They sit there in their seats, enthusiastically listening to the words that their president has to say. There are 30 or so students watching his every move, eager to get excited over nothing more than political possibilities. He talks, they pay attention. That's the way these meetings always go, seemingly like clockwork. Every Monday evening, almost without fail, the Young Democrats of Dartmouth College meet in Silsby 213 at 6:00 p.m. sharp. Every Monday evening, without fail, the Young Democrats of Dartmouth College face a battle, in which the promise of pizza can be one's greatest ally. It's not a fight against the long dominant and well-publicized Republican organizations at Dartmouth, but rather a fight against a much more threatening foe: student apathy.
There are greater difficulties in attracting students to the cause you promote than finding out the campus's liberalness. Take a look at any of the newspapers of the past two weeks. They exemplify the media patterns of countless other schools and national newspapers; they are littered with campus complaints. Our paper reports on the negative aspects of Dartmouth's administration, from financial aid to sororities, even to other people's columns. It is not simply a reflection of the motto "what bleeds leads," but rather a tendency to lash out and criticize the opinions of others, to naively believe that every situation is cut and dry, that there is always a right and necessary way to conduct oneself. It is why every year there is a two-week period when the Greek system's faults are constantly analyzed. It is why the College Republicans are vilified by their enemies and worshiped by their supporters.
This trend has made its mark on the very essence of what defines our generation of students: a lack of student activism resulting from energy wasted on petty concerns. Examples are plenty for those who would repudiate my theory. They have found their way into more than simply Dartmouth's media outlets. Go to any one of Collis Commonground's activity fairs. See how easy it is to find a good seat at a sporting event. Explain to your best ability exactly what this year's snow sculpture was and why there were rarely more then 10 people at a time (if that many) working on it. And now I'm back to where I started. As this trend gathers momentum and the social atmosphere of this campus dries up, we must look at those organizations that attempt to buck this trend and make progress in the face of student apathy.
A telling example of how Dartmouth organizations are struggling with poor student activism is the Young Democrats. President Phil Peisch '04 is not oblivious to the fact that the political nature of Dartmouth is a battle with itself. "Dartmouth is notoriously conservative, but percentage-wise it is still a liberally-minded campus," he told me. "Just look at The Dartmouth's presidential poll from last year."
A study by the Los Angeles Times supports Peisch's assessment. A Jan. 28, 2002 article claimed that more college freshmen today described themselves as politically liberal than at any time since the Vietnam War. Peisch acknowledged that this trend has helped his organization, especially after the 2000 election and Sept. 11, but he also acknowledged that the organization still suffers from student apathy. One can tell in the closed-door, officers-only meeting that there is a sense of urgency to sustain student interest in the organization. In fact, the officers spend close to the same amount of time discussing ways to maintain current attendance levels as they spend on the rest of the actual upcoming meeting. With a budget of $60 and volunteer opportunities running low during this politically inactive period, lower membership numbers seem almost understandable. Nevertheless, the Young Democrats have built up their organization from one that had a regular attendance of five to six students last April to an average of 20 to 25 students this January.
This is what has become of the student-run organization. No longer is the motivation about promoting ideas and rallying around a cause but rather studying numbers and campaigning for support. This is not true in all cases. The popular DREAM organization, for instance, has added almost 100 members since its creation in 1999. They continue to prosper despite the lack of an affiliation with Dartmouth, including financial aid. DREAM exemplifies that there still are committed students devoted to the fields they have chosen. But their numbers are dwindling fast. And this problem is not unique to Dartmouth. The administration at Keene State asked Dartmouth's Young Democrats to come visit their college to help find 10 Democrats willing to found a similar organization.
It's not even like the solutions are out there. There is no foolproof way to buck the trend. There are no definitive answers. The eagerness to criticize, combined with the unwillingness to get involved, has made the challenges of student-run organizations, in essence, a losing battle. It is not a problem that good press and abundant finances will solve. More so than anything else, it is an issue of attitude, reputation and the sharing of information. Student apathy seems no longer just the lazy man's solution but also the frustrated and uninformed man's excuse.
