The Dartmouth 05/26/2023

John Skewes ’51 TU’56 remembered for service to College and town

Piepul, according to Skewes’ interview. While in college, Skewes majored in history and founded Dartmouth’s frst rugby team.

“[John Skewes and other students] started the rugby program because there was a tournament in Bermuda,” David Skewes said. “They thought it would be a great excuse to go to Bermuda on spring break, which was one of his fondest memories.”

After graduating from Dartmouth in 1951, Skewes enlisted in the Army “with three other friends” from college, serving as an ofcer during the Korean War. While on leave from ofcer candidate school, Skewes met his wife Constance back in Concord. David Skewes recalled his father’s story of meeting his mother at the department store, where she worked at the time.

BY VARUN SWAMINATHAN

Over the course of his life, John Greenslade Skewes ’51 TU ’56 had a “peaceful” attitude that profoundly impacted everyone around him, according to his son David Skewes.

“He was one of the kindest people I ever knew,” his son, David Skewes, said. “Everybody that knew him loved him.”

Skewes, who passed away on Mar. 27, served as Director of Business Afairs for the College and led and founded several organizations in Hanover. Skewes is survived by his two sons, two daughters, fve grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, according to his online obituary. He was 93 years old.

Skewes was highly involved in town life, according to David Skewes. He founded the Hanover Youth Hockey Association, served as president of the Hanover Improvement Society, was a member of both the Hanover

and Dresden School Boards and the Hanover Board of Selectmen. Skewes also chaired the Hanover Inn Board of Overseers, directed the Hanover Water Works Company and was involved with the Hanover Rotary Club. In 1993, Skewes was named Hanover’s Citizen of the Year.

Born in Claremont, New Hampshire, in 1929, Skewes moved to Concord, Massachusetts, for his senior year of high school before graduating in 1946.

As a born and raised Granite Stater who grew up attending Dartmouth football games and track meets, Skewes never doubted where he wanted to attend college, he said in a 2003 interview.

“I was a Dartmouth fan from being a kid,” Skewes said. “I just never considered anything else.”

Dartmouth was the only school he applied to, and he was “semi-recruited” to play football by backfeld coach Milton

Former Listen executive director indicted for embezzlement

“He went up to her and said, ‘Would you like to go to a hockey game?’ to which she responded, ‘With who?’ and he said, ‘With me,’ and that was their introduction,” David Skewes said. Hockey was an important part of Skewes’ life, according to David Skewes. He was his son’s hockey coach, and took their team to Lou’s Restaurant & Bakery — which was then owned by his friend and founder Lou Bressett — after every practice.

“I would still be in my hockey equipment sitting at the counter with my dad, having one of Lou’s crullers and a cup of hot chocolate,” David Skewes said. “I’d say that’s one of my favorite memories.”

John Hochreiter, who served as President of the Hanover Improvement Society after Skewes, and as a member of the Hanover Rotary Club, remembered Skewes as “self-assured, dynamic and one of the brightest people I’ve come across.”

According to Hochreiter, Skewes had a “valuable” connection to the Hanover community, adding that Skewes

Green Key weekend sees 54 incident reports, a decrease of 23 from last year

BY EMILIA WILLIAMS

The Dartmouth Staff

This article was originally published on May 23, 2023.

On May 10, former Listen Community Services executive director Kyle Fisher was indicted for embezzling more than $230,000 from the charity, according to a press release from the New Hampshire U.S. District Attorney.

Between February 2021 and September 2022, Fisher transferred funds from the Listen PayPal account to his personal bank account and wrote unauthorized checks to himself, the press release continued. According to the indictment, Fisher used the money on “personal expenses, primarily gambling at the MGM Casino in Springfield, Massachusetts.”

Fisher has been indicted on four counts of wire fraud and is scheduled to appear in federal court at a later date. The charge of wire fraud carries a sentence of up to 20 years and a fine of up to $250,000, or “twice the gross gain or loss, whichever is greater,” the press release stated.

BY ISABELLE HAN

The

This article was originally published on May 25, 2023.

WHAT’S

UNDERNEATH THE GREEN?

The Department of Safety and Security received 54 incident reports during Green Key weekend, between Friday, May 19 and Saturday, May 20, according to Director of Safety and Security Keiselim Montás. There were no arrests, 11 Good Samaritan calls and 12 assessments of intoxicated students by DoSS, he added. The number of incidents was consistent with last year’s concert weekend, and a marked decrease from 2019’s four arrests and 2018’s 11 arrests, according to Montás and past reporting from The Dartmouth.

“My sense is that we continue to have a safer and safer event as the years go by,” Montás said. “We learn from the previous years, and we continue to take great efort in bringing the message to students that if you are in the hospital, you are not enjoying the concert.”

Hanover Police Chief Charlie Dennis added that there were no noise complaints from the town, marking another decrease from last year, according to past reporting from The Dartmouth. Dennis said that the

majority of the Green Key calls received this year were related to intoxicated students. Between 4:15 p.m. and 5:15 p.m. on May 20, there were about four calls that led to one intoxicated student being transported from the concert, according to Dennis.

“You may have some criminal violations, but a lot of it is excessive alcohol usage,” Dennis said. “But from a police perspective, it went very well this year.”

According to Montás, DoSS confscated “a lot” of one-gallon jugs flled with water, hard alcohol and favoring. Students often refer to these drinks as “BORGs,” an acronym for “blackout rage gallons.”

“If you sit down and drink a gallon of water in half an hour, you are going to be sick, and that’s just water,” Montás said. “Combine that with something else, and you’re not going to be okay.”

DoSS, the Hanover Police and Fire departments and the College’s Ofce of Emergency Management operated a “unifed command center” to oversee safety during the Programming Board concert on Friday night, according to Dennis. Montás added that the College hired Green Mountain Security Services for crowd

The investigation was led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with assistance from the Lebanon Police Department, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Hampshire. Alexander Chen, an assistant U.S. attorney at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Hampshire, will prosecute the case, according to the office.

Listen treasurer Richard Green, who served as the charity’s interim director from mid-September 2022 to mid-March 2023, wrote in an email statement that Listen can afford to continue to operate despite Fisher’s transgressions.

“Thanks to our many supporters and our thrift store operations, Listen’s finances continue to be strong,” Green wrote. “Although the amount taken is significant, it did not affect or impair our programs, operations or future plans. We have taken steps to recover the funds.”

Fisher served as Listen’s executive director from July 2016 to September 2022, when he was placed on leave after the Listen Board of Directors found unusual activity in their financial accounts, according to Green. He was first hired as a volunteer coordinator in April 2013, before he was promoted to

PHOTO

administrative director in March 2014, Green added. Fisher — who previously lived in Grantham, New Hampshire — has since moved to Holly Springs, North Carolina, according to the press release.

On March 13, Listen appointed Rob Roy McGregor of Canaan, New Hampshire, as its new executive director, Green wrote. McGregor previously served with the Young Men’s Christian Association and YMCA International for 30 years — including 19 years as President and CEO of the Southern District YMCA in Exeter, New Hampshire, according to Listen’s website.

“Rob has deep experience in nonprofit management and extensive knowledge of thrift store operations,” Green wrote. “His great-grandfather founded Goodwill, and he’s on the Board of Goodwill of New England.”

Students, many of whom have shopped at Listen’s thrift store, said they were disappointed to learn about Fisher’s embezzlement. Mikaela Browning ’26 said she was “super sad” to hear the news, calling it “totally the opposite of the spirit of a thrift store.” Wynn Johnson ’26 felt similarly, noting that Fisher’s actions are “like stealing from your community.”

“You’re just actually taking resources out of a place that’s supposed to be helping the community,” Wynn said. “I feel like for a lot of college students, it’s more of a trend to [thrift]. But for a lot of people, it’s super important, and it’s how they’re able to get clothing. I think it’s really important to have second-hand clothing shops and thrift stores in the area.”

