As student body president, I feel it is important to voice my concern over the imminent closing of Webster Hall. As you are probably already aware, the facility is slated to be shut down at the end of the Spring term for renovations that will transform it into a permanent home of Baker Library's Special Collections. This event is significant because it will leave the College without a venue for moderately large programming events.
Webster Hall has occupied an important place in Dartmouth's social, as well as intellectual, history. The facility served as one of the first alcohol-free social programming spaces at Dartmouth and was an early precursor to the Collis Student Center. As such, Webster Hall was among the first attempts by the College to provide social options to the many students seeking alternatives to frat row. Furthermore, under College President John Sloane Dickey, Webster Hall became the home of his famous "burning issues" forums. These presentations gave audience to many famous and influential individuals and demonstrated the building's wonderful potential to serve as a location that combined vigorous intellectual programming with events of a social nature.
Since that time, Webster Hall has hosted an endless stream of speakers, dances, concerts, and social activities. Few of these events could have been crammed into Collis or Alumni Hall, and nearly all of them would have been dwarfed by the cavernous size of Leede Arena or even Spaulding Auditorium. Webster Hall, with a capacity of 800, is the only auditorium of its size, and the elimination of this facility would rob the campus of its only true programming space.
The recent visit of Hillary Rodham Clinton may have provided us with a preview of the ordeals that would result from the loss of Webster Hall. Ms. Clinton's aids rejected the location of Leede Arena for security reasons, so her speech ended up being delivered in the woefully-inadequate Alumni Hall. Her appearance on campus drew hundreds of students, scores of which had to be turned away after clogging the corridors of the Hopkins Center for literally hours. Many others found the crowds too daunting to even attempt entering the building. Those students actually fortunate enough to make it through the double doors at the top of the stairs found themselves packed shoulder-to-shoulder in an extremely hot and uncomfortable conference hall. This will not be an acceptable situation in the wake of Webster's transformation.
The loss of Webster Hall as available programming space would raise many questions for which there are no easy answers. Where would concerts that could not fill a venue the size of Leede Arena, like Natalie Merchant or Wynton Marsalis, be held? Where would big-name comedians such as Adam Sandler perform? Where would leaders, such as Malcom X, Cesar Chavez or Angela Davis present their ideas and visions? Furthermore, where will the presidential candidates come to address the community next year? Nowhere if we do not plan on turning hundreds of students away. The loss of these events is not acceptable to the student body.
While we wish to communicate our concerns over the loss of Webster Hall, we also wish to make clear that we understand the importance of finding a home for the library's Special Collections. Having completed my Honors Thesis on the topic of Ezra Pound and the modernist canon last spring, I can say that I have experienced first-hand the value of the rare manuscripts currently housed in Baker Library. The loss or neglect of special collections is, of course, unconscionable. However, we feel that there are many alternatives to the permanent closure of Webster Hall. On behalf of the student body, I request that the administration either: (A) find a temporary location in which to house special collections -- such as space in the library's warehouses -- until it can be housed in an addition to the new Berry Library; or (B) provide funding for a $10 million alternative facility of comparable size and quality. The elimination of Webster Hall without providing for an adequate replacement is an alternative that the students roundly reject. I hope, more than anything, that we can arrive at an agreement that is mutually beneficial and which will protect both the Webster Hall programming space and the College's Special Collections.
