One doesn’t become a leader because of the titles they possess. One becomes a leader through the work that they do. At Dartmouth, we have lots of opportunities to hold all sorts of titles across the many groups and clubs of which we are a part. More often that not, the reality is that we do not even compete or challenge ourselves that much to gain these titles. I would even go so far as to say that it required more effort to have a leadership role in my high school than it does at Dartmouth.
In my experience, Dartmouth students are elected to a position based on their ‘past positions.’ This logic would be credible, if there were a real connection between possessing the title and doing the job. Unfortunately, at our college, it is completely possible to hold a position and yet have no real experience — and the Student Assembly is the epitome of this situation. Our past president, Frank Cunningham ’16, boasted that he had 366 days of experience and used this point to argue that he knew what would be the best for our community. Clearly, his actions during the #BlackLivesMatter protests last spring and subsequent, shallow apologies proved otherwise.
Once again, we will hear how this campus is divided, and there will be elaborate plans to build bridges. Once again, campaigns will be full of false promises and big words that aim to provide a beautiful mask to the uninspired and lacking efforts of those who are running. If we would really like to talk about experiences, I would like to talk about how I have been involved in Pride since my sophomore year on this campus. About how this year, as co-chair for this amazing committee, I was a part of extending Pride to be a two-week long event that will be running this from April 23 to May 6. I would talk about how I have been a undergraduate advisor for freshmen for the past two years and am better connected to the issues of first-year students on this campus from social pressures and expectations to academic stress and time management. I would like to talk about how, as a tour guide, I often must answer questions about Greek life to prospective students and their families. I see the subsequent shock on their faces when they hear that at our school, 60 percent of Dartmouth students are affiliated in what are, in their minds, drinking clubs and hubs of sexual assault. I would like to talk about how, as the summer treasurer for the Greek Leadership Council, I was able to encourage more events in Greek houses centered around bringing the ’17s together, from panels and talks to barbecues and sharing of personal stories and experiences. I would like to talk about how I gave a talk to over a 1,000 freshman during their orientation last year and had multiple students come up to me and connect with me afterwards.
In the various roles I have played on this campus, I have had the honor of representing Dartmouth to the outside world of potential applicants, to first-year students navigating this space and to queer students for whom this space was never designed. I have had organizations trust me to make events happen — to take real action. The positions I have held on this campus are not empty: for each position I have been held accountable, either by freshmen or queer students or prospective students or Greek-affiliated students. My experiences have connected me to this college and to the various groups that comprise it. My goals, as you may have seen on the posters around campus, are simple: to make Student Assembly accountable, to develop real support systems to help students as our curriculum becomes more rigorous, to not only have the voices of affiliated students heard but to bring together those who are unaffiliated, to focus on post-college life in terms of careers and job opportunities, and finally to ensure that international students, who form a strong 9 to 10 percent of our student body, have their voices heard. So to make a claim like fellow presidential candidate Nick Harrington did in his article yesterday that we “cannot afford to waste time bringing an inexperienced leader up to speed” is completely baseless and misleading.
I would argue that my diverse experiences have allowed me to make a greater impact on the College and the lives of students than any chief of staff for what has historically been the most ineffective organization on this campus. If you would like to see change, I would suggest choosing somebody who actually has experience working towards that change across several Dartmouth communities; somebody who is actually part of different organizations on this campus and can empathize with various groups and promote diverse solutions to various issues — whether it be a fragmented community, issues of sexual assault, mental health or academic stress, anxiety and social expectations; somebody who has been at both ends of programming — planning and acquiring funds, as well as extending funds and sponsorship to existing organizations.
Therefore, when voting during this campaign, I only urge you to not ask what empty titles and positions various candidates have held, but instead ask two questions. What actions have they taken that can ground their claims? And, how connected are they really to the various communities on this campus that they claim to be able to bring together?
