The Dartmouth Homecoming Issue 2022

SAM BRANT/THE DARTMOUTH

Homecoming — a time of tradition, community and festivity at Dartmouth. Each year, the celebration marks the end of a quintessential New England autumn. As the leaves change, students venture of campus — hiking Gile Mountain or gathering fruit at Riverview Farm — while alumni return to relive and reminisce on their own falls at the College.

For students and alumni alike, Homecoming season ofers a time to harvest — to reap the rewards of seasons past, rekindle old relationships or watch a community that remains dear as it shapes a younger crop of students. At the same time, this fall strayed far from many of our hopes and expectations. In a time of loss and hardship, how can we come together to appreciate the fruits of our community? This fall’s special issue theme, “Harvesting Hanover,” is a product of these sentiments — recognizing the history of the College and town while remaining conscious of the ways in which they can be improved. We look back at storied pieces of Hanover history — ranging from the famous Homecoming bonfre to the old days of the Nugget Theater — while also delving into the Dartmouth of today, from seasonal apple picking to the upcoming elections.

As campus comes together this weekend, bonded by shared experiences and histories, we encourage you to take full advantage of Dartmouth. Like the leaves changing colors, your time on campus is feeting; it only lasts a moment. Make the most of it.

With love, Emily, Marius and Taylor

Homecoming bonfre evolves to address safety concerns

Q&A with Hanover fre chief Martin McMillan

New town manager Alex Torpey and community respond to issues facing Hanover

Graduate students protest living standards, pledge to form union

2022 election survey: Projected turnout decreases, Biden remains popular

Gender-based violence initiatives expand in recent years

Big Green football content with students’ support for the sport, despite alumni concerns

Climbing gym seeks improvement through revised policies, better student access

The Nugget Theater: Panning for Gold

The West End: A New Frontier for the College

Mullins: Why is it Harder for Women to Get Into Dartmouth?

Lane: Invest in Students. Drop the Medians

Gart: Let’s Grab A Meal Sometime

When Life Gives You… Apples?

Are Relationships Fall-ing Apart?

We Reap What We Sow: When ‘Sorry’ Isn’t Enough

The Student Becomes the Teacher

JACQUELINE WRIGHT/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

NINA SLOAN ’24:

Homecoming bonfire evolves to address safety concerns

BY Adriana James-Rodil The Dartmouth Staff

Te frst Dartmouth bonfre took place in 1888 — lit after the College chose to celebrate a “victorious baseball game,” according to past reporting by The Dartmouth. For the next seven years, students continued to mark baseball wins with celebratory bonfres, until then-College President William Jewett Tucker officially established “Dartmouth Night” in 1895 — an annual bonfre frst held on Sept. 17, 1895.

While the bonfre initially centered on baseball, the tradition shifted to celebrate the football program in 1923, after the completion of Memorial Field, The Dartmouth reported. By the 1950s, the College began to schedule the “Dartmouth Night” bonfre and Homecoming football game for the same weekend, and in 1961, “Dartmouth Night” was ofcially renamed the Homecoming bonfire. Over the course of the College’s history, the tradition has morphed from a celebration of sports to one focused on commemorating the frst-year class.

The College has dealt with both safety and security issues since the tradition’s start, according to past reporting by The Dartmouth. Although the bonfre initially equated the number of tiers to the new frstyear class size, the Class of 1979 decided to construct the bonfre to be 100 tiers. But the bonfre got too hot, leading the College to begin a process of redesign and impose a height limit. In 1988, the College restricted the height of the bonfre to 60 feet, while also mandating the use of eco-friendly wood.

Moreover, the number of students permitted to assist in the construction of the bonfre was reduced after a 1999 incident at Texas A&M University, which left 12 students dead and 27 injured after a bonfre collapsed, according to past reporting by The Dartmouth. Between 1995 and 2015, the “bonfre’s three-tiered geometric structure did not change,” the article reported.

According to engineering professor Douglas Van Citters ’99, two major changes to the bonfre took place in 2018: a redesign of its structure — focused on increasing the volume of wood — led by Van Citters and the installation of a fence around the ring of the fre.

Van Citters said that the redesign was sparked by the town’s refusal to grant the College an outdoor activities permit, citing concerns with the structure of the bonfre. He added that the main issue with the structure was safety — while the pre-2018 structure was not too tall, it was unstable and

fell in unpredictable ways.

According to Hanover fre chief Martin McMillan, about four or fve years ago, a “highly intoxicated person stumbled out to the fre to touch it,” falling down while the bonfre was at a stage where it began to collapse.

The frefghters on site then sprayed water on the fre to put it out.

“People were upset, but people were gonna get hurt,” McMillan said.

“That triggered a whole series of ‘We’ve had enough’ perspectives from the town. And from my perspective as the fre chief [was], I’m not gonna give you a permit anymore . . . because this is an accident waiting to happen.”

In a Dartblog article, McMillan added that an increased number of students attempting to touch the fre in 2016 contributed to his concerns with the tradition.

“There were two students in 2014, seven in 2015 with two [Safety and Security] ofcers injured, approximately 75 students in 2016 and fewer than ten students in 2017,” McMillan wrote. “The signifcant increase in students entering the bonfre’s collapse zone during the 2016 bonfre prompted some very serious discussions between the town and college regarding the overall safety of the bonfre.”

Ultimately, the town rejected the College’s outdoor permit and urged them to prevent students from entering the “collapse zone,” McMillan wrote.

Van Citters said he convened a 12-member committee in the summer

of 2018 to discuss a redesign, aiming to “make a homecoming event that worked for everybody.” According to Van Citters, Provost David Kotz ’86 and the ofce of the President chose representatives from the ofces of alumni relations, student afairs, special events and Safety and Security, as well as two students, two alumni and two faculty members.

Physics and astronomy department chair Ryan Hickox said he was involved in the bonfire redesign committee mostly because of his role as a house professor.

“The house communities have had a role to play in terms of the way that the whole bonfre ceremony works because the frst-year students are each picked up at their house community ” in a process known as the “sweep,” he said.

Van Citters, along with his team of students and engineers, said the group gave the bonfre a higher volume of wood than the previous structure — the wider portion of the fre is now taller than the previous design, while the narrower portions are shorter. He added that the increased volume leads the fre to collapse inward on itself.

“For three years in a row, it’s done exactly what we had modeled — where it’s fallen in on itself in a predictable period of time,” Van Citters said. “What it does is it allows all the participants to watch it and interact with it in a way that’s quite a bit more safe.”

The structural change to the bonfire convinced the town to

reconsider and ultimately issue the College’s permit, while also fostering “a really strong partnership with the town and its frst responders [the chief of police, fre chief and town manager] that made it so that we could get a permit going forward,”

Van Citters said.

Director of student involvement David Pack wrote in an emailed statement to The Dartmouth that the changes have been received positively by the town.

The second major change to the bonfre was the installation “of a fence at the end of the ring of the bonfre preventing students from” doing more than one lap, Hickox said. Moreover, the town mandated that students cannot run around the bonfre, a former aspect of the tradition.

“What ended up happening was that we would get lots of students running around it for a long time, which provided much more possibility of things getting out of hand and people trying to get close to the fre,” Hickox said.

Hickox added that prior to the 2018 changes, the bonfre introduced a “somewhat coercive environment” where “a lot of students found it a little bit hostile.”

“There were a wide variety of reactions to what the bonfre was like, but while students were running around, there was a tradition that there would be people yelling insults at them for quite a long time,” he said. “It was overall something that was quite intimidating and certainly

not as welcoming as one would like it to be.”

Other smaller changes to the bonfre event took place in 2018, such as the timing of the frst-year classes lap around the fre and the location of Homecoming activities.

According to Hickox, students used to stand in a circle “for a long time” while waiting for the bonfre to be fully lit. During this waiting period, people would run to touch the fre when it was not yet completely engulfed. As a result, Hickox said the timing was altered so that the frst sweep of students arrived when the fre was already fully lit.

“All those [2018 changes] together served to both make the bonfre signifcantly safer in terms of the danger of falling on people and the opportunity for people to do dangerous things around it in terms of timing,” Hickox said.

“And I think it also made it a much more controlled and welcoming environment.”

This year’s bonfre will follow the same design that was developed in 2018, according to Van Citters.

“We don’t see any need to change it,” he said. “It behaved exactly the way it was designed for three full burns.”

Van Citters added that there is a camera attached to the bonfre, flming in slow motion to ensure the committee understands how the fre behaves. If anything unexpected happens, Van Citters said the group is ready to change the design.

Q&A with Hanover re department chief Martin McMillan

BY Emily Fagell The Dartmouth Staff

With an undergraduate enrollment of more than 4,500 nestled in a town of just under 9,000, Dartmouth students have a profound impact on local emergency services. The College’s tax on limited resources becomes especially clear during celebratory weekends, as increased drinking and dangerous rituals place a strain on emergency services. The Dartmouth sat down with Hanover fre department chief Martin McMillan to discuss campus safety and shifting dynamics between the town and College.

In what ways do calls from the College difer from those beyond campus? Are there any calls unique to college campuses?

MM: I put calls from the College in two categories. There are automatic alarms, for some type of either malfunction or a causation that trips us — and that might be somebody burnt some popcorn. So not all of them are caused by a system malfunction, but may actually have a cause where there was actually smoke created. That’s a signifcant number of our calls over to the College — alarm activations, whether malfunctions or something real, or a fre once in a blue moon. Then the other half is medical conditions, and a lot of those are related to alcohol or drugs.

Do you typically see an increased volume of calls during big weekends like Homecoming?

MM: Historically, that has been the case. It seems to have tapered of the last few years. I think we started to taper of maybe about fve years ago, some of it COVID-19 related, obviously. And we’ve had a lot of conversations with the Greek life

people of just tampering down a little bit.

There are only a handful of ambulances in the Upper Valley.

How does College activity — particularly during a weekend like Homecoming — impact the Hanover Fire Department’s resources?

MM: What we worry about is if we’re transporting lots of intoxicated kids up to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, then they get inundated up there, and they’re a very busy hospital for the most part. So now all of a sudden they take 15 or 20 people up there and they have to, for lack of a better term, keep an eye on them — babysit, basically. That just really is an unhealthy situation when they’re slammed. And the fip side of that is we’re taking ambulances. And then if all of a sudden somebody else has a severe issue, a cardiac event, a very serious stroke, a car accident or something like that, we have a big delay in treating them.

It’s not like we run around with big sticks slapping people on the hands for drinking. If you’re going to do it, do it responsibly — and if you exceed the limits, so to speak, we’re there for you. We want you to call. We don’t want somebody to die on campus of alcohol poisoning. But we’re trying to send that message out: If at all possible, don’t put us in that situation. Don’t give us 10 kids in an hour from a party where people are just hammered. Because it just overwhelms the system.

In a similar vein, do you believe it’s fair for college students to monopolize resources after drinking?

MM: I think they just need to understand — and we’ve tried to get that message out all the time, and that’s not just for the big weekends, that’s any weekend — to just be aware that you’re really taxing the system when we get more than a couple calls. It’s

an educational thing — and we try to push that out there, especially to the Greek life representatives, when we’re meeting with them.

Beyond meeting with Greek life representatives, what other steps have been taken to ameliorate resource shortages? What steps might be taken in the future?

MM: We’ve chatted with the administration over at the College and have explained this situation about limited resources and what that does on any weekend, whether it’s a big weekend or not. And I think they’ve done a great job of trying to get that message out and kind of reel it back in a little bit. We greatly appreciate it. We’ve got a good partnership with the College.

How would you describe the dynamic between the town and the College? Is there any animosity among community members?

