Dean of Students Lee Pelton recently announced the members and the formal charge of a committee he formed last term to evaluate and improve the first-year experience at the College.
The Committee on the First-Year Experience is broken into three sub-committees, each focusing on different aspects of the freshmen year: residential life, intellectual life and orientation. It will make its report to Pelton by the end of Spring term.
Dean of Freshmen Peter Goldsmith said Pelton asked the members of the committee to "think creatively and not rule out anything."
"The committee's report should include recommendations that seek to support the integrity of the experience of first-year students, to improve their chances of succeeding academically and to strengthen the academic excellence of the College," Pelton wrote in an open letter to the Dartmouth community.
"Dartmouth College has a long and rich tradition in liberal arts learning which recognizes that education is a continuum that extends beyond the four walls of the classroom," he wrote.
The Committee, which comprises 12 administrators, six professors and 13 students, met with Pelton Wednesday.
"The overarching theme is to reinvest in the notion of an integration of the active and contemplative life of students," Pelton said in November. "What I mean by that is an integration of classroom experience with out-of-classroom experience."
Pelton will chair the 12-member residential life sub-committee, composed of five administrators, two faculty members and five students.
The residential life committee will "consider ways of better integrating the core intellectual activities of teaching, learning, studying, advising and mentoring within first-year residential life structures," Pelton wrote.
The sub-committee could examine the possibility of an all-freshman dorm, holding classes in dormitories or including faculty residential space in dormitory halls.
It also will evaluate the role of the Undergraduate Advisor and the Graduate Student in Residence programs.
When Pelton was at Colgate University as Dean of Student Life and then Dean of the College, he spearheaded the effort to create two predominantly freshmen residence halls that combined classrooms and dormitories under the same roof.
Comparative Literature Professor Marianne Hirsch chairs the 11-member intellectual life sub-committee.
The charge of the sub-committee is to "consider ways of reconfiguring current residential and social life structures in order to help students better connect the tasks of classroom learning with other aspects of their college experience," Pelton wrote.
Issues the intellectual life sub-committee might examine include freshman seminars and the faculty advising program.
Goldsmith, a member of the intellectual life sub-committee, said the group will also look for ways to facilitate faculty and student interaction.
"One area in which students express disappointment to me is the kinds of interactions they have with faculty outside the classroom," Goldsmith said.
He said the sub-committee will look for "new and creative ways to attract faculty to stay on campus when they're out of the teaching setting."
Goldsmith also chairs the nine-member orientation sub-committee.
"We want to find ways to make orientation week a more intellectual experience," he said.
The committee's charge is "to review our current orientation program as well as the other activities that have been developed to introduce students to the College; particular attention should be given to the scheduling, breadth and purpose of the Orientation Calendar," Pelton wrote.
Goldsmith said the sub-committee will look for the best way to introduce students to Dartmouth and will consider which aspects of college life should be discussed during Orientation.
The sub-committee will also look at the controversial Social Issues Night, a mandatory event for freshmen that presents them with skits concerning alcohol awareness, sexual assault and sensitivity issues.
Goldsmith said he was not sure how many changes the overall committee will recommend.
"I think we'll put a lot of questions on the table," Goldsmith said. "I think it would be premature to say it will require a lot of change, but we're open to the possibility."
Anna Ochoa '97, a committee member, said she is excited to be a part of the project.
"There are a lot of things I don't think are perfect," she said. "I hope [the committee] will tackle them."
