The College's numerous administrators and committees have professed themselves of late to be deeply concerned with the lack of "intellectualism" at Dartmouth. College President James Freedman has praised the virtues of activities such as cello playing and translating Catullus in his ongoing efforts to redirect Dartmouth's frat basement dwellers and pre-professionals toward a more traditional liberal arts education.
In its battle to mold the Big Green into a bastion of scholarly debate, heated intellectual discussion, and cultural exchange, the administration has effectively overlooked a key forum - student publications.
Student publications serve to enrich the entire community by fostering debate, providing entertainment, encouraging dialogue and most importantly, by promoting understanding. They provide many students and groups with a voice on campus - students who often feel that they or their ideas are not otherwise adequately represented.
Publications exist currently in several forms: academic and literary journals are funded by the Council on Student Organizations; electronic publications survive without funding; The Dartmouth is incorporated; publications unrecognized by COSO (such as The Dartmouth Review, Inner Bitch and In Your Face) print with outside support.
But the publications that are recognized by the College, but are not strictly academic or literary, nor electronic, struggle continually to remain in existence. These publications, such as Spare Rib, The Beacon and Bug, to name a few, print and distribute to the entire campus on a semi-regular basis. Despite continual efforts to sell advertisements to local businesses, with some success, all are in debt.
Under current College policy, any publication can receive money from COSO to put out its first issue, but after that preliminary stipend, the publication is expected to finance itself entirely. This is difficult, at best, due to the low advertising potential among small businesses in the Hanover area.
Despite these financial constraints, student publications continue to publish, demonstrating that students feel the need to contribute to campus discourse. No forum serves this purpose as well as a publication, which reaches every single Dartmouth student. Regardless of slant or intention, whether political or not, these student efforts deserve support and guidance from the College, neither of which they receive.
Aside from funding, one of the largest obstacles to the quality and timely production of student publications is the lack of equipment to facilitate the physical production aspect of a publication - layout, printing, paste-up, etc. The College's token attempt at encouraging publications has culminated with the "student activities room" in the new Collis center.
This room, approximately the size of a large dormitory closet, seats two comfortably. Its contents include one computer with insufficient memory to run PageMaker and anything else simultaneously, a Laserwriter and a paper cutter. This minuscule and under-equipped office is supposed to provide the resources for every campus publication to publish regularly, in addition to meeting every campus organization's computing needs.
In the meantime, student publications are forced to rely upon special permission from various College offices - permission which may be revoked at any time - to utilize a large, well-equipped space in which privacy may be maintained during production. This is neither practical nor efficient, as students are then restricted to after-hours use of office space. Quality production in this type of situation can easily require a week of all-night forays - no small demand during a 10 week term.
In order to encourage, instead of discourage, forums for the diverse voices of Dartmouth, the administration must address the needs of the College's student publications. Dartmouth bears a responsibility to its students to support publications as vehicles of communication and as highly commendable student efforts to affect the Dartmouth community through dissent, discussion and the discovery of voice.
It is time to recognize the value of all campus publications - they should not be relegated to scrounging for supplies, workspace and funding by a College that flaunts its advocacy of free speech.
