My heart is pounding, but I continue to walk toward the end of the hallway. It becomes darker and darker as I near the door at the end — the undergraduate advisor’s single. I finally come to the door, lit up by a single flickering light. Hesitantly, I reach my hand out and knock three times.
I am met with silence.
Now, I know what you’re all thinking: what exactly is a UGA? UGAs live in our buildings, on our floors and even in the rooms next door. They send out cheerful blitzes and when no one’s watching, they decorate those bulletin boards above the floor trash cans. But does anyone even know who they are?
But like, actually, I’m kidding. Most people at Dartmouth know what a UGA is, but as we grow older, we start to forget what they are actually there for.
I fondly remember my first floor meeting. We went outside to the white gazebo near Judge. It was dark, and we played this game that involved pretending to be somebody else in the group and then introducing yourself to the next person. I know my description of the game does not make any sense, but it didn’t make any sense at the time either. So I just made up names and hometowns for my floormates, secretly messing up the game. Back then, we thought floor meetings were mandatory. We all showed up on time.
But fall 2012 was a lifetime ago. To better remember what these meetings were like, I decided to go undercover to a McLaughlin floor meeting. My undercover identity was quickly unveiled when the first freshman arrived. He was quick to point out that I did not live on this floor. Damn. Despite the fact that I was unable to blend in with my “floormates,” I stayed for the duration of the meeting. About 15 students arrived. We started with highs and lows of the week. Lows were papers, the awful smell that came with the spring and not being able to find a table at FoCo. Highs were spending time with friends and finding a machine at the gym. After exchanging stories about the week, the UGA asked if any of her residents were confused about room draw. The question-and-answer session went on for about 30 minutes as people tried to find out how to rig the system. The meeting was then adjourned. Although I make the meeting sound pretty boring, it was quite the contrary. People laughed and ate chips. The salsa was delicious. Yum.
Now, as an upperclassman, floor meetings are no longer part of the routine. I tried to attend a floor meeting to compare the scenes, but I struggled to find one since they’re no longer weekly.
When I asked her if she had been to a floor meeting this year, Perrin Hutcheson ’16 said that she had been to one — but only by accident.
“I went to a floor meeting once by mistake,” she said. “I was in the downstairs common room where the floor meeting was supposed to be happening. I was the only person that came.”
What would’ve happened if no one showed up? After asking over 20 upperclassmen with limited success, I finally found one other who had been to a floor meeting this term.
“The UGAs were friendly, but I’ve come to the point pretty quickly where I don’t have a lot of time to allot to floor or building goings-on,” said Penelope Williams ’16. “So I grabbed a cookie and left. If there’s food, I’ll definitely check it out, but like me most people can’t dawdle, so it was virtually empty.”
What happened from freshman to sophomore year? Are we really that much more mature that we don’t need any guidance?
Freshmen and upperclassmen seem to have different perceptions about the role of a UGA. When asked, Alexa Sonnenfeld ’17 provided me with a textbook definition.
“The role of the UGA is to facilitate freshman floor bonding and to act as a resource for general advice, class advice and personal advice,” she said.
Similarly, Jake Donehey ’17 said that the role of a UGA is to “offer guidance during the first year and to help you settle disputes.”
Freshman go to floor meetings, Donehey said, because they have more questions about how processes at Dartmouth, like room draw, work.
Both of these definitions given by freshmen sound like direct quotes from the office of residential life website.
If no one goes to upperclassman floor meetings, why do they exist? Is the only role of upperclassman UGAs to decorate the building?
According to Janae Dunchack ’14, the UGA of North Fayerweather, UGAs serve a purpose, even if it is not always acknowledged.
“I feel like people are not using the UGA for their role,” she said. “We are someone they can talk to — a friend. We are supposed to be a less formal connection to the resources on campus.”
Upperclassmen — if you are seeking that fuzzy feeling that you used to get when you went to your freshman floor meetings, just know that you have all of the resources to do this: blitz your UGA. Maybe you’ll be able to relive your freshman glory.