According to Listen’s website, the nonprofit aims to “provide services and support to meet the critical needs of Upper Valley individuals and families.” Green added that the organization offers crisis intervention services, electricity and eviction avoidance, financial assistance for heating fuel, food at the Food Pantry and Community Dining Hall, scholarships to summer camps and “help with accessing other programs offering vital services to the community.”

Green wrote that Listen will continue its program and thrift store activities, and “will soon embark on a new strategic plan to enhance our ability to provide help to our neighbors.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF DAVE SKEWES

The Dartmouth

Dartmouth Staff

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE DARTMOUTH JACK-O-LANTERN

N.H. Senate rejects recreational marijuana legalization bill

BY AMADEA DATEL

The Dartmouth

This article was originally published on May 23, 2023.

On May 9, the New Hampshire State Senate recommended killing House Bill 639, a marijuana legalization proposal that passed the State House with bipartisan support, according to state Rep. Ross Berry, R-Hillsborough. One month earlier, the bill passed in the House on April 6 after Republican and Democratic House leadership agreed on marijuana regulations and taxes, dubbed the legislation’s “perennial issue,” according to Berry.

Shortly after the Senate rejected the legislation, Governor Chris Sununu reversed his long-standing opposition to marijuana legalization. Although he had previously expressed concerns with HB 639, in a May 12 statement, Sununu wrote that based on its popularity, legalization is “inevitable.” He outlined the marijuana regulations he would sign into law, which would involve state distribution, access and marketing. Recent polls by the University of New Hampshire suggest that seven in 10 New Hampshire residents support the legalization of marijuana for recreational use.

Though Berry acknowledged that some of the concerns raised by the State Senate and Gov. Sununu were valid — such as people smoking in public and exposing others to contact highs — he said that the Senate should have removed the aspects of the bill they found objectionable and passed an amended version.

Berry explained that he has voted in favor of every version of HB 639 because “my job as a representative is to represent the people even if we disagree,

and the people overwhelmingly support legalization.”

President of anti-legalization organization Smart Approaches to Marijuana Dr. Kevin Sabet said that increasing levels of THC have made the drug much more “potent,” raising potential health concerns. Sabet added that keeping the drug illegal would minimize its use, even if some use is inevitable.

“Keeping the promotion, sale and advertisement of marijuana illegal, while decriminalizing its use on an individual level, removes the incentive of the industry from driving up use,” he said.

As the only state in New England yet to legalize marijuana, New Hampshire has rejected previous bills in part because of the impact of the opioid crisis in the state, according to government professor and state Rep. Russ Muirhead, D-Grafton. The Granite State has seen some of the highest numbers of fentanyl and opiate deaths in the nation, which has discouraged support for marijuana legalization, according to Muirhead.

“I have not seen evidence that marijuana is a gateway to heroin anymore than drinking beers is a gateway to heroin,” Muirhead said.

“They’re both drugs and can be abused.”

Muirhead said that if Gov. Sununu had spoken up about his support for legalization earlier, the governor could have helped draft a bill with enough support to pass through the State Senate. He added that New Hampshire’s liquor sales, which are conducted through state-owned stores, could be an efective model for marijuana distribution.

“People feel like [the model] has led to control over dangerous substances while making them available to citizens

Community reacts to North End Housing

at a fair price, so there’s sympathy for that model,” he said.

The earliest opportunity to propose a new legalization bill would be in September, during the next legislative session, according to Muirhead. Since legislators cannot introduce bills that are “substantially the same” as those introduced in the prior year, the Speaker of the House would have to confrm that the new legislation is distinct, he added.

Kyyen Shigley ’26 said that while she supported the bill, she believed that legalization would not signifcantly change marijuana use at Dartmouth.

While government regulation may increase safe use — because the state would control distribution from licensed contributors, decreasing the potential for marijuana to be laced with other substances — Shigley added that many people are simply not interested in marijuana.

“People have to learn how to smoke it, they have to learn what a high feels like and they have to learn how to like it because it is a negative experience for a lot of people,” she said. “I’ve heard quite a few people say they don’t like weed, so they turn to alcohol instead to get that efect.” Muirhead said the debate over legalization begs “deeper questions about what makes young people want to alter their consciousness.”

“As a community, we need to talk about this and help each other discover ways of flourishing that might be consistent with a little drinking or smoking, but that don’t make people feel like they have to obliterate themselves to relax,” Muirhead said. “Some people can only relax by going way out of bounds, but the deeper question comes when we attend to mental health in a more genuine and heartfelt way.”

Skewes remembered for ‘valuable’ connection to Hanover community

FROM SKEWES PAGE 1

“engineered the next two presidents” of the Hanover Improvement Society by “putting his arm around and saying ‘wouldn’t you like to do this?’”

Skewes helped the Rotary Club to form a better relationship with the College, Hochreiter said. As a member of the College’s administration, he facilitated the conversations that gave Rotary a “town-gown relationship,” according to Hochreiter.

“[Skewes] always believed in the

rotary traditions of service above self,” Hochreiter said.

Skewes never forgot the lifelong friends he made while at Dartmouth. He could still recall the names of his classmates 80 years after graduation, running into and sitting with old friends at Dartmouth football games, David Skewes said.

“That’s a pretty neat legacy,” he said.

Each time Skewes left Hanover, he found his way back. After graduating from the Tuck School of Business in

1956, he and Connie temporarily moved to Connecticut. Eventually, the couple found that they could not justify living in Connecticut when they wanted to spend their time in New Hampshire, according to David Skewes.

When asked what kept Skewes in Hanover, David Skewes answered, “Dartmouth.”

“He just loved the College,” David Skewes said. “He walked to work. He was just so familiar with the place and he loved being a part of that community.”

Green Key weekend sees a decrease in incident reports from last year

control support and help managing the diferent access points to the concert.

“Green Key weekend is a big event for the College, public safety and Hanover,” Dennis said. “[We] all play a role in setting up and running the big concert.”

24 Dartmouth EMS members were on shift for Green Key, 17 of whom were also licensed EMTs, according to an email statement from Dartmouth EMT. They ran shifts from 9 p.m. to 9 a.m. out of Dick’s House, and constant coverage all over campus from 9 p.m. on Wednesday night until 9 a.m. on Sunday morning.

There were six EMTs at the Programming Board concert on Friday night, an increase from three last year, the email said. While there were two crews of EMTs “doing standby” at the concert, there were also three crews on shift at any given time around campus, the email stated.

“Because of the increase, D-EMS was better able to help those who needed it in

the concert and surrounding area,” the email said.

In the week leading up to the concert, students and visitors had to pick up wristbands in order to be admitted into the concert. This year, in addition to requiring wristbands, student IDs also had to be shown prior to entering the concert venue, according to a campus-wide email from the Programming Board.

The student ID requirement was announced after an individual stole admittance wristbands from the Programming Board on May 16, wrote student involvement director David Pack in an email statement. It was “not clear” whether the stolen bag was a full bag with about 100 wristbands, or if it was an already opened bag. There were also 20 wristbands anonymously returned, Pack wrote.

Programming Board executive member

Callie Moody ’24 said that volunteers helped move attendees through the gates to the mainstage concert as an additional

security measure. She said it “went pretty smoothly,” even though it added an “extra step” at the gates.

“I don’t think it created a massive burden in terms of lines compared to previous years,” she said.

Pack wrote in an email statement to The Dartmouth that although he was “happy with the outcome,” there were still some challenges.

“I think some of the things people may not always realize is how much goes into managing the concert,” Pack wrote. “The most challenging thing about the concert for PB is the aspects they can’t control — like crowd behavior and incidents at the concert from dangerous behaviors earlier in the day.”

Overall, Montás noted how this year’s was “defnitely” an improvement from the last.

“Every year we continue to learn and adjust things and try to have a safer and more enjoyable event,” he said.

BY KENT FRIEL The Dartmouth Staff

This article was originally published on May 25, 2023.

