It stuns me that little is mentioned about the housing situation at Dartmouth. Here we are at Dartmouth College, an Ivy League school and a top-ten institution, according to the U.S. News & World Report. We go to one of the best schools in the nation. We can pump out successful graduates at a break neck pace. Yippee-doo-doo-dah. But here is the kicker: we cannot even house all of our students. Sure, most of us know about the non-guaranteed housing for sophomores and the poor room management, but the larger problems is why we, the students, continue about with the sheets pulled over our eyes. Or even worse, with the sheets covering our mouths. I say we do something about this situation not by whispering our complaints, but by being proactive about the situation. Go tell it on the mountain: we demand beds!
I should not have to remind you how costly it is to pay for a Dartmouth College education; for those of you that do not know, it is somewhere between much and very much. With such a high price tag, we expect superb teachers, superb students and superb facilities. Someone did not get the memo: we expect superb facilities. We do not expect Jacuzzis and saunas; we simply expect enough beds. Dartmouth, unfortunately, is trying too hard to be the College on the Hill -- bring your sleeping bag and a lottery number because you do not know if you will be sleeping in Topliff or under the Lone Pine on the hilltop.
Why the mum? Why is little said about this? One part could be the D-plan itself and how it creates a transient student body. We are here for nine weeks and things happen so rapidly that we continue to grin and bear it. The student thought process might go like this: "this term I might be at Dartmouth but next term I will be in London for the Music FSP, so why should the rooming situation matter?" It matters because we pay a high price and the basic guarantee of housing should not be something we have to fret about.
The Dartmouth's op-ed section is littered with umpteen angry tirades on the war in Iraq: Why War, the Moral Obligations to Iraq, United States Foreign Policy towards the Middle East -- what is this? A copy of Foreign Relations? A student publication should also focus on student issues. I also take part of the blame for not writing about this issue earlier. When the administration decided to cut the swim team, the op-ed section was filled with letters in support of the swimming program and how the administration was wrong. The student body felt impassioned to do something and write about a compelling issue.
The housing problem, I do believe, is a compelling issue. Just about the only way I can think we will be able to get guaranteed housing is if we are as vocal about the housing issue as we were about the swimming issue. Imagine if Parkhurst was full of picketing students and the national media was called in to cover the event. "Ivy Cannot House its Students""or even "Beds! Beds! Beds!" could be the names of articles populating such publications as The New York Times or the Chicago Sun-Times. We could and should raise hell about this issue. If we are loud enough, the snow might melt and the administration's glacial response might jolt into a quicker response.
More housing requires more money. And if we are in an economic downturn, how do we accomplish our goal of receiving more housing? The goal should not be to just receive more housing, it should be to let the administration and trustees know that housing is our number one priority. That when we do have the money (and I think we have enough right now), the College will strive to serve the students. Instead of new graduate housing or student programs, we will receive the basics of a roof over our heads.
This is the last publication of the paper before Spring term, and I would like to have seen a few "To the Editor"s in response to this column. You can still do something about the housing problem while you are on spring break: write, write, write. Blitz the trustees. Blitz the administration, President Wright, the ORL people, the Provost, Dean Larimore, Stuart Lord, heck, even the admissions people. Blitz the Student Assembly saying, "no more ice cream, we want beds."
I could be way off base with this article. I could be raising an issue that you do not think is a problem. But if you do not think housing is a problem and nothing needs to be done to remedy the situation, I suggest you look again. Something is wrong here, and I suggest we students get to the bottom of it.
