Before I left to drive home to New Jersey for winter break, I ran into Collis to pick up a copy of the Report on the First-Year Experience. I had glanced quickly at the recommendations of the Report earlier in fall term, and had heard primarily about its suggestion for freshmen dorms. I wanted to sit down and read the report in-depth in October or November, but as often happens, papers, friends and sleep sort of kept it off my list of things to do.
So while I was home I found the time to read through this report that is incredibly important to the future character and residential life of our school. Its recommendations are sweeping and would have a direct effect on every undergraduate that will come to attend Dartmouth. This report needs to be read by as many people as possible, and discussed by even more.
The Committee on the First-Year Experience was formed by Dean Pelton in the winter term of 1994 with the primary goal of enhancing the social and intellectual experiences of first-year students through student/faculty and student/student interaction. It also aimed to create more stability and continuity in student housing patterns and to broaden "prevailing student social norms."
A lot of us would agree with many of the goals set forth by the Committee. The D Plan often wreaks havoc on any sort of housing continuity we might have, bouncing those of us who choose to live on campus from one dorm fall term to another in the spring. This discontinuity can strain friendships and lead to a lack of place or connection to the campus. An improved advising system and increased student/faculty interaction, although already high, would also help to better the intellectual environment of our College by enriching the learning experiences not only of first-year students, but of every undergraduate.
Yet, while the goals of the Committee on the First-Year Experience are laudable, some of its recommendations are less so.
The Committee's primary recommendation is the formation of three all-freshmen dorm clusters-the River, the Choates and the Bema cluster, which would incorporate the Fayerweathers and Wheeler/Richardson. These freshmen dorms would have only a small number of upperclass student "leaders" residing in them, effectively segregating the campus.
In my time at Dartmouth, I have learned and benefited greatly from the upperclassmen living in my dorms. I have learned not only about such things as the locations of buildings, how to operate my Macintosh or the best restaurant in the area, but also about more important social and intellectual issues such as the benefits of the Greek system, great professors and the importance of multiculturalism.
The first-year is an important time for us to grow and to decide on our own what issues and interests that we feel are most meaningful. It is a time for our own personal intellectual growth that allows us to decide who we feel are leaders. I would feel ill at ease at leaving it up to the College to choose the "upperclass student leaders" who will act as the rare upperclass contact that future "shmen" will have in their dorms.
To take away the intellectual growth and friendships that form in today's mixed-class clusters would be a move for the worse. It would isolate part of the first-year class far from the rest of campus, in some of our least desirable dorms, and would hamper the class interaction that is beneficial to student life.
The Committee also proposed the residence of a senior faculty member near each first-year cluster. As much as increased student/faculty interactions is a beneficial goal, it seems that this proposal goes too far. Upon coming to Dartmouth, I looked forward to the freedom that came with college life. Most of us looked forward to the freedom from direct authority figures, as well as to the freedom to choose the courses that we wanted to take and to choose the intellectual path that we desired.
The Committee's proposal would place a senior faculty fellow directly near first-year student just beginning to exercise their freedoms and would direct that fellow to, "be responsible for overseeing the intellectual life of the residential cluster to which he or she is assigned." It seems to me, however, that true intellectual life can never be overseen or directed.
The Committee of the First -Year Experience has put forth many more suggestions, including those relating to the advising system, construction of new student beds, more cluster-based lectures, greater research funds and the continuation of Freshmen Trips, that are admirable, important and hard to criticize. Yet, the recommendation that freshmen dorms be developed, and that they include a senior faculty fellow would be detrimental to our student life.
Dean Pelton has been traveling to clusters throughout fall term to discuss the Committee's proposals, and papers such as The Dartmouth and The Beacon have expressed their views on the Report's recommendations. It is important that this winter, as many of us as possible read the Committee's report and formulate our own opinions on its suggestions. Discussion is key at this point in directing the future course of undergraduate life at our College.