This summer, the College plans to submit detailed plans to the Hanover Planning Board for construction approval of the North End Housing project, a 397-bed student residence on Lyme Road, according to Office of Communications media relations strategist Jana Barnello. The College received a special exception for the project from the Hanover Zoning Board on Feb. 16.

However, the project’s location — nearly one and one-half miles north of the Green — has sparked concerns over accessibility and standards among alumni, faculty and students.

The Planning Board approval process involves two phases –– design review and final plan review –– which include a public hearing, deliberation by the board and a final decision whether to approve or reject the project.

Project management services senior director Patrick O’Hern said that the application that the College submits to the Planning Board would satisfy most of the conditions established by the Zoning Board. The Zoning Board’s conditions include improvements to the Hanover multi-use path, including enhanced lighting and an extension of the path past Dewey Field Lot.

However, according to former campus planner Lo-Yi Chan ’54, who was first involved with Dartmouth planning under former College President John Kemeny in the early 1970s, said the College will lose its walking accessibility in the next 30 to 50 years if campus keeps expanding outward. As it stands, nearly 90% of students live on campus, a trend that has been decreasing recently with the lack of on-campus housing and insufficient off-campus housing.

Similarly, government professor Russell Muirhead said that he worries that the new dorm complex will “weaken Dartmouth’s standing” by “destroying” the walkability of campus.

“The centerpiece of the Dartmouth master plan was walkability,” Muirhead said. “It’s a different life if you have to commute that far. That may be the way that it is on urban campuses, but Dartmouth is distinguished by its compactness.”

Former track and cross-country coach Barry Harwick ’77 said he has been active in organizing opposition to the project. Harwick said the remote dorms would “cut down on spontaneity,” which he called integral to a college experience.

Harwick said he wondered why the College is not developing on West Wheelock Street. In 2022, town residents voted to create a new zoning district, which would allow for “higher density residential development.”

Chan said that “money talks” when institutions decide where to build, which he said explains the project’s remote location.

“A serious problem for almost all campuses is that what usually determines where things go is … money,” Chan said. “For student

housing, you typically don’t have a lot of people backing it with big funds, so it tends to be pushed [farther] away.”

Harwick said that the College was “very close” to building student residences on the corner of Crosby and East Wheelock Street but did not because of logistical issues arising from the narrow space that created additional costs.

For students such as Francina Kolluri ’25, a member of the Sadie Alexander Association, it seems like the College is “weighing costs higher than student well-being.” She added that she is concerned the College is trying to “hide that [the project] is even happening,” citing how summer 2022 project discussions took place when most students were not on-campus to deliberate. Kolluri also echoed concerns about the project’s distance from the center of campus.

“Dartmouth has really struggled with supporting their students,” Kolluri said. “Keeping the Dartmouth bubble close is really important.”

Kolluri added that she feels concerned about how the project will impact certain students.

“My biggest concern is about what disparities for low-income students will emerge,” Kolluri said. “We don’t know the patterns that may emerge, [such as] well-off students deciding to rent off-campus if placed in this new dorm.”

Although Hanover Selectboard member Jennie Chamberlain said that she is conflicted on the project, she noted that Dartmouth needs more housing regardless of accessibility concerns.

“We need housing, and this new dorm is only one mile away,” Chamberlain said. “Right now, we have 100 students taking up the space of graduate students.”

Economics professor Andrew Levin said that he is concerned that the North End project planners did not think in advance about long-lasting durability. He said that the residence hall might be built to lower standards due to its off-campus location.

“If you build off-campus, you can build to lower standards,” Levin said. “There is an expectation that oncampus buildings must last for 100 years, while off-campus buildings may only need to last for 30.”

Muirhead also expressed concern that the College is seeking to outsource the management of the project and “throw something up in a quick and dirty way.” While Chan said that all projects built by the College should be built to last, he also raised concerns about the lower standards of offcampus buildings.

“What’s happened with the current plan is that things are changing so fast that you might as well tear it down and start over again [in 30 years],” Chan said. “I’m nervous about that because it can result in shoddy buildings.”

At the February meeting with the Hanover Zoning Board, the College stated it would provide design solutions that met the Zoning Board of Adjustment’s requirements.

“Even if you have to live that far away, it’s still a great school and a great campus,” Chan said “I, of course, prefer a five-minute walk, but maybe we can’t do that anymore.”

CONTRIBUTING

Verbum Ultimum: Take a Chance (and Send That Flitz)

This column was originally published on May 25, 2023

As the end of the term approaches rapidly, many students on campus are asking themselves a very important question: Who is crushing on me on Last Chances? The popular website, which usually launches in the spring, allows students to enter the name of their campus crush. The entries are anonymous unless two students add each other’s names, in which case the website reveals to both that they have “matched.” It is common to hear about students who match, but far less common are stories of people who are willing to make the frst move. Heading into formal season and Senior Week at Dartmouth, we at the Editorial Board are here to encourage you to send a fitz — a firty blitz — to that special someone. While websites like Last Chances help students fnd potential dates, it is still up to students to approach their crushes. Be bold, be brave and make the frst move.

You may be thinking to yourself: “Nothing ever comes of Last Chances. No one actually takes a fitz seriously, either.” If that’s you, know that you are wrong! This Editorial Board contains two members who matched with their current partner on Last Chances — but the only reason these relationships came to be was because one partner was willing to send a fitz or ask them out.

We want to stress that this advice is situational, and in making the frst move, students should be careful to respect boundaries. We are not promoting that anyone continues to express interest in someone who has previously rejected advances, expressed discomfort or otherwise shown disinterest. However, this concern is distinct from one reason many people hesitate to send ftizes: fear of rejection.

This is indeed a valid fear, but it’s the end of spring term, and unless you are a sophomore crushing on another sophomore, chances are that there is about to be 10 weeks of distance between you and your crush. If there is any time to tell them how you feel, now is as low-risk as possible. Best case scenario, you part your separate ways with a budding romance, and worst case scenario, you are able to efectively avoid them for at least 10 weeks. And if you’re a senior, this is truly your last chance to make a move before graduation — what’s the harm in shooting your shot?

Of course, we do not mean to simplify Dartmouth’s complicated dating scene, and we do not want to suggest that sending a fitz will always be the start of a meaningful and lasting relationship.

There are many other obstacles. For example, the College’s small size lends itself to a smaller pool of single students and abundant knowledge of others’ dating histories, which could complicate any desire to pursue a relationship. In addition, we would be remiss to forget Dartmouth’s strong hookup culture, which can make it difcult to pursue a real relationship when it is not necessarily the norm. Furthermore, we’ve all heard that students struggle with maintaining friendships and relationships because the D-Plan causes students to constantly cycle through being on and of campus.

Nor do we want to forget that for many Dartmouth students, dating may be complicated due to the intersection of race, sexuality, gender and other factors. Certain identities that students hold may disincentivize students from engaging in the dating scene and from reaching out in the frst place. Nonwhite students on this campus may feel excluded from the dating scene due to expectations to ft into a white standard of beauty and thus see less incentive to take a risk and send a fitz. Plus, being queer and fnding relationships at this school isn’t easy because of a lack of queer-inclusive spaces and the small size of campus. Finally, traditional gender expectations can make it difcult for women to make the frst move due to fear of being perceived as “too bold,” whereas men are more often expected to make the frst move. Non-binary and people of other gender identities may also struggle to date given gendered norms of dating, which they may not necessarily ft into.

While these factors may impose barriers to seeking out romantic relationships, that doesn’t mean students should refrain from trying. Finding love at Dartmouth shouldn’t be based on whether you conform to certain societal standards. Although there are individual factors that could make engaging in the dating scene at Dartmouth difcult, if you are interested in someone, a potential relationship can and should outweigh the potential rejection. One’s college experience should be about trying new things and leaving your comfort zone. The joy of success is immeasurable and something everyone deserves to fnd.

To Dartmouth students: This is your sign! Today is your day — make that frst move: go up to someone, text them or send that fitz!

