weeks.

From The Bleachers: Quadruple Blockbuster

BY BAILY DEETER

The Dartmouth Staff

In last week’s column, I promised a Divisional Round weekend full of exciting matchups, “perhaps even a classic Divisional Round moment like the Minneapolis Miracle, the Vernon Davis catch, or the Joe Flacco Hail Mary.”

I’d like to say I called my shot, but I saw none of Saturday and Sunday’s absurdity coming. My predicted Super Bowl teams are both eliminated (again).

I got only one of my four picks right, the one I was least certain of — the Cincinnati Bengals over the Tennessee Titans.

But this time, I don’t feel alone. No one saw last weekend coming. How could you have? Jan. 22 and 23 was the greatest weekend of football I have ever witnessed, and the Kansas City Chiefs-the Buffalo Bills Sunday night matinee was the greatest football game I’ve ever seen. The other three were all close to the top. We may never see another weekend like it.

Where do I begin? Kansas City and Buffalo changed leads four times and scored a whopping 31 points after the two-minute warning, including overtime. Tom Brady orchestrated another 24-point comeback… and lost. Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers lost a home game to a 49ers team that didn’t score an offensive touchdown. Joe Burrow got sacked nine (nine!) times and still won a road playoff game against the top-seeded Titans.

Every game ended on a walk-off field goal or touchdown. Not a single one had already been decided with five seconds left in regulation. No matter who it is, the eventual Super Bowl champion will have been on the brink of elimination on Divisional Weekend.

The Bengals-Titans game was a fantastic back-and-forth affair to kick off the weekend and somehow the least exciting game of the four. It featured a last-second Ryan Tannehill interception that set up Evan McPherson’s 52-yard game-winning field goal. McPherson

drilled the kick for his fourth threepointer of the night, leading to many pundits on Twitter admitting that drafting a kicker in the fifth round may not be a bad call if he can score two-thirds of your team’s points in a playoff game.

Then, the Niners and Packers played a classic Lambeau Field playoff game in the zero-degree wind chill. It was an ugly game, but if you made the trek from the Bay Area like myself, my dad and my brother, it had a beautiful ending.

I was fortunate enough to witness one of the biggest playoff upsets in recent memory. And I will always be able to say that I saw Nathaniel Hackett, Aaron Rodgers and Davante Adams play their last game as Packers before they became the Denver Broncos head coach, starting quarterback and wide receiver.

The first half was a sluggish, 7-0 contest that, quite frankly, should not have been that close. As the frostbite began to kick in, we huddled in the pro shop for warmth and for a toe warmer pit stop at halftime. As we walked back out to the stadium, we did a doubletake as we saw snowflakes. There was no precipitation in the forecast, but the football gods had other plans to make sure America hadn’t seen the last of Jimmy G. An hour later, we witnessed the decibel count in one of the loudest stadiums in America drop from triple digits to zero digits as Talanoa Hufanga’s scoop and score tied the game. We saw it again when Robbie Gould’s clutch triple gave the 49ers their first lead of the game, right when it mattered most at 0:00.

San Francisco’s opponent was going to be the Los Angeles Rams right up until Tom Brady happened.

TB12 read my ode to the GOAT while trailing 20-3 at halftime, and he then decided to orchestrate three second-half touchdown drives to bring Tampa Bay back from down 27-3. But this time, Matt Stafford did what Matt Ryan couldn’t do: answer Brady’s magic with some of his own. Cooper Kupp’s two catches for 64 yards set up injured kicker Matt Gay to squeak the game-winner

SOPHIE BAILEY/The Dartmouth Senior Staff

through the uprights in what might turn out to be Tom Brady’s last game.

Now onto the best of them all weekend, all year and all time. This was a “you had to be there” type of game, so I’m just going to throw some absurd stats out there to try to capture the game’s greatness. Patrick Mahomes threw for 177 yards after the two-minute warning and into overtime, more yards than Jimmy G threw for all game (by far)!

Gabriel Davis caught four touchdowns!

The Chiefs moved the ball into field goal range from their own 25-yard line with 13 seconds left! Josh Allen had the second-most passing touchdowns in a single postseason in NFL history… in two games! And Buffalo still hasn’t won a Super Bowl!

