Original Article: http://dartreview.com/archives/2005/09/22/tdr_interview_gail_zimmerman.php
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Gail Zimmerman, the Dean of First Year Students at the College, is a native of Buffalo, New York, and received her doctorate from UMass Boston. As she begins her thirteenth year at Dartmouth, she sat down with The Dartmouth Review to reflect upon what she has experienced during her time here and to offer advice to freshmen.
The Dartmouth Review: Can you characterize the "typical" first year experience? That is, the first term is usually a baptism by fire for a lot of students; what should freshmen be expecting entering their fall term?
Gail Zimmerman: Well, what do you mean by "baptism by fire?" You forecast something yourself by saying that. So what do you think?
TDR: In the first term, freshmen tend to be thrown into a lot of new situations they haven't experienced before…There's this whole sense of both liberation and responsibility that comes with it.
GZ Is that how you felt? Do you see other students having trouble with it?
TDR: That is kind of how I felt. I didn't have that much trouble with it, but it was definitely different. But I think it really depends on the student; some of them thrive right away, others take two or three terms to get into the swing of it.
GZ I agree. It depends on the individual student. Some do thrive; some hit the ground running. And they just take to college life like a duck to water. And others take longer to make that adjustment.
TDR: Do you see any trends regarding certain types of students who do better than others, or is it difficult to tell beforehand?
GZ I think there are some qualities that help a student to make a quicker adjustment. Self-confidence, for one. A bit of risk taking, putting yourself out there, trying to meet new people, trying to take in new experiences. Being very open to those new experiences. Self-reliance, independence. It's like you said, independence balanced with responsibility. How disciplined is the student to achieve that balance?
TDR: How do you find the expectations of entering students, whatever they may be, match up or differ with what they actually experience at Dartmouth?
GZ I think that your expectations are set, or not set, depending on what your background is–what what kind of experiences you've already had. What kind of family background you have, how much knowledge you have about the college experience. Whether that's vicariously through your own parents' experiences, or brother's or sister's experiences, or you yourself have been on college campuses in one way or another. Depending on what that background is going to [determine], does that expectation match.
TDR: What do you think of the recent change in the freshman writing program–that is the change from English 5 to Writing 5, and the English faculty no longer teaching the freshmen how to write?
GZ There has not been a change in the instructorship; who is teaching the course is still the same. It's really a structural difference. The nomenclature is now "Writing 5" because the courses have been moved structurally to a different department. But who is teaching, and the content and curriculum is still the same.
TDR: Do you feel it is important for freshmen to have this sort of baseline writing instruction as they enter?
GZ I do. You can come with phenomenal scores on a standardized test, but does that mean you can write, or know how to write well? It certainly signals that you have some very solid and fundamental verbal skills and abilities, but that doesn't always mean that the student knows the writing process. So yes, I think it's an incredibly valuable experience.
TDR: After the new dorms are built, both on Tuck Drive and the McLaughlin Cluster, what is freshman housing going to look like? Will there still be freshman clusters, such as the Choates and the River now, or will mixed-class housing become more common?
GZ Marty Redman, the Dean of Residential Life, could answer that question much better than I could. Half of the class is in first year clusters currently–the River and Choates represent about half of the entering first-year class. So will we expand that number? I don't know; we've got time to plan for that. The conclusion of the McLaughlin and Tuck Mall clusters are far enough away that to just be beginning those conversations.
TDR: What are some common pitfalls that freshmen should look out for? Let's start with academics; what should they be aware of?
GZ This is specific to Dartmouth. Academically, the biggest mistake is not engaging soon enough in your academics. With a ten week term, it goes very, very fast. You have to hit the ground running, academically. You don't have time to enter a classroom and sit back and wait and see how it develops. You've got to engage. Time management, academic discipline, and study habits–not paying attention to those things are the biggest pitfalls.
TDR: And socially? Either interacting with your peers or with upperclassmen.
GZ The most common pitfall that I see is over-involvement. We have a lot of students at Dartmouth who have had multiple engagements, extracurricular, in high school and think that that's how it's done. And in college, you're much better off choosing one or two involvements and solidifying those. Or moving on to something else if you decide it's not your thing. But over-involvement is what we see as the biggest pitfall.
TDR: The other obvious social problem is the "let-off-the-leash" syndrome, particularly in regards to drinking. How common is it that freshmen get picked up and have to come in and have a meeting with you, particularly in comparison to upperclassmen?
GZ Every student learns the ropes of the institution. We reach out to first year students much more about those kinds of issues than the upper class deans might. We make a very purposeful attempt to have those conversations about the balance between independence and responsibility.
TDR: If you could wave a magic wand and make one concrete, observable change to the first year experience, what would it be?
GZ I would say online placement testing, pre-matriculation. That way, students start at Dartmouth already knowing where they stand academically in whatever the curriculum is that they're choosing to engage in. We have begun to pilot some of that in different departments. But that would, I think, very much help change how students start the academic process.
TDR: Do you find that many placement tests during orientation get lost in the mix, and students don't take them when they need to?
GZ No, I don't. But I think it colors their entrée into the academic community. Placement testing has changed from being scattered throughout orientation, to taking place on a single day in a testing center, where students schedule their own placement tests in a testing center. They choose when to take which tests. I think that's improved it, but I would like to make it even better.
TDR: And if you could do the same thing–a concrete, observable change–for Dartmouth as a whole?
GZ I think we've begun that, actually. And that is the building of new residence halls, so that we can really truly house and be a residential college for every Dartmouth student who wants to live on campus. And we're getting there.
TDR: And any last words of wisdom for freshmen?
GZ Just come and engage. Seek us out; we're looking forward to it.