Students returning to campus next term will be greeted with a new student political publication, thanks to the initiative of a few members of the Class of 2007.
Last spring, Anoop Rathod '07 and Pooneet Kant '07 approached Karen Liot, the coordinator of the Student Programs Office for the Rockefeller Center, with the idea to start a student-run publication devoted to presenting a balanced view of politics.
This new publication will be entitled The Dartmouth Independent and was recently granted funding by the Council on Student Organizations to begin publication in the upcoming term.
Rathod, who first conceived of a centrist political publication, wants to feature "healthy dialogues on issues that matter." The Independent will publish point and counter point articles on prevalent campus and political issues, according to Rathod and Kant.
Rathod will serve as the Independent's editor-in-chief, Kant as the executive editor, and Michael Green '07 will be the managing editor.
Liot has agreed to serve as the paper's advisor during its first year of publication.
"I was happy to sign on as their advisor and look forward to working with them in the coming year," Liot said. "As a recent alum, I felt that I understood personally that there is definitely room on campus for a publication on politics."
Dartmouth presently has one student-run political publication, The Dartmouth Free Press, which focuses primarily on presenting political views from a liberal standpoint. Another student-run newspaper, The Dartmouth Review, presents a conservative viewpoint but is not recognized by the College.
"The Dartmouth Independent is in no way competing with the Review or the Free Press," Rathod said. "We're just trying to provide another forum for political and campus writing."
Rathod contributed to the Free Press during his freshman year, serving as an assistant managing editor in the Fall and an assistant layout editor in the Winter, and claimed to recognize a need for a centrist paper.
"It wasn't just the Free Press," Rathod said. "It was just the general climate of things. We felt that there was too much polarization."
Initially, The Dartmouth Independent will be issued in print form; however, the paper will eventually be produced solely in an online format.
A website is currently being designed for the paper, and two articles have already been added to supplement the site in its present form.
The editors hope to update the website on a weekly basis, according to Rathod, but they also plan on posting breaking news articles. "That's the great thing about being online," Rathod said.
The first print issue of The Independent, which will be devoted to the November elections, is scheduled to come out Oct. 29.
