Buried deep in the slew of emails that customarily announces the start to another Dartmouth term was one that would call students from an apathetic slumber, the announcement that the College— as a response to racially motivated vandalism and harassment— would begin to restrict access to dorms and house centers outside a student’s house community. In the first few weeks, we are deluged by emails of every kind, asking us to try out for sports, audition for performance groups, and attend organizational meetings. Not accompanied by an offer of free food, and lacking the flashier, gif-laden presentation of other first-week emails, the announcement surely made its way to many a deleted file. But the consequences of such an unassuming email has united the student body in a universal frustration.
Over the last few years, Dartmouth College has experienced a number of what the College refers to as bias incidents, including multiple incidents of racist graffiti and vandalism within dorms. In late 2018, offensive racial slurs were written on the doors of a handful of Asian students in Fahey-McClane, Hitchcock, Mid Massachusetts Hall, and North Massachusetts Hall. This added to the existing tension between students and the administration which began after another incident in which over twenty professors and students received anonymous emails containing insulting messages and anti-black and anti-Asian slurs. Dissatisfied by the College’s failure to catch the perpetrators, and with mounting concerns over student safety, the Student Assembly passed a resolution which recommended working to make bias incidents easier to report, establishing a group of students, staff, and faculty members to look into potential dorm access changes, and reforming support systems for students affected by bias incidents. The Student Assembly also asked the Office of Residential Life to conduct an internal audit of their dorm security. Dean Katheryn Lively accepted the recommendations of the group and praised them for raising the issue. The group assigned to dorm policy changes ultimately recommended looking into increased security camera usage and temporary dorm restriction in the wake of a bias incident, releasing their findings in early February.
But when the email was sent out, claiming that the College had acted upon the recommendations of the Student Assembly in changing the dorm access policy, Luke Cuomo ’20—the current president of Student Assembly— was taken aback. In an email that was praised across campus, Cuomo and Vice President Ariela Kovary ’20 stated emphatically that this action by the College was not recommended by the Student Assembly, and that the Administration had not been in contact with the Student Assembly on the issue of dorm security since the working group’s recommendations were released six months earlier. Confusingly, the group who advocated for security improvements was not consulted during the administration’s deliberation over such improvements.
To members of the student body and the Student Assembly, the College’s implementation of the new policy looked like clumsy mismanagement at best, and calculated scheming at worst.
After explaining the Student Assembly’s lack of involvement in the dorm restriction policy, Cuomo and Kovary strongly condemned the policy and outlined the negative impact they believe it will have on students and their safety. They argued that the plan’s reliance on members of a house community to let students who were not in that community into dorms actually eliminated a key tool in catching misconduct: the timestamped entry/exit logs that can be traced back to a specific student. They lamented the college’s “ham-fisted attempt to create artificial unity,” and accused the College of using the traumatic experiences of those affected by the racist incidents to further the implementation of the unpopular house system. In a column published in the Dartmouth, Tanner Jones ’22 took the mass opposition to the new program to be a strong indictment against the House System, which has faced criticism regarding the lack of student enthusiasm towards it, and the substantial sums of money spent to facilitate it. He called the House System a failing “project in social engineering,” and the new policy fitting for a college administration that has attempted to “[extend] its power over student life by controlling, in various capacities, the people with whom students live, eat and spend their time.”
To members of the student body and the Student Assembly, the College’s implementation of the new policy looked like clumsy mismanagement at best, and calculated scheming at worst. Around campus, other students had more practical concerns: one expressed anxiety that the new rules would complicate the strangely choreographed ritual of the college hookup, and another was disappointed that his plan to place a case of Keystone Light in his freshman dorm room as a friendly gesture would be thwarted.
For its part, the College has stuck by the decision to restrict dorm access, and has stated that the new policy is a result of the administration listening to the college community. Michael Wooten, the Associate Dean of Residential Life was quoted in The Dartmouth as saying, “We’re hoping this doesn’t come across as some draconian move — it’s not really meant to be that. It’s really about trying to find the right flexibility between open [spaces] … and also trying to be responsive to security.” But as the Dartmouth Review came to press, student opposition was beginning to organize. A petition authored by Assembly President Cuomo opposing the policy change had garnered over 2,200 at the time of print. What is yet to be seen is how responsive the College will be to the collective will of the students.
To the administration, we would like to affectionately remind you that it is usually not a good sign for you when all of campus agrees with us concerning one of your decisions.
For our part, The Review is fully opposed to the policy… or fully in support of it—whichever is more likely to convince the administration to repeal this asinine bureaucratic fatwa. Complaints about the policy and the condescending and paternalistic tone taken by administrators defending it have dominated the conversation in our office, just as they have in every social space on campus. However, as one of our more sober editors pointed out, the true problem with this policy is that it fails to address the issue at hand. Restricting dorm access pays lip service to students’ security concerns without actually keeping the students any safer. The belief that students are not going to visit dorms outside of the house community is simply naïve, and by forcing students to open the door for other students the College is only increasing the instances of unrecorded visitors. In this same vein, this policy is an affront to the communal spirt of the College that is decidedly lacking at our peer institutions, like Columbia University and University of Pennsylvania, which have to restrict campus access. We have the great luxury of a campus sequestered in a safe, pastoral community. Why must we pretend that we are under siege, especially from within? This policy serves to divide campus, and worse, it perpetuates an unfounded narrative that Dartmouth students are teeming with feral hatred for one another. Division, when faced with insecurity, is reckless. The College should instead seek to bring campus together through trust and community. Perversely, the College’s restriction of dorm access did unite students in one way: against the College’s decision.
To the administration, we would like to affectionately remind you that it is usually not a good sign for you when all of campus agrees with us concerning one of your decisions. We implore you to re-think your choice before you have the 2200+ signatories of Student Assembly’s petition beating down your door, pitchforks in hand. We at The Review know a thing or two about the business ends of campus’s pitchforks—they frequently make for an unpleasant afternoon. Please know that The Review is here for you in your time of need and should you every wish to brainstorm less ludicrous ways to improve campus safety, you know where to find us.
Really well done here. Keep up the good work.