With the Democratic National Committee's recent proposal to change the calendar of state presidential contests, many here at Dartmouth have speculated on how the new system will affect the political climate here on campus. While the change may not have an immediate impact, it is possible that in the long run, candidates will reduce the amount of time they spend visiting Dartmouth during primary season.
But instead of lamenting the potential loss of one-on-one interaction between students and high-profile presidential hopefuls, the student body in general and campus political groups in particular should view this major national change as an opportunity to step up efforts to create a vital and dynamic political dialogue on campus. Similarly, political organizers should examine and reassess their own levels of activism.
The student body's engagement with national news and politics is concentrated in a small and not-so-vocal minority that only seems to succeed in infecting the rest of campus with its enthusiasm when big-name primary candidates roll through town. While many Dartmouth students no doubt maintain fierce personal political convictions, we rarely see these convictions expressed and debated vigorously in the open. And while the student body seems to be fully engaged with Dartmouth-related issues, it rarely gets riled up over national questions. About 150 students held a rare demonstration to support immigration rights in May, but that unusually high level of involvement seems paltry considering what we know the student body can do when it really cares about something. Over 1,000 students, for example, marched on College President James Wright's lawn in 1999 to protest the Student Life Initiative.
Dartmouth is a politically sleepy campus when it comes to anything outside Hanover. Attendance at regular political group meetings is low during most of the year, and the in-your-face activism that colors the campuses of some of our urban peer institutions is lacking here. For example, Congressional midterm elections are approaching, and yet campus politicos have not made a visible effort to build momentum behind this important political event.
Although organizations periodically host speakers and hold debates, they do not attract enough students to create a widespread interest in the national and international political debates that shape our lives. Perhaps integrating events into more institutionalized networks on campus, such as the Greek system, would make the Dartmouth political climate more stimulating. We can't depend on externally-planned events like the first-in-the-nation primary to generate political energy here; we need to generate it ourselves.