"Dartmouth does have a tremendous ability to develop early on a sense of place for its students," Dean of First-Year Students Gail Zimmerman has said of the College's unique qualities. "It happens here, and it's very special."
Every year, the First-Year Office provides numerous resources to help incoming freshmen adjust to their new environment.
The office in the basement of Parkhurst Hall deals with everything ranging from simple concerns of how to get around campus to the most serious of issues. Its sole aim is to aid and educate freshmen.
"When you have a freshman meeting ... you never know what the issue is until the student walks through that door," Zimmerman said in a previous interview. "You have to be willing to always listen to the student."
The job of a first-year dean is different from other deans because "we understand, from the very beginning, that students don't necessarily know how the College works," Zimmerman said.
Zimmerman's own professional background stems from the extensive work she did in counseling. She worked in Wisconsin and then at Texas Christian University before coming to Dartmouth. She has been a counselor in the Academic Skills Center, an Assistant Dean in the First-Year Office for six years, and for the last three years, she has been the First-Year Dean.
"I never get tired of helping students understand their entrance into the college community," Zim-merman explained, "and figuring out how and why this is different from a high school environment."
Though the first year of college can be overwhelming regardless of where a student attends, Zimmerman stressed that adjusting to an elite college like Dartmouth can be especially difficult for many students.
"Dartmouth places a particular emphasis on academic integrity," Zimmerman said. "I think we expect our students here to take a lot of responsibility for ourselves and for others."
Zimmerman noted the student residence hall staff as an example of how much the College relies on student help. "I don't know of any other institution that does not have the presence of professional staff in their residence halls ... We still largely rely on UGAs. In general, we require and expect a lot of peer education."
"We get much more involved in students' residential experiences, in terms of roommate situations," Zimmerman said. "We try and help them navigate that so that by the time they're sophomores and above, they already know what to do."
Dartmouth not only presents new responsibilities for students academically, but socially as well, according to Zimmerman.
Dartmouth's famous "work hard, play hard" mentality also plays an important role in freshman students' adjustment to their new situation.
"I meet with students all the time about how they're balancing their social lives with their academics," Zimmerman said.
She noted that the D-plan especially strains students.
"It's a challenge, how to stay connected, how to maintain relationships in an environment where people are always coming and going," Zimmerman said.
Current college policies that stem from the Student Life Initiative have thrown focus on the social and residential experiences of the students. They have most certainly affected the first year program.
Since the beginnings of the Initiative, Zimmerman has made it her goal to ensure that students receive guidance regarding Dartmouth's social options during orientation.
"Orientation was primarily meant to get adjusted academically, to take placement tests, go to open houses, schedule courses," Zimmerman said, "but it's much more of a balance between social and academic now."
Since the 2003 orientation -- during Zimmerman's first year as dean -- 54 new social events have been added to orientation.
This fall should be a typical one for the First-Year Office, full of trials and tribulations, but for Zimmerman, "it is that part of the education process that I love. It's a real privilege to be able to help somebody become a member of this community."
