The Dartmouth 04/22/2022

VOL. CLXXVIV NO. 4

FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2022

College Republicans host Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe

HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE

COVID-19 policies to remain in place with increasing cases on campus

BEAM LERTBUNNAPHONGS/THE DARTMOUTH

BY CARLY RETTERER MICHAEL LIN/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

BY Soleil Gaylord The Dartmouth Staff

On Wednesday night, James O’Keefe, author and founder of nonprofit organization Project Veritas, visited campus for a talk hosted by the Dartmouth College Republicans.

Over the course of an hour, O’Keefe discussed his organization’s work in front of approximately 100 guests. Topics included several cases Project Veritas covered of alleged corruption among political, media and private figures, which O’Keefe said amounted to “threats to democracy.”

According to its website, Project Veritas “investigates and exposes corruption, dishonesty, self-dealing, waste, fraud and other misconduct in both public and private institutions to achieve a more ethical and transparent society.” Using undercover journalists, the organization has recorded both politicians and public figures and

produced videos of the encounters — often misrepresenting subjects through edited footage, according to The New York Times. The organization is currently under federal investigation for how it came into possession of Ashley Biden’s belongings.

Attendees were offered logoed apparel such as stuffed animals labeled “Retracto Alpacas,” hats reading “The New York Lies” — an apparent spoof on The New York Times — and other apparel as they filed into Filene Auditorium.

Chloe Ezzo ’22, vice president of the Dartmouth College Republicans, opened the event by introducing O’Keefe and Project Veritas, which she said had “exposed” the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, Big Pharma, Big Tech, CNN, National Public Radio, the New Jersey Teachers Association, The New York Times, Planned Parenthood and the U.S. government.

“Faith in the mainstream media is at

an all-time low and for good reason,” Ezzo said at the event.

O’Keefe began his presentation with a speech of an opinion column published in The Dartmouth on Tuesday. The piece was written by senior staff columnist and former editor-in-chief Kyle Mullins ’22. In his op-ed, Mullins expressed discontent with the College Republicans’ decision to bring a “bad faith” speaker to campus. O’Keefe called Mullins’ claims “serious accusations” and proceeded to tell the audience he would “write a $10,000 check” to anyone who could name an instance in which O’Keefe had “deceptively edited” journalism in the past decade.

“Every argument he’s written [in the op-ed] appears to be false,” O’Keefe said.

In a written statement to The Dartmouth, Mullins wrote that he was aware O’Keefe had discussed his column during the event and said that the event SEE O’KEEFE PAGE 2

Hopkins Center for the Arts to undergo $88 million expansion

PARTLY CLOUDY HIGH 57 LOW 31

BY lAUREN AZRIN

The Dartmouth Staff

This article was originally published on April 21, 2022.

NEWS

FORMER CIA DIRECTOR JOHN DEUTCH VISITS CAMPUS PAGE 2

OPINION

GART: BUILD BACK LOUDER PAGE 3

ARTS

‘MOON UNIT’ WINS BATTLE OF THE BANDS

On April 7, the College announced a $88 million expansion and renovation of the Hopkins Center for the Arts, with the goal to “enhance opportunities for artistic exploration and growth” in the building.

The expansion is part of the College’s $3 billion Call to Lead campaign.

The renovation, led by the international architecture company Snøhetta, will not only create 15,000 square feet of new space, but also will “transform” 55,000 square feet of the building’s current space, according to the College.

“The Hop was first built in 1962. At the time it was the only university arts center of its kind, bringing together multidisciplinary arts under one roof,” Hopkins Center director Mary Lou Aleskie wrote in an emailed statement to The Dartmouth. “After all these years, and especially with the increasing demand from students, a renovation and even expansion was very much needed.”

The redesign aims to foster more “opportunities for artistic creation,” she wrote, primarily through the addition of

new performance and rehearsal spaces.

This includes a performance lab, recital hall, dance studio, theater rehearsal room and other music rehearsal and teaching spaces. She added that the new spaces intend to combat long class waitlists, increase the length and number of residencies for artists at the Hopkins Center and provide resources for student groups and ensembles.

“The Hop expansion and renovation is driven mainly by increasing demand and popularity from students,” Aleskie wrote.

“We hope the Hop will become even more central in students’ lives, regardless of whether they have an artistic practice.”

Additional structural changes to the building include a new entry to the building and exterior plaza.

The Spaulding Auditorium, Theater Rehearsal Lab and “Top of the Hop” will also be “modernized and improved.”

According to Aleskie, the renovation project has raised $50.1 million of the projected $88 million through the support of alumni and donors. Construction is slated to begin in December 2022 with the goal of a full reopening in the fall of 2025.

Engineering and studio art professor SEE HOPKINS PAGE 2

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SENIOR SPOTLIGHT: RECORD-BREAKING BROOKE PLONKA PAGE 5

MIRROR

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The Dartmouth Staff

This article was originally published on April 19, 2022.

Despite the presence of 339 cases of COVID-19 among Dartmouth community members as of April 12, the College has no plans to reinstate testing or masking requirements “at this time,” according to College spokesperson Diana Lawrence.

“Over the past few weeks we have witnessed a rise in case counts throughout our region and on campus,” Lawrence wrote. “We understand the anxiety and uncertainty this may cause about health and safety in our community.”

In addition, Lawrence wrote that there is “no specific threshold” for the number of cases that would cause the College to change current COVID-19 policies. According to Lawrence, College policies consider case counts and hospitalization rates in Grafton County, research on the severity of COVID-19, guidance from the Centers for Disease Control, advice from scientific advisors and the Dartmouth Health service, data from symptomatic tests and survey data from 6,000 Dartmouth community members collected last month.

The College continues to offer resources to monitor and mitigate the spread of the coronavirus. These include both take-home PCR tests and takehome rapid antigen tests. According to the Dartmouth Vaccines and Testing website, in-person PCR testing is offered in the West Gym on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays, though all drop-off and in person testing locations will be closed for Memorial Day on May 30. KN95 masks are available from pick-up sites around campus.

According to Lawrence, the College will host a COVID-19 vaccine clinic on April 26, offering primary and secondary doses of the vaccine or first boosters to those who have yet to receive them, as well as a second booster to those who are eligible.

Under current College guidelines, faculty members may request but “may not require” that students wear masks while in class or continue to test at this time, according to Lawrence.

Economics professor Douglas Irwin said

he has considered asking his students to wear masks in class.

“I seriously considered [last week] asking everyone to mask up in class,” Irwin said. “I decided not to [since] only a few [students in my classes] have tested positive. If it was a more significant number and it seemed like campus-wide cases were going up, I wouldn’t hesitate to ask everyone to mask up in class.”

Irwin added that he teaches in a “fairly modernized classroom” in Silsby Hall, which has enabled students to join on Zoom easily.

“I’ve had a number of students on Zoom [using] a camera in the back of the room, so it’s very easy, and not much of a burden to have people Zoom in if they don’t feel well or if they tested positive,” he said.

After hearing that professors are considering asking their students to mask up, Gannon McCorkle ’24 said that he would be willing to mask up if it made professors more comfortable in their work space.

“Everyone should be able to be comfortable within an educational space, so if professors need [masking] to feel comfortable and to come to work and do their job well, then I think putting on a piece of cloth shouldn’t be a barrier,” McCorkle said.

Despite the rise in cases, McCorkle said he thinks that the College’s current COVID policies should be continued.

“I still feel to some extent that COVID and the masking policy is where it needs to be,” McCorkle said. “We can’t really afford more setbacks when it comes to learning environments and socialization with people that are just trying to live their lives. We’ve already lost so much.”

McCorkle added that he would be willing to participate in asymptomatic testing again if the College found that rising cases were worrisome for the health of the community. Overall, McCorkle said he has found that the current COVID-19 policies on campus have contributed to a sense of a “return to normalcy.”