MM: I’m sure there’s some animosity out there. I understand this whole game. My son recently graduated, a few years back, from Villanova. I still remember my college days. We get it. All we’re trying to do from our perspective — whether it’s alcohol use or whatever the game is out there — is to say to students, ‘We just want you safe.’ All my staf, for the most part, have kids. We want that college environment to be positive for our kids and that experience — you’ll remember that for the rest of your life. Nobody wants that phone call in the middle of the night that something happened to your child. That’s where our mindset is — to all the parents that have their students here in our town, going to Dartmouth: We want them to enjoy their college environment and have fun. And it’s our job to try to keep them as safe as you can on some of these big events.

How have the dynamics between the town and College changed in recent years?

MM: I think there was a little bit of animosity when I got here and prior, and a lot of it was just this overtaxation of our resources. But I think the College has been a great partner, and I think they understand where we are coming from. I have a tremendous amount of respect for that, for their staf.

The college environment is very unique because of the whole administration, you have so many people. It’s a lot of committees making decisions in large groups. In our business, it’s a single entity where one or two of us are making decisions — and we have to make snap decisions.

So there’s this whole thing about how

fast you get things done, but we pull up, we have an emergency, we get on a truck, we go lights and siren, we hop of and we gotta gotta fx it. And this level of frustration comes a lot of times when you’re trying to get something done, and you’re working with a large group of people that have lots of diferent viewpoints. But ultimately what I have always said is, if we were to hurt somebody or kill somebody as a result of one of these big events, I’ve got CNN or 10 diferent news organizations with a camera who’s staring in my face. They talk to me — I’m the fre chief — or they want to talk to the town manager or the police chief. And Dartmouth has a spokesperson, but a lot of people that make the decisions aren’t in front of the camera.

CAROLINE KRAMER/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

New town manager Alex Torpey and community respond to issues facing Hanover, including housing and zoning

BY FRANK BLACKBURN The Dartmouth Staff

On June 27, Alex Torpey began his tenure as the town manager of Hanover. In the four months since taking office, Torpey, who moved to New Hampshire from New Jersey for his new position, has had to adjust to a new community and work environment.

While Torpey said that he has had “a lot of stuff to get up to speed on,” he said he has “enjoyed” his time as town manager.

“We’ve got a great selectboard, a great staff,” he said. “I’ve really enjoyed meeting business owners and students and other stakeholders.”

Nearly four months into his tenure, Torpey said that his most important priority as town manager is increasing citizen participation in local government — as participation will make other goals, from housing to energy, more achievable.

“I would call it sort of a meta issue because it affects every other issue,” he said. “How people are informed and how they are involved touches everything.”

Hanover resident Robin Ng said that, at this point in his tenure, Torpey has had no visible impact on her life.

“ I don’t know him very well; I’ve met him once,” Ng said. “I haven’t noticed anything in terms of [changes in] how the town is run.”

Besides citizen engagement,

Torpey said his second priority is improving housing: Recent studies have described Hanover as having some of the highest housing prices and strictest zoning laws in New Hampshire.

Torpey said that while cost is certainly an important issue, improving the quality of housing is also paramount. Specifically, Torpey said that the town is working on improving quality through the Rental Housing Inspection Ordinance, which requires regular safety inspections of rental properties, the Valley News reported.

“Every rental unit would be inspected at a minimum once every three years,” he said. “For places where there are violations, [those inspections] would occur more frequently.”

Robert Houseman, director of planning, zoning and codes for the town, said that Torpey has shown a “keen interest” in the issue of housing. Houseman, however,

emphasized that the town’s plans to deal with the issue, which are not necessarily tied to the town manager, have not changed recently.

“The project isn’t tied to Alex,” he said. “But it’s moving forward on its own track.”

Although the setting and politics of New Hampshire are very different from his previous communities, Torpey said he sees some similarities between South Orange, N.J. —

where he was mayor — and Hanover. He noted that both are college towns and epicenters of their respective areas.

Dartmouth student body president David Millman ’23, who recently worked with Torpey on the Rental Housing Inspection Ordinances, said he is “excited” about the potential partnership between Hanover local government and the College’s student government.

“At least in my conversations with him as student body president, he seems really eager and willing to critically look at the issues that are facing the town in terms of housing and labor shortages and workforce transportation,” Millman said. “So I think that we are definitely headed in the right direction as a town.”

Selectboard member Nancy Carter said that the town government is going to propose new zoning standards at the May town meeting. She said that these standards will allow for more mixed-use buildings and taller buildings.

“We are going to be proposing a lot of new density standards,” she said. “[These standards] will in the next decade cause downtown Hanover, in particular, to look very different.”

Another high priority for Torpey and the rest of the town government is relations with the College.

“Dynamics with the College is huge — it touches a lot of areas,” he said. “There was a meeting that

myself and the selectboard members had with the trustees a few weeks ago. That was really exciting. We talked about new ways that we could work together.”

Millman added that a strong relationship between the town and the College, under Torpey, could be beneficial for both parties.

“[Torpey] can definitely yield a lot of positive outcomes between the town and students,” he said. “I think it’s a partnership that’s been overlooked for many years.”

Torpey said that the third most important priority for the town is “planning for the future” — especially in regards to hiring and staffing.

“I’ve probably met forty or fifty town managers in New Hampshire and Vermont in the last couple months,” he said. “There’s a lot of concern about hiring and staffing and how different services are going to be provided in the future.”

Carter said that after serving under Torpey’s predecessor Julia Griffin — who stepped down in June after 25 years of public service — she and other Hanover town officials have noticed a change in leadership style.

“[Griffin] had a very calm [leadership style],” she said. “Alex tends to lead from the front whereas [Griffin] was willing to get a group consensus [and] lead with the group.”

Regarding Torpey and Griffin’s

distinct brands of leadership, Carter said that neither is “any better than the other.”

Beyond town policies, Carter said that Torpey has been “very enthusiastic” in improving the technology used by workers at town hall. She said that this push is important in light of changes in the workforce of the town.

“We have lost some people through early retirement, leaving the town and family circumstances,” she said. “[Because of this] we really do need to rely on technology more for the things that people used to come to [town hall] for — like, for example, getting your license or getting your car registered.”

Hanover’s sustainability goals are another one of the town’s top priorities, Carter said. By 2030, the town aims to power its buildings entirely by renewable energy. The town hopes to do the same for its public transportation by 2050, Carter added.

“We’ve been aggressively pursuing panels for private ownership,” she said. “We put up a huge solar field next to the wastewater treatment plant.”

Additionally, Torpey said that the town is committed to finding new ways to reach citizens.

“I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback from community members about emails and podcasts,” he said. “[We’re] just trying to make it a little easier for people to participate.”

Graduate students protest living standards, pledge to form union

BY Aryanna Qusba

The Dartmouth

On Oct. 11, the Graduate Organized Laborers at Dartmouth staged a walkout on the Green to publicize their misgivings about their current relationship with the College and to make their intentions to form a union known.

Members of GOLD collected pledge card signatures — which signify students’ support for a union — and spoke about their four central demands: a guaranteed living wage, comprehensive benefts, a safe and equitable workplace and fairness for international students, according to committee member and third-year microbiology P.h.D. student Rendi Rogers.

Rogers said that graduate students currently have limited vision insurance, no dental coverage and no subsidized child care. She said GOLD is requesting more comprehensive benefts and demanding supplemental aid for international graduate students, as the College “doesn’t ofer any support for getting visas, paying visa fees or getting immediate family visas.”

Since sexual harrasment, abuse, discrimination, overworking and unreasonable hours have been issues in the past, GOLD hopes that the union would both protect and empower students, Rogers added.

“We got over half of graduate workers to sign cards in the frst week,” Rogers said. “We’re hoping for voluntary recognition from the College, but if that doesn’t happen, we will send in the cards as a petition to the National Labor Relations Board so that we can call for an

election to vote on a union.”

Graduate student unionization eforts follow successful organizing by undergraduate Dartmouth student employees earlier this year. Undergraduates working for Dartmouth Dining Services banded together to form the Student Worker Collective at Dartmouth to demand higher wages and better working conditions, according to Christopher Peck, president of Service Employees International Union Local 560.

Peck — whose union represents non-student employees at the College — said that his division has met with representatives of GOLD several times “to help them organize.”

According to Rogers, GOLD’s top-

line issue is a guaranteed living wage, with the organization demanding “an immediate cost of living adjustment” of $1,668 per month added to graduate students’ stipends. She added that many graduate students are currently classified as “rent burdened” — according to the Federal Reserve threshold — since they spend more than 30% of their income on housing to live in Hanover.

GOLD organizer Logan Mann, a second year student at Thayer, said that graduate students often view their positions at the College as an ideal academic opportunity before realizing the underlying costs.

“I think for a lot of people coming out of undergrad or masters this

sounds like a really sweet deal, because it’s sort of phrased as a scholarship, but it’s actually a job,” Mann said. “Ph.D. students teach and do research but for very, very low pay.”

Additionally, GOLD aims to secure a contractual “guaranteed annual raise” which will match infation of the cost of living in Hanover, Rogers said.

Fellow union organizer and ffthyear ecology, evolution, environment and society P.h.D. student Christopher Callahan said that the median rent for a single bedroom in Hanover is $1,300, which is over half of an average graduate student’s monthly stipend.

“The Upper Valley housing market is really constrained,” Calahan said.

“The situation does get a little bit better if you move farther from Hanover to Lebanon, West Lebanon, White River Junction or Norwich, but the lack of public transportation in the area means that what you save on rent, you end up paying in car insurance, car payments, gas, parking.”

When he frst enrolled in his Ph.D. program, Mann said he expected housing in the Upper Valley to be cheaper, but costs quickly became a concern.

“I was quickly disillusioned and ended up bouncing around from sort of unstable, temporary housing options,” he said.

Mann, who spoke at the Oct. 11 rally, said he was “impressed” by the event’s turnout. Over 400 graduate students signed pledge cards out of an estimated 800 to 1,000 total students who are paid and on campus, he added.

“The high number of cards has hopefully convinced Dartmouth that interfering in this process will not work, and that the writing is on the wall,” Mann said.

Despite their working relationship, GOLD has not ofcially partnered with SEIU 560, and the group is instead part of the Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America — which “is more set up for graduate students,” Peck said.

“I think the College has to start investing in their employees, whether they’re undergrads, graduate students or service workers or administration,” Peck said. “It’s tough times right now, and it would be good if the College started investing in people.”

MIA RUSSO /THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

2022 election survey: Projected student turnout decreases, Biden remains generally popular

BY TAYLOR HABER The Dartmouth Staff

With the 2022 midterm elections less than two weeks away, The Dartmouth polled students on their political leanings, stances on national issues and positions on candidates for office. The survey found a significant drop in expected voter turnout among students compared to 2020. Additionally, a clear majority of students approved of President Biden, though they had mixed reactions about his administration’s response to a number of national issues; a greater majority of students said the president should not seek a second term. Students ranked abortion and climate change as their two top voting priorities. And Democratic candidates in New Hampshire’s congressional and gubernatorial races outpaced their Republican opponents in terms of student support.

Student voting enthusiasm has dropped since 2020.

Dartmouth students’ political affiliations have remained largely unchanged over the past two years, with 58% of respondents identifying as Democrats, 9% as Republicans and 26% as independents. None of the three major affiliations deviated by more than 3 points since 2020.

Students’ intentions to vote, however, have shifted drastically.

In 2020, The Dartmouth’s poll in the run up to the presidential election found that only 2.5% of students planned on not casting a ballot. This year, the number of students who considered themselves either “somewhat unlikely” or “very unlikely” to vote jumped to 12%. Across party lines, 94% of Democrats and 96% of Republicans said they were likely to vote this November, while only 78% of independents said the same.

response to COVID-19 recieving an average of 3.20, while his lowest issues, the economy and abortion rights, scored 2.63, respectively.

Despite the president’s support among students, a greater number of respondents — 72% — said that Biden should not run for a second term in 2024. By party affiliation, 89% of Republicans, 71% of independents and 70% of Democrats indicated that Biden should step aside in the next presidential race.

