News
While campus cultural organizations welcome the prospect of altering Dartmouth's mission statement to emphasize diversity, they hope that the revision will have a practical implication and not simply a symbolic one.
"I think that changing the mission statement of the College can be very powerful," Jeff Garrett '02, an executive board member of MOSAIC, said.
Many of the organizations contacted by The Dartmouth echoed Garrett's statement about the importance of the gesture.
"I think it's a step in making the College promise that the creation of such an atmosphere is one of the College's goals," Reiko Imai '03, president of the Dartmouth Japan Society, said.
Imai, however, was quick to add, "I hope that it will become a reality and not just something stated in words on paper."
Many cultural groups question the College's resolve to make the recommended changes.
"I look forward to seeing the Student Life Initiative follow through with this change and implement policies, programs and other initiatives," Jackson Lee '04, president of the Dartmouth Chinese Cultural Society, said.
"This sort of rhetoric about Dartmouth welcoming diversity and flaunting it in our brochures, [is] not an accurate picture ... diversity is emphasized as a recruitment thing and then once they're here, how satisfying of an experience is it?" Garrett asked.
In explaining the need to amend the mission statement, the Committee on Institutional Diversity and Equity cited a 1998 Dartmouth survey that found that 20 percent of the student body reported feeling rejected by students whose racial or ethnic background differed from their own.
