The Week in Review

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Tuition goes up with financial aid benefit

The board recently decided to mimic last year’s 5% tuition increase with yet another, raising tuition $1,725 for the 2008-2009 academic year. Tuition comprises $36,690 of the $47,694 yearly Dartmouth students need for room, board, mandatory fees, and —of course— classes. Every student at Dartmouth will feel the increase, but some worse than others: Dartmouth Medical School students will experience a 6% increase and Tuck School of Business scholars take the cake with 6.1%.

At the same time, the College has pledged several enhancements to its “need-blind” admissions policy. First and foremost, any student whose family makes less than $75,000 will now get a free ride. International students will now be elegible for need-blind admissions, as well. Also, all students on financial aid will be given one leave term with “no earnings expectation,” i.e., a term whose expenses and expected earnings are paid by Dartmouth, leaving the student free to do as he or she wishes. Perhaps most importantly, all student loans will be replaced with scholarships.

The price tag on the new financial aid package is $61 million a year, an eventual $10 million increase. How will Dartmouth pay for it? Besides the college’s Campaign for the Dartmouth Experience, which hopes to provide $150 million of financial aid, trustees have approved a 6% increase in distribution from the endowment.

On a related note, the college’s 2008 Affirmative Action Plan has recently been approved by the Board of Trustees after noted increases in faculty and staff diversity across the Arts and Sciences, Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and Tuck School of Business. The plan was proposed by the Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity, and will be distributed to deans and professors.

Presidential search continues

Chairman of Dartmouth’s Board Charles “Ed” Haldeman ’69 recently appointed Trustee Al Mulley ’70 to head the search for Dartmouth’s seventeenth president. Those comprising Mulley’s committee will be named in June, after which the trustees will garner community input and develop a statement of leadership criteria that the ideal president should display.

Haldeman stated he and Mulley will “be working together to ensure the search is as open and inclusive as possible while also taking the necessary steps to respect the confidentiality of candidates... The Board believes that it is critical that all Dartmouth constituencies have an opportunity to provide their input during this initial stage of the search. We will meet with community members on campus and locations beyond Hanover and establish a web site to collect comments and suggestions for the committee’s consideration.” Haldeman went on to say, “A presidential search, once fully launched, normally takes six to nine months to complete a comprehensive identification process to attract top candidates.” The Dartmouth Review waits with bated breath.

SAD: Only one candidate has no ego

It’s that time of year again. The election for the President and Vice-President of the Student Assembly at Dartmouth (SAD) is upon us. To clarify what kind of people participate in SAD, Tay Stevenson ’10 helps us out. He told the Daily Dartmouth that he is “the only person at [the Assembly] who isn’t there for ego or to bolster their resume.” A SAD insider has finally stated outright what everyone on campus already knew.

The rules of a SAD election are simple: (1) There must be ridiculous promises. Last year Jaromy Siporen was outraged that the only sushi on campus was from Sunja’s. (2) There are two kinds of candidates: back-slapping insiders and disillusioned outsiders.

Molly Bode ’09 is this year’s insider, and Lee Cooper ’09 throws the categories to the wind by declaring himself the former insider who is now an outsider but with the knowledge of an insider. Cooper told the daily rag that he no longer considered himself an insider once he began to exhibit typical outsider sentiments: he became “very disillusioned with the Assembly and the lack of leadership.” (3) There must be complete student body apathy.

For full SAD Election coverage go to this newspaper’s weblog at dartlog.net—because we do apathy better than anyone.

Vermont endeavors to be the “cool state”

A bill to lower the state drinking age in Vermont to eighteen has passed committee, and now faces a vote in the full state Senate. Senator Hinda Miller, D-Chittenden, has evidently decided to trump all the other “cool moms” by persuading all of Vermont to be the “cool state.” She says that the dramatic decline in alcohol related traffic fatalities is not necessarily because of the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984, and of course she is technically correct--the rise in both legislation and litigation concerning DUI, accompanied by an increasing social stigma, have probably played a role as well.

But why not mess with success? As the mother of teenagers herself, Miller seems to believe that this will not have any unforeseen negative effects and that the average teenager is quite capable of making the responsible decision.

Of course, from the College on the Hill one merely has to climb the hill to see Vermont, and a change in policy across the river would have a variety of interesting effects on the social activities of Dartmouth, especially their liquid component. Perhaps the most important questions at this juncture are the following: Which is more rewarding as a new freshman, the money saved on free Keystone or the ability to hike a couple miles and buy beer yourself? And how on Earth did the young Mlle. Miller achieve this remarkable feat of deception?

Professor creates photo-verifying software

Computer Science professor Hany Farid recently completed the development of software that could help determine the veracity of digital photographs. In an article appearing in the Daily Dartmouth on March 31, Farid explained the importance of the new technology to both media organizations and law enforcement. With the proliferation of image-editing software like Photoshop, anyone can perform politburo-esque “revisions” of their photographs.

In fact, the article notes that many news agencies and newspapers, including Reuters and Newsweek, have been caught using falsified images. Yet, in spite of the prevalence of digital image manipulation over the past ten years, Farid is considered to be a pioneer in the field of “digital forensics,” and his software is the first of its kind.

The software, which Farid primarily developed for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, may prove to be an invaluable intelligence tool as well. Americans can now rest assured that the latest batch of embarrassing Britney Spears photographs will be genuine, and not the work of al-Qaeda.

