A rash of disappearing "gay friendly space" stickers last Fall term caught East Wheelock UGA Mona Jean-Baptiste '01 by surprise. When she last was on campus , incidents of discrimination like the "Ghetto party" and the "Luau party" were fresh in people's minds. But since then, the campus seemed to have learned its lesson.
"I was kind of taken aback by it," she said. "It had been a while since I'd been on campus, and I thought Dartmouth had progressed beyond the petty superficial place it was when I left."
After the stickers were ripped from doors, they were replaced and again removed. UGAs called a meeting with Pam Misener, who is adviser for the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and questioning students.
And the Office of Residential Life sent letters to the victimized community "to make people aware of what was happening," said Area Director Jeff DeWitt, who called the incident in Wheelock cluster "high profile."
The main steps in dealing with any incident, DeWitt said, include providing support to the individuals involved, addressing any policies and laws that might have been violated, and taking measures to better educate the community to forestall any reoccurrence.
The action on the part of the UGAs and ORL was just part of the College's effort to make Dartmouth's campus a safe and accepting place for all students on campus -- including the GLBTQ community.
According to DeWitt, UGA training sessions that began for this academic year on Sept. 6 directly address minority and multi-cultural issues, including issues of sexual orientation.
In their training program, UGAs practiced dealing with students in the process of "coming out," providing support and diffusing any possible tension among roommates or neighbors.
DeWitt said the ORL staff uses role plays to learn how to deal with potential problems.
UGA training each year includes Misener, who speaks about sexual orientation issues, including both individual struggles and social incidents.
Advisers are advised to make their cluster advertising inclusive of all sexual orientations. For example, dance posters should include more than just a picture of a man and woman dancing, since that could denote a solely heterosexual event. Jean-Baptiste said she makes an effort not to include human beings on the posters she makes to advertise for cluster and floor events.
"My posters are fairly specific and they don't advertise who should and who should not come to an event," she said.
However, she said ORL does not spend a lot of time dedicated specifically to dealing with issues that pertain specifically to gay students.
"I think the training we got from ORL is more about trying to get us to understand that these things happen and we have to deal with them and confront them head on," she said. "We have to be aware of the issues that exist -- for the people who are offended by an act and for the people who committed the act."
Some UGAs said that the training program, while motivated by noble intentions, lacked in effectiveness and concrete results, while others said training helped them prepare for problems they might encounter.
UGA Deepa Rangachari '03 said that she found the day-long multi-cultural training, opening perspectives through discussion, to be quite useful, bringing up interesting issues.
"It really made us aware of issues," she said.
UGA Emily Turner '03 said that the training stressed sensitivity, and the importance in providing an "open, welcoming community in Dartmouth."
UGAs were urged to always be inclusive, Turner said. However, "the people who want to be UGAs generally already want Dartmouth to be very inclusive, welcome and open."
