Knowing Dean of Freshmen Peter Goldsmith began his career as a camp counselor might make it a little easier for incoming students to approach their class dean for help.
Goldsmith, who has been dean of freshmen at Dartmouth for the past two years, said he developed the basis of his philosophy about young people during the summers he worked as a camp counselor as a young man.
"In that time I developed an approach to young people, which presupposed that most of the time they would behave as responsible, mature human beings," Goldsmith said. "I have found over time that when expectations of students are high, they almost invariably rise to meet those expectations."
Reserved but not shy, Goldsmith's careful demeanor reflects his genuine concern for students. At 5-foot-5-inches, Goldsmith does not command respect by intimidation but rather through his presence.
"I regard myself as a person who takes students and student concerns very seriously," Goldsmith said. "I'm strongly inclined to regard students as people and as adults first."
"Students rarely disappoint me," he added.
Freshman year is similar to "stepping off a cliff to adulthood," Goldsmith said in a previous interview with The Dartmouth.
Changes that students experience in their first year at college "are so many and so profound that it is impossible not to be impressed by the amazing growth [students] experience over the course of one short year."
Goldsmith said his favorite part of his role as freshman dean is the interaction he has with students, whether on the Green, in his office or over lunch.
"I don't think anyone has ever described me as an overwhelming extrovert," Goldsmith said, but added that in some settings, as with groups of students, he can be quite outgoing.
"I see myself as a person who revels in conversation, who enjoys difficult intellectual problems that do not avail themselves of easy answers," he said.
Sitting in one of the comfortable, upholstered chairs, visitors to Goldsmith's office can scan the room and learn a lot about its owner.
The white bookshelves are lined with a varied selection of books, everything from "The Jewish Woman in America" to "Mythology."
Along the top of the bookshelves, next to a strategically placed box of kleenex, are pictures of Goldsmith's children, Joanna, aged 8 and Benjamin, aged 5.
On weekends, Goldsmith said he spends time with his wife and children, hiking and exploring New England. He also has a long-standing interest in music, both listening and playing, and for the past few years specifically in contra-dance music.
Hung on the walls of his office are a Dartmouth baseball cap and a picture of Al Dickerson, Dartmouth's dean of freshmen from 1956 to in 1972.
Dickerson, was a "wonderful writer with a dry wit," Goldsmith said, reaching over to pull one of Dickerson's books off his shelf.
"I find myself dipping into his writing with some regularity," he said, flipping through the volume.
It was Dickerson, Goldsmith said, who raised the writing of letters to freshman parents to an art form.
While Goldsmith tends to write four letters to parents each year, Dickerson, Goldsmith said in awe, used to write seven.
Across the room from Dickerson's portrait, hangs a picture from a Smithsonian exhibit a few years ago, "Black Baseball: Life in the Negro Leagues."
An anthropologist, Goldsmith's specific field of interest lies in African-American anthropology. This interest stems from his family's deep involvement in the civil rights movement.
"Being an anthropologist is an important part of who I am and how I see the world," Goldsmith said. Specifically, Goldsmith said he is interested in how groups work together and work out conflicts.
This interest held him in good stead over the past two years as he served as one of the three chairs of the Committee on the First-Year Experience.
The committee was originally designed to investigate how to better the freshman experience, academically and socially.
After months of discussions, the committee recommended overhauling the orientation program, constructing three primarily freshman residence clusters and making changes to the freshman intellectual experience, including changing the existing advising structure.
After much campus debate, the final report called for the Freshman Office to make changes to orientation programs and advising and the construction of a "supercluster" which will have a special dean and faculty advisor as well as more money for programming.
Goldsmith said the time he spent on the committee "was a time in which I learned an extensive amount about the institution ... [there] was not a moment wasted."
"Dartmouth is a very complex institution with a very complex history and to work effectively at Dartmouth you surely have to understand its history and the effects of that history on your present day life," Goldsmith explained.
"Part of my education on the subject of Dartmouth has been to learn about how it is that we carry our history with us in ways that enrich us immensely," he added.
At Dartmouth, Goldsmith said, traditions are constantly changing and adapting as at any other social institution.
"It is important to adapt the traditions to fit the times," he said.
