Upon reading the "Update" that the trustees printed for the town meeting and intently listening to their slideshow and ideas for the future for residential life at Dartmouth, I have a couple of comments and suggestions.
In the Update that was issued, the trustees put forth the both worthy and lofty goal that, "The quality of the out-of-classroom experience is an essential measure of our success in educating all of our students in the broadest manner possible." I agree wholeheartedly. I would argue that a great deal of both the learning and the growing that Dartmouth students do in their time here, occurs outside of the standard classroom atmosphere. The entire experience of living and eating with others, and the social implications of those actions accounts for a good portion of that growth and learning. For 3,250 of the 4,381 registered Dartmouth students enrolled in the fall of 1998 this learning took place in on-campus residential living arrangements.
One of the best things about Dartmouth is the fact that we have mixed year housing, and specifically no freshman-only housing. I know that I benefited greatly from having upperclassmen on my hall. I was able to talk about classes, professors, and class material with them, as well as watch movies in their rooms, and get rides to Kmart. Our class structure here, doesn't prevent freshman from taking upperclassmen courses, because with the exception of a few there are no freshman-only courses. So, if we don't separate by year in the classroom then why, especially if the goal of the trustees is to equate the out of class experience with the in-classroom experience, would the committee even consider a housing plan that would segregate based on class year. Let me pose another question: what would all freshman dorms do to the UGA position? I am a UGA and very happy in that capacity, I am also aware that it is a very unique position as far as the rest of the nation is concerned. For those of you who don't know it, UGA's don't get paid to do what we do. The reason most of us take the job is because we have either had a really positive, or a really negative experience with our UGA's when we were freshman. The attraction for me was the possibility to help, advise, and meet a great group of people.
At other colleges around the nation, the role of the RA is very different. They substitute for a policeman or college official that must enforce rules and policies from drinking to noise complaints. I wonder how many seniors (or sophomores) would volunteer to be an RA in an all freshman dorm. The whole dynamic of the position would change if we went to either a 1-2-1 or a 1-3 system. That might mean that the college would have to pay graduate students or hire non-students to serve the UGA position; that would not enhance social or residential life here at the College.
The next issue that I would like to address is the possibility of creating common houses on campus. A common house, in short, would be a place that is non-residential in nature that would allow students to gather around a common theme, cause or interest. For example, there might be a publication house home to a number of the college publications from papers, to journals, to comic books. I am all for that idea. Despite the fact that it may be segmented by interest, I feel that a lot of student organizations need more space and equipment and this might be one way the trustees go about addressing that problem. Another element of these common houses that was suggested was the possibility that one be attached to each or a number of clusters. These additions might include a big room to have parties, support programming or bring in speakers.
It is here that I vehemently oppose the idea. I have seen what goes on in the Wheelock Cluster and frankly I don't think it enhances or improves the out of classroom experience one bit. The "Supercluster" as it is sometimes referred, is a place that I feel is isolated from the rest of campus on many levels. It has its own dean, its own programming budget, which is far in excess of any other cluster's budget, and is supposed to be geared around learning and the education of residents; I would argue that it does just the opposite. There are people who live in Wheelock who never leave (granted, an exaggeration but I hope you get my point). If you allow students to feel that everything they need in the world they have in the three buildings surrounding them, guess what: they will never leave. I strongly believe that no single student, nor any individual hall, nor any particular cluster is complete enough to act as a separate entity above and apart from the rest of the Dartmouth College community. I feel that these clusters of the future with common houses attached to each one will only perpetuate this misguided experiment that should be discontinued all together. No one cluster represents the wealth of knowledge, diversity, or experiences on this campus, and I don't think that we can pretend it does now or ever will.
The last issue is centralized versus non-centralized dining. From what I have been hearing, it sounds like the committee is debating sticking a dining facility on to each cluster when they build new ones. This will further contribute to the isolation problem that the common houses will create. The food on campus is really good now, and dining facilities attached to the residence halls will surely make the quality worse. I don't know if any of you keep track of/care about the U.S. News and World Report ranking for colleges in this country, but of late Dartmouth has been slipping. We are currently tied for number 11. I don't care about this statistic that much. What I do care about is the statistics that are kept about quality of life at schools, because it is done by students and represents how they feel the school is progressing or not. We are somewhere about third or fourth in the nation, something I think the entire Dartmouth community should all be proud of. We must keep something in mind during the ongoing conversations and discourse that will take place in the upcoming weeks: "The quality of the out-of-classroom experience is an essential measure of our success" so is the quality of life at this school and we must not forget it.
