Two hundred freshmen will debate the social issues addressed in four senior theses sold to incoming students this summer during a discusion program which kicks off this afternoon.
The program, now in its second year, is part of a larger effort to make Freshmen Orientation more intellectual, said Mariya Rosberg '96, who has coordinated the program along the Freshmen Office.
In late August, freshmen received a letter explaining the program and an order form that allowed them to purchase one or more of four theses selected for the program
For $7, students received an entire thesis, complete with appendices and a study guide to prepare them for the group discussions which will be led by faculty members today, Sunday and Monday.
By exposing students early on to the high academic quality to which they can aspire at Dartmouth, "freshmen get the idea of what they can accomplish here," Rosberg said. "You don't really get into intellectual life until the first weeks of the year."
"It's amazing to read the incredible amount of scholarship these students have accomplished," Rosberg said. "It's very inspiring."
This year's theses were chosen reflect current social issues at Dartmouth in a more serious setting than they are presented during Orientation. "This is a very intelligent approach to social issues, backed up by research" said Rosberg.
The four theses chosen were "An Examination of Paul's writings about women in the New Testament and in their Historical Context," Shock Troops: The Story of Nashville's Nonviolent Army, "A Technical Study of the Russian Nuclear Reactor VVER-1000 and its Impact on the Russian Nuclear Power Industry" and "Degrees of Broken Silence: Dartmouth Man, Gay Men, and Women, 1935-1991"
