To the Editor: Friday's article "Panhell, IFC kick off winter rush" (The Dartmouth, Jan. 10) did an excellent job of delineating the various formal recruitment processes currently underway and open to all eligible students interested in Greek life.
Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity holds no pretensions of serving as a basement for the campus. Located not on Webster Avenue but tucked quietly away in a River apartment, the fraternity doesn't even have a basement. What it does have, however, is a group of seven African-American men committed to social activism and improving campus life for black students, according to Karim Marshall '03, president of Alpha Phi Alpha. The fraternity is one of three historically black Greek organizations on campus -- organizations that, despite their subtle presence on campus, work to make their impact felt at Dartmouth and beyond. The first chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha was founded in 1906 at Cornell University, not as a fraternity in the traditional sense but rather to support African-American males desiring social change at a predominantly white institution. Nearly a century later, in a post-civil rights movement society, the organization lives on, continuing to lend support to African-American students and effect social change, yet in an ever-evolving form. Dartmouth's Alpha Phi Alpha chapter was founded in 1972.
The recipient of a prestigious Fulbright Scholar grant, history Professor Judith Byfield '80 will pack her bags this January for Abeokuta, Nigeria, and spend five months interviewing women who led a 1947 tax revolt against their colonial government. Approximately 800 scholars from the United States conduct research abroad each year through the U.S.
This past spring, the soccer fields of Anoka, Minn. -- a suburb just north of Minneapolis -- were heavily sprinkled with blond ponytails. That's because of the Anoka Junior Soccer Association's 24 teams, two-thirds are all female. The organization's president, Nancy Giancola, herself the soccer mom of a fifth-grade girl, said she has witnessed a rapid expansion in the opportunities for girls to play youth sports in the past several years and since she was a young girl."When I was my daughter's age, we didn't have girls' sports at all," Giancola explained. Giancola grew up in the pre-Title IX era, during which only one in 27 girls played high school sports, and a second-grade girl playing in a youth soccer league was the exception to the rule. But growing up 30 years after the passage of the watershed legislation, her daughter has witnessed such female athletic triumphs as the U.S.
This year marks the second time in recent College history that two students have shared the valedictorian title
If the research presented in one senior's sociology thesis is any indication, a good portion of white students at Dartmouth may hold largely uninformed and perhaps problematic views on race. Over the past year, David Trouille '02 surveyed and interviewed a broad cross-section of white males at Dartmouth, asking questions aimed to address how these students viewed racial identity and race relations on campus and beyond. Last Thursday afternoon he presented the results of his thesis -- entitled "The White Faces of Dartmouth College: A Study of Racial Identity among White Males" and advised by sociology professor Christina Gomez -- to a packed audience of students and faculty. His research found that, by and large, white students did not see themselves as having any role in constructing racial identities and affecting race relations. They did acknowledge the reality of racial self-segregation on campus.
Within a week, the outdoor store of Main Street's Dartmouth Co-op will permanently shut its doors, prompted by increased competition in the already volatile market for outdoor goods. Instead, the Co-op will concentrate its efforts on selling the more profitable Dartmouth insignia items and expanding online sales, according to Co-op owner Eugene Kohn '60 Liquidation sales of all outdoor merchandise began on Nov.
As hundreds of students bustled in and out of Food Court last night, Marianne Karplus '04 sat with two friends in a quiet corner of The Pavilion, Dartmouth's newest dining facility, serving kosher and halal meals in the former Westside area behind Food Court. With only six students sitting in the dining area and no long lines during the regular dinner rush, DDS employee Anna-Marie Hammond suggested that The Pavilion "will get busy once people realize it's for everyone" and not just Jewish or Muslim students. "People that we have gotten here really like it," she said, adding that much of the food is similar to that served at Homeplate.
This past fall, John Brett '00 was member of a rag-tag yet committed coalition of students at Dartmouth campaigning for Ralph Nader in the 2000 presidential election. A year later, he is now one of ten students from across the nation charged with building the Green Party at the national level. As Brett explained, the Green Party itself became a national political party only following Nader's candidacy, and the Campus Greens -- the leg of the Green Party comprised of college and high school campus members throughout the country -- quickly followed suit. The ten-person committee of which Brett is member -- the National Campus Greens Steering Committee -- represents the Campus Greens' first attempt at a steering committee and was elected just two weeks ago at their first national convention, held August 9-12 at the University of Illinois in Chicago. Brett himself is fairly new to the Green Party, and became involved only last summer after conversations with several Dartmouth Green Party activists. "The positive energy amongst campus peers in struggling for a platform they could fully support and believe in" excited him, he explained. Brett was particularly attracted by the party's emphasis on social justice and community-based economic development, and thus began campaigning for Nader over the 2000 summer. At that time, Nader's name was not even on the New Hampshire presidential ballot. So along with Charlie White '02 and Nikolaus Stein '02, Brett helped circulate petitions throughout the Hanover area to get Nader on the state ballot, according to White. By the fall, Brett was co-chairing the campus Nader campaign.
In a dark Collis Commonground, over 100 Dartmouth students and community members watched Thursday evening as a simple stage decorated only with a blackboard and a dozen blue desks was transformed into a classroom at Wayside School, where students turn into apples, and pigtails sing and dance. The play -- "Sideways Stories from Wayside School" -- was the culmination of two months of rehearsal and behind-the-scenes work on the part of twelve students from the White River Junction Templeton Court Apartments, under the directorship of Sarah Stokes '03 and funded through the Tucker Foundation. Yet as Stokes explained, the idea for such a performance began years ago. While only freshman in high school she read an article about someone who directed a play with students at an inner city school.