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The Dartmouth
April 5, 2026
The Dartmouth
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News

Man arrested in Collis for missed court date

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Steven Aspen from Windsor, Vt. was arrested by Hanover Police Department officer Jerry Macy in Collis Center yesterday after an off-duty police officer from another jurisdiction recognized Aspen and tipped off the officer. Aspen, who is not affiliated with Dartmouth College, was arrested on failure to appear on a charge of burglary at Grafton County Superior Court, according to Hanover Police Department Chief Nick Giaccone.



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Four Yale students die in accident

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Four Yale University students died Friday and Saturday from injuries sustained when their sport utility vehicle collided into a jackknifed tractor-trailer on Interstate 95 in Fairfield, Conn. The crash, which has left two other Yale students in critical condition and one in fair condition, occurred on an icy stretch of I-95 around 5 a.m.


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Student report was key for swimmers

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On what initiated the race to save Dartmouth's swimming and diving teams, key negotiators point to a packet of printouts. It's not as much what the 26-page report offered in content -- the proposals outlined have been described as rudimentary at best.



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Prof. discusses subplots in 'Merchant of Venice'

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Professor James Shapiro of the Columbia University English Department addressed an audience of about 50 students and faculty gathered in Rocky 2 during his lecture on "The Merchant of Venice" and Jewish-English literary history, entitled "Jessica: The Jew's Daughter." A central subplot to Shakespeare's romantic comedy "The Merchant of Venice" concerns Jessica, who betrays her father, the antagonist Jewish character Shylock, to run away and marry the Christian Lorenzo. Introduced by Dartmouth Professor Susannah Heschel, chair of the religion department, the lecture began by the claim that he intended this as a sort of addendum to his previous literary effort on "The Merchant of Venice," as an effort to appease the critics of "Shakespeare and the Jews." "What happens to Jessica," Shapiro asked, "amidst the joy at the end of 'The Merchant of Venice,' one of Shakespeare's most complicated comedies?" Shapiro proceeded to elaborate on the history of the name Jessica and the role of Jews in Shakespearean English literature. In one anecdote, Shapiro demonstrated the similarities between the Jessica character and a "long-standing English literary tradition of a beautiful Jewish daughter ... and [her] hidden threat." He recounted a folktale found in James Joyce's "Ulysses" and in several English sources which describes a seductive young Jewish woman who lures an unsuspecting Christian boy to her chambers where she murders him.


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Rush may exceed '02 nos.

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Although not all bids have yet been sunk, this winter's fraternity rush figures may dwarf those from a year ago if preliminary numbers are any indication. Last year was a relatively anemic one for the Greek system, with 279 men rushing fraternities as compared to 520 rushees during Fall term two years ago.


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Dhand, Herring win int'l Rhodes

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Two recent College graduates, Amar Dhand '01 of Canada and Fiona Herring '02 of Bermuda, were recently honored as Rhodes Scholars by their respective nations. The Rhodes Scholarships were created 100 years ago and enable students from 18 nations to study for two or three years at Oxford University in Cambridge, England.


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Trustee selection winds down

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Three Dartmouth alumni have advanced past a long selection process to become finalists for a soon-to-open alumni seat on the Board of Trustees. At the beginning of March, Dartmouth's 60,000 alumni will decide whether Elyse Allan '79, John J.


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Students to attend D.C. protest

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At least some people will be escaping the Dartmouth bubble this weekend with at least 60 Dartmouth students expected to participate in a massive anti-war protest to be held in the nation's capital on Saturday. The rally -- which some have estimated will attract as many as 40,000 protesters --is being organized by International ANSWER, an organization devoted to combating war and racism, and will begin at 10 a.m.


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GOP Speaker decries student participation

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Fearful of their potential power at the polls, a prominent New Hampshire Republican has questioned the right of college students to participate in state elections. "It is simply not right to allow college students to have any say in our elections in New Hampshire," New Hampshire House Speaker Gene Chandler (R) said at a public forum Jan.



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College admits 394 to Class of '07

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The Class of 2007 is now over a third full, with the 394 early admissions acceptance letters mailed in mid-December filling 37 percent of the incoming freshman class. The 32 percent acceptance rate is comparable to last year's figure, but remains much higher than the regular decision rate, which last year stood at only 20 percent. 1,217 students applied, a total up eight percent from last year, and the highest such figure in five years. "The number of students that are admitted remains very consistent from year to year, but the percentage of each class comprised of early admissions acceptances fluctuates," Dean of Admissions Karl Furstenberg said.