Government professor Joseph

considered to be “very important” to their vote. Respondents listed abortion (74%), climate change (72%) and healthcare (56%) as the three topics with the greatest impact on their voting priorities. The three highest-ranked issues are liberal priorities, two of which are aligned with Democratic students’ top choices; none of Republican students’ top three issues placed as prominently.

By party affiliation, Democrats rated the three most important issues to their ballot as climate change

appointments (31%), COVID-19 (20%) and crime (18%).

In light of recent political developments, Bafumi said he was “not surprised” by abortion’s top ranking among students, citing the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization — which nullified federal abortion protections enshrined by Roe v. Wade. Students had an overwhelmingly negative reaction to Dobbs, with 85% of respondents either “somewhat” or “strongly” disapproving of the

about their voter registration, with 36% stating they were registered to vote in New Hampshire and 59% being registered to vote out of state.

In New Hampshire’s gubernatorial and congressional races, eligible respondents favored Democratic candidates by wide margins. Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., amassed 85% against retired Gen. Don Bolduc’s 11%.

In New Hampshire’s second congressional district, Rep. Ann McLean Kuster ’78, D-N.H. earned the support of 83% of students, whereas her challenger, Bob Burns, R-N.H. earned 11%. Republican Gov. Chris Sununu attracted 17% of Dartmouth students’ votes, while his opponent, Tom Sherman, D-N.H., earned 79%.

In some instances, there were indications that students intended to split their tickets, whereby voters cast their ballots for candidates of more than one party. Of respondents, 6% of Democrats — all of whom said they would vote for Hassan and Kuster — also said they planned on voting for Sununu. No Republicans in the survey indicated that they would vote for Democratic candidates in any of New Hampshire’s marquee races.

Independents showed the greatest inclination to split their tickets, with 12% favoring Sununu and 79% preferring Sherman in the governor’s race. For Congress, Bolduc earned 5.85% of respondents’ support and Burns took 5.08%, while their Democratic opponents, Hassan and Kuster, received 89% and 79%, respectively.

Bafumi said that Sununu’s outsized cross-party support was likely the result of the governor’s perception as a moderate and the strong position of the state heading into the November election. He added that split-ticket voting has declined in recent years largely due to one factor: polarization.

The election itself is also seemingly not as prescient for student voters as compared to two years ago — 79% of students either “somewhat” or “strongly disagreed” with the statement that “the 2022 midterm elections is a common topic of conversation among my friends.”

Two years ago, 80% of students had instead agreed with that sentiment.

Students approve of Biden’s performance, but want someone else in the White House in 2024.

As the president approaches the halfway mark of his first term, students generally approve of President Joe Biden; 62% of respondents said they approved of the president, while 35% disapproved.

Among Democrats, the president’s approval and disapproval ratings stood at 79% and 19%, respectively, while Republicans held at a nearlyopposite margin of 19% and 81%.

Independents split most evenly in their approval for the president, at 44% and 51%.

When asked to rate the president’s performance from one to five on seven key issues — COVID-19, the economy, racial justice, climate change and the environment, healthcare, foreign policy and abortion rights — students offered less clear insight. The president earned his highest marks with his

Bafumi said that Biden’s lack of support — especially among such a liberal-leaning cohort — is “historically unique,” but said he did not find the results surprising due to the president’s age. Biden, who is 79, is the oldest president in American history.

Abortion and climate change are among the top voting issues for students, while judicial appointments, COVID-19 and crime are the least important.

Students were able to select from a list of 12 issues as many topics as they

(85%), abortion (82%) and issues around race, ethnicity and sexual orientation (62%). Independents ranked abortion and climate change as their two top issues as well, at 69% and 67% respectively, though the economy garnered the third-most support with 59%. Contrastingly, Republicans listed their most pressing issues as the economy (83%), crime (54%) and education (51%).

The three issues which respondents ranked as least important on average, regardless of party affiliation, were judicial

ruling. Only 12% of respondents indicated that they favored the Court’s decision.

Ideologically, students split nearly the same on their abortion stance as they did with the Dobbs ruling. 84% of students considering themselves pro-choice or “prochoice with some exceptions” and 14% as pro-life or “pro-life with some exceptions.”

Democratic candidates in New Hampshire hold advantages up and down the ballot.

Students also answered questions

Methodology Notes:

From Oct. 11-16, The Dartmouth fielded an online survey of the Dartmouth student body on their view of the 2022 presidential election. The survey was sent out to 4597 undergraduates through their school email addresses. 361 responses were recorded, resulting in a 7.8% response rate. Using administrative data from the College’s Office of Institutional Research, responses were weighted by gender, class year, and race/ethnicity. Weighting was done through cell-based weighting. Survey results have a margin of error +/- 4.95%.

EMIL LIDEN /THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

PHILIP SURENDRAN /THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

Gender-based violence initiatives expand in recent years

BY ANGUS YIP The Dartmouth Staff

“We envision a campus where students are free of extreme behaviors … where sexual assault … [is] eradicated from our campus,” College President Phil Hanlon said in his January 2015 speech launching the Moving Dartmouth Forward initiative.

Today, a range of statutes, initiatives and organizations on campus aim to mitigate the prevalence and impact of gender-based violence at Dartmouth. Together, they create frameworks to investigate incidents and educate students about responding to incidents. They also provide resources for community members to seek support. The Dartmouth investigated these initiatives and resources and how they have evolved throughout the years.

Title IX

According to the Department of Education, Title IX is a federal statute enacted in 1972 that prohibits exclusion or discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs receiving federal financial assistance.

In turn, Title IX influences genderbased violence policies and incident reporting on college campuses.

Title IX coordinator and assistant vice president for equity and compliance Kristi Clemens clarified that Title IX applies to all members of the Dartmouth community when engaged in an educational program or activity. She added that the federal government sent a reminder to all colleges and universities in 2011 to keep them apprised of their obligations under Title IX. This includes schools having a designated Title IX coordinator and having clear policies for members of the community to report incidents of gender-based violence.

“Most colleges and universities including Dartmouth were already [compliant with requirements], but it really shone a spotlight on sexual misconduct on campuses and brought into focus the work that we do now,” Clemens said.

According to this year’s Annual Fire and Safety Report, also known as the Clery Report, there were 16 reported rapes in 2021, up from 10 in 2020 but down from 32 in 2019. This past year also saw a rise of stalking with 21 instances, up from six in 2020 and nine in 2019.

Clemens said that many genderbased violence incidents are unreported, so the figures in the Clery Report are “just the tip of the iceberg.”

“We try to collect data through other ways like our sexual misconduct survey, which [is] anonymous for people to share what has happened to them and what they’ve heard is happening to other people, so that we have a better picture of what’s really happening out there,” she said.

According to Clemens, community members who report incidents under Title IX generally fall under three categories: members who wish to make a report to be held in the Title IX Office’s files and are requesting no action, those who are requesting supportive measures because of the incident and those who wish to take action against the respondent.

In the third case, the complainant

can opt to launch a formal investigation or an informal resolution, Clemens said. In a formal investigation, an external investigator conducts interviews, examines evidence and produces a report about the incident.

When the respondent is a Dartmouth student, the final verdict on the investigation is determined by a three-member hearing panel comprising the director of community standards and accountability, a representative of the Dean of the College and a trained staff member from the Committee on Standards, Clemens said. If the respondent is a staff member, the panel has one member, and if the respondent is a faculty member, the panel has five, she added.

If the respondent is found responsible, the strongest possible consequence is being “removed from the College community permanently,” Clemens said.

Clemens explained that informal resolutions are much more “openended” and “are all forms of restorative justice.” In one possible resolution method known as a shuttle agreement, the complainant can propose a list of requests to be conveyed to the respondent, who can then decide which requests to comply with.

Another possible resolution method is called a restorative conference, in which “both parties would sit together with a facilitator to talk about the harm caused … and figure out a way forward,” she said.

“Restorative justice is really important … when there’s an opportunity to talk about the harm caused and find a plan forward rather than just casting somebody out of our community,” she added.

Clemens also noted that both parties must agree to participate in an informal resolution — if either the respondent or the complainant chooses not to, and a formal complaint has been filed, the Title IX Office would transition to a formal investigation. She added that once an informal resolution has been concluded, the complainant cannot choose to launch a formal investigation against the respondent over the same incident.

Sexual Violence Prevention Project

The Sexual Violence Prevention Project is a four-year sexual violence prevention curriculum required for all undergraduate students, aimed at “[reducing] sexual assault, relationship violence, stalking, and harassment on Dartmouth’s campus,” according to the SVPP website. The program is organized by the Student Wellness Center.

According to Student Wellness Center director Caitlin Barthelmes, the SVPP was announced in 2015 as part of the Moving Dartmouth Forward initiative. She added that the SVPP incorporates elements from the Dartmouth Bystander Initiative, first launched in 2012, which aims to educate community members about building the necessary skills to intervene when witnessing potential moments of harm.

“The goal of SVPP is for Dartmouth students to be able to contribute to a safer, healthier community while here at Dartmouth, but also to help reduce violence out in the world after they graduate,” Barthelmes said.

Barthelmes said that the curriculum is “constantly evolving” and is being “simultaneously developed and implemented.” The first-year experience is fully developed and the sophomore experience is “mostly” completed, while the rest of the upperclassman curriculum is still being developed based on student responses to the underclassman experience. The delay in upperclassman programming has been due to limited resources, according to past reporting by The Dartmouth. Barthelmes added that the SVPP has an active student advisory board every term that provides input on the program.

“We will continue implementing, improving and evaluating, which is so important because we want to make sure that what we’re offering students is, in fact, working,” Barthelmes said.

Currently, the first-year experience includes the Culture, Behavior and Experiences survey — which collects baseline information to help determine the effectiveness of the SVPP — a prearrival online course and four first-year sessions over the fall, winter and spring.

October is Dating Violence Awareness Month

Does your partner...

get angry if you spend time with others or do things without them? demand you share your social media passwords, texts, location, or let them go through your phone?

prevent you from working, sleeping, studying, taking care of yourself? insist you are wrong, you are crazy, or you do not understand how relationships work? claim your friends or family are trying to break you up or ruin your relationship?

blame you for problems in your relationship?

pressure you to do sexual things, drink, use drugs, or do things that could get you into trouble? destroy your belongings or property around you?

make fun of your looks, talents, hobbies, skills, friendships, intelligence, or parenting? provoke you and blame you for your reaction?

threaten to hurt you, themselves, or spread personal information or pictures of you? expose you to danger because of your sexuality, gender, race, religion, immigration status, or other parts of your identity?

This is abuse.

The sophomore experience includes the CBE survey and three sessions.

Barthelmes also said that the curriculum for freshmen is taught by other students who have undergone “ongoing facilitator skill development.”

“It’s one of the points of pride of this program,” she said. “We thought it was really important for students to … be led through these discussions and activities by their peers on campus.”

According to the SVPP website, the program’s outcomes are currently being measured through the annual Culture, Behavior and Experiences survey, and the survey data is being analyzed by the Prevention Innovations Research Center at the University of New Hampshire. Barthelmes added that the organizing committee will also consider students’ responses to the pre- and post-SVPP surveys to further develop the program.

Sexual Assault Peer Alliance

The Sexual Assault Peer Alliance is a student organization that “[provides] informed, empathic and empowermentbased support to Dartmouth peers impacted by sexual and gender-based violence” through “providing positive, peer support to fellow students,” according to its website.

According to a SAPA resource guide, there are 51 active SAPAs this term, as well as six SAPA-trained students who are not active responders but can direct students to other SAPAs.

Active SAPA Harrison Sholler ’24 said that students can seek out any SAPA listed on the SAPA website for support, but it is “much more common” for students to reach out personally to friends or acquaintances who are SAPA-trained.

Sholler said that he became a SAPA in hopes of “being a resource for [his] friends.”

“I wanted to be trained in … how to talk to people about gender-based violence … so that I could be a better resource for the people around me in the different spaces that I’m in on campus,” he added.

