Let me start by acknowledging some very good points in the SLI report. The report successfully addressed the conspicuous need for a variety of new facilities and social spaces on campus. We need a dining hall and athletic facilities on the north side of campus (something of which I'm sure I'd be aware even if I didn't live in the Choates). We need more residential space on campus to augment the already extraordinary sense of community. And we most definitely need new social spaces on campus and maybe even in town, places where people could sit and hang out with friends or whatever else.
The key word here, though, is additions, not sweeping changes. I hate to play the statistics card, but the Princeton Review, and I'm willing to bet other similar sources, consistently rank Dartmouth tops in the nation for student happiness. And there is something to be said for statistics -- the trustees couldn't have been very happy that Dartmouth dropped out of U.S. News' top 10, perhaps explaining the desire to change the school into, say, Harvard or Yale, schools consistently ranking higher than Dartmouth. Either way, it makes little sense to me this desire to completely change an already (statistically proven) wonderful thing. Leaving well enough alone may not be good enough -- there are some good plans in the works and some changes that could be made -- but the sweeping changes discussed in the report, if enacted, would clearly result in an entirely different school.
I came to Dartmouth precisely to come to Dartmouth, not to come to Harvard or Yale or Princeton. I deliberately came here, and I very deliberately did not go there. I liked the student body's enthusiasm, which far surpasses that of any other school I know of; the great people; the location, the setting and the size. And I'm willing to bet most other students came to Dartmouth for their own deliberate reasons. People come to Dartmouth because of everything that makes it unique. This school attracts a certain type of student, one that is 100 percent pro-Dartmouth, something I noted when making my decision.
However, whether the trustees intended it or not, the message they send by wanting to change Dartmouth, the school that draws in "Dartmouth people," is that they want a new type of student to fit at this new school. What else are we supposed to make of the report when it says that Dartmouth must make an effort to get more "high-ability" students to attend? When they attend it means other people can't. 150 freshmen here right now were basically backups for the "high-ability" students the administration wanted. I personally like the class the way it is and I'm glad it turned out like it did. But the changes recommended by the committee are aimed at attracting the type of people who end up matriculating elsewhere. The administration wants to attract the "Harvard people" and the "Yale people" so they're recommending changes that they believe will draw these people in. So what's to become of "Dartmouth people"? When the "new Dartmouth" arrives, it will not be filled with the types of people you see here now because, as the new type of student filters in, attitudes will change, and there will be no room left for us. What will result is an entirely different school with an entirely different attitude. Changing the school to attract people who go elsewhere ignores the needs and wants of the type of people who come here now and leaves the happy, dynamic, intelligent, successful students we have now without such an outstanding school where they will be comfortable.
I've heard a variety of concerns from a variety of people regarding the Dartmouth of the future. The most common is in regards to the recommendation to construct a new system of clusters. In the words of an East Wheelock resident, "East Wheelock is the wave of the future! The greatest failed social experiment in college dorm life is becoming the model for all future housing! We will all have future classmates that will be stuck in their plush rooms with everything and have the most anti-social, awkward social skills ever!" I personally defined "paradox" to a friend with the example "the trustees will solve the lack of interaction on campus by making residential clusters that inherently preclude one's ability to interact with a wide range of people." There are so many people I wouldn't know if my social life centered completely around my cluster. Such a system would attract or create an entirely new type of student, a more anti-social, unhappy student, the "high-ability" student the administration seems to be so keen on.
I, as well as countless people I've talked to, am troubled by what the trustees see for the future of this school. One senior told me he was scared that, in essentially altering Dartmouth to attract the people who are now going to, say, Harvard, Yale, or Princeton, Dartmouth will cease having an identity of its own. Another upperclassman said she was worried that Dartmouth will become a school that she won't be proud of anymore. I even heard a third senior say he was glad to be graduating so soon because he doesn't want to be around when Dartmouth starts changing.
The love Dartmouth students have for this school tops that of any other I know, and I simply can't fathom why anyone would want to change that. The present Dartmouth is the closest to a college utopia that I can imagine. There are additions that can be made that will improve Dartmouth without changing it so completely, but at present, all the SLI has produced is a heightened sense of tension and uneasiness, partly replacing the once-dominating sense of happiness. Many people have noted how the SLI has already started hurting Dartmouth, and those people, once enthusiastic about how great a school Dartmouth is, are now panicking about what will become of the rest of their time here. The period of upheaval will eventually end--most likely after all of us have graduated--and at that point, who knows what the prototype "Dartmouth person" will look like? My guess is that it won't be the intelligent, down-to-earth, interesting, unique and perfectly "high-ability" people we all know and love now. Instead, Dartmouth may become the haven for rejects from the schools the administration is trying its best to emulate.
