We are now in the midst of on-campus corporate interviews. The top investment and financial services firms in the country will visit Dartmouth over the coming months to recruit many of our classmates. Career Services is working hard to help coordinate these interviews and to ensure that Dartmouth graduates are placed in career paths that will make them successful members of the workforce. While recruiting may provide excellent opportunities for seniors with specific career goals in the business field, shouldn't a college be promoting more than just financial success?
Some of Dartmouth's comparable institutions seem to think so. The mission statement of Brown University, for example, tells its students, "to serve the community, the nation and the world by discovering, communicating and preserving knowledge and understanding in a spirit of free inquiry." Cornell University describes itself as, "a learning community that seeks to serve society by educating the leaders of tomorrow and extending the frontiers of knowledge." For its part, Harvard "expects that the scholarship and collegiality it fosters in its students will lead them in their later lives to advance knowledge, to promote understanding and to serve society."
While all of these mission statements explicitly mention service as a goal, the Dartmouth mission statement does not suggest that we commit ourselves to service after graduation. In fact, it does not address anything beyond the undergraduate experience in Hanover. This is not to say that the College is not interested in the success of its alumni; Dartmouth understands that without successful alumni who support the College, it cannot survive. But what if Dartmouth spent as much effort encouraging alumni to contribute to society as it does encouraging alumni to donate to the College?
Dartmouth must work actively to fill the role of the university in society, that is, to strongly encourage its graduates to enter a career path for the common good. The role of the College is to prepare us to give back for what we have received and to use what we have learned in our time at Dartmouth. There are numerous campus organizations and initiatives that support service, but there is no cohesive statement from the College that a career for the common good is expected of us. The annual Not-for-Profit Career Fair is a start, but this student-initiated event does not compare to the investment of institutions such as Stanford, Harvard or Swarthmore that have dedicated entire centers to this purpose.
Despite the current financial troubles at Dartmouth, the move toward a unified ethic of civic engagement must be a priority. Given the severity of the world's social, political and environmental problems, it is imperative that the College assist qualified Dartmouth graduates in identifying career opportunities that will help them work for the common good. There are numerous paths that one can take in a lifetime of service; it is the duty of the College to promote these opportunities more aggressively than it does lifestyles based on self-interest.
Understand that the problem is not corporate recruiting itself. The on-campus recruiting process provides a valuable service to those who wish to enter certain fields. The issue is the College's perceived narrow interpretation of success to mean achievement in the financial world. Dartmouth must show that it is as proud of its social entrepreneurs and teachers as it is its CEOs and consultants.
That being said, the weight does not fall exclusively on the College. We have the privilege of spending time at one of the world's preeminent academic institutions. We are fortunate to have the opportunity to engage with others in an academic setting or to choose a career path that best suits their interests. With this privilege comes an obligation to give back to society and to the world. Dartmouth is charged with the duty to promote wholeheartedly careers that allow us to give back.
The Dartmouth mission statement tells us that "the quality of the educational and research experiences Dartmouth offers is one measure of its success." Shouldn't alumni service to society also be a measure of its success? By not acknowledging its duty to society, the College inhibits us from acknowledging our own. As students we must advocate for an official mandate from the College that channels our knowledge and energy toward confronting the challenges of society.