Associate director of the Counseling Center and SAPA co-director Alexandra Lenzen said that all SAPAs go through 40 hours of training “to learn about trauma and the foundations of gender-based violence, and resources on and off-campus.” She added that after taking and passing a final test that “gauges their knowledge and understanding,” students can opt to become active SAPAs.

Sholler added that the training emphasizes trauma-informed “listening and response skills” and “learning how to talk to someone from a perspective of supporting them … making the conversation about them and reflecting their ideas back to them” — a conversational technique called motivational interviewing, according to a SAPA brochure.

According to Lenzen, SAPAs can also help students navigate the campus and community resources available to those affected by gender-based violence, including the Counseling Center, the chaplain at the Tucker Center, Dick’s House, the Title IX office, DartmouthHitchcock Medical Center, and the Hanover Police Department.

SAPA is not a confidential resource, according to a SAPA brochure. Confidential resources include health care providers and the College chaplain, among others, who legally cannot share a person’s information without their consent unless required by law, such as if there is imminent danger to the person or others. The brochure also notes that SAPAs are not responsible employees — as they are not employees of the College — meaning that they are not required to share disclosures of sexual assault, relationship violence, stalking or harassment with the Title IX Coordinator. Responsible

employees include UGAs, MHU peer support providers, faculty and staff, undergraduate deans, Safety and Security officers, the Student Wellness Center and others, according to a SAPA brochure.

Student and Presidential Committee on Sexual Assault

The Student and Presidential Committee on Sexual Assault aims to “serve as an intermediary between students and the larger Dartmouth College community” and “plan and implement cross-campus initiatives to address sexual violence,” according to the SPCSA website. SPCSA executive Madeline Gochee ’23 said that the committee currently has 13 undergraduate students consisting of members of the Class of 2023, 2024 and 2025.

Gochee said that the committee’s role includes “institutional advocacy,” as it communicates “what students and staff are doing and what they need” to the administration. SPCSA also provides input on changes in structural policies, she said.

Gochee added that the committee is currently advocating for the reinstatement of the Department of Safety and Security’s SafeRide program, which offered vehicular transport by Safety and Security officers between 9 p.m. and 4 a.m. to students. At the onset of the pandemic, the program was replaced with walking escorts.

Gochee said that the committee also advocated for extending the First Year Safety and Risk Reduction Policy or “frat ban” for the Class of 2026 by two days. According to an email sent to campus by the Greek Leadership Council on Sept. 17, this year’s frat ban was scheduled to end at noon on Oct. 31. Gochee said that many members of the Class of 2026 would likely be heading out that night — especially since it falls on Halloween — which may create a “dangerous” situation if first-year students test their limits. On Oct. 19, the GLC announced that it had voted to extend the frat ban by 24 hours, until noon on Nov. 1.

Gochee also noted that the SPCSA has collaborated with SAPA to organize a lecture series centered around reducing harm caused by gender-based violence at the College. According to an email sent to campus by SPCSA on Oct. 3, the lecture series consists of seven weekly lectures in total, and students who attend at least five will receive a diploma certified by SAPA and SPCSA.

Gochee added that this lecture series was created in hopes of allowing all students on campus to be trained on how to respond to gender-based violence.

“SAPA as an institution didn’t have the capacity to take everyone [who applied],” she said. “[SAPA and SPCSA] saw a need … to really give students the ability to get more training on gender-based violence and be empowered in their knowledge.”

Gochee said that SPCSA is currently considering running the lecture series in the spring and subsequently running it at least twice a year.

The lecture series aims to “push the boundaries of what’s currently being talked about on campus,” Gochee added, noting that topics like restorative justice and intersectionality are “not fully explored.”

“There’s a lot of really difficult conversations that happen with genderbased violence,” she said. “We’re hoping that people can gain … a more nuanced understanding of power that a lot of other programming doesn’t really have.”

Production Executive Editor Mia Russo ’23 is the president of SAPA. She was not involved in the writing or editing of this article.

OLIVER DE JONGHE/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

Big Green football content with students’ support for the sport, despite alumni concerns

BY WILL DEHMEL

The Dartmouth

For a football team that has won the last two Ivy League championships, Dartmouth’s bleachers look surprisingly barren on game days, said Nigel Ekern ’87, a former Dartmouth football player.

Dartmouth’s Ivy League opener against the University of Pennsylvania — with attendance bolstered by Family Weekend — saw a crowd of 4,767 people. In 2011, Memorial Field welcomed 8,117 fans to a home game against Penn — a contest not occurring on Family Weekend, coupled with rain and overcast skies.

Ekern said he observed a similar trend of low attendance last Saturday at the Yale Bowl. Even with pristine weather and a convenient location near alums in the greater New York City area, the alumni tailgate welcomed only seven attendees: five alumni, as well as an alum’s spouse and child.

Lloyd Lee ’98, who played safety at Dartmouth and went on to play professionally for the San Diego Chargers before coaching with the Chicago Bears for five years, said it’s “too bad” that crowds have been smaller in recent years.

“It’s just weird, because coming off of COVID, you’d think people would be getting back out and going to events,” Lee said. “I just think there’s so many other things that students must be doing.”

And while Lee said he is surprised by the lower turnouts, Ekern said he is not. This all speaks to what Ekern said is “the general trend at Dartmouth,” in which undergraduate students are becoming “much more academic [and] much less athletic.”

“Except for the dedicated athletes, the rest of [the undergraduates] are really scholars,” Ekern said. “So I think that there’s a whole generation now of Dartmouth students that just aren’t interested in athletics, and they were never interested in them.”

As a result, the football team is “in itself distinct and separate from the student body,” Ekern said.

The team disagrees, head coach

Buddy Teevens ’79 said.

“I think overall, more people are tuned in and…there’s probably more access to Dartmouth athletics,” Teevens said. “So people are actually watching it, but we don’t see them in the stands as we did years ago when we had no [streaming] options.”

Defensive captains Shane Cokes ’23 and Quentin Arello ’23 said they were encouraged by this season’s attendance. Arello said the week one crowd as “fantastic” and Cokes described turnout at the Big GreenPenn game “really good.”

A cross-section of Dartmouth students often show up to games, including many of teammates’ nonathlete friends, Arello said.

“When you have 120 football players, you get around a little,” Arello said. “So everybody has a little friend group here and there that will come and support.”

Teevens said that he explains to his team the value of engaging with the student body outside of football.

“I encourage [players] to take advantage [of Dartmouth],” Teevens said. “There’s a lot of different folks on campus that have great skill sets — and we try to appreciate excellence, wherever we may find it.”

Teevens, who joined a fraternity and played both football and hockey, said he knows how valuable it is to embrace all facets of the College.

“They’re football players when they’re [on the field] — they’re intellectuals and academics when they’re anywhere else on campus,” Teevens said. “I’d say this to anybody on campus: Don’t just hover with your one little group. We’ve got such a compilation of fascinating people from around the globe.”

Football team captains have done the work Teevens encourages — and they’ve been pleased with the resulting student support.

“The more you’re able to go support and engage with the other sports teams — but [also] just other folks in general — the more likely they are to be reciprocal of that,” quarterback Nick Howard ’23 said, saying he’s been “pretty happy” with the student

turnout at games.

Contrary to some alumni, current Big Green players believe the team’s community engagement has sustained the team, Howard said.

“Part of our success has been the entire community and the school really buying into what we’re doing on the field,” Howard said. “It makes playing games that much more fun, and I hope we continue to have the kind of support that we have.”

Still, some alumni insist that at a fundamental, cultural level, Big Green football’s value on campus has shifted, Ekern said. Though they admit Teevens is uniquely qualified to help the team connect with the rest of the student body.

“So [players] are actually tremendous in terms of their outreach,” Ekern said. “And that’s encouraged by Buddy, because Buddy knows the difference between what Dartmouth was like in the ’70s and what it’s like now.”

But Teevens, who has been playing or coaching at Dartmouth for 26 of the last 47 seasons, said he doesn’t feel the need to compare the College to its past.

“Some of the alums speak about way back in the day — [but] the world has changed,” Teevens said, noting

that lower fan numbers could simply be a result of fans now streaming the games from home.

Still, that doesn’t mean more support wouldn’t be appreciated, Teevens and his three captains said.

“The more fans there are, the better the environment is to play in, the more confidence that gives us, the harder it makes for the opponent,” Cokes said, adding that it also “just makes for a fun day being out there with your friends in the stands.”

Jack Wisdom ’26, who is roommates with defensive back Jamal Cooper ’26, said he has been to both home games so far and is hoping to travel to at least one away game later on in the season.

“I come from Alabama, so football’s huge where we are,” Wisdom said. “I like to go support people I know on the team, but I also [go] because I love the sport and like watching it.”

For students who aren’t close with football players or are busy with other activities, the games aren’t all that appealing. Evan Lai ’26, who went to every one of his high school’s Friday night games in Dallas, did not attend the Big Green’s game during Family Weekend.

“I feel like [football’s] not really a huge part of [Dartmouth culture],” Lai said. “Coming here, Dartmouth’s

[football culture] has definitely been underwhelming…I think people are just really busy.”

While the College’s football culture may be different than that which Ekern and Lee experienced, Teevens and his captains believe that support from both alumni and students has endured — and that’s all they ask for.

As for students who are unfamiliar with the players, Teevens said he hopes that won’t be the case for long. Regardless of how busy undergraduates get, Teevens said he works to integrate his team with the rest of the student body and make the players approachable.

“We do little initiatives,” Teevens said. “Sit with a stranger, get the guys to introduce themselves to people in their dormitories or their classes.”

At Dartmouth’s Homecoming game against Harvard on Oct. 29, perhaps Memorial Stadium will look more like it did in the ’80s, when Ekern said “all the freshmen and tons of students went to the home games.”

But for a team with a 2-4 record, Teevens said crowd size is not the first thing on his mind.

“There’s a lot of things going on,” Teevens said. “For us, just to come out and play is something we all look forward to — especially at home.”

Climbing gym seeks improvement through revised policies, better student access

generations, Rosenfeld said. The string of new changes, however, have made student directors transition to official record-keeping, he added.

“Historically, being a climbing gym manager, you get passed knowledge from the manager before you,” Rosenfeld said. “What we’re trying to do now is make a ton of documents that detail all the knowledge we have so that the gym stays in good hands in the future.”

Charlie Morris ’25 uses the climbing gym recreationally but does not seek to do intense climbing on campus and beyond. Morris has noticed the impact of the new policies implemented this fall, citing the route system in particular. Route cards are placed at the start of each course, with difficulty grades and comments from other climbers, in an effort to help students of all experience levels.

people into climbing.”

To combat this, members of the climbing team and mountaineering club, the latter of which is a sub-club of the DOC, have put in extra work to try to reach new people, Shin said. Most users of the gym come from these groups.

Olivia Pendas ’25, a gym monitor and climbing team manager, said that the gym’s capacity increase this term has been “huge” for increased training.

“The climbing gym’s reopening has allowed me to return to my normal training routine as well as provided me with a space to meet new climbers and connect to the broader Dartmouth climbing community,” Pendas said.

BY MAIA STEWART The Dartmouth Staff

Since the climbing gym’s reopening in February after a two-year closure, the gym’s student directors — with oversight from the Outdoor Programs Office — have revised policies to get the gym back to its pre-pandemic function, student director Steven Shin ’23 said. After the gym’s ventilation renovations and COVID-19 protocols were put in place last winter, climbing gym staff have created new policies to facilitate better employee and user experience.

Shin and fellow director Max Rosenfeld ’23 said the gym expanded its maximum capacity to 15 people on Oct. 6 after previously having hovered at 8 since the Jan. 24 reopening. He added that the gym has also created

a route rating system and expanded outreach to student clubs and organizations.

Shin notes that the pandemic shutdown of the gym, coupled with its gradual reopening, meant that there simply weren’t many people climbing. The silver lining to this, though, was that the gym had a “hard reboot,” Shin said.

