A love letter to Dartmouth
(02/08/23 7:25am)
Dear Dartmouth,
Use the fields below to perform an advanced search of The Dartmouth 's archives. This will return articles, images, and multimedia relevant to your query.
1000 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
Dear Dartmouth,
Updated on Feb. 8 at 2:40 p.m.
Back in the day, Mirror used to have a theme for its issue every week. As our stories diversified and our interests expanded, we phased that practice out. But it’s now early February and it seems like love is just floating through the air — so we thought we’d bring it back for the special occasion. So for one week and one week only, Mirror is all about love.
Walking into Foco at 7:30 a.m., we had only one goal — to remain for 24 hours. After all, what better way is there to spend a Sunday than inside Dartmouth’s beloved dining hall? We certainly can’t think of one!
Ah, February. The shortest, strangest month. January was generous with us this year — snow-laden trees and weather in the thirties and forties abounded. Her sister month, February, is usually only distinguished by a Hallmark holiday and a more prominent chill, but she’ll have 28 days to show us something we haven’t seen before.
As different as Dartmouth students can be, we share common characteristics — a dislike of mud season, a love of sunshine and, most importantly, a need to eat. As midterms loom over us and temperatures plunge, fueling our brains becomes even more important. In a small town like Hanover where there are limited food options, most students turn to Dartmouth Dining Services to satisfy their hunger.
Students sport all sorts of hairstyles — for some, a creative hairstyle can be an opportunity for self-expression. For others, regular trips to the salon or barber are just another task on a long to-do list. Whatever the case may be, the hair care needs of Dartmouth students are as diverse as our styles.
Welcome to the Woods. A big part of Dartmouth culture is being outdoors — from First-Year Trips to the Connecticut River to the central location of the Green, many students are eager for the opportunity to feel the hill winds in their veins.
Well, it’s finally winter. Now that there is snow on the ground — and snowballs flying through the midnight air — it feels like the term is truly underway. Then again, it’s already week four. Midterm season has commenced and it’s the beginning of the grind, but we also have enough time to keep procrastinating for just a little bit longer. Maybe it’s the fact that our first week was only three days long, but something about the passage of time just feels off this term.
It’s a routine — at 9:30 a.m., my alarm blares and I groan and squint against the bright light peeking around the sides of my blinds. Fifteen minutes later, I’m shivering in my pajama shorts while rummaging through my drawers looking for something to wear. If I were practical, I’d choose a long sleeve shirt, heavy sweatshirt and some thick sweatpants for the day’s outfit. But is that really the aesthetic I want to embody today? What do I want to say about myself through my clothing — besides that I’m really chilly and running late to my 10A?
Looking around the Class of 1953 Commons this term, not much has changed. Bake My Day still has baked goods, the salad station still has salads and the soup station still has, well, soup. However, upon my arrival to campus, I could not stop hearing about a change to what is perhaps the biggest staple of college dining — chicken nuggets. And after I had the opportunity to try them, I immediately understood what all of the excitement was about.
I have always been familiar with the phrase, “The people make the place.” However, I have never heard it voiced as emphatically as at Dartmouth. After a year on campus, I say it myself with a conviction that my high school self would be in awe of.
Why do we forget what Martin Luther King Jr. stood for? In life, he was resented. In 1968 — the year of his death — nearly three-quarters of the American public disapproved of him. To the vast majority of white people, he was radical, disruptive and dangerous. To his peers, he was too passive, too patient. Some younger Black activists thought of his nonviolent approach as ineffective and adopted more extreme measures, mocking King all the while.
Hours spent poring over books in hopes of finding the perfect source. Weekends spent huddled in the library instead of skiing with friends. Draft upon draft of each chapter, constantly making edits. Sleepless nights and jam-packed days — all for a thesis. Is all of this worth it?
Hello there, Dartmouth. How’s your third week of winter? Are you settling into familiar routines? Coming back from the library past midnight, brushing your teeth in the fluorescent lights of the dorm bathroom mirror and going to sleep after 30 to 45 minutes of scrolling through your social media of choice? Me too.
Adedoyin Teriba, a professor of art history, is already building a strong foundation at Dartmouth, after joining the faculty in the fall. With a focus on the architecture of African diasporic communities and West Africa, Teriba brings a forward-thinking, multidisciplinary view to his classes here at Dartmouth. His current book project is “Architecture’s Figures: Assimilation and Cultures in Colonial Nigeria,” which also investigates the interplay of architectural forms and masquerade processions in southwest Nigeria.
At any given college, on any given morning, there is a decided omnipresence of caffeinated drinks and bleary eyes. Campuses are flooded with coffee. Iced, hot, from Starbucks, homemade — or dorm-made, rather. The point is: you name a form of caffeine, you’ll probably see it.
I’m from New England, I have a February birthday and — evidently — I chose to go to college in New Hampshire. From these facts alone, one might assume that I’m prepared for or accustomed to harsh winters. The reality, however, is quite the opposite. In fact, I am overwhelmed by the prospect of my first winter at Dartmouth.
Like many students at Dartmouth, I look forward to going home for the holidays over winterim. My ideal holiday season is almost formulaic:
My family has never been one to celebrate New Year’s Eve. By the time the ball drops, we’re usually asleep. As a result, the beginning of the new year has never felt much like an occasion to set drastic goals, and I’ve often preferred to set seasonal goals instead of year-long resolutions. This has grown even more true at Dartmouth, where each term is so drastically different that it would be almost impossible to come up with a laundry list of unifying goals.