Dartmouth distinguishes itself from its Ivy League peers through its adherence to liberal arts education, touting on its website that its course load is "structured to maximize your understanding of the world in ways that enable you to be a leader in your future work." During President Kim's inauguration, the College added another adage to its publicity arsenal by challenging its students to "aspire to change the world."
It's time for the College to own up to its words. Taking the two statements together, the College claims that its education enables its students to become leaders who serve others. But the truth is that most of our better-known alumni are found in institutions and corporations that have a vested interest in the maintenance of the social and cultural status quo.
Pulitzer Prize journalist Chris Hedges wrote in his 2009 book, "The Empire of Illusion," that a true liberal arts education fosters in its students a seed of honest intellectual inquiry, which is fiercely independent and naturally distrustful of authority and the status quo. Dartmouth, however, demonstrates none of these characteristics. We are even reluctant to fix the social ills of our own immediate social microcosm, which is seeped in dangerous behavior (binge drinking) and misogyny (Dartmouth X). These problems are shielded from criticism by claims of "good fun" and "tradition." Even the all-too-rare student demonstrations on this campus often quickly fizzle out due to lack of participation and in the worst of cases, peer ridicule. We neither stand for ourselves nor for anyone else. Forgetting, ignoring and unquestioning, we continue to imbibe ourselves with Keystone, our own variation of Lethe, the Greek mythological river of unmindfulness. It's clear that the College's liberal arts education fails to extend beyond the classroom.
Instead, our own definition of a liberal arts education amounts to little more than low faculty-to-student ratios and the completion of a rather rigidly defined set of requirements that force students to take classes in a variety of departments, with virtually no mechanisms to gauge whether our education will actually enable us to succeed or think beyond the merely average. Combined with the general atmosphere of indifference and the College's inadequate advising system ("Summer Editorial Board: Advice on Advising," July 29), this means that aspirations of becoming agents of change are ultimately up to a student's own self-initiative and means of finding existing opportunities at Dartmouth, which are under-utilized.
Perhaps the only component of the College's academics that supports its claims of a liberal arts education is the individual and steadfast dedication of its professors. The knowledge students aquire from their professors allows them to understand the machinations of the real world and see their own shortcomings and their own potential. Through proper administration of the liberal arts, the College can compel its students to become social leaders and civic servants who "change the world."
Unfortunately, the liberal arts, especially the humanities, are currently under attack by critics who call for an increased emphasis on "practical" knowledge, especially in light of our economic stagnancy. Closer to home, our academic departments at Dartmouth have been constrained by limited funds and increasing friction with the administration, as demonstrated by the faculty member's demands for additional details regarding budgetary cuts, to which the administration has failed to deliver to the satisfaction of the faculty ("Profs. demand details of budget breakdown," May 16).
If the administration truly wants its students to "aspire to change the world," then it should enable its faculty to offer more issue-based classes that enable students to apply the rigors of their academic understanding to the real world. A suggestion that has been made in the past is the incorporation of issues-based classes like Harvard's Justice course ("Short Answer" May 9). Most importantly, the College must own up to its boast of teaching its students the liberal arts by extending beyond the superficial.