“Being able to go out and not having to remember to bring a mask, seeing people’s actual faces and being able to socialize at a level deeper than we ever have been able to so far in our college careers is something that I’ve really appreciated,” he said.

FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2022

PAGE 2

THE DARTMOUTH NEWS

DOC holds first-ever “All Outside” Former CIA director diversity and inclusion conference John Deutch visits campus

BY Adriana James-Rodil The Dartmouth Staff

PHOTO COURTESY OF JESSICA CHIRIBOGA

BY kRISTIN CHAPMAN The Dartmouth Staff

This article was originally published on April 19, 2022.

From April 13 to 18, the Dartmouth Outing Club hosted its first ever “All Outside” conference, organized by Abigail Johnson ’23, Jessica Chiriboga ’24 and Kate Wasacz ’25 to foster greater equitable and inclusive access to the outdoors. The event lineup included panels, beginner outdoor skill sessions, workshops, an overnight cabin trip, beginner outdoor trips and a culminating dinner at the DOC house.

Johnson said that the conference’s mission — to improve access to the outdoors among underrepresented communities — involved inviting guest speakers to have conversations with students about accessibility and the outdoors within the DOC, at Dartmouth and beyond. Conference speakers included hiker and chef Kena Peay, Atowi Project director Rich Holschuh, Disabled Hikers founder Syren Nagakyrie, Adaptive Climbing Group founder Kareemah Batts, QPOC Hikers founder Jasmine Maisonet and Vermont Adaptive director of strategic partnerships Jeff Alexander.

“Whether you’re involved in the DOC or not, we’re trying to create opportunities for anyone at Dartmouth to get outside,” Johnson said.

Johnson, who is also president of the DOC, said that she and the other organizers initially reached out to people they thought would create a “meaningful collaboration” with the DOC and planned events from there. Johnson added that many of the conference events focused on accessibility in the outdoors for people with disabilities — a topic she believes has

not been addressed by the DOC as much as it should be.

“I think [accessibility for people with disabilities] is something that, as an outing club, we haven’t talked about as much as we might talk about how race, or ethnicity, or socioeconomic status or gender or sexuality might affect how people feel welcome,” Johnson said. “...I think this is something that will make a club more welcoming for anyone, whether they’re able-bodied or not.”

Following the conference, Johnson said that one thing she hopes the DOC will improve is making its trip descriptions on Trailhead — the DOC’s trip signup website — more detailed, so that people know exactly what sort of trip to expect when they sign up.

“Oftentimes we try to make [Trailhead descriptions] really fun, and get people excited about the trip — and then sometimes in doing that, we don’t actually address well enough: ‘What can you expect on this trip?’” she said, adding, “So thinking about giving the mileage and the elevation of every hike, but in addition to that also saying, ‘well, what is the actual path, how wide is it [and] what is the grade, in a way that is not just [mileage and elevation].”

Lucy Rathgeb ’22, an attendee of All Outside, said that she hopes the DOC will keep organizing conferences like this one to start more goal-focused conversations about inclusion.

“I’ve had a few conversations about accessibility within the DOC, but definitely not enough, and [they are] usually instigated by the people that are feeling left out,” she said.

Chiriboga said she felt Batts’ keynote speech about how to support disabled people in the outdoors and in general was

especially important and “eye-opening.”

“What I really enjoyed about [Batts’] conversation is [that] she emphasized that diversity is more than just a color — diversity is also about diversity of experience, diversity [in terms] of disability in the outdoors,” she said. “I think that at Dartmouth [having] a lot of buildings — either Greek spaces, or residential buildings, or academic buildings — that are not at all accessible, is something that we can be very ignorant of.”

Evelyn Hatem ’24, who also attended Batts’ keynote remarks, said that her takeaway from the speech was the importance of asking if DOC trips are accessible for everyone — and if they are not, asking how the club can make these experiences more accessible.

“I appreciated how [Batts] framed [her discussion] as, ‘These are a few questions that you should ask yourself –– when leading a trip, or otherwise in a position of leadership –– about how to be more inclusive and create more equitable experiences,’” she said.

Johnson said that the conference had a turnout of approximately 90 people, with some “last-minute cancellations” due to COVID-19. She said she hopes that the conference will run again in the future and that it will facilitate positive changes within the DOC. “Each conversation that [I] went to, there’s something that stuck in my head like, ‘Oh, I want to change this thing,’” Johnson said. “It might not be a huge change, but when you accumulate enough of those, and when you get enough people doing them, then it ends up [creating] a much bigger change.”

Jessica Chiriboga is a former member of The Dartmouth staff.

Project Veritas event focuses on “corruption” in media and politics SEE O’KEEFE PAGE 1

did “nothing to create open or productive discourse on campus.”

“O’Keefe’s accusations of intentional bias — on my part or on the part of The Dartmouth — hold no water, and his efforts to undermine trust in the free press nationwide are damaging to democracy and free speech,” Mullins wrote.

Mullins added that his own views do not represent those of The Dartmouth — “either during my tenure as editor-inchief or now.”

“The divide between opinion writing and news reporting is clear,” Mullins wrote.

O’Keefe then discussed a range of Project Veritas’ coverage, which he called “things that powerful people don’t want to expose” — including an ABC news tape concerning coverage of Jeffrey Epstein, a video of a Texas woman facing charges of election fraud and a video of a CNN staffer discussing how the network worked

to favorably portray then-presidential candidate Joe Biden during the 2020 election.

“There’s nothing wrong with CNN being a network that’s dedicated to ‘getting Trump out,’ but why don’t you just call it ‘CNN — dedicated to getting Trump out’ as opposed to ‘CNN — the most trusted name in news?’” O’Keefe asked. “I don’t hide anything I believe in.”

O’Keefe noted his concerns over a “lack of real investigative journalism.”

“We need people to be brave and do something, which is our motto [at Project Veritas],” O’Keefe said.

O’Keefe also discussed a number of pending Project Veritas lawsuits, including the group’s recent efforts to sue The New York Times. Project Veritas has accused the newspaper of violating attorney-client privilege rights. However, a decision by a New York state appeals court in February ruled in favor of The New York Times, temporarily allowing

The Times to publish Project Veritas documents.

O’Keefe also discussed Project Veritas’ work to obtain Ashley Biden’s diary — an effort that has been the subject of an investigation by federal prosecutors. Project Veritas has denied any wrongdoing, maintaining that Biden’s belongings were abandoned.

In an interview with The Dartmouth after the event, O’Keefe said the talk was “well-attended,” adding that he was “happy to be here and talk about truth and journalism in the modern era.”

Seven Sassano ’22 said she was surprised by the lack of student attendance at the event.

“It was mostly [Upper Valley] community members,” Sassano said. “We didn’t really have any student involvement, which was a little disappointing.”

Kyle Mullins is a current member of The Dartmouth Opinion staff and former editor-inchief of The Dartmouth.

Former Central Intelligence Agency director and deputy secretary of defense for the Clinton administration John Deutch spoke on campus on Monday about his struggle to transform the CIA after the Cold War. The talk, titled “America’s Role on the World Stage,” was organized by the Dartmouth Political Union and the Dickey Center for International Understanding, according to an email sent to campus by the DPU. Deutch addressed approximately 220 in-person attendees in Filene Auditorium and 80 participants on Zoom, according to incoming DPU president Emma Elsbecker ’24. Current DPU president William Reicher ’22 explained that Deutch’s visit marks the DPU’s first on-campus “big name speaker” since the start of the pandemic.

Dickey Center director Victoria Holt wrote in an emailed statement to The Dartmouth that she was impressed by Deutch’s wide-reaching experiences, which include security, intelligence, foreign policy, climate change, chemistry and engineering, according to Reicher.