The editorial board consists of opinion staf columnists, the opinion editors, the executive editors and the editor-in-chief.

NINA SLOAN ’24: HEAD IN THE CLOUDS

Dunford: My Big Frat Greek Psychosis

Despite its nominal mission of connectvity, the Greek system ultmately perpetuates a harmful social hierarchy at Dartmouth.

This column was originally published on May 25, 2023

The Greek system takes in wandering undergrads and wonderfully churns out generous donors. What could Dartmouth do without it? Within the system, however, members lose their sense of self in a cycle of abuse. Flowing between social and academic life, this cycle is self-numbing. It blocks both self-discovery and communal unity — while sustaining destructive social hierarchies.

During new-student orientation in September 2022, some male transfer students held an event in a fraternity house to give advice to this year’s new transfers. I, myself, was in attendance. These transfers — members of Greek life themselves — stressed Greek life as a necessity. Later in the night, one of the bros took me aside and gave me the “real” advice to navigate Dartmouth: “Embrace alcoholism, don’t focus on academics alone, embrace the culture and leave behind your old identity.”

“Leave behind your old identity”: This piece of advice isn’t completely bad — it has insight. A new place in life should carry this weight — a letting go of the past to experience new perspectives. This is part of the spiritual journey: Buddha’s leaving his royal family, Jesus’s 40 days in the desert, me when I stopped playing Pokémon in sixth grade, among others. A loose grip on one’s identity is key for self-exploration. Isn’t this what college is supposed to be about?

But this process can be botched. An alcoholic, for example, takes it to the extreme; they become a cold, hollow shell with no possibilities for growth. The drinking culture at Dartmouth is another example of this botching. As the bro put it: “Embrace alcoholism.”

“Don’t focus on academics alone”: This makes sense to me. Quasimodo-ing yourself in the upper stacks doesn’t seem like the best way to live. On the Sunday afternoon following the night of the bro’s advice, a diferent bro in the same frat said in passing that he was “so ready” to change from his “social shell” to his “academic shell.” Here lies the dynamic identity of the Dartmouth Greeker. One’s self is carved out into a shell between the social extreme of 100 “siblings” partying themselves into oblivion, and the other extreme of sufocating oneself with academics. Relaxation becomes pacifying yourself as much as possible: superfcial sex, doom-scrolling on Instagram, dull competition for discharging masculine energy (i.e., pong) and other pastimes.

But what does “embrace the culture” mean?

Considering the frst piece of advice about alcoholism, there isn’t much left to the imagination.

The bro I spoke with at the fraternity told me he “would never have imagined” himself in a frat prior to Dartmouth and stressed that I had to rush, especially as a male transfer. He added that all his fellow male

transfer friends who didn’t rush were depressed by winter term. For a bit, I struggled with the decision of whether or not to rush — I felt alone in this strange new place, where Greek letters free-foat in the air — but then I remembered that I already have depression. Never look up from your phone when you have to walk alone. Never ask yourself if you want what you’re aiming for. Never imagine an alternative. The system only works if we keep our heads down.

And I, the almighty opinion writer, hold the key to self-actualization. Huzzah! My values and ideas are better than everybody else’s.

No, we’re all trying our best to fgure out life, and we’re all basically together in this. So, what’s wrong with having an organized set of brothers or sisters to fall back on? What’s wrong with branching out a bit through a network of like-minded people? If we’re all on the same level, why write an article shaming the Greek system?

If the Greek system truly cared about creating a cohesive and accepting campus community, it would dissolve itself immediately. Instead, it preserves exclusivity through its inherent social hierarchy — students are constantly referencing terms like “top haus” pretending which house they’re in doesn’t matter. So why say it at all?

Greek life also codifes boundaries within social norms, such as an upper-class “big” wielding “educating” power over a younger “little.” It feeds sexual objectifcation with things like heteronormative “tails” — an event where a sorority goes into a fraternity, and the sisters are similarly paired with brothers. This leads them to commit terrible acts in the name of culture –– as referenced in the advice given to me — a culture that often permits and encourages the sexual objectifcation of women.

Of course, not all spaces are the same. However, all of them participate in the system that makes the abuse institutionally possible.

And the culture bleeds into areas it shouldn’t. Why should the Dartmouth Outing Club climbing team social be centered around pong? Why does the same drab question dribble out of everyone’s mouths every Monday: “So, did you go out this weekend?”

We should balance self-exploration with perspective and humility. Understand that your perspective is not much better than anyone else’s. We are all failing around in any attempt to satisfy our contradictory desires. We must crush institutionalized social boundaries — not maintain their abusive social norms.

Dunford is a member of an undergraduate society.

Opinion articles represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.

Alienatng afliated students will not solve the issues of Greek Life at Dartmouth.

Re: Dunford: My Big Frat Greek Psychosis (May 25, 2023).

Articles that engage with the issues of Greek Life in good faith regularly make The Dartmouth a valuable part of campus-wide conversations. However, the Dunford article falls short of this standard.

There is nothing constructive about labeling all afliated students — 60 percent of the student body — as alcoholics, deadbeats and womanizers. These types of students exist inside and outside of the Greek system. Lumping everyone into these categories only devalues the legitimate eforts that many afliated students undertake to make their houses more welcoming.

Afliated students are prevalent in campus initiatives such as the Student and Presidential Committee on Sexual Assault, and others serve as Sexual Assault Peer Allies. Some even hold key leadership roles in these organizations. Additionally, many houses now focus on implementing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

SUBMISSIONS: We welcome letters and guest columns. All submissions must include the author’s name and affiliation with Dartmouth College, and should not exceed 250 words for letters or 700 words for columns. The Dartmouth reserves the right to edit all material before publication. All material submitted becomes property of The Dartmouth. Please email submissions to editor@thedartmouth.com. For any content that an author or artist submits and that The Dartmouth agrees to publish, the author or artist grants The Dartmouth a royaltyfree, irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide and exclusive license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish and create derivative works from such content. KAMI ARABIAN & THOMAS LANE, Opinion Editors TESS BOWLER, STREET ROBERTS & OMALA SNYDER, Mirror Editors LANIE EVERETT & STEPHANIE SOWA Sports Editors ELEANOR SCHIFINO & ALEX SUPRENANT Arts Editors CAROLINE KRAMER & HANNAH LI, Photo Editors ALLISON BURG, Data Visualization Editor ELAINE PU Design Editor BROOKE LEGGAT Templating Editor TOMMY CORRADO, HEATH MONSMA & LEVI PORT, Multimedia Editors GAYATHRI SRINIVASAN & JESSICA SUN LI, Engagement Editors NINA SLOAN, Crossword Editor KRISTIN CHAPMAN, Editor-in-Chief CJ KANG & TOM LI Strategy Directors MEHAK BATRA Development Director RACHEL ORLOWSKI Digital Media & Analytics Director EREN BERKE SAGLAM Finance & Sales Director PRODUCTION EDITORS BUSINESS DIRECTORS MANASI SINGH, Publisher DANIEL MODESTO & ELLE MULLER, News Executive Editors BEN FAGELL, EMILY FAGELL, TAYLOR HABER Managing Editors ARIELLE FEUERSTEIN, Production Executive Editor STAFF COLUMNIST THOMAS DE WOLFF ‘ 24

initiatives during the rush process. While these are not panaceas, they represent important steps in the fght to improve Greek culture. Writers who wish to enact positive change in the Greek system should promote similarly benefcial practices, rather than denigrate their fellow students.

I encourage the author to follow their own advice when they argue that “we should balance selfexploration with perspective and humility.” Calling for the Greek system to dissolve itself immediately — without any suggestion as to what could replace it — does not display either perspective or humility. I hope that the author will weigh their words more carefully in the future before making such unfounded generalizations about their classmates.

Thomas de Wolf is an Opinion staf columnist from the Class of 2024 and a member of a Greek organization. Letters to the Editor represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.

