You're a busy person. Yet groups are constantly asking you to spend some of your precious time at random events. Don't they know how busy you are?
Well, I, too, am going to ask for an hour of your valuable time. Why would I do such a thing? Because you and I know Dartmouth better than anyone, and tonight, we've got a once-in-a-decade chance to help preserve what we most love and challenge what most aggrieves us.
At 7 p.m., at the Top of the Hop, the President of Amherst College and eight other top administrators from elite colleges and universities are hosting a Student Open Forum to hear what we think of our school. It's part of the NEASC reaccreditation process that takes place every 10 years. No Dartmouth administrators are even allowed in the room; it's simply a conversation between the students and the Evaluation Team. After meeting with us, as well as with staff, faculty and administrators, they'll write up a report for the administration explaining what they think the College does well and what it needs to do better.
Why should we care about this Open Forum?
First, it's a chance to champion what we value in the Dartmouth experience. For instance, Dartmouth, on the whole, has excellent teaching, as reflected in the College's status two years in a row as number one in Undergraduate Teaching in U.S. News & World Report's rankings, and which we get to experience every day in the classroom. However, it's no secret that there are economic incentives and other forces at work that could tempt the College to prioritize research over teaching. Such concerns are all the more relevant in light of the recent budget cuts, which could encourage the College to reduce those aspects of the Dartmouth experience that it thinks are not as important to Dartmouth students.
Second, the Forum is an unparalleled opportunity to provide the College with constructive criticism. Not only is the College administration going to be looking to the Evaluation Team's report for guidance, but our concerns will take on greater legitimacy coming from an outside body of high-level officials. Since this particular chance for change happens only once every ten years, if we see ways the College could be better, this is our shot to voice those opinions.
We can use the event to take up the offers of our relatively new college president, who has stated that he wants students to be active participants in shaping the school. In a conversation shortly after his arrival to Dartmouth, College President Jim Yong Kim told then-Student Body President Frances Vernon '10, that he would like students to "symbolically storm Parkhurst." Kim cannot improve Dartmouth in the ways that we value most if we don't strongly and clearly articulate our concerns.
I admit that there is good reason to be skeptical that we can have an impact. Many students have been disillusioned by the way the administration handled the river docks situation and the Student and Presidential Alcohol Harm Reduction Committee recommendations, for two recent examples. But we make it easy for the administration to ignore our will when we watch the policy process from afar, as most students did for both the river docks and SPAHRC, and the student body will never have any clout until it unites behind issues that it cares about. When students do speak out clearly, we can have great impact, as we demonstrated last year when we raised tens of thousands of dollars for the victims of the Haiti earthquake and successfully opposed Hanover Police's sting operations policy.
As the central constituency at Dartmouth, and as its primary beneficiaries, we owe it to ourselves to offer valuable feedback. We also owe it to all of Dartmouth's alumni who have contributed to make our educations here so outstanding, and to all the professors and administrators who work hard every day to give us a great experience. Lastly, we owe it to all the Dartmouth students who will follow us.
Daniel Webster famously said in defense of Dartmouth: "It is, sir, as I have said, a small college. And yet there are those who love it!" If you number among those who love it, and if you plan to attend one event in your time here to speak up about your Dartmouth experience, I ask that you make it this one.
