Since graduating from Dartmouth in June, I have wondered: In the wake of the May 1 pro-Palestinian protest on the Green, what will the next few years and decades look like on Dartmouth’s campus? How will the College’s administration ensure adequate approaches and solutions to issues students have faced, from arrests to mental health challenges?
Will the College reach out to arrested students for a “Dartmouth Arrested Lives” course — one that interviews them and preserves their traumatic experiences in the Rauner Library archives? Will the College invite arrested students to a reunion on May 1, 2034, with a dinner in the Paganucci Lounge? Will the College ask students to jot down experiences with mental health challenges in exchange for a free Boloco burrito?
To be sure, Dartmouth has already taken several actions to address the profoundly unsettling experiences members of the student body have faced, from tragic deaths to mental health challenges from the May 1 occurrences. However, far more significant action is needed.
Dartmouth offers courses regarding Black liberation, social movements and mental health — all important topics worthy of instruction. Placing those curricula into practice — something protesters did on May 1 — should be expected. We should not stop at discussing theory in the physical confines of a classroom. The College should be proud that student protesters are not exhibiting passivity.
Yet, more than once in Dartmouth’s history, the College has opted for a more superficial solution.
Let’s revisit some of the College’s past bandaids. In response to the deaths of multiple community members, the College provided a Day of Caring on Oct. 21, 2022. But the day, supposedly meant to provide students with space to focus on things aside from academics, saw professors use their X-hours for make-up classes, thus defeating the purpose of a student wellness day. The College again offered a Day of Community on May 23 — this time, in the wake of the May 1 protest — but did not cancel classes. Administration members offered food in exchange for students responding to prompts on essential topics ranging from rebuilding the community to mental health. But where did our responses go? Who is reading our feedback to help the College better serve its students?
Just as the Dartmouth administration did not offer substantial forms of healing following May 1, it continues to struggle with viable solutions for mental health challenges among its student body — despite offering SOCY 35: “Sociology of Mental Health.” The College has the resources and finances to follow through effective upstream solutions, instead of merely downstream ones that do not prevent issues holistically — solutions that prevent issues from happening versus solutions that simply treat the individual, respectively. Temporary wellness days after a tragic event do not prevent anything; however, increasing access to support services — such as therapists with shared identities for minoritized students — can. A permanent wellness day dedicated to increasing awareness of said resources can. Solutions should also consider students from minoritized backgrounds.
The College should, therefore, consider the following:
- Monthly meetings between Dartmouth Student Government, the First-Generation Office, the Office of Pluralism and Leadership, student unions, administration and the new Chief of Health and Wellness to discuss the needs of various student affinity groups. Someone from each group should be present at such meetings. Including all these offices and individuals would provide representation to those who are more likely to face mental health challenges due to systemic racism and discrimination.
- Increase financial aid and scholarships to the lowest social class demographic first before working the way up to the high-middle class. There is no reason students under the poverty line should take out loans to cover health insurance. The emergency barrier removal fund should also have increased transparency regarding the maximum amount students can request at a given time, and it should not limit requests from low-income students to only once per academic year.
- Reassess the student freedom of speech and dissent policies with students from the Dartmouth New Deal Coalition, Palestine Solidarity Coalition and the Graduate Organized Laborers of Dartmouth-United Electrical Workers, the College’s graduate student workers’ union, among others. Students should not fear retaliation, arrest or expulsion for putting into practice the values of Malcolm X and Angela Davis. It should not be considered revolutionary to want a more just and equitable future. A movement toward justice should be expected from future changemakers.
A sense of agency and empowerment relies on promoting student speech and input.
It appears that the main focus of College President Sian Leah Beilock’s approach to addressing student concerns is her futile Dialogue Project. The project commits to solving complex interpersonal problems without reliance on College policies as a starting point — but College policies should become an eventual point following students’ verbalized needs in said dialogues.
The Dialogue Project wears a cloak of progress, a fragile façade that crumbles when actions are absent after discourse. It exploits students’ voices — ticking off a box on the list of addressing their needs — and its hollow actions betray its true nature.
I eagerly await the day an action project is introduced — a project that does not stop at conversations but implements solutions to verbalized concerns.
Jackelinne Claros Benitez is a member of the Class of 2024. Guest columns represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.