“As managers we’ve taken the opportunity to update some policies that have been coming for a while,” Shin said. “We’ve changed some stuff about setting and the way routes are set to better reflect the people who are climbing in the gym, who are largely beginners, while keeping the resources for more experienced climbers to train.”

Route-setting policies have also been improved so that they have

more structure. Rosenfeld echoed Shin’s appreciation for being able to consult with other climbers on the routes’ difficulty levels.

In addition to changed policies, Rosenfeld and Shin have been taking on “physical projects” — or tasks which require some degree of manual labor — which have facilitated a more comfortable work environment.

“We’ve systematized our tools and maintenance and created storage to improve workflow for the employees,” Shin said. “Also, for the people in the gym, we’ve been setting [climbing routes] a little bit less densely and more monochromatically, which is a little bit more like what you’d see at a commercial gym.”

Climbing gym management has typically been passed down by wordof-mouth, from older to younger

“They changed the labeling and the grading system to make it more of a community-centered environment where you can write a review and grade it yourself as well as other people, so it makes you feel more involved even if you’re doing beginner climbs and can’t compete with the other climbers,” Morris said.

The recent increase in the climbing gym’s capacity has allowed more students to climb and has increased its accessibility, though the current signup system is still proving to be somewhat obstructive to getting people back in the gym. Students must sign up using Trailhead — the College’s online platform used to sign up for Dartmouth Outing Club trips — to reserve a one and a half hour slot. Trailhead’s registration system and the inability of students to schedule walk-in climbs is one of the reasons why climbers have been slow to return to the gym, Shin said.

“People don’t like to have to sign up for things in general,” Shin said.

“Basically it’s made it a lot harder to get people into the gym and get new

In addition to the climbing team and mountaineering club, the climbing gym has been working to connect with People of Color Outdoors — an organization aimed at providing ways for “underrepresented groups” to find their places in the outdoors, according to the DOC website. In its partnership, the gym has hosted POCO climbing sessions. The climbing gym has also partnered with the Viva Hardigg Outdoors Club, which offers outdoor trips to people of marginalized gender identities, Rosenfeld said.

Shin added that “a good number of people who get into climbing come through some sort of DOC-related club…So those continue to be big.”

Katie Gazzini ’25, a gym employee and frequent climber, said the facility has become “a lot more beginner friendly,” since she started climbing there last year after the reopening. Gazzini said that the gym’s introduction of route information cards.

“As someone who was a new climber last year, those would have been really helpful things in my climbing journey,” Gazzini said. “I’m glad that they’re making an effort to do that.”

HANNAH LI/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

KATELYN HADLEY/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

The Nugget Theater: Panning for Gold

BY RYAN YIM The Dartmouth

The Nugget Theater has a humble appearance that blends into Hanover’s quaint Main Street, but the theater has endured its fair share of drama. From being the subject of chaotic student traditions like the Freshman Rush and peanut pelting, to freak accidents like a 1944 explosion, the Nugget is a rich piece of Hanover’s history that hides in plain sight.

According to the Nugget’s website, a petition to establish a theater in Hanover first circulated in 1916. The petition was approved, and soon after, father-son duo F.F. and F.W. Davison began construction on the new venue, opening the original Nugget Theater with a showing of “The Alien” later that year. The success of the theater would eventually lead to it being donated to the town of Hanover in 1922, with all net proceeds going towards the town Treasury. That year, management responsibilities of the Nugget shifted to the newly-formed Hanover Improvement Society, also founded by the Davisons.

Jeff Graham, current general manager of the Hanover Improvement Society, described the present-day Nugget as a “main street mom-andpop movie theater.”

“It’s just a very quaint, cozy [theater]. It’s like an art house,” Graham said. “We show high-end, top-end movies, and people appreciate the fact that we’re here, the way we do things. And we’re not all about glitz and glamor, but it’s just about putting on a good show, a good quality product and a nice, clean environment.”

Russ Brady, senior projectionist and technician at the Nugget, said that the Improvement Society maintains control over the theater’s operations.

“The Hanover Improvement Society owns and operates the Nugget, and they take care of the funding and upgrades,” Brady said. “This is pretty well maintained. We don’t have the newest equipment on the block, but it’s by far better than what some theaters have.”

The same, however, could not be said about the old Nugget.

Peanut-throwing, once a trademark tradition at the Nugget, was supposedly manufactured by the theater’s original manager and piano player “Texas Bill” Cunningham as a way of increasing

theater attendance, according to the theater’s website. It was common practice for students in the back row to pelt students in the front before the movie began. Latecomers, freshmen and students with new haircuts were especially targeted. Some students even opted to throw jelly beans and apples rather than peanuts — according to the Nugget, Charles M. Dudley, Class of 1929, remembers being nearly knocked unconscious by a rogue apple.

According to the Nugget’s website, another unique — and coincidentally also violent — tradition associated with the old Nugget was the “Freshman Rush.” These rushes, perhaps more accurately described as raids, would usually occur towards the beginning of the year when hundreds of freshmen would storm the venue with the Student Assembly guarding the theater entrance. Ticket booths would be smashed, doors torn down, eyes blackened, noses bloodied and teeth chipped. It was only in 1937 that the Dartmouth administration finally “discouraged” the tradition.

The Old Nugget’s roughness,

though part of its initial charm, also earned it a controversial reputation. According to the Nugget, The Dartmouth was an early critic of the theater’s subpar equipment quality and unsafe environment, as well as its occasional selection of vulgar and sexually suggestive films. On the flip side, the Nugget’s role as a source of funding for town improvement projects was undeniable and a token of the Davisons’ charitability. Nevertheless, the Old Nugget’s end came swiftly and suddenly when a fire broke out in the theater on Jan. 28, 1944, resulting in an explosion that decimated the building.

The theater’s destruction, however, would not spell the end of the Nugget itself. During its seven-year hiatus, the New Nugget relocated to Webster Hall — now known as the Rauner Special Collections Library — for movie showings.

The Nugget’s close relationship with the College is one that remains today, Graham said. He added that of Dartmouth’s institutions, the Nugget maintains a particularly positive relationship with the Hopkins Center

for the Performing Arts.

“We get first crack at the new releases, so we actually have a very good relationship with the Hop and their movie people,” Graham said.

“We compete more with people in the entertainment centers in Lebanon than we do with the Hop.”

The second (and current) Nugget Theater opened in 1951 with the showing of “Cyrano de Bergerac.”

It didn’t take long for the theater to regain its momentum — coming off of what is largely considered to be the “Golden Age” of modern cinema, the Nugget peaked with around 216,000 attendees for the year in 1953.

However, the theater also saw its attendance drop to an all-time low in 1960, with only around 121,000 tickets sold that year. Despite this, the theater remained, solidifying itself as a character in the Upper Valley mythos, if not for its age then for its sheer tenacity.

Brady, who has been with the Nugget since 1985, attributed the theater’s 104-year longevity to the Hanover community.

“There are times when there aren’t

students on campus…between terms and over the winter holiday break, so we have to rely on people in this area,” Brady said. “And, luckily, we’ve had good support from the people in this area.”

Perhaps one of the more striking differences between the Old Nugget and today’s is the relative lack of student presence, Sarah Jewett ’23 said. A frequent patron of the Nugget, Jewett said that for most students, going to the movies seems unnecessary in the streaming era.

“It’s so much easier to just sit in your dorm and watch a movie with your friends if you want than go to the Hop, go to the Nugget, which both cost money to go to,” Jewett said. “And also I think a lot of the big box movies that are coming out now aren’t always movies that people want to see.”

Despite an apparent lack of student enthusiasm, Jewett said she encourages people to explore the Nugget. “The Nugget is a local theater and you’re supporting a Hanover small business when you go,” she said. “I would definitely recommend that students go more often.”

The West End: A New Frontier for the College

home” to maintain a sense of identity within the building, they also aimed to “blend the boundaries between them.”

Just next to the ECSC is the 55,000 square foot Irving Institute — Dartmouth’s most energyefficient building — which includes interdisciplinary spaces from research offices to demonstration labs. Patrick O’Hern, the College’s director of project management services, said that Irving addressed a key design need, acting as a nice foil to Baker at the other end of Tuck Mall.

Though the new additions on the West End may not seem to keep with the College’s existing architecture, Ellsworth emphasized that though they lean more contemporary, the buildings are still aligned with certain key elements.

“We were directed to stay within the campus pallette, with white windows and doors, as well as using exposed copper detailing, granite and brick,” Ellsworth said. “Obviously, the expression still ends up contemporary.”

across campus. It’s unlikely if you’re doing studio arts that you would come to that side of campus.”

The mural highlights the aspects that “make [Irving] a living, breathing thing,” Schouten said. She added that part of the mural represents “the air filtration…and radiant panels [that] ensure the temperature balance between rooms.” Other parts of the mural reference the building’s natural lighting and water-based temperature control. Schouten also highlighted the use of hands in the mural, depicting “how the efficiency of the building was shaped by human hands.”

Schouten said the Design Corps mural is representative of a broader trend on the West End — projects and designs that celebrate and facilitate collaboration.

“This big painting with all these primary colors really caught your eye,” said Schouten. “That was the culminating work of a highly collaborative piece with these artists.”

BY MARIUS DEMARTINO

The Dartmouth Staff

The West End of campus transformed last spring with the reveal of the Engineering and Computer Science Center and the Arthur L. Irving Institute for Energy and Society. West End construction represents a different direction for the College’s architectural style — the sweeping glass façades at the end of Tuck Mall stand in stark contrast to the more traditional Baker Tower mirroring it. This is not simply by chance: significant attention was put towards the new STEM hub’s art and architecture.

At 160,000 square feet, the newly constructed ECSC is Dartmouth’s second-largest academic building — playing host to a variety of different groups, including the Thayer School of Engineering, the computer science

department, the Magnuson Center for Entrepreneurship, the DALI Lab and Dartmouth’s electron microscope.

Matt Ellsworth, senior project architect, and Samir Srouji, design principal, are part of HGA Architects, a firm which focuses on science and technology facilities for colleges and was at the helm of the ECSC project. The design choices made for the ECSC were purposeful, intending to reflect a desire for interdisciplinary collaboration, according to Srouji.

“Computer science is becoming more and more integrated into other disciplines,” Srouji said. “Bringing computer science to engineering is something that was new and very exciting on Dartmouth’s campus.”

The ECSC’s multi-tiered, sunlightfilled central atrium reflects this desire for interdisciplinary collaboration and open interaction, he added.

“It’s this big living room of sorts,” Srouji said. “We call it the ‘mixing bowl’ — it facilitates interaction between different inhabitants of a building.”

The ECSC’s design is also intentionally distinguishable to those not as involved in engineering or computer science.

“By making everything visible, you’re also engaging people that come to the building for maybe just one class,” Srouji said. “You’re trying to expose the community to what happens in the building through visibility, by putting things around this ‘living room’ on display.”

Just about every element of the building is meant to foster collaboration, even beyond the atrium — departments blur together, with open meeting spaces available. While Srouji said that his firm tried to let each department “have their

O’Hern added that the buildings show a modern vision for the College while referencing classic details from around campus.

“It’s a nice blend of the old and the new,” O’Hern said.

The collaborative nature of ECSC and Irving is already evident in projects spanning across disciplines and integrating the arts into the West End. Sanne Schouten ’23 is a member of the Dartmouth Design Corps, which connects students with campus projects in engineering and design thinking. One of their latest initiatives was to make the inner workings of the Irving Institute visible through a mural.

“We wanted to find a way to make the efficiency of the building visible to its everyday user,” Schouten said. “We also wanted to showcase students’ works and try to get people from

Looking forward, there might even be more in store for the arts at the West End — following the success of the Irving mural, Schouten also discussed the possibility of future public art installations.

