Since I came to this campus I have spent a lot of time discussing the Committee on the First Year Experience report, most specifically the issue of freshman dorms. The first writing I did on this issue was a piece for The Beacon arguing against the implementation of freshman dorms. I eagerly await the opportunity to take part in Dean Pelton's "Town Meeting" this coming Thursday where I once again will voice my opinions. In addition to these formal settings I have simply spent time discussing the issue with Dartmouth students as well as with friends from other colleges.
A common thread runs throughout the way I have approached all of these situations. I have argued the issue in a purely theoretical and analytical manner, and on Thursday I will no doubt do the same. However, I'd like to take this opportunity to digress a bit from that pattern and attempt to show why mixed class housing can be so valuable from a personal experience standpoint.
Obviously this discourse raises the question of who cares about my personal experience? I hope that by the end of this column it will be clear that my experience has been valuable, and it is one that all future freshmen should have the opportunity to enjoy.
I live on the left side of the second floor of Richardson. The hallway includes two freshmen rooms, a room of sophomores and a room of juniors. Not that these distinctions are particularly important. It would be wrong of me to say that all of us are the best of friends. We all go off each day and have our own things to do. However, a certain understood bond links all of us.
A few days ago a friend of mine called. After one of my roommates had tracked me down and I picked up the phone the caller asked me what had taken me so long. I responded that I was out doing "the hall thing."
"The hall thing?" she asked. This term was somewhat baffling to her.
"The hall thing" is not exactly something one can explain easily. Among other things it is the ridiculous banter that goes on among the group of us often at absurd hours of the night. It's exact definition is not that important; the fact that it exists is. There is something very comforting about just walking into one of the neighboring rooms during a study break and engaging in a conversation with whoever just happens to be around.
Perhaps most interestingly, often times the only thing all of us seem to have in common is that we live near each other. We share a wide range of academic and social interests, political philosophies and geographic backgrounds. Come to think of it we might as well be on MTV's The Real World. But college is about meeting people that are not quite like anyone you have met before and developing relationships with them.
The Committee on the First Year Experience Report says that instituting freshman dorms would create stronger class links. Every friend I talk to at other schools questions why I would not rather live with solely freshman, all of whom were in the same situation as me. After all, there must be common experiences before one can develop a link to a group of people, right?
Maybe for some, but certainly not in the case of our hallway. The most valuable experience I have had at Dartmouth centers around the feeling of community and having a place. I am not a freshman but simply a student.
The goals that the First Year Report are looking to achieve are all admirable. Class bonding and intellectualism among others are important and the College constantly needs to look at how to reach these goals.
But we need to be careful.
I recognize that many freshmen may not have had the same positive experience that I have. For some, perhaps the extent of their upperclass relations is a passing "hello" in the bathroom. However, I think that the case of my hallway proves that one never knows what will develop when you throw a bunch of tremendously varied people into the same area.
There is always the potential for something to develop. It may not happen to all freshman but there is always the possibility, and to deprive freshmen of that opportunity is a disservice to them.
