Hello, Mirror readers!
Greetings from toasty Hanover. I’m Charlie Rafkin ’16, and I’m already excited to take over as editor here at The Mirror. It can be an important vehicle for driving campus conversation, and more than ever, Hanover needs a magazine that will produce thoughtful reflection on campus issues.
In conjunction with other editors, I made a considered choice to devote the entirety of this week’s magazine to mental health at the College. In almost every conversation about this topic, people emphasized that mental health demands further scrutiny — when 28 percent of Dartmouth students are seeing mental health counselors, we must finally recognize that our peers are struggling.
This week’s Mirror, however, is also a magazine about the inspiring campus leaders who have challenged the timbre of campus conversation. There’s computer science professor Andrew Campbell, who pioneered an app that could help identify depressed students. There’s Student Assembly, whose “I’m Here For You” campaign was well-received from some pockets of campus, and of course, there’s Active Minds, the mental health advocacy group whose membership has swelled in recent terms. The campus discussion on mental health has shifted somewhat, and it’s important to take stock of successes, even as we emphasize that hard work clearly remains.
A last note: Two of the Mirror’s most popular features each week are “Overheards” and “Trending at Dartmouth.” You might think that only a dunce would mess with features so successful — but that’s exactly what we’ve decided to do in order to experiment with different features to fill that space each week. You can get your weekly fix of “Overheards” and “Trending at Dartmouth” over at Dartbeat, the paper’s daily blog.
Happy reading,
Charlie Rafkin
