To the Editor:
As a recent graduate who is currently employed by the Hopkins Center, I feel obligated to correct Charles Clark's misguided impression of the arts at Dartmouth ("Art for Our Sake," May 10). The Hop always welcomes student feedback, but Clark's accusations bear little resemblance to what actually takes place here every day.
While I strongly disagree with Clark's hyperbolic claim that the Hop peddles "a pungent cocktail of social elitism and cultural imperialism," he is certainly entitled to his opinion. But to imply that this judgment is representative of widespread "disinterest in the arts at Dartmouth" is to confuse opinion with fact.
And the fact is this: the arts are alive and well at Dartmouth. With 2,700 students annually attending Hop performances, 400 students participating in a Hop ensemble, 1,400 students visiting the Hop's workshop studios and a strong student presence at the Hop's outreach events with visiting artists, (to say nothing of the myriad arts activities that flourish outside the Hop's purview) there is every indication that Dartmouth boasts a thriving arts community. Indeed, the Arts section of this newspaper frequently features admiring reviews of student work that has taken place at the Hop and elsewhere.
Clark insists that the Hop fails to serve "the centrist, populist mainstream with which many students identify." But by presuming that his opinions are reflective of a silent majority of philistines, he ignores the thousands of Dartmouth students whose passion for the arts offers stark proof to the contrary.
A. J. Fox '09Advisor on Student RelationsHopkins Center for the Arts