“I think through our other research we had so many insights on how students feel about important issues,” Schouten said. “I would love to see more opportunities for students to showcase their work…that brings students that don’t usually look at art together.”

The collaborative intent of the West End is already in full swing, according to O’Hern. With spaces designed to encourage cross-disciplinary cooperation and potential for further art projects, there is opportunity for the arts over on this corner of campus.

“We’re excited to have that vision and we’re happy that the buildings are a new home to these programs,” O’Hern said.

ZOE OLSON/THE DARTMOUTH

OLIVER DE JONGHE/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

Why is it Harder for Women to Get Into Dartmouth?

The

This Monday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in two cases challenging the legality of race-based affirmative action in college admissions. The Court’s 6-3 conservative majority, clearly willing to overturn longtime precedents, seems likely to side with plaintiffs suing Harvard University and the University of North Carolina — thus finding the practice of affirmative action unconstitutional. The New York Times’ Supreme Court reporter Adam Liptak put it bluntly earlier this month: “The question really is not, ‘Are the universities going to lose?’ They’re very likely to lose. But how badly are they going to lose?”

This time next year, then, Dartmouth will be accepting applications for the Class of 2028 under an entirely new regime of college admissions — one in which any consideration of race will be illegal. Vice provost for enrollment and dean of admissions and financial aid Lee Coffin sat down with me to talk admissions, and he agreed that affirmative action is likely to go — worrying that the Harvard case in particular may lead to an even broader judicial rebuke of “holistic review,” the practice that gives schools wide latitude to shape their classes.

“In that scenario… then we’re back to where colleges were in the early twentieth century, where you take an entrance exam and you get in or you don’t,” he said.

That outcome is unlikely, Coffin and I agreed. But affirmative action is on its way out nonetheless. In response, Dartmouth could seize this moment as an opportunity to rethink how it approaches choosing its students. Instead of trying to socially engineer its perfect student body, the College should mitigate the effects of the Supreme Court’s decision and rededicate itself to admitting students who will benefit most from an elite education.

One illustrative place to start: ending affirmative action for men.

Affirmative action for men (at Dartmouth)

Yes, you read that right. I reviewed Common Data Set submissions for Dartmouth (which contain breakdowns of men and women, but unfortunately not non-binary, applicants). Since 2010, the acceptance rate for men applying to Dartmouth has been higher than for women in all but three years. The year I was admitted, 2018, saw a 9.18% acceptance rate for men and an 8.33% acceptance rate for women. That’s a small absolute margin — but because the admissions rate is so low already, a randomly selected male applicant was 10.3% more likely to get in than a randomly selected female applicant.

Why does this occur? “The goal is keep the class balanced as best you can,” Coffin told me. Dartmouth aims for an even split between men and women, and it succeeds: Since 1997, the percentages of men and women students in each new class have hovered between 52% and 48% — a remarkable consistency. The problem is, Dartmouth gets more women applicants than men most years. To get an even class, then, the acceptance rate for men must be higher than the rate for women.

Notably, from 2013-2015, the acceptance rate was actually higher for women. Those are also the only three years in which more men applied than women. Gender balancing carries the day — and not just at Dartmouth. With some year-to-year variance, Brown University, Columbia University, Yale University and northeastern liberal arts schools like Bowdoin College, Middlebury College, Swarthmore College and Williams College generally get more women applicants and admit a higher percentage of men. Cornell University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania generally get more men applicants and thus make it a bit easier for women.

“Everywhere I’ve worked, that’s been the goal,” Coffin, who worked in admissions at Tufts University and Connecticut College before coming to Dartmouth, said. “... No one’s ever said to me, ‘The class has to be balanced.’ I mean, it’s such a given.”

Well, until next year, racial affirmative action will have been a given, too. And then, it will be dead.

Kill the sacred cow Coffin called challenging the 50/50 split “a provocative question.” Gender balance helps both men and women find communities on campus without feeling like outcasts, he said, and ensures that perspectives from both are heard.

He also argued that the focus on just gender in the acceptance rate figures masks the underlying “subdata points that all bundle up into what we call selectivity.” The College is not only selecting for gender balance — it also looks for geographic diversity, academic interest diversity, socioeconomic factors, legacy students, athletic promise and a few dozen other things, according to Coffin. Each of those intersects with gender: “Are there men of color on your campus, or is all the diversity female?” he asked rhetorically. “What does first-gen representation look like by gender? — and that means female on a lot of campuses, including ours. What’s the athletic dimension of this? As you go across all those groups when you’re in a classroom, what voices are there — from the lived experience

they bring to college?”

I do think that a diversity of perspectives on campus enhances students’ education. But gender balancing in particular is remarkably distortive because girls so dramatically outperform boys in primary and secondary school. Girls’ average high school grade is an “A,” while boys average a “B,” according to a 2013 National Bureau of Economic Research study. Girls both spend more time studying and misbehave less as early as elementary school. Boys are more likely to drop out before graduating high school in general and were especially likely to drop out during the COVID-19 pandemic. These disparities are important and deserve their own look — but regardless, they indicate that right now, more women are prepared for college than men.

That difference in preparation shows: Nationwide, roughly 60% of college students are women — an all-time high. Yet many elite schools still somehow receive more applications from men, and those that do not — like Dartmouth — continue to aim for that 50/50 gender divide. In other words, with this wave of collegiate women, there should be more women at Dartmouth, and at other elite schools, than there are. This speaks to a broader issue: Top colleges may still be subconsciously seen, by applicants or by admissions committees, as places that are better suited for men. “For whatever reason, over the generations, some places develop vibes that are hard to disrupt,” Coffin said, chalking the disparities up to differing campus cultures, curricula and locations.

I would put it differently: As applied at Dartmouth, gender balancing constitutes structural sexism, one more hurdle women must overcome. Coffin confirmed that the applicant pools for men and women at Dartmouth do not differ substantially in academic qualification. If that is the case, why not at least allow for an approximately 53% women class — in line with the applicant pool for 2021? Stubbornly aiming for 50/50 as more and more women seek college degrees will become, over time, increasingly untenable for the College. Shifting away from this would be a move toward equality.

Target resources toward applicants with the most to gain

Why am I focusing on gender balancing?

It is a relatively small element overall in the admissions process, but it is illustrative of the College’s distortive desire to “shape” its class. Many of the subcategories of “selectivity” skew campuses even more dramatically. Legacy and athletic preferences result in far wealthier campuses, for example. They should be tossed, as I’ve written before. There is a better way of thinking about admissions: Overall, instead of trying to cultivate a perfectly chosen class — and instead of relying solely on academic qualifications, which disproportionately benefits students from highincome backgrounds — Dartmouth should target acceptance letters toward applicants whom its educational facilities and resources would benefit the most.

Selective colleges like Dartmouth are engines of socioeconomic mobility, helping graduates raise their lifetime earnings. But they do so unevenly: “students from disadvantaged family backgrounds (in terms of educational attainment) experience a higher return to attending a selective college than those from more advantaged family backgrounds,” according to a National Bureau of Economic Research report. Higher indeed: For the students from “advantaged family backgrounds,” the benefit was zero.

This suggests an alternative model that Dartmouth should embrace. It should put its $8.1 billion endowment to work educating primarily students from low-income and lowereducation families. Put bluntly, this country only has so many spots at elite colleges and universities. Those schools should ensure that their scarce and extremely valuable resources are employed to the maximum societal benefit. The students starting with less should get the boost that comes with a top education.

The ideal post-affirmative action admissions system thus incorporates strong economic mobility targeting alongside academic merit and a couple of other common-sense factors, like ensuring a reasonable balance of academic interests. This overhaul would, of course, result in a dramatically different-looking Dartmouth. Getting rid of legacy and athletic admissions would likely mean more access for students who do not come from advantaged backgrounds. Getting rid of gender balancing would mean, in all likelihood, a women-heavy campus — at least until the imbalances of grade school education are addressed. So be it: Both of these outcomes are opportunities, not problems. This school has long been the redoubt of (historically male) elites — in 2014, the College admitted more students from the top 1% of the income bracket than the bottom 60% combined, and it was only 50 years ago that Dartmouth began letting women in despite strong opposition. Rather than perpetuate longtime injustices, it is high time that Dartmouth becomes the engine of economic success it has the potential to be.

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.

Invest in Students. Drop the Medians

By

I once read a post on social media from a Dartmouth student, which of course I can no longer find, about ECON 20, “Econometrics” — an economics major requirement which is notorious among students for its difficulty and, of course, its department-required B+ median. It went something like this: “No matter what you do, lo and behold the inevitable B+ arrives on your transcript. There is no escaping it.” The author phrased it better than that, but you get the point. No matter how hard you work, you end up stuck with the all-powerful median. What’s the point of trying for an A then?

I understand why professors may want an enforced median. They may feel that it makes their class look more reputable when outsiders see it on transcripts. Plus, they are validated by a perception of difficulty for their course. It certainly helps when the department is the one setting the median, rather than the professors themselves — as they can then deflect blame to a mysterious higher power when students are unhappy. In theory, it also helps those students who score above the course median, giving outsiders a sense of how the student performed compared to their peers. This theoretically encourages students to learn more to outperform others. Yet this is a very shortsighted and flawed analysis of the policy.

If Dartmouth were a large university with students of a wide variety of academic aptitudes, I would be less inclined to criticize medians. In that case, medians would simply reflect the student body. But that is not the case. We have a microscopic 6.2% acceptance rate as of the Class of 2026. The student body reflects a tiny sliver of the very top students in the world, and by forcing us to fight against one another, the College inevitably ends up splitting hairs in judging the winners. Comparing apples to oranges is one thing, but our medians attempt to compare state fair blue-ribbon-winning apples to one another.

Many may worry about grade inflation. Without medians, they claim, grades will be meaningless, since surely most students will get all As! My response is — of course they will! Again, Ivy League students are the cream of the crop. Of course they will do exceptionally well. That is a correct reflection of their abilities. Those still unconvinced might reply that in the past, student grades were typically lower than they are now. That is indeed true, but back then acceptance rates were far higher for both Dartmouth and its peer institutions. In 1996, for example, Dartmouth admitted a whopping 20% of applicants. As the College’s selectivity has risen, so too should overall grades. Better students mean better grades. Grade inflation, therefore, is possibly a fake phenomenon. I’m not foolish enough to pretend grading standards haven’t changed at all over the years — but I would argue that, if anything, they have gotten harder as education seems to focus more on critical thinking and problem solving skills and less on rote memorization of facts that can now be easily Googled.

How do medians harm the College? The College benefits when its students succeed. There’s

a reason Dartmouth’s PR department loves to broadcast when students have big achievements. They make Dartmouth look good, too! Successful, happy students go on to win prestigious awards, gain admittance to excellent graduate schools, land impressive jobs and donate money back to the College. By artificially depreciating the effort students put into their education, the College is really only shooting itself in the foot. It gains nothing in the never-ending rankings game with other colleges.

Dartmouth without medians is still in the Ivy League, with a miniscule acceptance rate, high-flying faculty and a thriving research climate with robust opportunities for students. Dartmouth wins when it accurately tells the world how smart its students are — not when it short-changes them. Self-sabotage is an embarassing choice for a school as storied as Dartmouth.

How do medians harm students? I won’t delve too deeply into it, since Matthew Capone ’24 already wrote about that in his column last May. But I will say that medians pit students against one another and make those who score below them, especially when they nonetheless worked very hard, feel quite inadequate. With the consistently abysmal track record this institution has on the mental health front, it needs everything it can get to right the ship. No professor’s “academic freedom” to make their class extra difficult is worth the cost students must pay.

What should the solution be? Medians should be replaced with minimum medians, in which the course median cannot fall below a certain grade. In this case, they protect students from poorly taught or otherwise capricious grading without imposing unnecessary hardship. Many STEM classes actually need minimums to keep students’ grades reasonable, and so they can’t be entirely thrown out. Professors should be encouraged to grade students based on their individual achievement without regard to how their classmates perform. I’ve heard several of my professors complain that medians force them to give students grades lower than they would have otherwise received. If most students do exceedingly well — as they likely will, given the caliber of students here — professors should feel proud to award them all high grades. That’s not bad!