Letter to the Editor: There’s a Better Way to Talk Greek

Shark student band continues legacy of live performances

BY RILEY HAWKINS The Dartmouth

This article was originally published on May 5, 2023.

Student bands are an enduring aspect of Dartmouth’s musical community, which is composed of students from across class years. The most current iteration of the student band Shark is made up of Jacob Donoghue ’22 on keys and vocals, Patrick Howard ’23 on guitar and vocals, Kirusha Lanski ’23 on drums, Bo Farnell ’26 on guitar and Ian Moore ’26 on bass and backup vocals. In an email statement to The Dartmouth, Nick Deveau ’16 wrote that he co-founded the band with Pablo Marvel ’15 and Zach Wooster ’15 in the fall of 2014.

Donoghue, Howard and Lanski said they joined the band last year. After two upperclassmen members of Shark graduated last year, the three said they began recruiting new members. The newest members include Farnell, who “shreds guitar,” as well as Moore, who was recruited “as soon as I saw him pull out a fve string bass,” Lanski noted.

Shark’s musical style is varied as its band members are diverse: Because each member of the band comes from different musical backgrounds, the musical result is what the band calls a combination of “rock, pop, funkinfuenced music, disco, pop rock, rock pop and some alternative music.”

While keeping a wide repertoire, Shark is best known for their performances of “The Wolf” by Mumford & Sons — frequently their frst song of the set “Fat Bottomed Girls” by Queen, a personal favorite of Howard’s and “Gimme Gimme Gimme” by ABBA, a favorite of Farnell.

Donoghue said his favorite song to perform is “Use Somebody” by Kings of

Leon, while Moore said his is “Locked Out of Heaven” by Bruno Mars. Lanski said his favorite song to perform is a funk cover of “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears for Fears — “I love funky stuf,” he said. These favorites are shared by some self-identifying fans of the band. After attending a show, Lauren Zanarini ’26 cited “Kilby Girl” by the Backseat Lovers and “Use Somebody” as some of her favorites performed by Shark.

“Everytime they would have a show, [my friends and I] would get excited to go,” Zanarini said. “At a school like this, it’s cool to have a band that you see perform on stage, and then see them around campus, like in class or in Foco.”

Moore and Farnell said they both played in bands in high school, respectively, and knew they wanted to continue playing music in college.

Moore described playing in a band as his “biggest priority” on campus. Farnell said he has felt very fulflled by the experience of playing in a campus band.

“In high school, I’d have to convince people to come to shows,” Farnell said. “Now, people come up to me and ask when the next show is.”

Despite their different musical backgrounds, playing in Shark has pushed some band members to explore new musical territory. Lanski said he was new to the drums when he started playing at Dartmouth, while Donoghue said he grew up playing classical piano and was able to transition his skills to play Shark’s repertoire of songs.

The band rehearses twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays late in the evening, and sometimes late into the night, according to Lanski.

Lanski noted that some of the band’s best moments are in rehearsal, when someone “does something spontaneous, and everyone is there to appreciate it.”

Howard said the band sometimes has trouble focusing during practice because they have so much fun hanging out together. Lanski added that he thinks Shark has a good balance of “goofng around and jamming.” Donaghue also emphasized the lighthearted nature of the band’s practice sessions.

“Sometimes we’ll play through 10 songs, [and] sometimes we’ll only play through one in the same amount of time,” Donoghue said.

Both Howard and Donoghue are members of the Dartmouth Aires, an all-male a cappella group, and all band members are involved in various musical projects on campus. Howard

Poet-ethnographer Nomi Stone ’03 gives reading at Still North

BY SOPHIE CHADHA The Dartmouth

On May 10, poet-anthropologist Nomi Stone ’03 read excerpts from several of her poetry collections and participated in a Q&A session at Still North Books & Bar. Stone is an award-winning author of the poetry collections “Kill Class” and “Stranger’s Notebook,” and her poems have appeared in “The Atlantic,” “The American Poetry Review” and “The Best American Poetry.”

After completing a B.A. in French literature at Dartmouth, Stone received a Fulbright scholarship to pursue creative writing in Tunisia and went on to earn a Ph.D. in anthropology at Columbia University, an M.F.A in poetry from Warren Wilson College and an MPhil in Modern Middle Eastern Studies at Oxford University. She has conducted postdoctoral research in anthropology at Princeton University, and she now teaches poetry as a creative writing professor at the University of Texas at Dallas.

A fnalist for the Atelier Award, her latest book and frst academic monograph

“Pinelandia: An Anthropology and Field Poetics of War and Empire” explores US military pre-deployment training exercises involving mock-creations of Middle Eastern villages. The book delves into the complex microcosms of the Iraqi role-players employed within these faux villages across the forests and deserts of America, as well as the ethical questions which arise from utilizing such methods for military advancement. During the talk, Stone described the efects of the mock village activities on both the actors and soldiers; these activities include digging fake graves, fake grieving and even learning how to fake empathy through body language and facial expressions.

“These spaces can be incredibly reductive and result in a harrowing cementing of ideas for these young soldiers: for example, they start to associate the call to prayer with bombs, [and] pregnant women with danger,” Stone said.

During the latter half of the reading, Stone shifted into more personal subject matter, specifcally queer family-making. Through vivid lyrical verses, she shared how becoming a mother has prompted her to turn her critical refection upon herself and how she fts into our society.

“For me, poems are the holiest houses for the self, though what capacious houses they might be,” she said. “In the broader

sense of the term, feldwork for me is about becoming and asking questions of the self, engaging with the crackle of the world.”

When asked during the Q&A session how she decides which moments to represent in poetry and which to discuss through more traditional ethnographic writing in “Pinelandia,” Stone elaborated on her feld notes. “I have really zany feld notes,” Stone said. “I put everything into my feld notes because I wanted them to produce multiple kinds of writing. The poems come frst; they are immediate. But they need heat: I can’t write a poem unless something really shakes me. I always need a sensory tether for a poem that is linked to my own afect.”

After Stone’s reading and the Q&A, Stone sat down with The Dartmouth to refect on the challenge of avoiding the aestheticization of violence — particularly in an artistic literary form that captures others’ experiences of extreme physical and psychological trauma.

“Poetry itself beds up against silence. A poem, because of its very form — which is line break, which is white space — is a form that invites the unsayable, the hardly sayable: the threshold points,” Stone said. “So with questions of violence, where certain things cannot be rendered ethically, the poem is actually the best form in which to do this, because it allows you to hit against the white, the edge: the limit point.”

Stone said her ethnographic project arose when one of her closest friends from Dartmouth began flm work in a few of the mock villages. Having just returned from conducting feldwork in Iraq herself, Stone realized that some of the same people she had been following in Iraq had actually moved to the US and begun role playing in these villages.

At Still North, Stone was introduced by anthropology and South House professor Sienna Craig, who said she is inspired by Stone’s interdisciplinary work and praised Stone’s personal and artistic character.

“As an anthropologist who writes poems or an ethnographer who fnds solace in reading and writing poetry, discovering Nomi’s work some years ago was like fnding a perfect pebble on a rocky shoal,” Craig said. “Here was someone living and writing not in ‘either, or’ reality, but bravely and beautifully bringing forth a ‘both, and’ world: a ‘poet-anthropologist.’

An ‘anthropoetica.’”

Craig alternates teaching ANTH 73, “Main Currents in Anthropology: Theory and Ethnography” with anthropology professor Laura Ogden, and when considering new, innovative ethnographic texts to include in the syllabus, Stone’s “Pinelandia” came up as a perfect ft for the course. Craig said she felt excited to bring Stone to campus — especially upon learning that she is a Dartmouth alum. In an interview with The Dartmouth, Craig shared that she and Stone are currently collaborating on a new collection of fash ethnography.

“I frst got to know Nomi working together on a collection of flash ethnography that she and a mutual friend were editing during the pandemic, and to create that collection, we did a series of virtual writing workshops, which really deepened my appreciation for her and her work,” Craig said.

