DAASC hosts vigil to grieve victims of Lunar New Year mass shootings

Since UWill’s counseling services were first offered to Dartmouth students free of charge in Nov. 2022, 800 students have registered for counseling and have attended 1,981 cumulative sessions, according to associate Counseling Center director Alex Lenzen.

UWill provides unlimited, 24/7, year-round counseling services to all Dartmouth students wherever they are currently residing, according to Lenzen. Students can connect with counselors on UWill’s online platform and communicate with them via video, chat or messaging and have access to crisis support. According to Lenzen, the average satisfaction rating following sessions from students is currently 9.2 out of ten.

“We’re hearing positive feedback about [UWill] filling a need in our campus — not that it’s for everybody, not that this is where we’re pushing all students to go for their therapy needs, but that it really does fit for a lot of students and what they’re looking for,” Lenzen said.

Shania Smith ’23 said that she attended UWill counseling sessions during winter break after registering in the fall term.

“The thing that really sold me … was it was so easy to sign up. I could literally be on the phone with the person and just chat,” Smith said. “I like the idea too that you’re not necessarily married to one therapist for the entirety of the time you’re using their services.” any more sessions since winter term began. Regardless, she reported a “positive” overall experience.

Students can register for UWill online, where they provide personal information and note what they are looking for in a counselor, including specialization, timeframe and identity-based preferences like race and gender, according to Lenzen.

Dartmouth Student Government vice president and mental health committee chair Jessica Chiriboga ’24 said that she has been involved in bringing the service to campus since DSG began researching teletherapy options and submitted a proposal to the College in the fall of 2021. The proposal sparked a collaboration between student government, the counseling center and the Dartmouth Mental Health Student Union.

Lenzen said that UWill’s unlimited counseling means that students can receive long-term counseling without using their insurance or other financial resources to fund counseling with local providers. Other programs the College considered before choosing UWill would place caps on the number of sessions a patient could schedule, she added.

“[UWill] was driven by a student interest in a more affordable option for ongoing therapy, because the Counseling Center offers free therapy on a short term basis, and we do our best to accommodate as many students as we can, but there’s still a need for additional mental health services,” Lenzen said.

The contract the College signed with UWill will last two years before it is up for renewal, according to Lenzen. Though she declined to provide the total cost, Chiriboga wrote in a follow up email that UWill was “funded by a very generous donor.”

“This is really a chance for us to get some of that feedback from students to see if it is meeting the needs like we hope it will, and make sure those student ratings are high and make sure it’s being utilized by students in a way that feels like it’s supporting their mental health and treatment goals,” Chiriboga said.

Given the current level of interest in UWill, Chiriboga says DSG’s Mental Health Committee aims to support renewing the contract after two years.

Considering ways to improve UWill’s implementation on campus, Chiriboga and Lenzen both noted efforts to ensure students know that UWill is available, such as campus posters. Additionally, there is student demand for private locations on campus to take counseling sessions, according to Chiriboga.

“We’re actively working as the mental health committee to identify places in the library and other places around campus that students might be able to reserve spaces to take these appointments,” Chiriboga said.

BY TAYLOR HABER The Dartmouth Staff

This article was originally published on Feb. 2, 2023.

The Dartmouth Asian American Studies Collective hosted a Lunar New Year Vigil at Collis Patio on Monday “to collectively grieve and honor” the victims of the Monterey Park, Half Moon Bay and Oakland shootings that occurred in January, according to a Jan. 28 email from the organization.

The vigil, structured in three parts, featured nearly a dozen speakers — including Dartmouth students, faculty members and a student representative from Hanover High School. DAASC members and vigil co-organizers Jessi Yu ’25 and Lance Sunga ’26 read the names of 18 recent mass shooting victims aloud, along with remembrances released by the victims’ families.

The outdoor portion of the vigil continued with a candle-lighting ceremony and a series of call-andresponse afrmations, and concluded with an indoor “healing circle” in Collis. Approximately 80 to 100 people attended the event, according to DAASC member Daniel Lin ’23.

“It is political that [DAASC] had to do this last year, and the year before that — every year since the beginning of COVID — and before,” DAASC member and vigil co-organizer AnhTon Nguyen ’26 said. “It is political that an organization like DAASC has to organize this, and not the school administration.”

Lin said that DAASC, founded in the summer of 2021, advocates for the creation of Asian American studies at the College. Currently, students are able to major or minor in Asian Societies, Cultures, and Languages, but Dartmouth does not have an independent Asian American studies department. Several DAASC-afliated speakers at the vigil advocated for a greater focus on Asian American studies on campus in their speeches.