At the same time, medians shouldn’t be reflected on transcripts so that no professor feels pressured to make their class look more legitimate. If they are doing their jobs well — and from my time here I can say most are — their classes will be rigorous, and they shouldn’t have any reason to doubt that. Students benefit from median-less transcripts, too. Those who work hard but nonetheless get a grade lower than half their classmates won’t face unfair judgment. If a B or B- isn’t a bad grade — as I remember my undergraduate dean telling us during first-year orientation —then it shouldn’t look like one on our transcripts. I can personally say that the class I learned the most from here at Dartmouth had an A median. I was free to learn to my heart’s content without fear of an unfair outcome — and I did. Enforced medians are a relic of faulty logic, bad tempers and ill will. It’s time for them to go.

STAFF COLUMNIST JEREMY GART ’25

Let’s Grab A Meal Sometime

Fraternity rush might be a better system than its sorority counterpart, but it’s still flawed — and deserves scrutiny.

The very first thing I did for fraternity rush was in mid-April. The weather was turning, and our class was thrilled to finally be welcomed into the houses on Webster Avenue instead of getting tossed out of them. As an eager first-year thrilled to get involved, I began attending every rush event I could — and honestly, I had a fantastic time.

As the months went by, I had meals with brothers from several different fraternities, and I slowly began to narrow down the list of houses I was excited about until I finally had it down to two. After putting things on pause for summer break, I returned in the fall, excited to continue the process. As the first few weeks of fall term flew by, I began to really get to know the brothers in both fraternities I was considering. More than just tools to get what I wanted, these people became genuine friends of mine — with one catch. Inevitably, I was going to have to choose one space over the other.

When it came down to shakeout, I was confronted with one of the most difficult decisions I’d ever had to make. And to be honest, it was no surprise why — I had just spent months of my time befriending, hanging out alongside and bonding with the members of these houses. But suddenly, I didn’t feel excited to join Greek life. I almost dreaded it. No matter where I chose, I was going to feel terrible about my decision.

Yes, sorority rush is a significantly more flawed process than fraternity rush, but there’s a fundamental problem at the heart of men’s rush that still makes it an incredibly emotionally-taxing process: We almost get to know the brothers a little too well. When cut from a fraternity, it doesn’t feel like a logical, impersonal decision; it feels like the friends we’ve made over the past few months are dumping us at the curb. In fact, sorority rush is intentionally impersonal — conversations with potential new members are limited to mere minutes, making the final decisions much less painful. For fraternities, on the other hand, it is personal — and everyone knows it. Yes, the emotional onslaught experienced by men is significantly more subtle than their sorority-rushing counterparts, but it’s sure as hell still there.

However, it’s also true that the informal, casual nature of fraternity rush is one of the best things about it. We get to know brothers on a genuine and personal level, aiding greatly in the clarity necessary to eventually choose a fraternity. I am in no way suggesting that fraternity rush should

attempt to emulate sorority rush (hell no). Instead, I propose an easy concept that would lighten the load on everyone involved: transparency.

If individual fraternities, and the entire Greek system at large, were to remove the shroud of mystery from the rush process, the experience of each potential new member would improve massively. Instead of desperately trying to glean information — such as when cuts will be made or where we stand on the roster — from the brothers we know best, receiving some sort of standardized update on our status (in other words, how likely we are to receive a bid) would lighten the emotional load placed on our shoulders.

As it stands now, discerning one’s footing in the list of potential new fraternity members is an incredibly touch-and-go, awkward process. Sure, brothers might be transparent with some kids, but the vast majority are sucked through weeks and weeks of crushing uncertainty, ending all too often in extreme disappointment. Yes, I understand that a fraternity’s obscurity is supposed to somehow add to the appeal of rushing there, but frankly, I call bullshit. Let kids know how they’re doing, and they’ll be grateful for the information — not somehow disappointed at the opportunity for surprise.

I’ll leave it at this: My colleague’s recent article shone a fantastic spotlight on the sorority rush process and its deeply flawed system. Put simply, the fraternity rush process isn’t as bad. To me, it seems that men on campus are generally more satisfied with where they end up, and the system itself is a lot more enjoyable for the potential new members. But at the same time, the problems of fraternity rush fly under the radar far too often — and they deserve to be discussed just as openly.

In fact, in a world (and school) lagging behind in mental health awareness, men’s mental health is often cast by the wayside. Being emotionally vulnerable is difficult no matter the case, but men usually have a significantly harder time opening up to their friends and family. In the context of a process as socially taxing as rush, this split in mental health is exacerbated further. I watched first-hand as my female friends collectively voiced their frustrations about the sorority rush process, while my close male friends attempted to convey a cool, even-keeled perspective in spite of similarly frustrating experiences.

But hey, at the very least, I got a few good games of pong out of it all.

When Life Gives You… Apples?

By Gretchen BaumanSTORY

As I write this article, nearly five weeks of the term have somehow already passed, and the sophomore fall that I envisioned has not materialized. This summer, some friends back home asked how I was feeling about returning to Dartmouth for my sophomore year. My stock answer was that I was looking forward to a fall in which I felt settled on campus, as opposed to the tumultuous 10 weeks that had characterized the beginning of my freshman year. Yet, much of this fall has been filled with more chaos than I could have predicted. Exactly one week ago, I withdrew from sorority rush. Many of the goals I originally set for this term now seem impossibly out of reach — and as a result, I’m currently experiencing a minor sophomore slump.

To snap out of the slump, I thought back to the fall bucket list that my friends and I had made before the start of classes this year. During my freshman fall, apple picking was one of the autumn traditions I most wanted to complete, but since I knew very few people with a car, I failed to accomplish it. Coming into sophomore fall, I promised myself this would be the year that I made it to the apple orchards, and I put the activity near the top of my bucket list. I knew that apple picking would allow me to achieve at least one of the goals I had set for fall term, so I convinced several of my friends to go with me to Riverview Farm in Plainfield, New Hampshire.

Riverview’s distance from campus approximately 12 miles brought

with it a palpable sense of relief. During rush, sororities became the only topic of conversation. It made me feel as though the Dartmouth bubble was encroaching on me, growing almost suffocatingly small. Escaping to the farm allowed me to both physically and emotionally distance myself from the toll that the preceding weeks of the term had taken on me. Though I said my goal was to “go apple picking,” it didn’t really matter how many apples I picked. My real aim was to get off campus for the morning and spend time outdoors. I wanted to take part in a fall tradition that would help me appreciate the positive aspects of the season, rather than focusing on the parts of my fall that had been less than ideal.

When we arrived at Riverview,

the farm was exactly as I had imagined: a picturesque, storybook orchard bustling with families and Upper Valley residents. It’s often said that fall is the season that evokes nostalgia, and Riverview provided many opportunities for me to reminisce.

Our first stop was the corn maze. Coming from Indiana, spending time meandering through a corn maze with my friends invoked memories of my many falls in high school, though the corn maze at Riverview was unsurprisingly much smaller than the ones back home.

Later, as we wandered through the rows of apple trees, another wave of nostalgia hit me. Though I don’t remember ever picking apples before, I have vivid childhood memories of driving up north with my mom, grandmother and brother to pick blueberries each summer. As I climbed trees to snag apples and snuck bites of the largest ones, I reflected on summer mornings spent snacking on blueberries, picking so many that my hands nearly turned blue. And when I saw little kids in red wagons pulled by their parents clutching pumpkins, I thought back to childhood visits to pumpkin patches with my brother. These memories flooding back into my head made me all the more excited to spend time at the farm, reliving the joy-filled autumns of the past.

Though we spent at most two hours at Riverview, by the time we arrived back in Hanover my sophomore slump was dispelled. In my lowest moments this term, I’ve spent time thinking about all of the negative aspects of Dartmouth but while apple picking, my thoughts centered around why I was grateful to attend this college.

Throughout rush, I was often asked why I chose Dartmouth,

Are Relationships Fall-ing Apart?

By Stephanie SowaSTORY

Hanover is a magical place in the fall, with burning red and crisp orange leaves gracing our campus.

Pumpkin spice, rustic farms, a warm drink in hand: the perfect autumn combination. Despite this idyllic vision, though, Dartmouth fall isn’t always everything it seems to be. Just as the fall leaves are crushed underfoot, so are the hearts of some Dartmouth students grappling with the impacts of the D-Plan.

Flexibility with the academic calendar is often considered a positive aspect of the Dartmouth experience. Taking winter off? An absolute dream for most California students like myself. Securing that elusive

internship? It’s easier when you can do it in the fall. Having the D-Plan play an influential role in our institution also allows for an epic sophomore summer, when we all remain on campus for a couple sunshine-soaked months — the perfect time to fall head-over-heels in love floating on the Connecticut river or making prolonged eye contact during Masters.

The Class of 2024, who are now juniors, has recently come down from that summer high: Students from all years have returned to campus and the juniors no longer dominate the social scene. Many are studying abroad this fall or taking the term off, and as they embark on adventures across the globe, it is difficult to remain the close unit that was cherished during sophomore summer. Alexandra Salyer ’24, currently studying abroad in London, reflected upon the challenges of the D-Plan for keeping up friendships and relationships.

“I think it’s hard to truly realize how annoying the D-Plan can be when you first apply to Dartmouth, and it’s not until you aren’t seeing friends for over a year or having to do three terms long distance with your boyfriend that it really hits,” Salyer said.

Some may perceive the D-Plan positively in an academic sense, but it can wreak havoc for students’ social lives. Alexa Lomonaco ’24 expressed frustration with the D-Plan in regards to straining friendships, as it can create prolonged periods of separation between peers.

“There are people who I said goodbye to at the end of sophomore winter, and I’m not going to see them again until senior fall,” Lomonaco said. “I definitely feel like it makes it hard to have anything more than acquaintances outside of your close friend group because everyone is off at different times.”

Romantic relationships also characterize social dynamics on college campuses, especially in tightknit communities like ours. Perhaps it’s not even fair to use the term “romantic relationships,” as many individuals find it difficult to date someone seriously with the pace of the quarter system and the influence of the D-Plan.

“I think it promotes a hook-up culture a bit more just because you have to be together for less than 10 weeks and then you might be doing long distance, and that’s very hard at the start of a relationship when you don’t necessarily have that foundation,” Lomonaco said. Hook-up culture is often prevalent on college campuses, as students are constantly meeting and socializing with new people. Who has time to be in a serious relationship with two midterms and a paper that seems to repeat every other week? The D-Plan certainly doesn’t help — if you do indeed miraculously locate a significant other with potential, the quick quarter turnarounds make it difficult to solidify anything of substance and often lead to heartbreak.

“I know lots of people who start something one term but break it off the next due to differences in the D-Plan,” Salyer said. But enough with the pessimism: Let’s instill some hope in Dartmouth love. RC ’24, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about their experiences, said that they successfully maintained their

relationship with their long-term partner despite being in different places this term. Their love story began freshman spring and became official the summer following their first year.

“We were both on [campus] our entire relationship so far, so that’s been really nice,” RC said. “In fact, during all of sophomore year, the housing was in our favor in the sense that we got assigned dorms right on top of each other: I lived in Smith 103 and he lived in Smith 003.”

With the housing gods in their favor, RC and their partner’s magical love flourished despite anxieties regarding relationship longevity and hookup culture that make dating difficult at Dartmouth. The D-Plan, however, has attempted to dim their sparkle as their academic schedules will not align for this school year. “[My partner is] off in the fall, on in the winter, on in the spring, and I’m on for the fall, off in the winter, abroad in the spring, and then also off in the summer,” RC said. After living together for so long, being physically separated and facing the obstacles of misaligned schedules is difficult. Geographic

and my answer ranged from the high-quality academics to the uniqueness of Hanover as a college town. Yet the part of my answer that never changed was my love for Dartmouth’s focus on the outdoors. For me, Dartmouth at its best has been about making memories in both the physical and metaphorical woods with the people who have become my dearest friends, whether that means paddleboarding with a friend down the Connecticut River during peak foliage, crawling out of bed at 5:45 a.m. during midterm season to bask in the sunrise on the Gile fire tower or going to pick apples on a clear October morning.

