Students walking to class this week may encounter a variety of "teach-ins" discussing the effects of the ongoing budget cuts on College staff. Members of Students Stand with Staff, a campus group concerned about layoffs stemming from the College's recent budget cuts, plan to raise campus awareness through a series of outdoor lectures April 5-9 as well as at a session for student reflection on April 11.
The teach-ins will consist of informal lectures by faculty members and one student, according to Phoebe Gardener '11, SSWS co-founder and organizer of the event.
"We wanted something led by professors because we think that they have a certain authority on campus," Gardener said. "A student will pay attention if a professor is up there."
The lectures will be informal opportunities for students to come and go as they please, Gardener said. They will occur in public places between classes to maximize student exposure to the talks.
"[Teach-ins] are very visible and out in public," Gardener said.
Professors from the history and geography departments as well as the women's and gender studies program will give lectures. Additionally, Eric Schildge '10, co-founder of SSWS, will give a talk called "Unpacking our Budget Cuts," which will expand on details of the budget cuts as well as the College's endowment and investments, according to Gardener.
Students organized the group in January, in an effort to preempt College efforts to reduce the size of Dartmouth's staff.
College administrators announced 38 layoffs in February, stating that a similar reduction would take place before the end of April. Six additional layoffs were announced last Thursday.
Schildge and Students Stand with Staff have criticized administrators' reliance on layoffs to cover $5 million of Dartmouth's two-year, $100 million shortfall. Prior to the February budget announcement, Schildge had said that, according to campus rumors, as many as 200 employees could be laid off. After the budget plan was released, Schildge questioned why College officials did not act sooner to dispel the rumors of more substantial layoffs.
To select faculty members to participate in the event, SSWS contacted the 75 faculty members who submitted an open letter to College President Jim Yong Kim, the Board of Trustees and the Upper Valley Community in January that proposed cost-saving alternatives to laying off College employees.
Several critics of the letter have pointed out that the signatories are primarily faculty members of the humanities departments and that there were no professors of economics or the hard sciences.
"The economics department mostly does not agree with us, but I don't think that devalues our argument," Gardener said. "We are looking at budget cuts from a different perspective, not in pure numbers."
The "innate tension of a teach-in" may catalyze student discussion and encourage them to question the status quo, Russell Rickford, a history professor who will speak at the events, said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
Campus discussion is sometimes "tempered by this veil of civility," Rickford said, adding that students may feel pressure to remain silent.
Gardener also spoke to the greater implications of SSWS's message and the idea that "Social Justice Starts At Home," a slogan featured on some of the buttons produced by the group.
"This is about budget cuts and layoffs, and it's about something a lot greater that affects all of us," she said.
The SSWS cause has been slow to reach the broader campus, Gardener said. She added that she "had no idea" as to how many students will attend the teach-ins and that the number could be "very low" or could "well exceed her expectations."
Some students disagree with SSWS's message, Gardener said, because they think it is financially unsound or inappropriate to question layoffs and the authority of the administration.
In response to these concerns, Gardener explained that SSWS has emphasized alternative solutions, including graduated salary cuts across the board. SSWS has also explored possible improvements to the process that leads to budget cuts.
There are also other students who do not oppose the idea but are apathetic toward the cause, she said.
Rickford also spoke to the importance of applying academics and education to activism, rather than just thinking about them in theory.
"I'm just so proud of these young people and their struggle to seek out a way of living, a way of being that honors, however imperfectly, the ideals of social justice and equity that we so often teach in the classroom," he said.
Students can play a specific and important role in the controversial budget cut discussions because they are immune from the consequences faculty and staff might face, Gardener said.
"There's a lot of fear," she said. "Students have a particular power in this because we're untouchable we can't get fired, we're the clients of this university."
