A Battle for the Soul of Dartmouth

It has long been the tradition of The Dartmouth Review to echo the voice of independence through the hallowed halls of the College. For the entirety of my time at Dartmouth, as well as before, that is what it has done, and that is what it will continue to do long after I graduate. 

Dartmouth has been a part of my life as far back as I can remember. My father, a Dartmouth ‘78, took me to Homecoming several years in a row during my formative childhood years. Now, a student at Dartmouth approaching the dusk of my penultimate year, I feel prepared to speak on the evolution and direction of the institution. It is my aim that the Review continue on its path of steering the ship in the right direction, and restoring to it the great academic fortune to which all Dartmouth students expect. The task ahead is to ensure that Dartmouth remains worthy of our preservation. 

I would like to thank my predecessors, Dalton Swenson, Zoe Dominguez, and Matt Skrod, for being the most ideal mentors I could have asked for during my Dartmouth career. The lessons that I will take from them are bound to carry with me over the next several months. We, as young people, are nothing without our mentors. If there is one aim that I would like to fulfill as Editor, it is that someone new will take the lessons from me as I have taken from my predecessors. 

I assume the role of Editor-in-Chief at a time when the students of Dartmouth are witnesses to an internal struggle for the future of the College’s academic reputation. It is no secret that a university education does not carry the same weight that it once did; one can attain a bachelor’s degree taking classes that, several decades ago, would have failed to meet adequate standards of rigor for even the least impressive credentialing institutions. There are pressures from within to turn Dartmouth into something that is scarcely distinct from many of our neighboring institutions, in which the classes offered cater to the contemporary bouts of academic sloth and inertia that plague so many students. Regrettably, certain parts of our own institution have suffered the results of that shift. Yet, these efforts continue to meet stiff resistance from many at Dartmouth, otherwise, The Review would not exist. 

Unlike many of those who may be sympathetic to the mission of The Review, I do not believe that the College is completely rife with classes that fall short of the institution’s standards. Certainly, there are some classes that do; I have taken a number of them. With that being said, I have also taken a number of classes which do not, and I have come to know a great many professors that are stalwarts against what I will henceforth refer to as anti-intellectual academia. All of this is to say that I am resolutely a moderate on the current state of Dartmouth’s academic prowess. However, as for its future state, that remains up in the air. There is a struggle between two competing forces. One side, led by President Beilock and Provost Santiago Schnell (the latter of whom I had the pleasure of interviewing at the end of last term), are both committed to seeing through the College’s return to the academic rigor and intensity that gave Dartmouth the reputation it has today. Provost Schnell, in our interview, made quite clear that the state of Dartmouth’s academic rigor is paramount. 

The Review’s role on campus is more vital now than ever, in this era in which our College is at risk of being pulled away from its founding values and standards. It is with a profound and unabashed support for Dartmouth that I affirm my support for the President’s gains thus far in this area. and It is with that same passion that I implore the students of Dartmouth to hold the College to the same high standard. that we are held to when considered for admission. Whatever hurdles stand in the way of over the next year, they will not prevail without a fight, and there will not be a fight without The Review. As it says on the back of every issue, we shall fight on the pages.