When you get right down to it, the main reason anyone comes to Dartmouth is to get an education.
Perhaps former College President John Sloan Dickey put it best when he said, "The business of this place is learning."
Even though those words were uttered more than 20 years ago, today's administrators and faculty members still hold those beliefs close to their hearts.
"I still believe what Dickey said is at the heart of the College," Dean of the Faculty James Wright said. "The business of learning is something we're all out to do."
The business of learning at Dartmouth takes on many forms.
The College revolves around the central belief that intellectualism should permeate every corner of campus life, both in and out of the classroom.
"I think it is imperative for student to devote their time at Dartmouth to intellectual pursuits broadly defined," Deputy Provost Bruce Pipes said. "That includes their courses, their personal interests and campus groups."
Since College President James Freedman arrived on campus seven years ago, the College has embarked on a large effort to increase intellectualism on campus.
"Under President Freedman, the College has evolved in wonderful ways," Dean of Freshmen Peter Goldsmith said. "It is a more intellectually vibrant environment."
"For many students, these ought to be the four most intellectually vibrant years of their lives," Goldsmith explained. "There is a great deal more to Dartmouth than intellectual life, but intellectual life is the heart of the enterprise. It has to be."
Wright said he agrees with Goldsmith's assessment of Freedman's administration.
"There is no doubt that President Freedman, through his 'life of the mind' and his ideas of the intellectual purposes of the College, has empowered us to celebrate intellectualism more," Wright said.
Wright said defining the intellectual mission of the College can be elusive, but it is as much about unlearning as it is about learning.
"The College tries to expose students to the physical, intellectual and cultural world in which they are going to live," Wright said. "We try to show them the agony and frustration of learning and unlearning."
A new environment
New students arriving at Dartmouth will find the intellectual and academic environment more rigourous from what they experienced in high school.
"The first term at Dartmouth can be quite a shock," Goldsmith said. "Students often misgauge the amount of work. They may think three courses is not heavy, but they quickly learn that the terms are tremendously compacted and the pace of the work is breathtaking."
Goldsmith said students can also expect faculty to demand a lot them and demand that students think for themselves.
"There are certain skills students need to acquire here in the first year," Goldsmith said. "They need first-rate study skills. They need to write well and learn how to read efficiently and strategically. They need to learn to make use of faculty office hours," he said.
Also, students will need to do most of the thinking and planning for classes on their own.
"No one is breathing down your neck to do your daily assignments," Goldsmith explained with a smile. "There are no parents. A great deal of the motivation has to come from the student."
Nonetheless, Goldsmith said he would not prescribe a specific curriculum for a freshman.
"Part of the educational process is to force students to draw their own conclusions about what it means to be educated," he said. "That is a four-year process."
Wright also said students have to choose what they want to learn.
"Students at Dartmouth need to appreciate that finally they're responsible for the shape of their own education," Wright said.
The workload at Dartmouth varies by the student and classload.
Science students are more likely to spend more time in labs, but Humanities and Social Sciences majors are more likely to spend late nights writing long papers.
"It seems to me that a student typically spends about ten to fifteen hours a week in classes and then should spend forty hours a week doing homework," Pipes said. "But my guess is that it is a rare student who spends thirty-five to forty hours a week doing homework."
But students should not despair about the weight of the workload for, as Pipes said, "You wouldn't be here if we weren't pretty sure you can handle the workload."
Changing curriculum
The new curriculum will change the way learning as well as intellectualism on the Dartmouth campus is perceived.
The new curriculum will institute a number of new distributive requirements. Administrators and faculty say they are very excited for the changes it will bring.
"The new curriculum is a much clearer statement of what faculty view as a solid, modern liberal arts education," Pipes said. "The faculty said here are specific sets of ideas that every Dartmouth student should be exposed to."
The two major changes in the new curriculum will be an increase in multidisciplinary courses and the creation of a culminating experience within the major.
"The culminating experience will force students to pull together the work of their major and try to add something intelligent," Wright said.
Numbers, numbers, numbers
Students at Dartmouth take three courses during an average term, according to Registrar Thomas Bickel.
Students are allowed two terms where they may take two courses and two terms with four courses. A total of 35 courses is needed to graduate.
The most popular major is Government, followed by History, English and Economics, Bickel said, although the exact order fluctuates yearly.
About 10 percent of every graduating class double majors and there is usually one triple major in each class as well, Bickel said.
Dartmouth instituted a minor program, which started with the Class of 1994. However, only about 100 people minored out of a class of more than 1,000 people, Bickel said.
Because of the uniqueness of Dartmouth's enrollment pattern, the Dartmouth-Plan, a student who does not take any leave terms can graduate in three years.
But Bickel said only three or four students each year are in a particular rush to leave Hanover.
The average class size at Dartmouth is 28 students, Bickel said.
In courses numbered 19 and lower, the class size is about 34 students, while in higher level classes numbered 20 and up, the class size drops to 19 students.
Some of the introductory courses, though, such as Biology 15 or Psychology 1 regularly number more than 200 students.
Only 10 to 20 courses out of more than 200 offered each term have waitlists, Bickel said. But through upper class priority, students have a fairly good chance of getting into a specific class sometime during their four years at Dartmouth, he added.
But all numbers aside, college is a learning experience.
And administrators go to great lengths to emphasize that students should try to make the most intellectually of their four years at Dartmouth.
"The College goes to a great deal of effort to see that students are not only surrounded by faculty with extraordinary accomplishments and interests, but also fellow students who have a lot to offer one another," Goldsmith said.
"If the student education was confined only to class and office hours, then a residential college like Dartmouth has nothing more to offer than a commuter college," Goldsmith said.
