Improve Dartmouth, the website on which community members can post suggestions for campus change, reached its six-month anniversary on Wednesday. During the first six months, administrators have implemented 18 ideas on the site, with eight listed as “in progress” and 13 designated as “in review.” Since the site’s opening, 5,006 unique users have contributed 434 ideas, 940 comments and about 46,000 votes.
The 18 completed accomplishments include relatively simple tweaks — installing a clock in the north hall of the Class of 1953 Commons and a printer on the third floor of Berry Library — as well as the total revision of the College’s sexual assault policy, which now expels students who commit sexual assault.
Students from Dartmouth Roots, Student Assembly and Palaeopitus senior society form the group responsible for moderating the site, and Improve Dartmouth’s latest report lists 15 administrative partners.
The sexual assault policy suggestion has become the most upvoted item on the site, with 1,198 agrees and 40 disagrees as of press time. Site moderator Noah Manning ’17 was careful to note that this initiative had momentum behind it even before appearing on the site.
Esteban Castano ’14, who co-founded Improve Dartmouth, wrote in an email that the site has created institutional memory, injected energy to campus and provided a framework for idea implementation.
Rockefeller Center program officer Vincent Mack, who serves as the center’s primary liaison with Improve Dartmouth, said he is proud of the site’s progress, especially the work that its co-founders — Castano and Gillian O’Connell ’15 — have realized.
Some ideas put forward have been tried before, Mack said, but Improve Dartmouth provides an avenue for new solutions. For instance, reusable silverware at Collis, a suggestion that received a net 380 positive votes, has been attempted twice previously, Mack said.
“The silverware ‘walked away’ — it was stolen,” Mack said. “The student then suggested they use sporks, so Collis now sells sporks.”
The first few months of running the site have shaped the group’s implementation pipeline, which progresses from the initial post, to moderator review, to implementation and to completion, Castano said. The site no longer employs a vote threshold to select ideas to move into the review stage. Since so many people began voting on the site, that metric became irrelevant, he said.
The group now keeps a running list of 15 items in the review stage, Castano said. Ten of the items in review are those with the highest vote score on the site, and the moderators choose the other five, he wrote, because popular ideas may not necessarily be best for campus.
“You might have an idea like ‘free backpacks to all students’ that is more popular than something like ‘make X building handicap-accessible,’” Castano wrote. “The former is more popular but not necessarily more important.”
Joel Weng ’17 proposed increasing the cereal options in the Class of 1953 commons, and despite earning 27 disagrees to nine agrees, the idea has now been listed as “completed.” Weng said he was not aware the idea was completed until he was contacted for an interview.
An email update to the contributor, he said, would help students feel involved and increase the likelihood that they will interact with Improve Dartmouth in the future, although he noted that student involvement was not necessary for every proposal.
But for significant ideas where students are equipped to provide input — like a change in the College’s sexual assault policy — Weng said he favors student involvement.
George Philipose ’15, who has contributed four ideas, two of which are now designated as “in progress,” said moderators did not ask to work with him on implementation. He said that although coordinating schedules might be difficult, he thinks the moderators should offer to include the person who proposes a suggestion before effecting campus change.
Manning, who monitors the site’s comments, said he was pleased with the site’s rollout.
“I was a bit surprised by how non-confrontational and non-abusive most users are,” Manning said. “I was imagining that an online forum where the purpose is ‘please tell us everything that is wrong with Dartmouth’ — that’s going to get a lot of nasty arguments.”
Despite the lack of abuse on the site, there are still a few pitches that depart from campus debate about policy. In March, Aaron Pellowski ’15 suggested that the College secede from New Hampshire, asserting that it would solve Dartmouth’s drinking problem. The suggestion has accrued 45 agrees and 27 disagrees so far.
Castano said he sees these ideas in a positive light because they reflect the encouraging culture of the site.
“I think they make the site more fun, more real and more creative,” he said.
After asking eight members of the Class of 2016 about their experience with the site, all eight responded that they had heard of the site. Four said that they had involved themselves in the page by voting on ideas, and three of the four said that they had posted their own ideas on the site.
Manning also noted that some of the ideas marked as complete on the site actually involved very little influence from Improve Dartmouth. He cited the move from physical to digital major cards as a suggestion that College administrators had nearly completed by the time it appeared on the site.
The site was test-launched Jan. 14 to an audience of 200 students and faculty and launched fully Jan. 25, Castano wrote.