There’s so much more to unpack from Divisional Weekend, but given that it’s now Friday, it’s time to look ahead to our two conference championship rematches. Kansas City hosts the AFC Championship for the fourth

consecutive season, which coincides with the seasons that Mahomes has started at quarterback. The Rams will host LA’s first conference championship since the Raiders hosted one in 1983, the year “Billie Jean” by Michael Jackson came out. Both home teams have lost to their road opponents this month, but both are favored on their home turf.

Speaking of the best football games I’ve ever seen, the Chiefs-Rams 2018 Monday Night Football clash, which saw both teams drop more than 50 points, is near the top of the list. Until Kansas City fell to the GOAT in overtime, fans were clamoring for a rematch in Super Bowl LIII. But with No. 12 out of the picture, the stage is set for the rematch. Cincinnati doesn’t have the firepower to stop Kansas City’s offense, and its pass protection, play-calling and inexperience will hold it back. This time, Kansas City will hold up its end of the bargain.

On the flip side, there’s something

magical about these 49ers. This team has a 2007/2011 New York Giants feel, where a normally mediocre quarterback somehow finds a way to win clutch games on the road. Jimmy G may make some of the most inexplicable throws you’ll ever see from an NFL quarterback, but he’ll always follow them up with moments of brilliance (he doesn’t get enough credit). San Francisco’s defense is also playing its best football since that 2019 season where the 49ers were clearly the best team in the NFC. We will see a rematch on Super Bowl Sunday, but it will be a rematch of Super Bowl LIV instead of the Chiefs-Rams Monday Night classic.

The GOAT is out, the MVP is out, the best quarterback in the playoffs is out and Ryan Tannehill is out. But while we may not have seen the final four bracket consisting of mid-majors like the 49ers and Bengals coming, we’re better for it. It’s now time to see if the Cinderella stories can bring it home.

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MIRROR THE DARTMOUTH MIRROR

FRIDAY, JANUARY 28, 2022

No Need to Know: Students React to Dartmouth’s Universal Need-Blind Admissions Policy STORY

By Arielle Feuerstein & Adriana James-Rodil

This article was originally published on January 26, 2022.

Dartmouth announced on Wednesday, Jan. 12 that it would extend its needblind admissions policy to international students — beginning with the Class of 2026 — following an anonymous $40 million dollar donation to the Call to Lead campaign. This made Dartmouth the sixth institution to offer need-blind admissions to international students while meeting 100% of demonstrated financial need, along with Harvard University, Princeton University, Yale University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Amherst College.

Many students have also expressed excitement over the College’s new policy.

Chukwuka Odigbo ’25, an international student from Nigeria, described the news as “joyful,” and said he was excited to share it with his friends from home.

“And as soon as I heard [the decision], I spread the news to all my friends who I knew were interested in applying to Dartmouth,” Odigbo said. “I was very happy when I realized that Dartmouth’s decision to go need-blind for international students covered the Class of 2026 onwards, because it means that even those internationals who had applied would get need-blind admissions, which I think is great.”

Odigbo added that he believes that Dartmouth’s decision will lead to more international students applying. Beatriz Da Silva Falcão ’25, an international student from Brazil, echoed Ogbido’s sentiment. She applied early decision to Dartmouth; however, its need-aware policy for international students almost convinced her to apply early elsewhere. Now, she predicts that more international students will feel comfortable applying to Dartmouth in the early round.

“My best friend intended to apply here early but she didn’t because at the time, it was need-aware,” Falcão said. “I know other people who’ve been through that and everyone was always insecure, so I felt like it was great that they turned admissions needblind for international students because I

feel like now we are going to have more people applying and then probably a more representative cohort of new students.”

While every student interviewed expressed support for the College’s decision to extend need-blind admissions to international students, some raised concerns about the College’s motivations for making the change, along with their intent to faithfully apply the policy.

Matt Capone ’24, a domestic student, expressed frustration that the announcement of universal need-blind admissions immediately followed news that the College was involved in a federal antitrust lawsuit concerning the legitimacy of its existing need-blind admissions process.

He explained that while he’s “hesitant” to say that the lawsuit is the “primary motivator” in Dartmouth’s decision, he “feels like those two things can’t be uncorrelated.” He believes that the timing of the announcement is reflective of a larger problem with Dartmouth’s unwillingness to implement positive change on its own, without external coercion.