“He demonstrates that one person can mix academic rigor and public policy and engage in problem-solving on major issues in multiple ways,” Holt wrote. “He has worked on issues across energy supplies to preventing the spread of nuclear weapons to thinking about NATO and when the U.S. should engage militarily.”

“I think it’s really interesting to hear from somebody who is working at a high level of government but who is not working in politics,” Blake McGill ’22, one of the attendees, added. “I think often that technocrats look at the work they do in a different way.”

Reicher began the conversation by asking Deutch about his role in American foreign policy during the conflicts in the Balkans and in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as his current thoughts on foreign affairs. Deutch also took questions from the audience, including both those attending in-person and those listening through Zoom.

Reicher asked Deutch about actions that the CIA took before, during and after his tenure as CIA director. Specifically, he inquired about the Iraq War, which Deutch acknowledged as “one of the main failings of the CIA.” Reicher also asked about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction and the Rwanadan genocide — the CIA’s handling of both of which Deutch said he regretted during the talk.

“I was very interested in the answer he gave to the Rwandan genocide because there were a lot of big issues he was dealing with at the time,” Reicher said. “It was his goal to revitalize this agency that for the majority of its existence, at that point, had only been focused on countering the Soviet Union.”

Deutch also discussed the security implications of climate change — saying drought causes people to migrate, and migration can lead to conflict — as well as

the CIA’s capacity to handle threats from rising great powers, such as China. He said the latter depends on military force and defense and intelligence agencies.

After Reicher’s segment, students and community members voiced their opinions and concerns to Deutch about U.S. foreign policy. Some attendees questioned the way in which the United States left Afghanistan, while others asked whether the country has a responsibility to intervene in humanitarian crises. In the talk, Deutch said that it was in the U.S.’s strategic interest to leave, while he said humanitarian intervention must be viewed on a case by case basis.

“He holds strong views, and those in the audience rightly asked tough questions — and didn’t always agree with his answers,” Holt wrote. “I think it’s important for all of us at Dartmouth to engage in dialogue to understand those differences and perspectives.”

Reicher added that some of Deutch’s answers to both his and the audience’s questions were “very blunt,” explaining that the combination of Deutch’s personality and the sensitivity of classified information resulted in Deutch being unable to expand beyond one word answers at times.

“I would say he was blunt with many of his answers,” Jack Wright ’25, one of the event attendees, said. “He seemed very stuck to his opinions that have been developing for a while, so I’m not sure I can blame him… Multiple times he said no to a question and didn’t care to explain anything else.”

Deutch gave an additional lecture at the Arthur L. Irving Institute for Energy and Society on Tuesday, according to an email sent by the Irving Institute. The event, which was also livestreamed, discussed 50 years of energy policy and lessons for the future. The talk was a part of the Dartmouth Energy Collaborative’s Energy Seminar series and the Thayer School of Engineering’s Great Issues in Energy series.

After Monday’s event, the DPU executives and ambassadors attended a dinner with Deutch and his wife, according to Reicher. McGill said she also had lunch with Deutch through the War and Peace Fellows program, in which she learned more about Deutch’s political perspectives.

“As someone who worked in intelligence, it was interesting to hear his perspective on how he may or may not weigh political things with protecting the American people,” McGill said. “I thought that was an interesting tension and conflict that he talked a lot about during the lunch, as well as the public event.”

Reicher added that students who attended the dinner “really got the sense of him as a different kind of person than when he was at the event.”

“He really was able to loosen up and answer a lot of questions that he may not have been able to answer in a more public setting, and you really get the sense that . . . he is just a great, funny person,” Reicher said.

Blake McGill is a former member of The Dartmouth staff.

Hop renovations include new performance and rehearsal spaces FROM HOPKINS PAGE 1

Jack Wilson said he believes that the new additions will be able to improve parts of the building’s original design.

“The complexity of finding your way through the Hop has always been the main design flaw in the original design and I am hopeful that the Snøhetta plan will address this,” he said, adding that with Snøhetta’s “excellent reputation among both critics and other design professionals,” he believes the company is a great choice.

Aleskie wrote that the excitement about the project among Dartmouth alumni and arts supporters has been “huge.”

To accommodate for the construction, Aleskie explained that the Hop will continue to offer in-person performances and programs by using spaces in different parts of campus and in collaboration with local venues. The Hop staff is also working to ensure that students still have spaces they can use, in addition to the possibility of opening some spaces sooner than 2025.

The Courtyard Cafe will remain open both during and after construction, Aleskie wrote.

Gwendolyn Roland ’25, who works as a theater usher and in the box office at the Hopkins Center and takes a variety of arts classes, said that her main complaint with the Hopkins Center’s current design is its lack of accessibility.

“If somebody comes to a show in the

Bentley Theater in a wheelchair, then you have to walk all the way across the building and then take them all the way through backstage,” she said.

According to Roland, the primary space for student productions, the Bentley Theater, is not slated for renovation in the update. On the other hand, Roland said she appreciates the addition of new dance and performance spaces and an accessible entrance.

In terms of accessibility, Aleskie wrote that there has been “a lot” of detailed work between the campus planning team, the Hopkins Center team and Snøhetta to think about access to both new and existing venues and from various entrypoints.

Studio art professor Zenovia Toloudi wrote in an emailed statement to The Dartmouth that some of the most notable parts of the expansion plan include its respect for the design of the original architect, Wallace K. Harrison, its incorporation of outdoor spaces and its bridge between new and old architecture.

She added that she believes the plan will help to increase students’ appreciation of the building. “[The Hopkins Center’s] bigger architectural significance, the values of the spaces, organization and structure are not fully appreciated, simply because it is labeled as ‘old,’” she wrote. “The renovation and expansion will highlight again the treasures it holds.”

FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2022

PAGE 3

THE DARTMOUTH OPINION

CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST ANDREW ZUO ’25

STAFF COLUMNIST JEREMY GART ’25

The Merits of a Music Education

Build Back Louder

A music requirement should be a crucial part of any liberal arts education.

This column was originally published on April 21, 2022.

A crucial component of the academic culture here at Dartmouth is our set of distributive requirements — the completion of which is a prerequisite for graduation.

These classes fit into thematic bins — arts, international studies and quantitative or deductive sciences, among others. Through these requirements, the College encourages us to pursue our academic curiosity in classes that we might not otherwise take, ranging from ENGS 12, “Design Thinking,” to CRWT 10, “Introduction to Fiction.” And yet, nowhere on this exhaustive list of requirements is that of instrument practice. If the professed goal of the College’s distributive requirements is to expand the skills of undergraduates, I would argue that the skills that daily music practice develops — namely, that of creative license and the art of practicing — justify a spot for music education in Dartmouth’s pantheon of distributive requirements.

Music and instrument practice were much bigger parts of my middle school, where one period each day was dedicated to rehearsal. For me, this meant an hour in the orchestra room filled with every stereotype you could imagine: The hasty unpacking of cello, viola and violin cases, the squeaking of stray bow hairs on string and the frantic shuffle of sheet music. However, upon passing through the gates which separated my middle and high schools, all musicality seemed to fall away.

No longer bound by an administrative requirement to practice an instrument, numbers in the school band, choir and orchestra dwindled. I substituted my violin practice for long hours writing code; the joyous smiles that used to accompany the ends of recitals were replaced by the sighs of relief that followed successfully built 3D models and error-less programs. I was not alone in dropping my musical practices — classmates also began to look elsewhere, opting for computer science, engineering and TV broadcasting groups.

The migration from music education to more “careeroriented” studies is a common theme in undergraduate education as well. Dartmouth is not an exception to this trend, exemplified by the closure of the Paddock Music Library even while significant funds were poured into the construction of brand new engineering and energy buildings. Music departments around the nation have shrunk in comparison to their sibling departments, frequently at larger state schools that face more pressure from the government on how to allocate funding. More and more, music education has become a privilege reserved for the elite as schools with restrictive budgets have been forced to drastically reduce spending on their music departments.