Dartmouth Undying seeks family unity

Coming out of obscurity with a message of unity, an end to partisan squabbles and the reemergence of responsible leadership—it sounds familiar, but Dartmouth Undying has not (yet) been linked to the Obama campaign. Instead, a new group that seeks to end the controversy surrounding the Association of Alumni’s lawsuit, the election of Trustees, and various other administrative goings-on has appeared. Their solution, which is altogether not unexpected, is the removal of the present AoA Executive Committee and the election of their own slate of candidates, all of whom take the positions that the lawsuit is a waste of time and resources: the most important thing, Dartmouth Undying attests, is to “bring the Dartmouth family together again.” According to the group’s website, the only reason that the ridiculous complaints concerning democracy and a lack of parity on the Board of Trustees have persisted this long is the support and influence of shadowy “outside forces.” Once the lawsuit has been rescinded, and the Trustees reflect responsibility and unity by ending parity and adopting the governance changes, Dartmouth Undying foresees that it “will build a rejuvenated and more effective partnership with the Trustees to serve Dartmouth through the 21st century and beyond.”

Some, like independent candidate Frank Gado ’58, have gone on record calling this group “irresponsible” for trivializing the entire issue of parity on the Board and pretending alumni unrest exists solely because of the lawsuit. There have even been some surprisingly legitimate accusations that the Dartmouth Undead...er...Undying have been engaging in push polling to rally support for the administration. Some hope that Dartmouth Undying is successful in silencing the voices of Gado and other such meddlesome outside forces, so that the administration and its handpicked Trustees can get back to business, unchecked and unhindered. For the sake of family unity, naturally.

Lambert ’90 appointed as Sustainability Shepherd

The College recently announced the hiring of Kathy Lambert ’90 to fill the position of College “sustainability manager.” Beyond self-righteous campus crusades, Lambert’s duties will include finding ways to decrease the College’s energy consumption and encourage increased student participation in sustainability initiatives. A graduate of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Lambert will bring her vast expertise in “forest science in hydrology and watershed management,” to the table. In addition to applying her knowledge to the noble art of campus sustainability, Lambert has found the time to tend to her own flock of organically raised sheep.

In an article appearing in the Daily Dartmouth on March 26, Lambert says, “I really like the energy that the student groups at Dartmouth bring to the issues,” an inadvertently ingenious statement—students truly dedicated to ‘being green’ could perhaps be turned into Matrix-esque energy sources. This would have the dual benefit of providing clean energy and, given the typically vocal nature of environmental activists, decreasing sound pollution.

The Review wishes Ms. Lambert the best of luck, and sincerely hopes that she will tend to the Dartmouth flock as well as she has her own.

Professor linked to slavery? No way!

Self-loathing white people of Dartmouth: one Professor of English has stumbled upon another potential source of atavistic guilt. In her quest to find out more about the lives of Abijah and Lucy Terry Prince, two freed slaves who moved to Vermont, Professor Gretchen Gerzina made an interesting genealogical discovery. One of her distant ancestors had been the brother of the mother of the wife of the man who bought Abijah Prince back in 1717. It was here that the merits of her English Ph.D. really shone through: Professor Gerzina was amazed to find this out, apparently unaware that such a tenuous link is not very uncommon. Anyone whose family has been in the country for more than a few generations is almost certainly at least tangentially related to an old colonial slave-owning family, including the Tuttles described by Gerzina herself as “...like rocks in Vermont—so ubiquitous that they seem to grow from the soil.” Moreover, slavery itself was ubiquitous in most cultures at some point in history, so a comprehensive enough genealogy would reveal slaveowners in virtually anyone’s family tree; in fact, if Professor Gerzina were to trace out all degrees of relation fully, she would doubtlessly discover she was related to Abijah herself, as well as to Lucy Terry.

Every human being alive today is related to a “mitochondrial Eve.” Moreover, Gerzina could ostensibly find a link between herself and any other person alive today. We advise that she do this, as the dynamic it could create would be literary gold.

Middlebury brings Hogwarts to Dartmouth

Saturday afternoon, Dartmouth and Middlebury students gathered on the green to bring their favorite fantasy novel to life. The students ran around with Firebolts between their leg, passed each other Quaffles, beat their Bludgers, and for the true athletes of the team, sought out the coveted Snitch (which happened to be a person). Quidditch, a recreation made famous by J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, is growing quickly in popularity, with club teams popping up all across the country. The game was played with volleyballs, dodgeballs, and humans in lieu of the regulation balls because Quality Quidditch Supplies on Diagon Alley had them on back order. All rules from the book are observed; yet, a person, as opposed to a magical, winged golden ball is used for the Snitch. This lucky person, dressed all in gold, ran away from the two opposing Seekers jockeying to be the first person to catch the Snitch; the lucky Seeker wins 150 points for their team and ends the match upon securing the Snitch. Quidditch has reached such a level of popularity that the Middlebury team devoted their entire spring break to traveling around facing schools throughout the northeast in hopes of winning the World Cup. Such an accomplishment would be the biggest athletic achievement in Middlebury history. With 64 official members of the IQA, could Quidditch overtake ultimate Frisbee as the most alternative yet stereotypical thing you can do on a college campus?

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