“What really stood out was just the fact that, once again, it has seemingly become a pattern in which Dartmouth only enacts change following the threat or the existence of legal action,” Capone said.

Although Ana Sumbo ’22, an international student from Angola and a leader of the African Students Association, said she was initially “elated” when she first heard that the College was extending their need-blind policy to international students, she now has similar doubts about the College’s intentions.

“Right now, Dartmouth can’t really afford to look bad in any way, shape or form,” Sumbo said. “So they’re grasping at straws for whatever they can do to paint themselves in a great light.”

Not every student had concerns with the timing of Dartmouth’s new policy. Falcão said she didn’t think that the announcement of need-blind admissions shortly after news of the lawsuit was intentional.

“I feel like these kinds of decisions have to be thought out carefully and with time, so I feel like many things were adding up

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to that decision,” Falcão said. “And [the lawsuit] was not necessarily what triggered it or what triggered its announcement. At least I feel like that would have happened one way or another.”

According to director of admissions Paul Sunde, implementing need-blind admissions for all students has been a campaign goal since Dartmouth launched the Call to Lead campaign four years ago.

Dartmouth’s peer institutions, such as Amherst College, which practice universal need-blind admission are “excited” about the College’s announcement, said Amherst College dean of admissions and financial aid Matthew McGann.

“I think that most people in the admission profession would prefer to be in a situation where we can evaluate and admit all students just on the basis of fit with the institutional mission and the institutional goals rather than needing to think about a student’s financial need and the impact on the budget,” McGann said.

“So that Dartmouth has now made that institutional commitment to be need-blind

for all students, regardless of citizenship status, I think is really exciting.”

Beyond fears that the College’s announcement was partly a reaction to the lawsuit, Sumbo expressed that the promise of need-blind admissions still may not lead to any tangible change. First, she expressed concern that there would be few ways to hold the Admissions Office accountable for adhering to the need-blind policy, so there will be no assurance that the College is abiding by it.

“We can’t guarantee that the need-blind is actually extended. There’s no verification process,” Sumbo said. “While we can take the administration’s word for it, ultimately people who are going to be in charge of these admissions are still the same people.

So I’m assuming the trends are going to follow as they normally do, which means that it won’t translate to any actionable change.”

Even once international students are admitted to Dartmouth, Sumbo does not believe that Dartmouth currently provides all of them with enough support to thrive.

Although Dartmouth promises to meet 100% of admitted students’ demonstrated need, including international students, Sumbo said that many students find themselves struggling financially once they arrive on campus.

“A lot of international students who need that full support often get here and can’t get financial support from the school,” Sumbo said. “I guess I’m questioning what [need-blind admissions] really means for international students’ ability to be here and be actually worried about education and not other financial concerns that they may have.”

Despite concerns, most students are still optimistic about the policy change, and are hopeful it will attract more international applicants to Dartmouth.

“I think the best thing I can say is I’m excited to see how it goes moving forward. I expect that more international students will apply and I encourage more international students to apply because I found a vibrant, loving international community,” Odigbo said.

The Antisemitism All Around Us STORY

By Street Roberts

This article was originally published on January 26, 2022.

On the morning of Jan. 15, around 10:30 a.m., a lone man entered the Beth Israel Synagogue in Colleyville, Texas. He appeared to be unarmed, and was warmly welcomed into the Sabbath Prayer Service

by Rabbi Cytron-Walker. The Rabbi made him a cup of tea and began the prayer service.

Several minutes later, a distinctive click rang out across the synagogue — that of a weapon being brandished. Over the next ten hours, 44 year-old Brit Malik Faisal Akram would proceed to hold four members of the synagogue hostage, demanding the release of Pakistani neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui, who is currently serving an 86-year sentence for terrorist-related offenses.

Thankfully, the hostages made it out safely, in large part due to the bravery

of Cytron-Walker, who detailed how he “threw a chair at the gunman and headed for the door” with the other members of the synagogue as the FBI barged into the space.

But nevertheless, the attack sent waves of horror and anger throughout the U.S. and the world, particularly within the Jewish community.

David Kantor ’22, the president of Dartmouth Hillel, a Jewish student organization on campus, said he was in “shock” after hearing about the incident.

