The inaugural People of Dartmouth panel featured testimonies from five students who spoke about their experiences at the College and encouraged listeners to reevaluate the role of community at Dartmouth as well as their individual roles within their own smaller communities. The panel, which set itself apart from the annually popular Men of Dartmouth and Women of Dartmouth events by incorporating both male and female speakers, drew a large crowd of students to Collis Common Ground on Sunday evening.
Audience members, seated on chairs, the floor, windowsills and radiators, were asked by event facilitators to write the names of communities that they belonged to on name tags.
"People of Dartmouth is constructed on a similar premise as Men of Dartmouth and Women of Dartmouth, but it's more focused on building community and facilitating conversation," ICC co-chair Angelo Carino '11 said.
Five undergraduate students Susan '12, Rob '11, Emily '11, Blythe '12 and Johnny '11 discussed the role that interactions with various campus groups played in their lives and understanding of community. Last names have been withheld due to the personal nature of the discussion.
Susan, the panel's first speaker, described herself as "a contemporary Inupik woman and mother." As a child in Barrow, Alaska, she was diagnosed with severe clinical depression and received treatment from an emotional health clinic.
At the age of 18, she discovered that she was pregnant. Susan was accepted to the College in 2008 when her son was one year old but deferred her matriculation until 2009. She told the audience that she was devastated when she discovered that she could not take her son with her to New Hampshire because a judge determined that neither she nor her ex-husband could have custody of the child.
After arriving at the College, Susan said she found comfort in relationships with the faculty of the theater department, deans, administrators and members of the Native American community. She said her relationships "allowed her to breathe" when her ex-husband was granted custody of their child.
"I couldn't stomach the blow without my community," Susan said. "Dartmouth was the healthiest place to receive that judgment."
The panel's second speaker, Rob, said he is a member of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning and allied students community. As a child, he grew up in a conservative community and was a member of the Catholic Church, although he never received communion. After gaining admission to the College in 2007, he participated in the Dartmouth Outing Club First-Year Trips program, which exposed him to a thriving gay community.
Rob said he began to come to terms with his identity during his freshman fall. After an e-mail incident that pressured individuals to come out of the closet, however, Rob recoiled from the gay and Greek communities.
"I didn't feel like I needed to be part of any gay community to express my sexuality," he said.
Rob said a course on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender history exposed him to groups and figures that advocated for the gay community in the past. Rob later co-founded a mentoring program, called OUTreach, to pair younger and older LGBT students at the College.
Emily, the third speaker, spoke about the disabled community at the College. She discussed administrative inefficiencies and the lack of support she faced after she was diagnosed with leukemia during her freshman year. Shuffling between the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and her classes, she said she was "braving Dartmouth while undergoing chemotherapy."
"The College, instead of acting as my ally and advocate, instead simply warned of problems I might encounter such as with faculty who were critical of or unfamiliar with accommodation requests and essentially forced me to navigate the process largely on my own," Emily said.
Emily said that before finishing chemotherapy last April, Emily said she drew strength from students she met who were not afraid to identify with their conditions and co-founded Access By Leadership in Equity, an organization that raises awareness about students with disabilities.
"Dartmouth still has a long way to go towards establishing the structural supports for the very complex issues these students face," Emily said. "It is so much more than a blue slip of paper granting an accommodation."
Blythe, the fourth speaker, spoke about her family's financial troubles and the small sampling of students at the College who come from lower class backgrounds.
Although her mother, who divorced after years of domestic violence, never made more than $35,000 a year and constantly faced eviction, Blythe said she never felt held back by her family's lack of resources.
"My education gave me the opportunity to be more than what people expected from my kind of background," Blythe said.
Blythe said she works two jobs at the College in addition to her research positions to support herself financially. Blythe most felt the effects of her financial position when she was looking for a way to afford a skiing physical education course the Financial Aid Office only told her to search for a cheaper option, she said.
"We can't continue taking in students and telling them you're like Dartmouth students in ABC ways but can't afford the rest of the alphabet," Blythe said.
Johnny discussed how the Dartmouth community affected his own personal ambitions of becoming a musician. With his siblings, Johnny formed a band in middle school. After performing their first gig, the band members were ostracized for their poor performance, he said.
As his band gained recognition, Johnny and his brothers received messages from fans across the country, which helped make him feel like he was part of a community. When his band participated in an online voting contest in 2009 to play at a Coldplay concert in Boston, Johnny sent e-mails to the entire campus community asking for votes. Although his band lost the contest, he said he feels at home whenever he plays at venues in New York and Boston and sees Dartmouth students enjoying the band's music.
