Dartmouth College Students Wrestle With Social Identity

A month after Dartmouth College released a proposals that would radically reform its residential life, the Hanover, N.H. campus is still searching for a new sense of social identity.

In informal fireside chats with administrators, students have expressed a fear that the school's lively spirit will be lost.

The 50-page Committee of the Student Life Initiative report released on Jan. 10 marked the culmination of an effort that began in February last year, when the College's trustees identified five major areas of concern surrounding social and residential life.

Top issues were the Greek system, the need for more social space and the need for new residential life options. Currently, a large minority of Dartmouth students live in fraternities, sororities or co-ed homes.

"There's a perception of Dartmouth as a male-dominated school that is not a place for all women, just for really strong women who can take it," said Margaret W. Smoot, a junior who was one of five student members of the Committee.

Parties are held at fraternity houses only, so "there is still a sense that we come to them," Smoot said.

So far, suggestions for housing changes at Dartmouth propose models similar to Harvard's residential houses.

Students and administrators want to know "whether or not Dartmouth can become a school where clusters are the focus of social life," Smoot said.

Clusters are groups of three to four dorms with which students would be affiliated at least until their junior year.

The committee also proposed having housing reserved for first-year students.

Some students questioned the amount of influence that their peers had on the committee relative to campus administrators.

Though Mary R. McVeigh, a Dartmouth first year student, said that administrators have taken the time to talk with students, she said she wished her peers had had more influence on the committee's recommendations.

"[The committee] made a big deal about how they referred to student opinion, but it seems as if they disregarded that opinion and went along with what they wanted anyway," McVeigh said.

Upon the report's release, students independently formed a Student Response Task Force, which plans to submit its own report to Dartmouth's board of trustees at least a week before an April 14 trustee meeting.

The trustees will decide whether to turn the Committee's recommendations into campus law.

"I think [the student opinion] will have an impact on the trustees, but I wish it had made more of an impact on the committee," McVeigh said. "The social life is so great the way it is. We don't want to lose that."

Dartmouth officials say they are weighing these concerns.

"It's preliminary to say what's happening when," said Laurel R. Stavis, a Dartmouth spokesperson. "What's happening now is that students, faculty and administrators are actively involved in an ongoing discussion."