The Class of 2019 became the first group of Dartmouth students to sign the Dartmouth Citizenship Pledge, a document of 136 words outlining community values that was borne out of College President Phil Hanlon’s “Moving Dartmouth Forward” policy initiative.
First-years signed the pledge in two leather-bound books directly before meeting with Hanlon for matriculation on Tuesday.
The pledge was discussed during the “Principles of Dartmouth” conversation that occurred over Orientation, senior associate dean of student affairs Liz Agosto said. Agosto is responsible for oversight of the parts of “Moving Dartmouth Forward” that involve student affairs and worked closely with the community citizenship working group charged with drafting the pledge.
Hanlon first described the introduction of a pledge in his “Moving Dartmouth Forward” announcement speech on Jan. 29 as “a code of conduct that articulates the expectations — as they relate to civility, dignity, diversity, community and safety — for all members of the Dartmouth community.”
Agosto describes the pledge as a way to tie together the broad language of the College’s standards of conduct, principles of community and academic honor code in an “action-oriented” way that outlines “these are things that I commit to as an individual to be a citizen of our community,” she said.
The pledge falls under the Code of Conduct, but is a separate entity that is not adjudicable but rather aspirational, she said.
After the plan for the pledge was announced, a campus-wide email solicited participation to help write this pledge. A group of 11 undergraduate and graduate students, parents and faculty members -— formally called the community citizenship working group — was created to draft the document during the spring term.
Bobby Kaufman, a graduate student on the committee, said the College has a strong sense of community within classes, graduate departments, athletic teams and other organizations on campus, but lacks cohesion between the different communities. The overarching goal of the committee was to try to codify what it means to be a member of the Dartmouth community — understanding differences but recognizing commonalities as well, he said.
People coming from different parts of the community had different ideas about what was important for the pledge to emphasize, Kauffman said.
Last spring, a preliminary document was posted online so that community members could give feedback, which Agosto said was mostly positive.
The draft was also read to a graduate student committee at a Hanover Town Hall meeting and to several undergraduate student groups from different parts of campus, committee member and administrative assistant at the office of judicial affairs Becca Wistrom said.
In 2011, freshmen at Harvard University were required to sign a similar pledge upon matriculation, promising to uphold values in Harvard’s mission statement. The pledge was criticized by members of the Harvard community, including former Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis, who called the pledge “unscholarly” and “very unlike Harvard” in a 2011 article in The Harvard Crimson.
Harvard Dean of Freshmen Tom Dingman said the University decided to create the pledge because administrators were dismayed by what seemed like “inconsiderate behavior on the part of the freshmen” that, although not intentional, was affecting the way they treated their peers and other members of the community. Dingman also described Harvard’s document as “aspirational.”
Dingman said the initial plan was to have freshmen sign the pledges and hang them in the entryways of freshmen dorms. Administrators later scrapped that plan because it was suggested that if a freshman did not want to sign the pledge, it would be easy for other students to identify, which could lead to shaming.
After that year, the pledge was changed to a series of small group conversations occurring during orientation regarding inclusiveness and civility, Dingman said.
Harvard is also considering a future academic integrity honor code that students will sign, into which some of the language from the Class of 2015 Pledge may be incorporated, he said.
Of the six Dartmouth freshmen interviewed for this article, five did not read the pledge upon signing it.
Anna Ellis ’19 said while she personally knew what she was signing, because there were several instances where freshmen were shown where they could find the pledge, she thought it took an “extra step of initiative” to read through it. She thought the content of the pledge itself was positive.
“Dartmouth attracts students from diverse backgrounds,” Ellis said. “It’s important to have a pledge that allows people to express a sense of community.”
Although the version of the document that Dartmouth freshmen signed Tuesday was very similar to the draft the committee created last spring, it is meant to be a living document that changes over time, Agosto said. Starting in October, Agosto will reach out to different parts of campus, including organizations, residential halls and faculty to spread word about the document.
Eventually, the document will be posted on the student affairs website, Agosto said. In the future, graduate students, faculty and the rest of the Dartmouth community will have the opportunity to sign the pledge. Agosto said that while the terms of the pledge will not be adjudicated, she still believes that the pledge will have a positive impact on campus.
“I believe that language is powerful and that how we talk about ourselves as a community and the expectations we set for ourselves as a community matter,” Agosto said.
She added that she thinks that people will rise to whatever expectations the College sets, and the pledge makes these standards more explicit.
Wistrom said it is easier to hold people accountable to Dartmouth’s values in the way they live their lives if those values are explicitly stated at the get-go.
Committee member Myles McMurchy ’16 said having a pledge that makes community values explicit is valuable.
“I think it’s going to be a useful primer for students coming in to Dartmouth, for what we stand for and some of the values students should be thinking about,” he said.