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Few sorority systems offer all rushees bids

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Despite ongoing efforts to make the rush process fair and accessible, sorority systems at Dartmouth and across the country maintain that the practice of guaranteeing bids is an impractical and all but unattainable goal. Instead, leaders argue, a rush process which attempts to reconcile the preferences of both potential new members and organizations produces an inevitable degree of uncertainty, though the percentage of women given acceptances often varies widely among institutions. While a policy of guaranteeing bids to all women who register for sorority rush has never officially existed at Dartmouth, in 1997 and 1998 all women who completed the rush process were matched with a house. Such a result was possible when rush classes were smaller, according to Panhellenic Council President Ann Chang '03, but the number of students who sign up for rush is not the sole determinant of whether bids can be guaranteed. "There are extreme cases we could not anticipate," said Chang. "If a woman is having trouble with academics ... or is bearing stresses, be it emotional, physical or financial, then the woman may be advised to consider recruitment in the spring." Still, Chang said, Dartmouth's Panhellenic Council -- the organization which runs rush -- has "one of the highest" bid-offering rates among national Panhellenic organizations.


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Rush changes along with perceptions of Greeks

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For many years, the College has used rush to regulate Greek organizations, punishing them in times of dissonance with later rush dates and more restrictions. Rush has evolved over the years, surviving world wars and hostile administrations. How rush is conducted throughout Dartmouth history is a product of the general conduct of fraternities, said Jere Daniell '55, a history professor and an expert on Dartmouth history. In the 1920s, 1950s and early 1960s, the relationship between fraternities and the administration was stronger, as fraternities regulated their own actions to a greater extent, Daniell said. Some changes in rush have been sparked less by relationships with the administration and more by world events.



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SA reaffirms teaching initiative

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The Student Assembly reaffirmed and expanded the Undergraduate Teaching Initiative and planned a response to the College's new alcohol policy at a busy but brief meeting last night. The Assembly unanimously voted to add a fourth clause to the UTI calling for an extensive campus-wide report examining the current curriculum, and making suggestions on how it could be improved. Student Body Vice-President Julia Hildreth '05 said that the new report would be "a review of what students like about the curriculum," and that she felt the administration was ready to "open it up to students and try to get some curriculum changes." The UTI was a resolution originally passed by the Assembly in the Fall term of 2001 based on study by the Assembly entitled "The Soul of Dartmouth: The Academic Direction of the College" revealed that many Dartmouth students felt that the College was moving too far from its traditional undergraduate focus in favor of becoming a research-driven university. Already in the UTI were the three original resolutions, which include annual undergraduate assessments of each department, non-monetary awards for excellence in undergraduate teaching and innovative teaching grants. Though previous initiative components had been passed individually, Hildreth said the decision to reaffirm the entire initiative had been motivated by a desire to make the UTI a more "permanent and continuous" effort. The Assembly also decided last night that it was, according to Hildreth, "time to respond" to the College's new alcohol policy.




News

Profs: Children exposed to 'extremely violent' films

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A study conducted recently by Dartmouth scientists found that nearly one-third of young children and teenagers in America have seen movies with "extremely violent" content. Researchers at Norris Cotton Cancer Center at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and Dartmouth medical and undergraduate students collaborated to survey 5000 children in the Northern New England area who were enrolled in fifth through eighth grades -- roughly ages 10 to 14. The children were given a list of 50 randomly selected movies chosen from the 600 highest-earning movies released between 1988 and 1999, and asked to select the ones that they had seen. From the body of 600 movies, the researchers determined the films that, in their opinion, had the most violent content. According to the researchers this meant that the movies were R-rated and contained scenes that depicted, among other things, "sadistic rape, sodomy, brutal or ritualistic murders and cannibalism." The study reports that on average, 28 percent of the students surveyed had seen such movies. "Through movies, adolescents are being exposed to brutal and often sexualized violence," the lead author of the paper and Dartmouth Medical School Professor of Pediatrics James Sargent said in a prepared statement. Among fifth grade students, the most popular of these violent movies were "I Know What You Did Last Summer" and "Scream," which about 40 percent of those surveyed had seen.