Dartmouth students like to think they invented the wheel. Or maybe just pong. Regardless, we're a bunch that thinks highly of ourselves. We write sweet things about ourselves on bored@baker and we each have some sort of special DDS item, be it a secret FoCo grill sandwich or smoothie concoction at Collis that we think makes us unique.
Recently, we've been swept up in budget cuts fever and are determined to make sure we each have a say to make sure our personal favorite part of the "Dartmouth Experience" is preserved. We've joined committees and as dedicated as we are to affecting the ultimate budget decisions, we also can't help but think how sick "#1 Budget Rescuer" will look on our resumes.
So Dartmouth, I'm going to knock you off your pedestal and let you know it's all been done before. Back in April of 2002, months after the attacks of 9/11 shook the national financial climate, the Board of Trustees approved a $3.3 million budget cut. An additional $1.6 million cut was announced during the summer. These numbers may pale in comparison with our current cuts, but the response was far from minimal. Tempers flared, meetings were held and petitions were signed. Yet somehow, Dartmouth survived and flourished at least long enough to make it to today's budget cuts.
The cuts were expected to hit across the board. What really riled students up was the administration's announcement to eliminate the varsity swimming and diving teams. Students reacted with a mass protest, marching and chanting things such as "Down with Jim let us swim" and "Wright is wrong," throughout campus. They organized a midnight rally in front of Wright's Webster Avenue house, the likes of which had not been seen since Wright's earlier decision to "end Greek life as we know it" part of his unfavorable Student Life Initiative. The budget cuts clearly hit a nerve.
The Dartmouth reported in a 2002 article that Kemper Diehl '06, a member of the men's swim team, said he thought the administration was joking.
"I was completely surprised and I was really angry," Diehl added.
Student protests were enough to save the swim team, but some of the budget suggestions from 2002 were put in place.
While construction on Kemeny Hall was delayed, the Remix ne the Blend smoothie bar opened as planned. Students could not, however, be pacified even by the sweetest of Peanut Butter Whips and were whipped themselves into a frenzy when changes to the library system were announced in October.
The plans included a library system more like the one we know today: Sanborn and Sherman libraries ceasing to function independently, but rather as organs of Big Papa Baker-Berry. Scary as they may have been to Dartmouth students of that gentler time, we've somehow adjusted to the books in Sanborn just being decoration and walking an extra 30 feet to check out Sherman art books at the Berry circulation desk.
Additionally in 2002, six staff positions would be eliminated and working hours for students would be cut by the thousand. Over 540 students signed a petition decrying the cuts.
With student salaries down, there were worries that these tough economic times would lead to looting and plundering among our otherwise morally exemplary students. According to The Dartmouth, Safety & Security officers were concerned that students would use theft as a "method of shopping" in these tough economic times because, hey, that couch full of coats in Chi Gam is way cheaper than Bella.
But as usual, Dartmouth students rose to the challenge. They wrote editorials and protested as the situation worsened in November when former College President James Wright (who I'm sure is awfully glad to be chilling at Lake Sunapee these days, far removed from our current cuts) announced that academic departments would be cutting course offering and facing staff layoffs.
History has ended up repeating itself, though, and just as dozens of students attended some very important budget meeting this week (sorry I couldn't make it, it was pizza night at Homeplate and who knows when that'll happen again in these trying times), the administration also opened itself up to student input back in 2002.
This story should put some of our fears to rest, and contextualize our present budget woes. Some things will have to get cut. That's just the reality of the situation, but we'll deal with it and future generations won't even know what they're missing.
The important things, however, the things we care most about, will not be saved by individual heroism, but by voices en masse. As tempting as it sounds to be that one voice crying out in the wilderness, one voice will not be enough to save anything. In the face of massive cuts, let's look to where our predecessors have been most successful and focus on figuring out, as a whole, what our priorities are and how we can best utilize our strength not as resume building individuals but as a strong, united community, to save them.