And yet, the value of learning an instrument within the context of a liberal arts education is undeniable. In

fact, it was through the piano classes I have been taking here at Dartmouth, and the hours spent practicing, that I learned important lessons concerning the art of practice and the encouragement of creativity.

Perhaps the most important commitment that comes from taking music lessons in college is that of daily practice. Growing up, I viewed piano practice as repetition: Training your hands and fingers to follow the shape of a bar, carefully mapping landing points for your fingers to strike the keys exactly how you want them. And yet, more than just mindless repetition, good practicing is purposeful. According to the University of Montreal, there are improvements in memory, reasoning and literacy skills associated with the practicing of an instrument.

These differences likely arise from the memorization of many pages of music, the ability to synthesize new information as you work through a piece and the importance of logically working through difficult sections of a piece that are necessitated by daily practice. Just as telling, research done by the University of Melbourne suggests that music practice is one of the few activities correlated with experience-driven neuroplasticity, or the ability of the brain to adapt and grow over time, a result of the high levels of mental strain that accompany long hours spent practicing an instrument.

The second — and more often overlooked — part of music education is the process of thinking creatively.

To play music, one must learn to recognize the leverage that performers of music have in re-interpreting the notes and sheet music handed down to them. One must be able to read in between the notes, dynamics and annotations to add their take on the work. And one must be able to translate their vision of the piece into the different pressures and different sounds that make the piece uniquely theirs. In this way, playing music is a profoundly individual and artistic experience, an activity that involves more right and left brain activity than any other activity measured.

To properly practice and think creatively are prerequisites for any musician and skills that new students would pick up quickly. They are also tools that should absolutely be a part of the proverbial toolbox that liberal arts colleges are meant to supply us with. If there is anything I’ve learned from these few months of practicing the piano, it is that learning an instrument is about more than just technical skills. It is about learning to learn, learning to adapt and learning to think creatively — crucial skills for any student at Dartmouth. Amid the shift from the arts to the “more practical” studies, a musical requirement would go a long way in saving the skills that music education uniquely provides. In a school that has distributive requirements that target analytical thinking, language-learning and creative metaphysical thought, perhaps a little music can go a long way.

SENIOR COLUMNIST KYLE MULLINS ’22

The Embodiment of Fake News We’re all tired of the bad faith speakers.

This column was originally published on April 19, 2022.

I was planning to publish a column this week about free speech. In it, I intended to argue, among other things, that the core of conservative student groups’ complaints about the free speech climate on campuses is correct — that being in the minority opinion can be frustratingly hard in college today.

I still hope to write that column eventually, but the College Republicans’ decision to bring James O’Keefe to campus — as announced via campus-wide email Friday, April 15 — threw me for a loop. Notably, this isn’t the first time that the group is bringing a controversial speaker to campus: O’Keefe will be the latest in a long line of unserious, lie-peddling provocateurs — Dinesh D’Souza and Rep. Madison Cawthorn come to mind — who contribute little to anyone’s understanding of politics, society or real conservatism. The group’s decision to bring him to campus appears to be another example of trying to “own the libs,” proving that they are more interested in self-victimization than in a free dialogue about conservative ideas.

Let’s back up. O’Keefe is the founder of Project Veritas, an activist group that specializes in secretly recording people — usually progressive activists, staff of major media organizations or government officials — and then selectively, deceptively editing the clips to make the subjects look bad. They claim that this is groundbreaking journalism.

Take it from me, the former editor-in-chief of this newspaper: It is not. Good journalists do not lie about their status as press; they declare it openly. Good journalists do not selectively edit recordings to push an agenda; they represent their sources faithfully and, when they get it wrong, issue transparent corrections.

Good journalists do not — under any circumstances — lie to their readers; they seek the truth and report it, pointing out misinformation when it rears its ugly head.

Project Veritas and James O’Keefe do not follow these basic precepts of journalism, and they give the profession a bad name.

An example: In 2017, allegations of sexual misconduct — some involving underage girls — swirled around former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice Roy Moore, who was running in a tight race to fill an open Senate seat. The Washington Post first reported four of the women’s stories. In an effort to discredit the Post’s reporting, an operative apparently linked to O’Keefe and Project Veritas came to the paper with a inflammatory — and false — claim that Moore had engaged in a sexual relationship that led to an abortion with her when she was 15. The Post reporters — doing the routine fact-checking that all good journalists do — found numerous red flags and inconsistencies in her lie, discovered her walking into Project Veritas’ New York offices and eventually reported that she was part of a weeks-long effort to cast doubt on the other women’s claims. O’Keefe and Project Veritas were roundly criticized across the political spectrum for their horrendous attempts to falsify a sexual misconduct allegation, and the Post won a well-deserved Pulitzer.

This incident would be scandalous enough to shut any self-respecting outlet down. But for Project Veritas and O’Keefe, it was just the latest in a long line of trickery and lies. Over the years, they have promoted voter fraud conspiracies, smeared an NPR executive and amplified anti-vaccine misinformation via selectively edited videos and other deceptive tactics. O’Keefe even reportedly tried to lure a CNN correspondent onto a sex toy-laden boat, where he planned to “seduce” her and film the whole thing on hidden cameras. Classy.

James O’Keefe is not an “investigative journalist” who is “fighting fake news,” as the College Republicans claim in their flyer advertising the event. No, he is a deeply partisan bad faith actor, a grifter who rejects the very concept of truth in reporting. He is the embodiment of fake news, and attempting to portray him as anything else is insulting to both good journalism and the intelligence of Dartmouth students.

Now, we all know how this event is going to go.

O’Keefe will come to campus. There might be protests. Videos, some selectively edited, will go viral on conservative media sites paired with glowing quotes from College Republican leadership. Audience members will ask tough questions, and some will dramatically get up and leave the event. The result? The College Republicans once again get to claim victimhood at the hands of a “left-wing mob” and everyone goes home feeling angrier and more self-righteous than before.

I’m not surprised by any of this. Two years ago, the College Republicans invited a conservative Senate candidate to campus, botched the logistics of the event, canceled it and blamed the reversal on madeup threats from “left-wing campus activists,” allowing the Senate candidate to fundraise on censorship that never happened. O’Keefe, a fake news generator, will fit right in.

But I am exhausted by it, because this isn’t how events have to go. Prominent conservatives routinely visit campus and engage with students with no problems at all. Trump’s Health and Human Services secretary Alex Azar ’88 visited campus in February. Trump’s ambassador to Italy Lewis Eisenberg ’64 visited in September 2021. Trump’s defense secretary James Mattis visited in September 2018. A February panel about abortion with pro-life and pro-choice student speakers went off without a hitch.

The College Republicans could, if they wanted, host speakers who actually have useful, interesting ideas to offer. Instead, time and time again, they choose trolling and then cry “Free speech!” when they’re called on it.

To be clear, the College Republicans have every right to bring whoever they want to speak on-campus, and as a journalist and a believer in liberal values, I will defend their First Amendment rights. But that doesn’t mean they couldn’t do better.

With the opening of two new buildings and a copious number of additional study spaces, we should let these new areas be for social studying instead of enforcing quiet zones.

This column was originally published on April 21, 2022.

As much as I love studying with my AirPods, there is a slight glitch that’s been bugging me: Siri is a bit too eager to chat. Usually, when the AirPods are in my ears and a new message comes in, Siri will announce its contents through the earbuds; it’s a useful feature, even if it sometimes catches me off guard. However, for about five seconds after I put my AirPods back in their case, any incoming messages will still be read aloud by Siri — but instead of coming through the pods, they’ll be announced on speaker to the whole world.

