The article "College allocates campus space" [The Dartmouth, May 22] frustrated me tremendously. This article discussed the Facilities Advisory Committee, described the plight of the Women's Resource Center to move to a larger more central location, talked about Alpha Xi Delta's recent occupation of the Beta Theta Pi house and even managed to mention newly recognized Lambda Upsilon Lambda fraternity's desire to one day attain a permanent space for their organization. This is very admirable and noteworthy.
The article also managed to attempt to address -- in less space than the equivalent of one column occupying one-half of one newspaper page -- the space demands of the Dartmouth Rainbow Alliance, The Dartmouth Asian Organization, The Irish Society, The International Students Association, Milan and the Korean American Students Association. This to me is insulting in practice. I feel if the space limits of an article will prevent The Dartmouth from fully explaining the needs of each group demanding space, then the article should focus solely upon those groups seeking space because of their link to an academic department or solely to one group in particular's historic pursuit of space. I am willing to forgo seeing this as the marginalization of six organizations because I feel that there is a more important issue which must be addressed.
Under the nebulous heading "Other groups [seeking space]" the article stated the following: "Many other groups have begin looking for space on campus, including a group of students looking for the College to found a Latino Resource center. The students have recently submitted a request for space for the center ..."
Since the 1988-89 academic year, Latino/Hispanic students, primarily but not exclusively organized by La Alianza Latina, have articulated the need for a "space" tied academically to Latino/Hispanic populations as well as to the study of Latin America and the Caribbean. Since the 1993-94 academic year, Latino/Hispanic students, primarily but not exclusively organized by La Alianza Latina, have explained why available programming spaces, particularly La Casa, were inappropriate for the needs they had articulated previously. Since the 1993-94 academic year, the leadership of La Alianza Latina has made the pursuit of a space tied to administrative, faculty and student work that supports those interested in Latino/Hispanic populations, Latin America and the Caribbean. Since the 1993-94 academic year, the leadership of La Alianza Latina has called this imagined space a "Resource Center" (not a "Latino Resource Center;" simply a Resource Center). Since the 1995-96 academic year, when Latino and Latin American and Caribbean Studies became a "permanent" program, the Resource Center has been explicitly linked to Latino and Latin American and Caribbean studies at the College. Since the 1995-96 academic year the faculty of LaLACS have stated that the interdisciplinary nature of the LaLACS department necessitates the creation of a Resource Center. They have argued that the formation of LaLACS as a discipline through the already existing academic structures of the College and the divided (physical) location of the traditional academic departments that form the backbone of LaLACS creates a balkanization of LaLACS faculty offices, and because the "main" LaLACS department office has been housed only in temporary locations, the College needs to prioritize the creating of a Resource Center in order to create a permanent locus for LaLACS at the College.
This history presented above is incomplete. There is much more to say about the pursuit of the Resource Center. I or anyone else could go on and on about the many attempts to improve and/or modify existing proposals for space in the hopes of actually attaining it, but the point is that Latino/Hispanic students have been involved in the pursuit of space for 10 years. La Alianza Latina has explicitly led the charge for space for five years, and the LaLACS department has been an active force in pursuit of a Resource center for three years. In lieu of these facts, I find it insulting to say that students have "begun" to pursue space, when there are multiple public records of the pursuit of space that prove otherwise, from The Dartmouth on-line to this spring's issue of Uncommon Threads.
The fact that the front cover of The D featured stories about Butterfield residence hall's historic "substance-free" status and the efforts of Dartmouth Outing Club members to clear ice storm damage from nearby trails, to me states that to the editorial staff of The D, space is not that important of an issue. Perhaps I am wrong about this. I certainly hope that I am. However, I cannot forgive poor researching for this article when there are dozens of stories about this subject in The Dartmouth's own search index.