This event was sponsored by the anthropology department and English and creative writing department, as well as by South House. As the South House professor, Craig said she aims to connect diferent parts of the Dartmouth community, including faculty, graduate students and undergraduates. She added she hopes to refect Stone’s goal with her writing: to bring together the traditionally separate areas of research and poetry and, more broadly, feldwork and life.

Alexandria Casteel GR — a graduate student in the Ecology, evolution, environment and society program, who also attended the event — said she applauds Stone’s courage in her experimentation with diferent writing styles.

“So often within the constraints of a discipline, we’re told our writing has to look a certain way, and for Nomi, it’s sort of taken this shape where poetry and ethnographic writing are read simultaneously, which I think is quite beautiful,” Casteel said.

The reading was followed later in the week by a two-hour workshop led by Stone. The workshop was attended by a mix of anthropology faculty, graduate students and members of anthropology professor Laura Ogden’s senior seminar. This workshop involved a long, refective walk through campus, followed by a writing exercise. Casteel, who attended both the reading and the workshop, said she appreciated the opportunity to learn more about Stone’s writing process and to write with others.

said his practices with the Aires are quite diferent from Shark’s in that the Aires will frequently run a full set, while Shark seldom does, preferring to stay fexible.

In addition to performing at diferent venues, the band has to gather their equipment, set it up before the show and take it down afterwards. Some members of Shark noted the challenge of this large time commitment. When asked whether it can be hard to balance the band with academics and other activities, each member of the band responded with a resounding “yes.” However, both Moore and Lanksi cited their gratitude for being in Shark.

“Many times I think, ‘wow, I’m really

grateful for these guys,’” Lanski said. Howard and Donoghue played their last show with Shark at Friday’s Block Party at Phi Delta Alpha fraternity, but they both said that the connections they’ve made from playing in the band will last forever. Some current members of Shark, including Moore, Farnell and Donoghue, in addition to Shark alumni, have also produced their own original music. Because Shark is a generational band, its members are always engaged in recruiting new members and keeping the tradition alive. The band constantly evolves but continues to remain a key group within the campus band scene.

Before the Curtain: Week 10

BY ALEXANDRA SUPRENANT The Dartmouth

Senior Sta

Friday, May 26

At 7 p.m. in Loew Auditorium, the Hopkins Center for the Arts will screen Daniel Goldhaber’s 2023 flm “How to Blow Up a Pipeline.” The flm centers around a group of young adults who decide to stand up against the fossil fuel industry by attempting to blow up a pipeline. The flm is adapted from noted climate scholar Andreas Malm’s treatise of the same name. Students from Sunrise Dartmouth will give opening remarks at 6:15 p.m. in the Black Family Visual Arts Center atrium. Wine and cheese will be available. Tickets are $8 and available on the Hop’s website.

At 8 p.m. in Steele Hall Room 6, the play, “Anatomical Hearts,” will be performed. This performance is the playwriting honors thesis for Lila Hovey ’23, and the Hop’s website describes it as a “queer historical dramedy” that celebrates “queer history and an investigation of the embodied self.” The play explores themes of love, purpose and medicine. The event is free and no tickets are required.

Musical duo Lord Magnolia is set to play at Sawtooth Kitchen at 9 p.m. Hailing from Southern Vermont, Lord Magnolia plays acoustic music ranging in style from the Talking Heads to Amy Winehouse. There is a $5 cover available to purchase on Sawtooth’s website.

Saturday, May 27

At 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. in the Bema, the Dartmouth Dance Ensemble will perform their annual May performance. The Dartmouth Dance Ensemble is directed by John Heginbotham and choreographerin-residence Rebecca Stenn, who are both based out of New York City and specialize in ballet and contemporary dance techniques. This performance also features guest choreographer Trebien Pollard, and ensemble member choreographers

Jessica Volan Trout-Haney GR ’17 Faculty.

Rachel Hsu ’23 and Roman Olavarria ’23 are set to present original dances. Tickets are free and available on the Hop’s website.

At 4 p.m. in the Hanover Inn, the Dartmouth Coast Jazz Orchestra will perform their spring senior concert. There is a later performance at 8 p.m. The Coast Jazz Orchestra is directed by

Taylor Ho Bynum, and this is their 43rd Senior Feature Concert. Tickets are $15 and available on the Hop’s website. There will be another performance of the play, “Anatomical Hearts” at 8 p.m. in Steele Hall Room 6. From 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Collis Porch, the Latine and Caribbean Council and Programming Board will hold “Revolución Latine,” a concert given by the Mexican Institute of Sound. The group is a musical project started by Mexican DJ Camilo Lara. Sebastián Muñoz-McDonald ’23 will open the event with a DJ set.

Sunday, May 28

At 4 p.m. in Loew Auditorium, the Hopkins Center will play David Bickerstaf’s 2023 flm “Vermeer: The Greatest Exhibition.” The “blockbuster exhibition” includes the largest number of the artist’s works ever assembled, including the famous painting “Girl with a Pearl Earring.” Curators and scholars also ofer their observations of Vermeer’s artistry and motivations behind his pieces. Tickets are $12 and available on the Hop’s website.

Wednesday, May 31

At 5 p.m. in Loew Auditorium, the Hopkins Center will host their annual award ceremony, where awards are presented to undergraduates who have “excelled in the arts.” Guest speaker Virginia Johnson will give an address to students in attendance. A founding member of Dance Theatre of Harlem and former ballerina, the Hop’s website describes Johnson as “a trailblazing dancer and mentor.” Refreshments will follow in the Nearburg Forum.

Thursday, June 1

Musician Jay Burwick will host a musical open mic night at 8 p.m. at Sawtooth Kitchen. Sawtooth’s website encourages people to “bring your instruments, your songs and your voice to showcase what you’ve been working on.” The open mic night is open to all performers. Tickets are free and available on Sawtooth’s website.

Lila Hovey ’23 is a current member of The Dartmouth’s Design team.

MIRROR

What’s Really Underneath the Green?

By Katharine Bramante STORY

This article was originally published on May. 24, 2023.

The Green is a part of everyone’s daily life at Dartmouth. We walk across it everyday, play Spikeball on it, lounge under the sun on it and eat our Green2Go on it. So much happens on the Green everyday, but what exactly is underneath it?

If you started digging a hole on the Green, you would soon come across a steam tunnel that sits beneath the hundreds of pounds of soil and grass. The tunnel connects to the heating plant behind New Hampshire Hall, which provides energy to all of campus for lights, heating and air-conditioning systems, refrigerators and more.

According to Bill Riehl, who has been the manager of the heating plant for nearly 30 years, the plant is one of the oldest continually operated cogeneration — heat and electricity

— plants. The plant makes high pressure steam in the boilers for heat and distributes low pressure steam to campus, making electricity.

Described as “Dartmouth’s hardestworking building” by Scott Meachem in his 2008 book “Dartmouth College: An Architectural Tour,” the heating plant is credited to Benjamin Ames Kimball. After Kimball joined the Board of Trustees in 1895, he and his collaborators came up with the idea for the heating plant and the tunnel system and made these a reality in 1898, Meachem writes.

Over the years, the heating plant and the tunnels have seen many changes, according to Riehl.

“We used to burn coal, but since 1958, we burn number six oil,” Riehl said. “The tunnels were built in the early 90s as walking utility units, and prior to that, just like the other two thirds of steam distribution on campus

that are not heated through the tunnels, it was direct buried piping, going from manhole to manhole.”

Originally, the heating plant contained “a battery of four 125-horsepower horizontal boilers,” Meachem writes. Now, the boilers at the heating plant generate “almost half of the school’s electricity and [heat] about 100 buildings.”

Meachem also writes that the plant used to be managed by “firemen shoveling in eight-hour shifts.” However, Riehl explained that nowadays, besides him, “there are 14 union guys that maintain the plant.”

According to Riehl, the heating plant is self-sufficient out of necessity because of the limitations posed by Dartmouth’s rural location and lack of external resources. Riehl explained that the major downside to the heating plant is that it’s not sustainable, and it uses number six oil — a fossil fuel.