“We believe that it matters, not only because it legitimizes the feld, which is important, but also it sets an example for other institutions to also incorporate Asian American studies into their curriculums — because historically, Asian Americans have been marginalized,” Lin said in an interview after the vigil.

DAASC member and vigil coorganizer Rachel Kahng ’25, who spoke at the event, said in her speech that the organization’s mission extends beyond educational reform and having Asian American studies classes at the College.

“By demanding for Asian American studies, what we’re really demanding is that the individuals of this institution face its role in the deep-rooted exclusion of Asian people in this country,” Kahng said. “We demand that this institution acknowledges histories … and the hostile environments and violence we

“I was blown away by the number of signups that we got within the first two weeks,” Chiriboga said. “It was really a sign to me that students had always been asking for this resource, and [I saw] that need validated in the number of signups.”

According to Chiriboga, part of the appeal of UWill was its allday availability that could cater to students’ busy schedules — which Student Government and the Dartmouth MHU took into consideration when looking into teletherapy options.

Even so, Smith said she struggles to find the time to attend counseling sessions. Smith explained that she met with a counselor three times over winter break, but has not attended

In addition to the counseling services from UWill and the Counseling Department, Lenzen noted the Student Wellness Center, the Academic Skills Center, Student Accessibility Services, the undergraduate dean’s office and residential services as parts of a system supporting student mental health.

“[UWill is] not the end all, be all answer to some of the mental health concerns that we’re all experiencing collectively,” she said. “It is one of the options that are available.”

Students interested in counseling through Dartmouth College Health Service can schedule appointments either on the phone at 603-6469442, at the counseling office at 7 Rope Ferry Road, Dick’s House 2nd floor, or through their health service portal. In the case of an immediate crisis, these lines Uhelp Crisis Line at 833-646-1526, the New Hampshire Rapid Response Access Point at 833710-6477 or the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.

BY CHARLOTTE HAMPTON The Dartmouth Staff

This article was originally published on Feb. 2, 2023.

On Jan. 25, fve female Dartmouth students came forward with accusations of unwanted sexual touching on campus by a temporary Dartmouth employee, according to director of the Department of Safety and Security Keiselim Montás. The Hanover Police Department has identifed the suspect and is now reinterviewing the victims to identify a charge and compile proof to present in court, according to Hanover Police lieutenant Michael Schibuola.

“We’re going back and reinterviewing the victims and then trying to make sure to connect the dots and make sure the suspect is actually the same person involved in every incident,” Schibuola said. “We’re still trying to fgure out exactly what happened, what the intentions [were]. There’s some minutiae that goes through it to make sure we got the right person, we got the right crime, to move our charges forward.”

Victims reporting incidents of harm is a critical part of ensuring safety on campus, Montás said.

“I’m glad that, frst and foremost, our community came forward with all of these [reports] because, if they did not, then we don’t know what we don’t know,” Montás said. “We were able to expeditiously act upon this and put a stop to it. With the community working with us, we are most efective.”

The suspect is a male between the ages of 17 and 21, and he was immediately fred and removed from campus in light of the allegations, according to Schibuola and Montás.

Schibuola said that the suspect held a non-academic position at the College that did not regularly interact with students. He added that at least one of the incidents occurred when the suspect was on the way to work and at least one occurred while he was at work at Dartmouth.

Safety and Security was notifed of one of the attacks later in the day, and at least two accounts of misconduct were reported before Montás and Dean Scott Brown chose to send a campus-wide email to notify students last Wednesday.

“Although we had identified and removed the individual, perhaps there were other people that had not come forward, so we wanted to open up an avenue for people to be able to do that,” Montás said.

“[We wanted] to dispel rumors that tend to scare people when they don’t have factual information.”

After initial interviews with the victims — all of whom are female Dartmouth students — the Hanover Police Department said it worked with Safety and Security to identify a suspect, Schibuola said. One of the incidents was caught on a downtown area surveillance camera, and ofcials were able to use the footage to capture the perpetrator’s physical characteristics, which Montás said helped the police to identify the suspect.

According to past reporting by The Dartmouth, at least four of the incidents occurred between the downtown area of Hanover and the Collis Center for Student Involvement.

When one of the acts of “unwanted sexual touching” occurred, the suspect was wearing a Dartmouth garment, Montás said, which made it easier for Safety and Security to determine that he was afliated