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The Dartmouth
July 13, 2025 | Latest Issue
The Dartmouth

Online forum aims at transparency

Palaeopitus Senior Society launched an online forum on Tuesday that makes use of Google Moderator, a program through which students can submit and vote on questions addressed to Dean of the College Charlotte Johnson. The forum aims to foster communication and increase transparency between the student body and the administration, according to President's Intern and Palaeopitus co-moderator Jason Goodman '12.

Johnson will then answer the top questions in a video, which will be posted online within the next several weeks, Goodman said. Thus far, over 570 students have participated in the project, asking a total of approximately 115 questions and submitting over 12,000 votes. Through the voting process, students can influence which questions will be answered by approving or disapproving of each question. The most popular questions so far have covered issues ranging from the College's policy on alcohol and hazing to the meal plans offered by Dartmouth Dining Services.

"We've gotten a great response so far, and we're really happy about that," Goodman said.

Goodman said he hopes students will continue to participate in and take advantage of the opportunity to have meaningful interactions with administrators.

Members of Palaeopitus said they were pleased with the strong response from the student body.

"Way more people are involved with it than I expected, especially because it's the pilot," Palaeopitus moderator Christian Brandt '12 said.

Johnson said she is excited to experiment with the new program and hopes it will illuminate some of the issues that the student body would like to see addressed. In general, Johnson plans to communicate more regularly with the student body, she said.

"My goal when I got here was to do as much student outreach as possible," Johnson said. "This project is really part of a collective of things my office and I are doing to achieve higher visibility, increase transparency and improve communication."

The members of Palaeopitus plan for the project to establish a precedent that encourages administrators and student groups to interact via tools like Google Moderator, according to Goodman.

"I really hope that Moderator will inject a new sense of accountability toward the administration within the student body and that it will provide a new way for students to feel good about interacting with the administration," Brandt said.

Hilary Krutt '12 said she thinks Moderator is a "brilliant idea," citing the self-moderating mechanism as a great way to ensure that the administration answers the questions most important to students, rather than the questions raised by the "loudest voices." While she doubts that a single project can bring about significant institutional change, Krutt would like to see the project encourage "honesty and transparency" on the part of the administration, she said.

Nerina DiSomma '13, who posted a question to the site, said she was excited to have the opportunity to voice her opinion and that an online forum is an effective method for interaction.

"[Moderator] slips right into our framework of how we normally communicate," she said. "This is transparency in a way that is accessible to us as students."

Although some of the posted questions may be "useless" and "unproductive," there are also many constructive questions, and the project has a lot of potential, DiSomma said.

Goodman said he developed the idea for the project during 2011 Winter term after he was inspired by his friend who works at Google. Google uses the Moderator tool every week for an event called "TGIF," during which employees have the opportunity to ask high-level executives questions about the company, he said.

Goodman, in collaboration with Brandt and the other Palaeopitus moderators, presented the project to the rest of the group last fall and has worked to gain the support and cooperation of administrators.

"This is a project we've been working on for a while, and we're really excited to unveil it," Goodman said. "We applaud Dean Johnson's willingness to experiment, and we're grateful that the administration has been willing to give this a shot."

Members of Palaeopitus initially feared that the project would not be taken seriously and that students would post inappropriate or impertinent questions, Goodman said. However, many of the inflammatory or extraneous questions have been voted down.

"The success of the project so far has shown that students have questions, are responsible and are willing to take seriously communicating their concerns with the administration," Goodman said.

Palaeopitus has been working to spread awareness on campus about the new project via campus-wide emails and Facebook posts, Goodman said. The members of the society hope to encourage as much participation as possible before the website closes on Sunday.

Brandt said he hopes the Moderator project will also help students to understand Palaeopitus' role on campus as a facilitator of student-administration interaction.

"It's really easy to be in an organization and have other people on campus not really realize what you do," Brandt said. "This is a great way to communicate to students what it is that Palaeopitus does."