Dartmouth students don't care. We are here to get our Ivy League degree, network with rich alumni, and then get to the business of making more money. We are totally preoccupied with our narrow and highly exclusive social organizations. Dartmouth College is just a four-year vacation from the real world and real responsibility. And the Student Assembly is just a cruel joke which makes no real changes and does nothing for the average student.
Am I the only person sick of hearing this?
From reading the columns often printed on this page, a prospective member of the class of 2001 could easily infer that the only thing Dartmouth students seem to care about is themselves. According to Matt McDonald '00 ["Why I Didn't Vote," April 21, 1997, The Dartmouth], it is certainly a significant waste of our time to consider any form of constructive participation in the student body's democratic process. It is clear to him and to every other enlightened member of this community that "it doesn't matter who ends up getting elected." We should therefore resent being told that it is our responsibility to vote. As students we do not need to get involved. We can defer our collective relationship with the college to someone else. Voting, as McDonald wrote, "makes little difference to the individual."
I have a question for you, Matt: Do you eat?
If you eat at Dartmouth, and if someone is paying for it, then there is no place at this college for your indifferent, self-serving electoral complacency. It does matter who sits on the Student Assembly, and voting actually does impact the individual student.
Starting yesterday, the Student Assembly and the student liaisons to the Trustee Committee on Finance are holding an on-line referendum regarding the future of Dartmouth Dining Services. The Vice President and Treasurer of the College, Lyn Hutton, has passed the fate of DDS into the student body's hands. For the first time since student anti-war activists stormed Parkhurst in 1969, the Administration is once again trusting students to make responsible and informed decisions regarding major components of College policy.
Don't tell me the Student Assembly doesn't make a difference. And don't tell Dartmouth students that they have no responsibilities.
Voting does matter. And this vote on the future of Dartmouth Dining Services demands considerable input from student body. This referendum affects international students, financial aid students, and any member of the Dartmouth community who pays the bills they send and eats the food they make. Like it or not, that includes all of us. Perhaps a few students are so well off that they can sit in their rooms, order out every night, and write columns urging others to join them in their own short-sighted indifference. But some of us do not have that luxury. And most of us care enough to have our opinions make a real difference, rather than just making The Dartmouth's editorial page once a week.
We live in a democracy and if we do not participate in that democracy, then we deserve the tyrannies and the monopolies we tacitly invite. Students have been calling for a greater influence in college policies for decades. This is an opportunity we cannot afford to miss, and a responsibility we cannot defer to someone else. Sign on and tell the Administration what you think. Tell them what services you want, and what you are willing to pay. The URLis http:/www.dartmouth.edu/projects/dds/.
If the students don't decide, then the administration will decide without the students. That, in itself, is why you should care. I hope, Matt, that this time you can find a reason to vote.
