The William Jewett Tucker Center and the Dartmouth Center for Service have added programs to better focus on their respective missions since the two organizations split in June 2014. According to a statement given by Dartmouth’s Board of Trustees in the summer of 2014, the purpose of the change was to allow the Tucker Center to focus on religious life and spirituality while the Center for Service focuses in support civic engagement and community leadership. The two organizations now function independently of one another, though both still reside in South Fairbanks Hall.
Dividing the Tucker Foundation took two years so the College could carefully coordinate many steps of the transition, Tucker Center multi-faith advisor Leah Torrey said. This allowed both organizations to ease into their new independent roles.
“I’m glad that we took enough time to be certain that this [change] wasn’t rushed,” Torrey said.
Tucker Center Dean and chaplain Rabbi Daveen Litwin said that the decision would give the Tucker Center the opportunity to “[develop its] particular mandate.”
When asked to describe the mandate of the Tucker Center, Torrey said that the Center “[allows] students to talk about their values and how those values function in different situations.”
Tucker student employee Dan Korff-Korn ’19 explained that he envisions that the Tucker Center will become a place where students can confront large ethical problems facing the campus community on issues such as social life.
The Tucker Center continues to run many of the programs formally offered through the Tucker Foundation, including multi-faith conversations and “Voices of Faith” discussions each fall. The Tucker Center has also implemented new programming, including “Walks Clamantis” for Dartmouth sophomores and graduate students. Each week, this program asks a student to lead a tour of campus locations with personal meaning for themselves, often leading to discussions about struggles with mental health, relationships and academics. In addition, through a new “Speed Stories” program, the Tucker Center will collaborate with the Thought Project and Global Village Living Learning Communities and the Office of Residential Life to host professors in Occom Commons. As part of this program, professors will share their world views and will explain how those views developed in college and graduate school.
Director of the Center for Service Theresa Ellis ’97 , said that the division has allowed the Center to sharpen its focus on civic engagement and leadership.
The Center for Service also continues to run many of the programs it ran under the Tucker Foundation. On Oct. 20, the Center will hold a program titled “Breaking the Mold,” in which alumni and other speakers involved in civic service careers will share their experiences with interested students. The Center also plans to host lunch events for students to meet with experts in service-oriented careers such as public health.
The Center for Service has also developed new programming, Ellis said. This term, the Center has partnered with Student Affairs to make service opportunities based in the Upper Valley available to students through OrgSync, an online platform available to Dartmouth undergraduates. Among the organizations listed on OrgSync are the Upper Valley Humane Society and Habitat for Humanity, she said.
Despite the split, the two centers jointly held an open house at the beginning of the term. Both Litwin and Ellis indicated that future co-programming is likely because the new missions still overlap.
“Both centers still share the value of healing the world and making it a better place” Litwin said.
