Modisett: Stress, Winter and Vomit
(02/11/22 8:50am)
This cartoon is featured in the 2022 Winter Carnival special issue.
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This cartoon is featured in the 2022 Winter Carnival special issue.
This article is featured in the 2022 Winter Carnival special issue.
This article is featured in the 2022 Winter Carnival special issue.
This article is featured in the 2022 Winter Carnival special issue.
There are benchmarks for everything now. When you are young, these benchmarks measure when you learn to walk, talk and read to determine whether you are on track in your development. As you grow older, people begin to measure not merely what you are able to do but how well you do it. In grade school, there are standardized tests and percentile calculations, then high school brings a combination of GPA, ACT and SAT. Even in college, it does not stop. We are constantly graded and assessed, our performance mapped and recorded.
In a world where technology is an increasingly present aspect of our lives, hiding behind our screens is becoming more and more convenient. We no longer need to talk to people one-on-one when we don’t feel like it; we can simply stay in our dorms and shoot our message out into the void that is the internet. Click, clack, boom. Just like that, with a few touches of our keyboard, the job is done.
Something is different about this year’s Winter Olympics. Sure, the general aura of the Games is the same as it has always been — athletes fill the streets of Beijing, broadcasting crews aim their cameras at ski slopes and ice rinks and millions of viewers around the world tune into the opening ceremony. But amid the sharpening of skis, the final polishing of figure skating routines and the hanging of just over 200 flags, constant discourse surrounding China’s treatment of the Uyghurs prevails. For years now, the Asian superpower has been systematically forcing the Muslim minority group into concentration camps in the western province of Xinjiang. The response from the United States has evolved from condemnation to economic sanctions to, now, as the latest tap on China’s wrist, withdrawal of American diplomatic presence from the Beijing Olympics.
Re “Verbum Ultimum: Build it Anyway” (Feb. 4, 2022)
Last month, the College announced plans to construct apartment-style undergraduate residences on Lyme Road. The new dormitory will house roughly 300 students and, by creating more supply, allow the College to renovate “approximately 60% of existing undergraduate residence halls over the coming decade,” starting with the mold-ridden Andres and Zimmerman Halls and Brace Commons this summer.
For most people, the term wilderness evokes images of vast, untamed tracts of land rife with danger and mystery, such as the Wild West or the Amazon rainforest. To the more scientifically inclined, it is a natural, often terrestrial environment that is relatively undisturbed by humans. But wilderness represents so much more to those who have experienced it. Wilderness is the myriad stars flickering above like embers from an ancient fire. It is a herd of bison on the prairie, the sound of their hooves rolling like distant thunder. Wilderness is beautiful and sacred, capricious and beguiling.
“The Dartmouth reported on Jan. 28 that the College would not voluntarily recognize the Student Worker Collective at Dartmouth, which is seeking to form a union of student dining workers. SWCD claims that 80% of student dining workers support their unionization effort, but the College argues that an election moderated by the National Labor Relations Board “ensures a full airing of points of view on unionization, which we believe students deserve.” Importantly, the decision to not voluntarily recognize the union also extends the process of formalizing the union. (The College has agreed to negotiate with the SWCD to “streamline” the election process.) What is your opinion on Dartmouth’s decision to not recognize the union and how should the College and students proceed going forward?”
Watching groups of students and their parents tour Dartmouth, it’s hard not to reminisce about one’s own college admissions experience — an experience perhaps filled with disappointment and reflection or, for many students who were accepted via early decision, a sense of relief marking the end of an often agonizing journey. However, while the process of early decision is appealing, it often is only accessible for those with the wealth and intergenerational knowledge to utilize it. Students whose parents make more than $250,000 per year are twice as likely to apply early than students whose family makes less than $50,000. The early decision process exacerbates inequalities, and at Dartmouth, where 69% of students come from the top 20%, we need to ban it.
On Tuesday, Jan. 25, College President Phil Hanlon announced in a campus-wide email that, after a decade at the helm, he will step down from leadership of the College in June of 2023. Shortly after this announcement, an email from the Board of Trustees praised President Hanlon for “steer[ing] the institution to ever greater academic excellence, inclusion, and impact.”
I retired from Dartmouth in the fall of 2020 after spending 28 years at the College as a coach for the track and cross-country teams. A major part of that job was recruiting, and one of our key strategies involved distinguishing Dartmouth from our Ivy League counterparts. Living on a walkable campus was a real draw, especially compared to the extensive shuttle bus system at Cornell University. We could tell potential students that Dartmouth’s athletic facilities were on campus — unlike Columbia University or Yale University, where students rely on shuttle buses to get to practices and competitions.
At the end of fall term, my grandma — my biggest supporter in my journey to Dartmouth — died from complications of COVID-19. In the midst of finals, I scrambled to leave campus early and fly to Missouri for her funeral. While I was there — in a county with a 25% vaccination rate and what I saw to be a low masking rate — I found a newfound appreciation for Dartmouth, a place that took COVID-19 seriously and consistently sought to combat the virus’ spread.
Be they attention-seekers or true believers in some form of conservatism, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia — the only two Senate Democrats who opposed changing the Senate’s filibuster rule in last Wednesday’s floor debate — have dramatically closed the path to expansive election reform. The proposals outlined in the now-failed bills — such as making election day a federal holiday and protecting early voting — are hardly radical, and grow ever more necessary as Republican-controlled state legislatures pass dozens of restrictive laws.
With over 1,500 new cases among faculty, staff and students since the term started and a testing positivity rate of over 14% this past week, one would be hard-pressed to find a friend group, class or dorm that has managed to entirely avoid the clutches of COVID-19. And, as Student Assembly first shared in its email communications and the administration continues to remind students, this should come as no surprise: Dartmouth anticipated this staggering caseload and adjusted its policies accordingly, doing away with isolation housing, setting up a shockingly high quality isolation dining experience and allowing people the chance to test out with a negative rapid test after five or seven days. The College has done good work in preparing for the inevitable, but glaring issues remain: Dartmouth must do more to ease the lives of those who, by virtue of the College’s decision to treat COVID-19 as endemic, have contracted the virus.