“The future of Dartmouth energy is not this plant anymore,” he said. “It’s still here, and it will be here for another 10 to 30 years until it’s completely phased out.”

Depending on where you are on campus, the steam tunnels may be right under your feet at any given moment. Riehl showed me the path the underground tunnels take. We started in front of the heating plant, then made a right and walked between Wilson Hall and New Hampshire Hall. If we could have kept going, we would have walked under Wheelock Street, under the Green and towards Rauner, ending at the Geisel School of Medicine. Essentially, we would have covered almost all of Dartmouth’s campus.

Riehl also explained the magnitude and purpose of the tunnels.

“A big pipe leaves the basement, and then there is three miles of distribution piping going West, East and North,”

Riehl said. “It supplies steam to all the campus buildings for heat, hot water, humidity control, and in rare instances, nowadays, they can use steam to make chilled water for air conditioning.”

Riehl highlighted how they have two different steam systems and are always prepared for the worst case scenario: one of the systems failing.

“If anything happens, we can find an alternate means to keep producing steam,” he said.

Abbe Bjorklund, Dartmouth engineering and utilities director, shared her hopes for the future of Dartmouth’s heating. Bjorklund said her coworkers have been working on transitioning away from using steam to heat campus to using low temperature heating.

Some buildings, such as Rollins Chapel, the Class of 1982 Engineering and Computer Science Center and Anonymous Hall, have already transitioned to this new system, according to Bjorklund. She added that the usage of geothermal energy, heat energy directly from the ground, will also be implemented into these systems.

“The plan will be to generate both hot water and chilled water — which is what we use for air conditioning from heat pumps — and have those linked to geothermal well fields,” Bjorkland said. “[These] will take heat from the ground in the winter to heat the buildings, and put heat into the ground in the summer.”

According to Bjorklund, this shift will result in our campus generating “less than 20% of the greenhouse gasses” than it generates now.

For now, the hot water used in the modern buildings is still heated by steam. Ella Briman ’25 and Pia Alexander ’25 — both students in ENVS 12, “Energy and the Environment” — said their class took them on a tour of the tunnels, during which they learned about the inefficiency of number six fuel to heat Dartmouth’s campus.

It will take up to a decade to transition to a complete water-heated, geothermal campus, and this will cause a major disruption to campus life, according to Bjorklund. While the current heating system has lasted for about 100 years, the engineering and utility teams are creating a new system that is going to be low-carbon, low greenhouse-gas and low energy costs.

The Nuances of Conventional Career Paths

By Noelle Blake and Grace Beilstein STORY

This article was originially published on May 23, 2023.

“I feel like there are a few broad paths you can [take] out of college: med school, law school, grad school for academia or business.”

In just one sentence, Grace Lu ’23 summed up a belief that some Dartmouth students may hold. But what is it that makes some students feel as though there are only a few paths to follow postgraduation?

For some students who wind up pursuing a career in medicine, the certainty of the path to becoming a doctor is a motivating factor. According to Grace Farr ’24, who was formerly on the pre-med track, motivating factors for her included that medicine is an altruistic career and a familiar one, as many Dartmouth students can identify someone they know who has chosen the medicine path.

“For my whole life, all of my cousins were in the medical feld, so it just seemed like the natural progression,” Farr said, adding that she used to think, “‘They all did it, so I’ll do it too.’”

Veronica Abreu ’23, who was also formerly on the pre-med track, said that as a freshman, she felt like the pre-med track was the default option as someone interested in biology.

“I came into college knowing I wanted to study biology … I came in as pre-med, with my mom as a physician,” she said. “I fgured I might as well stick with [premed], at least for a little bit.”

In refecting on why she dropped from the pre-med track, Abreu noted that the required classes were not consistently engaging, which caused her to lose interest. She also noted the notorious difculty of

these courses at Dartmouth as another reason she chose not to continue the track.

“One, it was really hard — [two], there were a lot of parts I’m not particularly interested in,” Abreu said. “I don’t particularly care about organic chemistry or physics, though I know those are important.”

Abreu added that she appreciates that Dartmouth gives students an opportunity to develop useful skills for a medical career — though it takes a lot of self-motivation and grit to get through the courses.

“Dartmouth won’t fail you out; they won’t tell you that you can’t do it,” she said.

“It becomes much more about a kind of personal fortitude and a commitment to it.”

Dartmouth also has a strong track record of students recruiting to top consulting frms. Lu explained that she interned at Boston Consulting Group’s New York City ofce over the summer and will return there for full-time work in the fall. She added that she will train and work with frms from across major industries, like tech and biopharmaceuticals, among others.

According to Lu, when she considered potential career paths, she asked herself about her motivations for pursuing those paths. Lu added that she has had conversations with her peers at Dartmouth about what it means to “sell out” — committing to a career based on the lucrative salary, while having little

interest in the industry or job. Farr and Lu both said that “selling out” lies at the interplay between work, fnancial freedom and the elusive passion many of us look for in a potential career.

At Dartmouth, the concept of selling out is occasionally confated with jobs like consulting. However, both Lu and Farr shared that they view consulting as a building block towards long-term career aspirations.

“I don’t personally think that I’ll be in consulting forever, but I think it’s a great frst step,” Farr said. Similarly, Lu said that she thinks consulting is a great starting point because it “exposes you to so many industries,” thus providing an opportunity to explore

diferent career paths, with an ability to specialize later.

Abreu said she still hopes to work in medicine, though she described how the concept of “selling out” may be applied to medicine as well.

“I think there are ways to ‘sell out’ as a doctor: Go in just to make the money,” she said.

Either way, it seems that medicine and consulting both have their potential drawbacks, though these negatives become more nuanced the more familiar one becomes in either field. As we approach the close of the academic year, outgoing seniors may ask themselves about their own motivations for whatever their next chapter or pursuit may be.

OLIVER DE JONGHE/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

From the Chilly Classroom to the Chillier Faculty Lounge

By Halle Troadec STORY

This article was originally published on May 24, 2023.

In 1989, before religion professor Susan Ackerman found a position at Dartmouth, she interviewed for a job at another university. When her interviewers told her that she didn’t look good in the dress that she was wearing, she panicked.

“It all of a sudden goes through your head, ‘I’m not going to get this job because I don’t look good in my dress,’” said Ackerman. “That’s not why you should or shouldn’t get a job.”

After receiving that criticism, Ackerman began to recognize how the treatment of women in her industry deviated from the experiences of their male counterparts. She added that although she believes there have been advancements in promoting gender equity in recent years, disparities and challenges persist, impacting the representation, treatment and career trajectories of women in the academic world.

One of the primary measures of gender inequality in academia is the gender wage gap. As originally

referenced in an article published by The Dartmouth in 2021, during the 2020-2021 academic year, male professors at Dartmouth made an average salary of $218,198, compared to only $184,367 for Dartmouth’s female professors — a pay discrepancy of $33,831.

Sociology professor Kristin Smith researches gender inequality, especially as it pertains to employment patterns and work and family policy.

According to Smith, sociologists have seen consistent inequality in the compensation of women compared to men, even after running statistical models that control for other variables. Additionally, the issue of the ratio of male to female professors gets worse when you take a magnifying glass to different departments.

“Dartmouth has done a good job in hiring more women over the past 15 to 20 years,” Smith says. “But there’s fewer women in the economics or computer science departments, and more men teaching at Tuck [School of Business].”

The only subset of departments that boasts gender parity among the

faculty is the arts and humanities, where women represent a stable 50%. In the social sciences, that number drops significantly to 35% and in the sciences, the number drops even lower. Within the physical and life sciences, only 26% of faculty members are female.

But Dartmouth isn’t alone in this matter. According to the faculty statistics of other Ivy League schools — namely Brown, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale — Dartmouth’s peer institutions also struggle with an uneven gender ratio within the classroom.