“As someone who has gone to synagogue for High Holidays my whole life, it was very upsetting to hear,” he said. “The thought of an incident like that happening at a synagogue in Texas goes to show it could happen anywhere.”

“Shock” was the most common word of reaction among the people interviewed for this piece. It takes time to process an attack like this, and responses to it can be varied.

One particularly controversial response was from the FBI, who originally described the siege as “not specifically related to the Jewish community.”

Although the FBI would later backtrack and say that the attack was an “act of terrorism targeting the Jewish community,” their initial characterization left members of the Jewish community and others frustrated and confused.

“It’s definitely frustrating as a Jewish person,” Kantor said, “For Jewish people, we clearly see this as an antisemitic event, but sometimes these events are miscategorized, and that’s a reality we have to live with. Getting people to understand that and to recognize any discrimination — not just antisemitism — is something our society needs to hold incredibly important right now.”

Jewish studies professor and program chair Susannah Heschel commented on the gunman’s instinct to hold the members of the

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synagogue responsible for the imprisonment of Siddiqui.

“It’s obvious that the gunman was acting on the belief that Jews are controlling the world somehow, and a Jew is going to be able to release somebody from a federal penitentiary,” she said. “That’s a very old dangerous antisemitic idea, one that is circulating around the world more and more these days. But we need to get rid of it.”

The attack is indicative of a larger problem: a rising rate of antisemitic incidents in the past decade. The Anti-Defamation League, a group committed to combating defamation of the Jewish community, has shown a spike in antisemitic acts incidents in the past few years. In fact, the ADL has recorded that the rate of antisemitic incidents from “murders to harrassment” has roughly doubled since 2010 — a staggering increase. In addition, in 2018, the U.S. experienced the deadliest mass killing of Jews in American history, in which 11 members of the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh lost their lives.

And this is a problem that the Dartmouth community has not escaped. Just last year, a former Dartmouth student vandalized a menorah, sparking outrage and shock among the Dartmouth community. The College and various groups around campus condemned the attack as “antisemitic,” but the offender was not ultimately charged with a hate crime.

Why not assign the hate crime charge?

Interim chair of the Jewish studies department professor Veronika Fuechtner has an idea.

“I think there’s often an initial impulse to say, ‘Oh, this was not a racist attack, or this was not a misogynist attack,’” Fuechtner said, “Because if you do acknowledge that, you have to act on it immediately — you have to start reading it as an alarm sign for your whole community.”

She also points to modern society becoming “more and more removed from the events of World War II and the Holocaust” as a reason for the increase of these antisemitic attacks. As fewer and fewer World War II and Holocaust

survivors remain alive to share their stories, “experience becomes abstract history,” Fuechtner said. “There is an element of empathy that is lost.”

And while antisemitism needs to be addressed partly on its own, professor Heschel sees this rise of antisemitism as a piece of a larger, systemic “explosion of violence and racism and rage and guns.”

“It’s everywhere,” Heschel said. “It’s the church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015 [in which 9 Black Americans were killed]. It’s the Asian American woman who was pushed to her death in a subway station just a few days ago. There is no safety in America. Period. Not in the synagogue, not in the subway station in New York City, not on the streets of Boston, not in California.”

Both Heschel and Fuechtner, as members of the Jewish studies program, have been pushing for an intersection of departments at Dartmouth, where students are exposed to the ways different forms of discrimination are intrisically connected.

“We’re siloed in a lot of our departments,” Heschel said. “We study racism toward Latinos in one department, racism towards Black people in another, toward Asians in another, towards Jews in another. It has to come together, we have to understand that each one affects the other one once you have racist ways of thinking.”

They have introduced courses that combine discussions of the African American experience and the Jewish American experience, but are “hoping for more,” wishing to push students to actively engage in these issues, to see the links between discrimination of all forms, to help prevent horrifying attacks like Colleyville.

“I think it’s very easy to hop on like the train when everybody’s talking about it but that’s not when it matters,” Kantor said.

“Identifying discrimination, identifying these issues is something that should really be done more actively, and I hope the Dartmouth community can continue to identify these. There are people who are really on top of this, and that’s fantastic, and it’s something that I hope that we can continue to grow.”