An Open(ed) Letter to Dean Lively

Editors Note: This message responds to an email sent by Dean Kathryn Lively on April 13. The email promised “swift and severe” consequences for students currently on campus who were allegedly failing to socially distance, as well as for those who allegedly planned to return to private residences in the Upper Valley later this term. The email claimed to solely address these “relative few” students but was sent to all undergraduates and their parents. Editor Emeritus and member of the College’s Committee on Standards, Devon M. Kurtz, sent this message of concern privately to Dean Lively on April 14th. He received no response. 

Dear Dean Lively,

My name is Devon Kurtz, and I am a member of the Committee on Standards. I was disappointed by your latest dispatch on behalf of the College’s administration. Frankly, it was unnerving, even frightening.

During these uncertain times, students must be able to look to the College and its administrators for support, guidance, and stability. We need to trust you. Your message degraded that trust. 

What especially disturbs me is that the administration should have known this message would be deleterious. Neither the College nor its students can afford to lose trust in the other, now more than ever. And yet, your message was a wanton act in the wrong direction.

Buried in the scornful officialese of your email was a disturbing notion—unilateral disciplinary action. Of course, no such power exists in the very Community Standards you cite—violations of our Community Standards are heard by the Committee on Standards, which can still operate in absentia. Yet, your email brandishes the disciplinary authority that is vested in the Committee. Threatening “immediate temporary suspension” is nothing more than a purposefully clever way to achieve the full, terrifying effect of unilateral disciplinary action while staying nominally within the bounds of the Community Standards. 

A few weeks ago, I grew concerned about the potential for the College’s administration to use the Committee and its authority as a cudgel during this crisis. I reached out to Katharine Strong, who reminded me that the Office of Community Standards and Accountability does not consider hypothetical violations or potential sanctions. Yet, your message makes explicitly clear that sanctions for hypothetical violations will be “swift and severe.” Respectfully, that is not for you to decide alone—the severity of the sanctions is determined by a body that, importantly, includes students’ peers.

I will be reaching out to Katharine Strong about my concerns again, as well as the rest of the Committee. As our role requires us, we will take all violations of student and organizational misconduct seriously. We are not, however, in the business of threatening campus based on hypothetical scenarios. 

Your email sends a dangerous message to students at their most vulnerable time. Students are trying to cope with challenges that are frankly unimaginable to any Dartmouth administrators. We do not need to be receiving this kind of messaging. We need to know you have our backs. Your email shook my faith that you do.

I also remind you that many of the young people around Hanover today are students who have returned from their own colleges and universities. Hanover community members are bound to assume that all young scofflaws are Dartmouth students when in fact they might have no affiliation with the College at all. The incidents you cite may well be Dartmouth students, but unless the incidents were actively investigated and corroborated, I caution you from issuing blanket threats to the greater Dartmouth Community. 

I ask that you keep my email in mind the next time you release a message to campus. We are listening carefully. Future students are paying attention to how you and the administration handle this crisis. So far, Dartmouth has made many wise moves. But your email is a decidedly dark mark against the administration. 

In closing, I humbly request that you provide an addendum to your email to campus from Monday afternoon. This addendum should explain that it is the Committee on Standards that determines the severity of disciplinary sanctions, not the administration alone. Please provide students with the full information. You have misled them.

Sternly,

Devon Kurtz