Thayer School of Engineering professor Helene Seroussi weighed in on the lack of gender parity in the engineering department. While she said that female representation is improving in the engineering classes she teaches and for tenure-track faculty, she confirmed that tenured female professors remain disproportionately underrepresented.

“It happens every once in a while that we have a meeting, and you’re the only woman in the room,” Seroussi said. “I barely notice anymore, but

every once in a while I’m like, ‘Oh, I’m the only one around here.’”

According to Smith, there can be discrimination in the hiring and promotion of women; the lack of job flexibility in certain careers like academia affects women and mothers disproportionately because they’re the ones who tend to do more of the housework — or are at least perceived to be.

“Generally, it used to be that employers viewed women as potential mothers, regardless of whether a woman intended to have children or not,” Smith says. “If an employer thinks that you’re going to take time off in a few years and potentially not come back, or just not be as devoted of a worker, then they may not invest as much in you, or they may not hire you.”

In 1971, The Supreme Court declared that denying women employment on the basis of motherhood was unconstitutional, so Smith doesn’t believe that these practices exist overtly as they did in the 1970s and 1980s. Yet, she added, these biases still show themselves in other ways.

Ackerman said she has also experienced similar biases against women. Before she taught at Dartmouth, she was compensated less than a male colleague in the same position as her while teaching at another university. When she asked her supervisor why that was, he told her that since her colleague was married and had kids, he felt he needed more money than her. But this comment seems like a paradox. How can having familial responsibilities be such a disadvantage for women, but sometimes an advantage for men?

There are other ways that gender differences can make it more difficult for women to succeed in an academic career than men. For instance, Ackerman said that the career timeline of an academic makes it harder for women to prioritize having and raising a child if that’s something that they wish to do. She explained that if you factor the five to seven years it usually takes to get a Ph.D. and the additional time it takes to complete a postdoc, an academic typically begins her career around age 30. Then, typically between the ages of 28 and 36, comes the

critical professional juncture where the institution that she’s working at makes the decision whether or not to give her tenure, exactly aligning with years many women decide to have children. And giving birth isn’t something that can be easily delayed.

“For women, there are some biological clock issues that kick in,” Ackerman said.

Ackerman also mentioned, however, that Dartmouth has made efforts to address this by delaying “tenure clocks,” the probationary period before a professor’s review for tenure, by one year per child for both men and women. But, Ackerman ultimately questioned whether or not these delays “make up for all the labor intensity that comes with starting a family.”

According to Ackerman, because women often bear a disproportionate responsibility for childcare, they are often more affected by these challenges. One of the biggest problems that female professors at Dartmouth face is the daily schedule.

“The ‘2’ class block used to end at 2:50 p.m., which meant that committee meetings could start at 3:00 p.m., and female professors could be out of work by 5:00 p.m. Now, committee meetings start at 3:30 p.m. which means they end at 5:30 p.m.,” Ackerman said. “There are a lot of daycares that close at 5:30 p.m. This means that women either can’t be on those committees, or are constantly ducking out early of those committees, which means they could never be chair of that committee.”

One thing I heard across the board that seems to be affecting female professors who have children: The lack of childcare in the Upper Valley. Dartmouth has a childcare facility that professors can use, but it’s very expensive and difficult to get into because of its high demand.

“Dartmouth can benefit from what needs to be a national conversation.

The U.S. is an outlier among other nations in not providing governmentsupported childcare and not providing more than 12 weeks of paid maternal leave,” Ackerman says. “If the health and well-being of our families is something that we as a nation care about, we as a nation should be thinking about putting more resources and support behind that.”

Spotlight on Dartmouth Jazz Education and Groups

By Jayanth Uppaluri STORY

This article was originially published on May 23, 2023.

Week 9 is busy for Dartmouth students for various reasons: Professors dole out final assignments, formal season kicks of and students solidify summer plans. For me, however, Week 9 is busy due to Coast Week, referring to the Dartmouth Coast Jazz Orchestra’s concert on May 27. My nights will be flled with longer hours of rehearsals, as we work tirelessly to put on the best show that we can.

The Coast Jazz Ensemble is a musical collective at Dartmouth centered around performing jazz and Black creative music. The Coast has existed at Dartmouth for over 100 continuous years, making the Coast one of the longest running jazz ensembles in the country.

Before the 1960s, jazz at Dartmouth resembled the student band scene today, as students would create their own jazz combos to perform at fraternities. Dartmouth’s jazz bands also toured up and down the East Coast, even using some of the money they earned from gigs to pay for their college tuition. As jazz became less popular over time and the bands lost popularity in the 1970s, the Coast Jazz Ensemble became a band within the Hopkins Center for the Arts, where it has stayed to this day.

The Coast has invited guest jazz artists to play at Dartmouth throughout the years, from bebop stars like Dexter Gordon and Max Roach, Latin jazz pioneers like Eddie Palmieri and avantgarde trailblazers like Lester Bowie. Notably, Dartmouth is the only college where the famously eccentric Sun Ra and his backing band, the Arkestra, had a formal residency. The diversity of the guest artists Dartmouth hosted is unique among its peer institutions.

The College was also an early pioneer in hiring jazz artists and scholars to teach classes. Under a program started by music professor emeritus Jon Appleton, Dartmouth began inviting guest artists to teach classes for a term in the early 1970s. These guest artist teachers included musicians Don Cherry, Lucky Thompson, Robert Northern, as well as Dwike Mitchell — who would bring up Dizzy Gillespie, for a performance. These artists are some of the most infuential jazz musicians of all time, and they were teaching and performing at Dartmouth when jazz education in a college setting was not yet formalized.

However, it was not until musician and scholar Bill Cole was hired by Dartmouth in 1974 that the music department began to fully embrace jazz. Cole was an ethnomusicologist who had written the frst scholarly biographies of Miles Davis and John Coltrane, and he set to work, bringing his distinctly non-classical perspective on music to Dartmouth. Under Cole, who would later become chair of the music department, the music department changed drastically. Cole instituted a program by which students interested in studying non-classical music and instrumentation could still major in music, a curriculum shift that presaged many of the developments in music education that have come in recent years.

Cole’s tenure at Dartmouth, however, is not famous for making Dartmouth a center of jazz studies, as he is more well-known for his confict with the Dartmouth Review. Over the 1980s, the independent student newspaper, led in the early part of that decade by Dinesh D’Souza ’83 and Laura Ingraham ’85, criticized Cole for not teaching the Western Classical-centric

curriculum that had dominated — and still dominates — higher education in music. In 1988, four members of the Review were punished by the College after a contentious altercation with Cole. These punishments thrust the College into a national spotlight concerning frst amendment rights.

Lost in this discussion, however, was any concern for Cole, who was not given the proper support for his curriculum that a tenured teacher might expect. Cole, who had taken the job at Dartmouth expecting that he would never leave, resigned his position in 1990, and Dartmouth has not had a tenured professor studying jazz since. Though the music department

SOURCE: DARTMOUTH

has supported the establishment of a tenure-track faculty position that focuses on jazz and Black creative music, the college has not endowed this position.

Unlike other student music organizations, the Coast doesn’t have the same name recognition that it once did among the student body or the Upper Valley. The lack of student awareness about the Coast likely comes from our status as a Hop ensemble, rather than a student-led group.

When it comes to academic course oferings, there are limited options to study jazz history and theory within the music department. Additionally, the Upper Valley isn’t exactly a jazz

metropolis, especially compared to New York City or New Orleans. However, Dartmouth’s history and engagement with jazz is anything but superfcial. Dartmouth’s history with this music is rich, and there is a lot to celebrate. Students have been enthusiastic about the arts at Dartmouth since the early twentieth century, and that has not changed. And yes, while the Coast was saved due to its incorporation into the Hop, this focus on music as an extracurricular allows us to forget the demons in the history of jazz education here at Dartmouth. Despite its brief success in the 1980s, the recognition of jazz here at Dartmouth has steadily declined.

OLIVER DE JONGHE/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF