The Fitness Center closed its facilities Monday at 2:30 p.m. due to a lack of air conditioning and subsequent overheating in the space. Before the decision to close, gym employees were instructed to put up signs cautioning gym-goers about the heat and advising them to drink plenty of water. According to Lizzy Wild '08, who works at the Center, "the staff was hoping most of the patrons would exercise sensibility with regard to their limits." At 12:00 p.m., Sarah Berger, a Fitness Center staff member, called to see how the employees themselves were feeling because she was worried about the heat level, Wild said. Shortly after Wild informed her that the thermostat in some areas of the gym read 100 degrees, the decision was made to shut down the facility by 2:30 p.m. Patrons who were working out were told how much time they had left, and employees placed signs on all entrances notifying prospective exercisers of the closing. The Fitness Center opened in April after a $12 million renovation, but the air conditioning will not be up and running until Friday.
The American Legacy Foundation issued a report on July 13 in conjunction with the National Cancer Institute stating that images of smoking are more prevalent in youth-rated films than in R-rated ones. The study, co-authored by Susanne Tanski, Keilah Worth and Jim Sargent, Dartmouth researchers at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center, analyzed the 100 most lucrative films released between 1996 and 2004. They found that although on-screen images of smoking decreased in the eight-year period, 75 percent of G, PG, and PG-13-rated movies in 2004 contained shots of smokers. Because a strong link exists between the tendencies of teenage smokers and what they see in the movies, and because three times as many youths see movies with below-R ratings than ones with R ratings, the Dartmouth authors suggested that all movies with smoking receive an R rating. They maintain that such regulation could decrease the percentage of youth exposure to on-screen smoking by 50 percent.
A July 14 e-mail sent to undergraduate and graduate assistants announced that Deborah Goldner, the director of Residential Education, will leave the College at the end of July. Goldner has held the position at Dartmouth since 1999 and will be taking on a similar role at Drexel University in Philadelphia. In the e-mail, Jeffrey A. DeWitt, associate director of Residential Education in the Office of Residential Life, also announced the departure of two community directors: Mike Lord, the former community director for the East Wheelock Cluster, who is taking on the position of director of Residential Life at Saint Peter's College in New Jersey, and Angela D'...mour, former community director for the Choates, who will be an assistant dean in the First Year Office at Dartmouth. DeWitt referred to Lord's new job as "a much-deserved step for Mike" in the e-mail announcement, and has replaced him with Christy Bear, a former residence director for Bentley College.