One of the first nights of the fall term, I had holed myself up in the shatteringly silent Tower Room to try and get ahead on my assignments for the term. After a few hours of studying, I yawned, stretched and put my AirPods away. Just as I was getting up to leave, my phone then blared, “Mom says, ‘I love you so so much, and good luck on your first week, honey. Kisses.’”

Slowly, each student in the room turned their head in my direction, pity in their eyes, as Siri’s echoes rang through the cavernous space.

I learned a valuable lesson that day: Uber-quiet study spaces just aren’t for me. I’m a clumsy, noisy guy who often blurts out the first thing that comes to mind, and places like the Tower Room just aren’t conducive to productivity for me. Of course, I don’t want to be in the middle of Times Square while writing a paper — I just enjoy an environment where casual conversation is permitted without frustrating the other students around me.

Unfortunately, this kind of study space is severely lacking at Dartmouth. It’s most present on the library’s first floor, where both Baker’s lobby and the first floor of Berry are spaces to chat with friends while studying.

Then there’s also Collis and ’53 Commons, both unofficial “loud” study spaces. Outside of that, however, Dartmouth’s study areas are all quiet. Sanborn Library is silent, the stacks are frigid zones of stillness and the top two floors of Berry are fortresses of solitude. The 1902 room, the class of 1913 room, the Orozco Mural room, the aforementioned Tower Room, Fairchild, Rauner… the list goes on and on. If a student is seeking a quiet place to get some work done, they have it — and then some.

While this imbalance is clearly a problem, there’s a solution that has already arrived on campus: The freshlyopened, beautiful Irving Institute and Engineering and Computer Science Center. Both these modern monoliths are home to copious amounts of study space, spanning floors and in various forms. Coinciding with the opening of these new buildings, students have been pouring into the new spaces to study — relieving much of the crowdedness of Dartmouth’s most popular studying spots, particularly in the library. However, these spaces are so new that norms haven’t been set yet. So while they’re still in this amorphous state of noise, it’s crucial that we, as a community, guide them towards

becoming social studying spaces rather than even more quiet zones.

This is only enforced by the opening of two new cafes on campus — Cafe@Baker located in Baker lobby and The Fern in Irving — with the Back of the Napkin on its way to the Engineering and Computer Science Center. There’s always been a strong relationship between coffee shops and casual studying, both at Dartmouth and beyond. In fact, the demand for this type of environment is so strong that the places that do offer it are overrun by mobs of students. Novack Cafe is almost always a zoo, and in-town coffee shops like Still North and Umpleby’s are near-impossible to find a table at during rush hour. By opening these new cafes, Dartmouth will hopefully be able to take some of the strain off these places — but they’ll only be able to do so if they offer the same lively work environment these coffee shops have mastered.

Of course, it’s important to address the fact that there are some legitimate hesitations with letting the noise levels of these study spaces be free rein. In both buildings, some of the new study spaces are located right outside classrooms, and an overly rowdy student body could potentially impact the lessons occurring inside. However, in order for conversations to reach a pitch loud enough to impact a classroom a closed door away, students would have to be virtually screaming at each other — which is not something that occurs in any of the other louder study spaces on campus (well, with a few exceptions). In Baker-Berry, there are already classrooms that take place right outside study spaces with no issue whatsoever. So unless the noise levels of these study areas somehow approaches Foco pancake night, this shouldn’t be a problem.

Additionally, we’re now living in a mask-free society for the first time in over two years. Over the course of the pandemic, students have been starved again and again of opportunities for social interaction, and these study spaces could act as fantastic incubators for new connections. By allowing these study spaces to be defined by their social nature, Dartmouth can offer a chance for their newly maskless students to finally revel in their communities without any social inhibitors.

Silent study spaces have plenty of upsides. There’s nowhere more tranquil on campus than the Tower Room at sunset, and nowhere more productive than fourth floor Berry during finals season. Sanborn and Rauner are beautiful places to make substantial progress on homework, and the stacks have, well, all kinds of uses. But Dartmouth has an incredibly diverse range of students, each with their own method of processing information. And for a huge chunk of them — myself included — there’s simply not enough social study spaces on campus to keep up with demand. By stopping the study areas in the two new buildings from becoming silent spaces, Dartmouth will enrich their intellectual offerings even further and provide a more welcome environment for students of all kinds.

NINA SLOAN ’24: I THOUGHT SPRING SPRUNG

EMILY LU, Editor-in-Chief MIA RUSSO, Production Executive Editor LAUREN ADLER & ANDREW SASSER, News Executive Editors

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Kyle Mullins is the former editor-in-chief of The Dartmouth.

He is now a member of the Opinion staff and his views do not necessarily represent those of The Dartmouth. He is also a public programs assistant at the Rockefeller Center for Public Policy, which hosted some of the speakers referenced in the article.

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PAGE 4

FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2022

THE DARTMOUTH ARTS

Battle of the Bands determines opener for Green Key concert BY mia nelson

The Dartmouth Staff

This article was originally published on April 21, 2022.

On Friday, April 15, student bands, Programming Board and Collis After Dark brought together the “Battle of the Bands” in Collis Common Ground.

The event featured back to back tenminute sets from campus bands “The Dandelions,” “Frank,” “Moon Unit,” “Pegasus,” “Read Receipts,” “Shark” and “Summer on Venus.” “Moon Unit” took first prize to be the student opener for Green Key in May, beating out “Frank” in second and “The Dandelions” in third.

Each audience member was given six tickets to vote and was required to stay for the duration of the event, which began at 10 p.m. and finished close to 1 a.m. The event reached full capacity before it even started, according to Emma Elsbecker ’24, one of the Programming Board executive members who organized the event.

“Easily over a 100 people were turned away,” Elsbecker said.

While the event was competitive in nature, Elsbecker said that she saw a lot of collaboration and camaraderie from the student bands.

“There were these really cool moments of the bands working together, and filling Common Ground was one of those moments when they all looked at each other and were like ‘We filled Common Ground,’” she said.

The energy of collaboration was noted by “Frank” band member Brian Lee ’22.

“Even though it was a competition, the event was a rejuvenating experience,” he

said.

Indeed, members of the bands were seen watching the other sets on the edges of the stage. Max Barrett ’22 of “Moon Unit” emphasized that it didn’t feel like the bands were just there to play, but to enjoy each other’s music as well.

During points when there were technical issues, members from various bands would come on stage to troubleshoot equipment for others, stemming from the group’s shared love of performing.

Lee, who iterated how impressed he was with the talent of all the bands, said he recalled looking around backstage and thinking about what it would be like to have a “jam session” at that moment.

The compressed set times of the bands added further to the energy. Barrett said that “Moon Unit” usually prepares an hour or hour and a half long set, but having only ten minutes was exciting.

“It was fun to think about what we could do to make the most of the time,” Barrett said.

Not only was the time limit generative for his own band’s approach, but made the show more enjoyable.

“It felt like a highlight reel of everyone’s best stuff,” he said.

Getting the bands together for one event felt rare not only because of the amount of talent in one room, but also because student band performances are otherwise frequently segmented. Greek spaces — predominantly fraternities — are the most prominent patronizers of student music. Some of the groups who performed at “Battle of the Bands” are even strongly associated with certain fraternities.

Elsbecker believed that the venue had

PHOTO COURTESY OF KATIE HOOVER

important differences from other student band shows.

“It is important for unaffiliated folks to have social spaces like this,” she said.

Cooper Zebrack ’22 noted that Collis Common Ground as a venue was exciting for “Moon Unit” because it is not clearly associated with a specific fraternity.

“We don’t have the same frat backing that some other bands do, like the way ‘Frank’ is a [Bones Gate] band and ‘The Dandelions’ are a [Theta Delta Chi] band,” Zebrack said.

Bringing the bands together in Collis Common Ground, while under the auspices of a contest, was in many ways more unifying than other shows simply

by virtue of all of the bands being in the same, neutral space, Elsbecker said.

Barrett also applauded Collis Common Ground as a venue for its technical capabilities.

“Having [Battle of the Bands] in Collis in a nice big room instead of a frat and having people helping with sound made it so fun to hear,” he said.

According to Elsbecker, about 220 students stayed until the close of the event, when voting began.

Because of the vote system, “It did come down to who could bring out the most mobile fanbase,” Zebrack said, “but people have a fanbase for a reason.”

Elsbecker noted that the reason why

voters were required to stay for the duration of the event was to give every band a fair shot at earning votes.

“While some people certainly voted with their whole panel for one band, we had a lot of singles and sets of three,” she said. “I think a lot of people came in and split votes. I think some minds were changed.”

As for the future, “Moon Unit” is looking forward to opening for Green Key. “This last term feels like a final chapter.

We all feel bittersweet about it because we love to hang out and play music, but this is an exciting way to finish things off,” Barrett said.

Journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones gives audience a ‘punch in the gut’

BY Jessica Sun Li The Dartmouth Staff

This article was originally published on April 19, 2022.

Renowned journalist and author Nikole Hannah-Jones delivered a sold-out talk at the Hopkins Center for the Arts on Friday, April 15. Joined by Dartmouth students and faculty, Hannah-Jones discussed the development of “The 1619 Project,” America’s history of slavery and how all of these tie to modern racial tensions.

According to College president Phil Hanlon’s opening remarks, the talk was two years in the making, having been delayed by the pandemic.

Hannah-Jones is the inaugural Knight Chair in Race and Journalism at Howard University, where she also founded the Center for Journalism and Democracy.

Additionally, Hannah-Jones is a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine. For her work investigating racial injustice and civil rights in the United States, she has won a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, a Peabody award and two George Polk awards, among others.

Though this event focused on discussing her Pulitzer Prize-winning project, “The 1619 Project,” it was more so a grave warning to the audience about the precariousness of the state of America’s democracy. It was, as Hannah-Jones described in her talk, a “punch in the gut,” which many members of the audience said they felt.

The event featured speeches from Hanlon, English professor Vievee Francis and Tuck professor Ella L.J. Bell Smith.

Anthony Fosu ’24 emceed the event.

Hannah-Jones started her talk by covering “The 1619 Project” and later went on to tie this project to current events, from Black Lives Matter protests and the Jan. 6 insurrection to debates about voting rights laws and current controversies surrounding critical race theory. Although the topics she covered could be considered frustrating and even demoralizing, she ended her talk on a high note with a call to action.

“We don’t have to accept the erosion of our democracy, we don’t have to accept the erosion of our rights,” Hannah-Jones said.

“Hope is useless without action… If you want a better tomorrow, refuse to accept what we have and get out there and build it.”

Prescott Herzog ’25 became interested in the event after hearing about “The 1619 Project” in the news over the years as a source of right-wing controversy.

“It’s very important to know… where other groups are coming from, as a cis, white man,” Herzog said. “It helped me learn more about a different perspective… that I wouldn’t understand just coming from my identity... no matter how I get involved in politics, my goal is to help people.”

Beyond just widening his perspectives, Herzog said he believes that HannahJones’ warning to the audience did not go unheard.

“She said in the beginning that she wanted [it] to be a ‘gut punch’ about the state of our democracy, and I think I got that out of it,” Herzog said.

The event closed with a question and answer discussion with theater professor Monica Ndounou. During this portion, Ndounou and Hannah-Jones addressed the current state of racial reckoning in this country, the potential for reparations and the role of self-care in the work of an activist.

Some courses required students to attend the event, including LALACS 1, “Introduction to Latin America and the Caribbean” taught by professor Pamela Voekel and ENGL 6, “Narrative Journalism” taught by professor Alexis Jetter.

Jetter said she has followed HannahJones’ career since she first came across an article Hannah-Jones wrote for the New York Times Magazine in 2016.

She brought her students to this event so that they could hear from a journalist connecting American history with modern culture war issues.

“When asked ‘Why Nikole HannahJones?’ it’s because of who she is now, what she’s done journalistically, and what she’s done to really light the fire on this totally new rethinking of American history,” Jetter said in an interview after

PHOTO COURTESY OF LISA MEEHAN

the event. “Since [our class] studies Ida B. Wells, I thought, ‘here’s her modern counterpart’… Something [they both do is] skewer hypocrisy.”

The event also featured a performance from Dartmouth’s social justice acapella group, the Rockapellas. Lexy Piton ’24, a member of the Rockapellas, said that being able to sing at this event was especially important to her.

“The Rockapellas being asked to

open for ‘The 1619 Project’ event was an honor and getting to open the show with a song centered around women of color was especially powerful,” Piton said.

“Centering Black women at the beginning of the program meant a lot to me as a Black woman.”

Piton said she feels hopeful that Dartmouth hosting this talk may indicate that the College will finally address its own history of institutional racism.

“Our own institution reaped incredible financial gain from the very same practices Hannah-Jones compiled in her work,” Piton also said. “It does [excite] me that so many people from the Dartmouth community were so vocal about their support for Nikole Hannah-Jones’ work at the event, and gives me hope that sometime in the future Dartmouth can grapple with its racist past as Hannah-Jones encourages all Americans to do.”

Thayer Prize

Dartmouth College's Mathematics Prize Exam for First-Year Students

Saturday April 30, 2022 10 a.m.- 1 p.m.

Kemeny 004

Up to $1000 is available for prizes.

Creativity and originality are weighed heavily.

Please contact the Mathematics Department in advance by Friday April 15 if you want to take the Thayer Exam but can not take it on Saturday, April 30 and you will be allowed to take the exam on Sunday May 1

FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2022

PAGE 5

THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS

SPORTS

Senior Spring: Brooke Plonka’s perseverance pays off

BY Heath Monsma The Dartmouth Staff

PHOTO COURTESY OF BROOKE PLONKA

Plonka, who currently leads the Ivy League in innings pitched, has her eyes set on a conference title.

This article was originally published on April 18, 2022.

Brooke Plonka ’22 has been the heart of the Big Green softball team in her senior season, pitching more innings and completing more games than anyone else in the Ivy League. Plonka’s outings have been outstanding both in terms of stamina and quality — she is

tied for the league lead in shutouts with three, ranked second in wins with eight and is second in strikeouts with 91.

While her current success is one for Dartmouth’s record books, Plonka has not always been such a dominant force on the mound, according to softball head coach Jen Williams.

“To be honest, when I came in she was a bit of a blank slate, so we had to

work with her to break down her old motion and start rebuilding it from scratch,” Williams said. “She went on a journey of learning how to be resilient, failing and bouncing back until she became a very strong game pitcher.”

On April 12, Plonka was named Ivy League Pitcher of the Week for the second consecutive week after throwing an 11 strikeout no-hitter in

the Big Green’s 3-1 victory over Brown University three days earlier. With this performance, Plonka became the first pitcher with two career no-hitters in Dartmouth softball history — in her abbreviated sophomore season she tossed a seventeen-strikeout no-hitter against Tufts.

Plonka said that her refurbished technique has allowed for sharper movement in her pitches. On top of her technical ability, Plonka said she has also made tremendous strides in confidence.

“Growing a sense of personality on the mound has been huge because as a pitcher, it’s really easy to get centered on yourself,” Plonka said. “Engaging with the defense lets me take control of the whole game rather than just being a pitching machine.”

After a strong start to her sophomore season when she posted a 2.77 earned runs average through seven games, Plonka’s year was derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Realigning her mentality for this season was an arduous journey for Plonka, but she said she drew strength from the support of her teammates.

“I was devastated [when the season got canceled],” Plonka said. “I remember calling my parents so upset and thinking ‘this is the end of the world’… [But] whenever possible I was working out with [my teammates] or going to throw at a local park with another catcher that was here.”

