Ina letter to the Editor of The Dartmouth onApril 19, 1995 ("WRC relocation and housing crunch are separate issues") Director of the Women's Resource Center Giavanna Munafo and Admininstrator of the WRC Kathleen Karr discussed how the relocation of the WRC and the housing crunch were unrelated. But there are much more serious problems present at Dartmouth, which their letter highlights perfectly.
Both the leaders of the WRC and I agree that there is a "perennial space shortage" at Dartmouth. The question now is how we can alleviate that shortage and with this limited space, establish what our priorities are.
The answer to fixing the space problem is simple -- Build more stuff: Dorms, resource centers, planning areas. However this takes time and money that the College seems unwilling to spend. But before I start getting angry as to why an institution which has $500 millionin "Will to Excel" cannot part with a dime to actually excel, I will deal with the current situation, the "perennial space shortage" and our priorities.
With a very limited amount of space we need to prioritize our -- that is Dartmouth's -- problems and try to solve the most serious problems first. It is rather self-evident that the housing crunch is by far the worst of these space problems. The College recently denied 65 freshmen their first choice D-Plan because of this problem.
This was not in the College's brochure. Actually, the College presents the D-Plan as some great advantage that each student can use to better his "Dartmouth experience." Now because of this housing crunch and ORL's decisions, our free use of the D-Plan is determined by luck.
Here is where the WRC and its ongoing quest to be relocated enters the scene. We have a decision to make about this space crunch. Does the College have a commitment to its students to house them; to allow them to pick their own D-Plan; to be able to room with someone that you know as opposed to having housing two weeks after school starts with some random; or to its extracurricular center?
In the name of a better College we all should answer these questions without regard to where in the College we are and what we believe. There can be no debate that the student housing crunch and the lack of a more centrally located WRC is due to this "perennial space shortage." Thus, my original letter ("The College should have higher priorities than relocating the WRC," April 17, 1995) still stands firm in that the housing crunch should be a higher priority to the College.
This issue just illustrates that everyone is out to improve his or her own little thing and nobody seems to care about the quality of student life. It seems as if the WRC is saying, "Look, we need to be relocated and if that means five more years of a housing crunch and loss of choosing your D-Plan, tough, because we won." Where is the sense of unity and overall improving of campus life? Why must everybody be so sectionalist, so anti-Dartmouth?
I sympathize with the WRC for being placed in the Choates; I live in the Choates. However until we can house all of our students, until students stop feeling lucky when they even get housing (much less care that it's in the Choates) the WRC should feel the same way.