Each of these activities have made me reflect on how lucky I am to get to spend four years in a place not only surrounded by, but emphasizing relationships with, nature. Though apple picking is far from the most rugged or outdoorsy activity, the act of getting outside and experiencing a new part of Upper Valley nature restored my appreciation for Dartmouth.

Clearly, I didn’t actually go apple picking for the apples, but my friends and I ultimately ended up using the apples we had picked in a half-hearted attempt to make apple crisp. Due to our lack of cooking supplies, it didn’t turn out exactly the way we had hoped an appropriate metaphor for the way this term has gone so far. 22F hasn’t been a term where I have felt settled or accomplished lofty goals, the way I might have hoped. But when life gives you lemons or in my case, apples — make apple crisp; pick yourself up and focus on the memories made in the woods. Despite all the challenges this school has thrown at me, these are the moments that make Dartmouth worth attending.

differences pose logistical challenges, too, especially when the distances are accompanied by major time differences.

“It’s been hard because he would go to bed when it was 7 p.m. and then he’d be up at 3 a.m. my time and I’d just wake up to a stream of texts,” RC said.

Based on RC’s experience, coordinated efforts to communicate and plan future visits make longdistance manageable and allow couples to continue despite their challenges. RC said that his partner is visiting Hanover soon to soak up the autumn vibes that grace campus this time of year.

“He is coming during Homecoming… which I’m really excited about,” RC said. “It’ll be nice to see him for the first time in a minute.”

Maintaining relationships under the D-Plan is difficult but it’s not impossible. As the bonfire burns on the green, so too will the hearts of Dartmouth couples reunited during Homecoming weekend. I’m sending love to all the relationships, broken or not, struggling to keep their spark alive; they warm my heart.

ANGELINA SCARLOTTA/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

LAUREN LIM/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

We Reap What We Sow: When ‘Sorry’ Isn’t Enough

By Selin HosSTORY

“Sorry” just doesn’t cut it when it feels like your entire world is crumbling, but sometimes sorry is all that Dartmouth seems to give us. Sorry that you guys are struggling. Sorry that we don’t know how to support you. Sorry that another one of your classmates has died. Sorry that we won’t give you the time and flexibility to grieve when you need it the most.

“Sorry” is just not enough. A mere apology just isn’t enough when it comes to supporting students in the way they need to be supported. I mean it with love when I say that Dartmouth is more than just a place to spend four years and get a degree. Dartmouth is a home, and I love it here, but part of loving Dartmouth is recognizing that things here are not perfect. Perhaps the greatest love is in realizing that they likely will never be. But there are steps that can be taken in the right direction — steps to prevent what happened to me a few weeks ago.

I started off Wednesday, Sept. 28 like I started off any other day: by dragging myself out of bed to get ready. Even the process of getting ready holds its own assumptions — that there are things to get ready for, classes to sit though and people to see. I thought I knew, more or less, what to expect: two classes, one math and one English. I knew I had lunch plans with my friends and that I would spend my night running from sorority to sorority as part of recruitment, having semi-awkward, speed-date-esque conversations with upperclassmen sisters, hoping that they were somehow impressed.

What I didn’t know was that a Category Four hurricane was going to hit my hometown, leaving massive amounts of death, flooding and destruction in its wake. This was something that I was going to learn later.

I had been mildly aware that Hurricane Ian was forming in the Gulf of Mexico, but things like that formed all the time — growing up in southwest Florida had left me rather desensitized to these alerts. And so time passed, and Ian grew, and I went about the busy routine that I was

so comfortable with at Dartmouth.

Then I got a text that Wednesday morning, the first of many to come, from a friend at Dartmouth:

“Thinking of ur family - hope everything’s okay down in fl”

Still disoriented from having just woken up, I tapped on The New York Times app, wondering what could possibly be happening back home as the screen seemed to just load and load and load.

It finally loaded, the homepage alight in typical breaking news fashion, reading: “HURRICANE IAN TO HIT SOUTHWEST FLORIDA.”

Talk about surreal. It took a while to comprehend it — to look at the words and truly understand that what they meant was home. My home. The cone of the hurricane had shifted practically overnight, aiming directly for my area; needless to say, I was stressed. What would happen to those who I loved — my family, our friends? What would become of my old high school — of the bridges and roads I drove over every day to get there? Southwest Florida held the parts of my life that Hanover had never seen, and likely never would.

My family had gotten the notice to evacuate at 5 a.m. the morning before, and they decided to leave just in case the path of the hurricane shifted. Though I knew they were physically safe, I was wracked with anxiety for my hometown and those who stayed behind. It felt like I was no longer in Hanover — or rather that I shouldn’t be — and though I was physically thousands of miles away, my mind and my heart were back home.

Needless to say, I wasn’t in any state to do much else but worry. After all, there isn’t much to do for natural disasters except wait. And what a wait it was. I spent much of that day trying to hold it together — trying to go through the motions of my day as though it were any other. But there is only so much one can do, and merely sitting in my calculus class meant nothing if my mind wasn’t there.

This is where the problem lies. I had a calculus midterm in a few days,

so the expectation was that I pull myself together and power through it, doing all that I could to succeed given the circumstances. It was an expectation that I found I couldn’t live up to. I couldn’t concentrate on calculus as I sat there waiting for what felt like inevitable destruction. Eventually the hurricane hit, but I found that the following days were not much better. The area lost all power and service, and I couldn’t get ahold of so many people back home.

I decided that I wasn’t in the right state of mind to do much of anything, let alone take a calculus midterm. I emailed my professors explaining the situation, and most of them were accommodating beyond belief, telling me to take as much time as I needed and making sure I was okay. In fact, the people at Dartmouth are what made the situation bearable; my friends and some of my professors spent that week going out of their way to check up on me, often bringing me gifts and sending messages of love. I was grateful for their warmth.

I ended up asking my calculus professor for a 48-hour extension on my midterm. “It’s what I need

to be successful,” I said. Because, despite it all, I still wanted to do well. I never ended up getting the extension and was told that the only excusable reasons for one would be “sickness, a conflict with an official schedule and attending the funeral of a family member.” As though I could have predicted the destruction of my hometown. As though I hadn’t spent hours praying that I wouldn’t have to attend the funeral of a loved one.

There was nothing else I could do. Every dean I emailed told me that it was beyond their control — that they couldn’t require that I receive an extension — no matter the circumstances. They signed off their emails “Sorry,” as though that could ease some of the helplessness.

I ended up doing all that I could and took the midterm, performing just as poorly as I thought I would. But this isn’t about the grade I got or my GPA or anything of the sort. It’s about a time in which my world was turned upside down and the supposed “support systems” that failed to help me when I needed them most. I’m grateful that things worked out the way that they did — that my family and friends back

home are alive and healthy. I am also grateful that I was not struggling with mental health issues and that I have a network of friends who care about me and support me in any way that they can. For them I am eternally grateful.

But I spent a lot of time that week thinking about what would have happened if I didn’t have such people to rely on. What would have happened if my life had spiraled out of my control? Could I have made it?

The thing is that the world is chaotic, and our lives are even more so. People are struggling with things, both physically and mentally, and there is no reason to make anyone’s life any more difficult than it already is. In the end, all we do is reap what we sow, so why not sow a culture of understanding and kindness? Empathize more with your students, Dartmouth — stop plucking the flowers as they are trying to grow. The reality is that we are young and far from home, trying each day to make sense of a seemingly irrational world. It’s complicated, and most of all, we are complicated — the kind of complicated that “sorry” just won’t cut.

When The Student Becomes the Teacher

By Tess BowlerSTORY

We’ve all had that thought. For me, it usually happens when I’m walking to class and I see too many people I know. Light smiles and waves are dealt out to about five friends of a friend, the girl I sit next to in class, some of my fellow Mirror writers (hey, guys) and probably two to three of my floormates from last year — the usual suspects. When I pass by all these people, one thought runs through my mind — where are they all going to be in twenty years? For Homecoming, a time when alumni make their way back to Hanover, I wanted to celebrate by talking to the people who couldn’t resist Dartmouth, even after graduation: those who came back to the Big Green as professors and lecturers.

Within the woods of the Big Green, each had a very different, yet nonetheless transformative, experience.

“[My time at Dartmouth] definitely changed me as a person,” public policy professor Charles Wheelan ’88 said. “I came here as someone who had rebelled against the conformity of the suburbs of where I grew up, and this was where I found my intellectual legs.”

Although Wheelan is now a renowned author, senior lecturer and policy fellow at Dartmouth, he said that he wasn’t the most diligent student during his time in college. He even described himself as “as lazy as he could get away with.”

Wheelan also talked at length about his time spent abroad, which he felt was one of the most important facets of his Dartmouth career.

“I blossomed here,” he said. “I came here in part because I wanted to do a lot of foreign study programs, and I did just that. I went to France, I worked in England and I worked in Kuwait. So [Dartmouth] did what I hoped it would do, and then it did a lot more.”

On the more academic side of Dartmouth, religion professor Susan Ackerman ’80 said she felt that the classes here shaped her into the professor she would later become — without her even knowing it.

“I was a total nerd,” she said. “I spent a lot of time in the library, and I worked really hard in my classes. I was very academically motivated and driven. When I went to Dartmouth, there was not an overwhelming amount of extracurriculars, so I threw myself into my studies.”

Ackerman, who enrolled just four years after the first class of women matriculated through the College, added that the Dartmouth she attended looked very different from the one she teaches at today.

“There were 250 women per class and 750 men,” she explained. “This created a social environment that was dramatically skewed in terms of gender balance.”

Ackerman even shared that during Homecoming week and Winter Carnival, women from other New England colleges used to be bussed up to Dartmouth to balance this disparity. Thank God the Dartmouth we know now is nearly a 50/50 gender split.

And who could forget about the student-athletes? Although he spent time buzzing in and out of the Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and between various humanities classes, engineering lecturer Lee Cooper ’09 attributed many of his present-day capabilities to his experiences on the rugby pitch.

“That’s where I learned a lot of real world skills I use today: being a part of a team, learning leadership and building a culture,” he said. “I’m also still very close with many of my teammates and my former coach.”

In college, Cooper studied religion and public policy, but he now lectures at the Thayer School of Engineering,

a building he said he “maybe set foot in two or three times” during his undergraduate years. Cooper credits this academic leap to Dartmouth’s liberal arts curriculum.

“[Religion] was interdisciplinary in and of itself, which is what drew me to it,” he said. “That’s what drew me to all my studies at Dartmouth, actually, and it’s what I try to focus on now as a teacher…For a long time, that’s been Dartmouth’s strength and I hope it continues to be.”

Ackerman also attributed

“These classes should inspire you to learn for the sake of learning outside of your bubble, because you never know which classes are going to be the ones you look back to,” Cooper said.

Wheelan added that Dartmouth acts as a unique place of knowledge gathering that doesn’t exist elsewhere.

“Once you get out in the world, you just don’t have these opportunities to mingle with all the different kinds of students, all the different faculties across so many departments,” he said.

So, carpe diem, Dartmouth. No one knows where we’ll be in twenty years. All that’s certain is now, so take advantage of it. Go to France or England or Kuwait, and then maybe come back to Hanover. Study what you want, and then study some more. Spend less time thinking about others, and more time thinking about what you want to do with the time you have left here. Oh, and also, be kind to each other — you never know who might end up teaching your kids if they follow in your footsteps.

ARIANNA STAMATOYANNOPOULOS/THE DARTMOUTH