Williams said she sees Plonka’s chemistry with the team as being

integral to her effectiveness as a pitcher — perhaps even more so than her powerful left arm. “[Plonka] cares about everybody on the team a great deal and she is a highly empathetic person,” Williams said. “She really likes to connect with teammates and you can tell that on the mound, she relies on those connections to help center herself.”

So far this season, Plonka has pitched in 96 innings and started 18 games — both of which top the Ivy League.

However, she said she doesn’t see this workload as a mental strain. Instead, she finds ways to stay loose and have fun on the mound while making jokes with her shortstop.

Freshman pitcher Megan Hagge ’25 said that Plonka is a mentor for her and that she particularly looks up to Plonka’s poise. “[Plonka] was the one to teach me to just calm down and take a deep breath. She taught me to embrace the challenge rather than let the challenge be against you,” Hagge said. “She’s the most down to earth person I’ve ever met… Also, she’s absolutely hilarious, honestly the funniest person on the team.”

There are high expectations for Plonka’s senior campaign, but she said the team is ready to hold themselves to that standard.

“We want to be Ivy Champs, and I know we’re good enough,” she said.

“It’s about how we show up for each game. We have to fight during practice, fight for every out.”

Baseball continues to make a push in the Ivy League standings

BY ALEX SCHMIDT

The Dartmouth Staff

This article was originally published on April 18, 2022.

Big Green baseball had a productive week, overtaking the University at Albany on Wednesday and Princeton University during a weekend series in Hanover. Dartmouth came away with some strong performances to beat Albany 12-5 and Princeton 6-2, 11-6 and 16-7 in the three games of this Ivy League series. With these wins against Princeton, the Big Green has moved into the top three in the Ivy League standings with 8 wins and 4 losses in conference play, while improving its overall record to 16-13.

Dartmouth’s win on the road a g a i n s t A l b a ny g ave t h e t e a m momentum heading into the weekend series against Princeton, who currently sits at the bottom of Ivy League standings with a 2-10 record.

Tyler Cox ’24 and Justin Murray ’22 each had big days, accumulating a collective seven RBIs off Cox’s four hits and Murray’s three. The pitching crew was constantly rotating, as

there were a total of seven different Dartmouth players who took the mound. The win was credited to Devin Milberg ’24, with senior relief pitcher Cole Roland ’22 earning his second save of the season.

“The thing that we did the best [against Albany] and certainly of late was just compete,” head coach Robert Whalen said. “I think the kids played really hard and really competed well [against Albany], we used a lot of guys to give them opportunities to see how they’re progressing, as well as keeping them sharp.”

The first game of the Saturday doubleheader against Princeton proved to be somewhat of a pitching battle, with Dartmouth only leading 3-1 up until the bottom of the sixth, in which the Big Green posted three runs to pull away and secure the victory. Nathan Skinner ’22 led the team through 6.2 innings on the mound and earned his fourth win of the season, as Jack Metzger ’23 was able to take over for Skinner and secure his fourth save this season.

Cox has been on a rampage this season in the batter’s box. He continues to hold a batting average

The Big Green’s offense has been rolling after wins against Albany and Princeton.

that is above .400 and remains the top player in the Ivy League in that category.

“It’s not about chasing accolades or leading the league in anything, I’m just trying to buy into my approach and buy into our job as a team,” Cox said. “We’re coming together nicely at the two-thirds mark of the season and obviously some personal success has been good, but I don’t think of that as much.”

Cox was a major contributor in the games this week, going a combined 9-for-16 between the Albany game and the Saturday doubleheader while also collecting three RBIs in the first game against Princeton. Murray and Connor Bertsch ’23 joined the party as well, each getting an RBI. Kade Kretzschmar ’22 did not manage to rack up an RBI, but he was able to run the bases and score a run for the team, as well as hitting his eighth double of the season.

Kretzschmar is coming off a huge past week of play, becoming an offensive machine with eight hits and two RBIs in just four games.

The Big Green is trending up lately in the Ivy League title race, and

Kretzschmar said he is confident in the team’s ability to keep up the strong performances.

“We’re confident, we’re rolling right now and we want to keep it going,” Kretzschmar said. “We know we have some tough competition ahead, but if we play our game, we can beat anybody.”

In game two of the doubleheader, the Big Green came out red hot, racking up nine total runs through three innings. The Tigers were able to put up six runs before the rain became a major factor — five of which came in the eighth inning — but it was not enough to overtake Dartmouth’s lead.

James House ’23 was able to square up a ball for a home run in game two, his third of the season, but home runs have not been a major aspect of Dartmouth’s offense this season.

The Big Green has only managed to compile 18 home runs overall this season, ranking seventh in the Ivy League in that statistic — just ahead of Harvard University’s 15 home runs.

Following Saturday’s doubleheader, Dartmouth took on Princeton for the third and final game of the weekend against the Tigers. The Big Green

MICHAEL LIN/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

completed the series sweep, winning 16-7. Dartmouth got off to a hot start, scoring six runs through the first four innings while keeping Princeton scoreless. The Big Green maintained this pressure throughout the game and managed to score five runs off of Princeton in the seventh inning.

The Big Green has a month left in its season, each week structured similarly to the previous one: An out-of-conference midweek game followed by an Ivy League weekend series. However, Whalen made it clear that the season can go by quickly and that every game matters. “[Every game] counts and if we play to our ability, we have the capability to beat everybody that we play,” Whalen said. “We don’t focus on the conference record, you just have to be ready to be at your best at noon on Saturday.”

PAGE 6

MIRROR THE DARTMOUTH MIRROR

FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2022

Modern Love (The Dartmouth Edition) STORY

By Novi Zhukovsky

This article was originally published on April 20, 2022.

The other day I was sitting in Foco with one of my good friends, telling him about my romantic woes.

With an exasperated sigh, I declared: “It’s impossible to find a meaningful romantic relationship at Dartmouth.”

To which he responded: “Actually, most of my good friends are in great relationships right now.” And proceeded to list the names of these so-called “happy couples.” God, right.

I almost forgot — he too is part of the couples club. Gross.

I suddenly got the urge to bury my sorrows in a big slice of chocolate cake. After we collected our desserts and sat back down, our topic of conver sation quickly shifted to internalized childhood trauma (casual dinner conversation, amiright?). But his previous remark lingered with me and inspired a very scary thought: Could it be me? Am I the problem?

Dating at Dartmouth has always been a challenge for me. All of my relationships of the past four years have been with non-Dartmouth students — or, as I like to quip to my friends, I “outsourced.” But that has come with a whole host of issues as well, as Dartmouth’s remote location and lack of proximity to any major airport makes most long-distance relationships — whether romantic or platonic — extremely difficult to maintain. However, when it comes to dating within the Dartmouth pool, I’ve found that some characteristics intrinsic to the College make it more difficult than other places.

First of all, in the words of Daniel Webster: “It is a small college.” This, in many ways, makes for a wonderful school. But it also means that you can find a point of connection to almost every student at this institution — and with this comes a lot of knowledge about a person’s reputation and dating history. I can’t even count the number of conversations I’ve had with friends in which the name of a potential romantic interest is tossed around, followed by a swift, “Oh, yes

I know _______. They hooked up with _______ [and ________, and _______ ad infinitum]. I’ve heard that they’re really ________.”

To me, this conversation is a bigger turn-off than men who wear flip flops with uncut toenails. How can I be expected to remain interested in someone whose entire romantic and sexual history can be divulged over a coffee chat at Novack? Maybe some view this phenomenon as a positive, giving you access to early warnings before you become too emotionally invested. But I find it extremely difficult to maintain an attraction to someone after being told exactly what I should expect. Maybe I’m just a hopeless romantic, but my favorite part of a new relationship is getting to know them on my own terms — gradually, messily, with no idea where we might be going. Knowing that X person has “commitment issues” will maybe prevent me from being heartbroken down the line, but it might stop me from enjoying the good, too.

I also struggle with the idea that I soon will also become just another name on a list of past exploits. I like the idea of relationships — and I am using that term liberally to include “situationships” or “hookups” — to be intimate, and maybe even a little secret.

Not secret in the sense that something should be hidden or concealed, but that certain details should remain entangled within the unique minds of the two involved, even after it comes to an end. With gossip, the memory of a romantic encounter can be sullied by the words and opinions of others.

Ok, I know I’m sounding a bit dramatic — and maybe I am. But even if you might not view your drunken one-night-stand as something of significance, maybe you should. I am not suggesting that students shouldn’t be exploring their sexuality openly and curiously, but I question why we so often describe things as “meaningless,” when, from my experience, even the most casual of encounters hold some importance to those involved. Maybe we do this as a way of protecting ourselves — reducing our feelings and

JULIA SIEGEL/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

expectations so much that they couldn’t possibly be hurt. If something is so casual and so meaningless, it holds no power; but that power goes both ways — and if we are always protecting ourselves, we may never allow others to surprise and delight us.

That brings me to my next point about relationships at Dartmouth. Over my time here, I’ve noticed a startling trend regarding the relationship status spectrum: Couples are either so committed they’ve already made post-grad plans, or they’re so casual that they hardly know whether to wave when bumping into each other at Collis, despite having spent the previous night together. There is very little in-between. I suspect this is because maintaining a real relationship at Dartmouth, where terms move so quickly, necessitates serious thought and commitment — literally requiring you to schedule someone into your life. There are trade-offs too, both academic and social, in engaging in a romantic relationship. As a result,

from my observation, couples that choose to commit go all-in, becoming serious as quickly as the Collis breakfast sandwiches get snatched up before 10s.

And on the flip side, members of a casual hookup are so afraid of suggesting that they want to spend time with their partner outside of the nighttime that they hardly know how to act around them during daylight hours.

Do I go up and have a conversation with X when I bump into them in Collis? Or would they rather wait in the egg line in silence? If I asked them how their exam went (the one they told you about while in bed last night), would it be an imposition? Do they mind if people see us talking to each other — maybe I should just pretend not to notice them?

These are only a few of the questions that have run through the minds of me and many of my friends. And yes, they are ridiculous. It is ridiculous that we should feel self conscious about taking up space in another person’s day, or that we should worry about expressing even an inkling of investment in their

life.

All this to say, maybe I am the problem. But also, maybe I’m not.

Maybe these aspects of Dartmouth, which make relationships and dating so complicated for me, resonate with you too. While wrapping up this piece, I sent the introduction to the friend who spoke of the many “happy couples” he knows of, to make sure he was comfortable with the inclusion of this anecdote. To which he responded, verbatim, over text: “HA that makes me sound like a mega ass. But in retrospect, actually most of those people I think are not in great relationships.”

So to all of the other Dartmouth students who feel jaded and disappointed by their romantic experiences at this school, I hear you. Perhaps we could all do well to shed the facade that we don’t really care and unabashedly reveal our wants and needs. And anyways, even if Dartmouth brings us no luck, we’ve got a whole lifetime ahead of us to experience beautiful, messy, exhilarating romance.

Daily Dippers Make a Splash: A Look into a Spring Tradition STORY

By Gretchen Bauman & Eliza Dunn

This article was originally published on April 20, 2022.

It was a classic spring day in Hanover — 50 degrees, overcast and drizzling — when we started our trek down to the Ledyard Canoe Club docks for our daily ritual: A dip in the river. Down at the docks it somehow felt even colder, but we peeled off layers until we were dressed in only our bathing suits. It took some mental preparation, but eventually, we jumped. The cold was sudden and shocking — we both pulled ourselves out of the river as fast as we could. This jump marked day five of our week of daily dips — a challenge we undertook to write about the classic senior spring tradition.

Each year, a group of dedicated

seniors swims in the river every single day of their spring term, through rain, shine or even snow in the earlier days of the quarter. In the “daily dip” GroupMe, which currently includes just under 100 seniors, students message out when they’re dipping — and send selfies as proof. The GroupMe rules are strict: If you’re not dipping every day, you’re kicked.

Unfortunately, since we started during week three, we cannot claim true daily dipper status. Still, through our frequent trips to the river, we were able to talk to some of the students who have been dipping from the start. All of the seniors we met had committed to the dip and had successfully completed every day of the challenge, but they all seemed to have different dipping habits

and strategies.

Students dip at all times of day and in all sorts of places. Campbell Whalen ’22 told us that her typical dipping spot is by the Ledyard boathouse, but as the weather gets warmer she hopes to explore spots further from campus like Mink Brook.

Whalen typically dips in the afternoon after she exercises so she is warmer while she dips — although she doesn’t think this strategy is successful in fending off the cold.

“When I get down here … I’m a little bit hot, but it doesn’t really work,” Whalen said. “It doesn’t really make [the cold] any better.”

Carly Brown ’22, on the other hand, is “more of an evening dipper,” she said.

She usually dips with her roommate, but

SUMMER HARGRAVE/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

if she learns that a big group is going to dip through the GroupMe, she may join them earlier in the day.

Four weeks into the challenge, the dippers have reported several exciting dip stories, from braving the cold to wildlife sightings. On the first day of classes, when Whalen went to dip, she recalled that “there were ice chunks floating in the water….and the water temp was like 30-something.”

Thankfully, most of the ice had melted by our week of daily dips, but it did bring a wide variety of weather, from freezing rain to sunny, sixty-degree days. Regardless, we made it into the river every day, though some dips took more discipline than others. Despite our fervent hopes, the water always felt just as cold — if not colder — than the day before.

Although the underlying premise of jumping in the river each day remained consistent across all dippers, each one had different reasons for taking on the challenge. For Brown, the popularity of the daily dip tradition inspired her to join in.

“I feel like it’s always been a thing that a few seniors do every year, as long as I can remember,” Brown said.

“Once a friend told me that they were doing it, I decided to do it as well.”

Similarly, Alana McClements ’22 noted that her lack of participation in the daily dip during sophomore summer motivated her to take part in the tradition during her senior spring.

“A bunch of people did [the daily dip] over sophomore summer — and I regretted not doing it then,” McClements said. “I also just think it’s fun … it’s a good excuse to get down to the river, which is my favorite thing about going to school here.”

Whalen echoed McClements, explaining that her appreciation for the river inspired her to daily dip.

“I love the river and I really

appreciate having it,” Whalen said. “So I like being able to say that I jumped in as much as I could.”

Some dippers have noticed certain benefits from jumping in the river each day. Whalen, for example, believes she is physically healthier as a result of her dips.

“I haven’t gotten sick this term, and I think part of the reason is because I’m shocking my body a little bit and giving myself an adrenaline boost every day [through the daily dip] … I’ve completely made it up in my head, but I think it might be psychosomatic.”

Not everyone has noticed the benefits, though. McClements actually worries that her dips may be harming her health.

“I think it is slightly unhealthy,” McClements said. “I feel kind of sick and daily dipping isn’t going to make me feel any better.”

While Brown is unconvinced of the physical health benefits, she remarked on the social and mental health advantages.

“It’s good for my social health …

I’ve made new friends,” Brown said.

“It’s also a good way to make sure no days this spring are just slipping by.”

We also began to notice these benefits.

The water, although painfully freezing at first, eventually felt invigorating and refreshing — especially once we were out of the river and wrapped in our towels. Before our dips, we would sit in the hammock by the river, a welcome and peaceful break from our jam-packed schedules. A few days in, we realized that we had both started looking forward to our dipping ritual every day.

Every dipper we spoke to maintained that dipping has been a positive experience — and we feel the same.

“It benefits the soul for sure,” McClements said. “It’s the best part of every day.”