In the past week, two unrelated events have forced me to reconsider what it means to be part of the Dartmouth community. The campus phone was stolen from Collis and the head of the Winter Carnival Snow Sculpture was forcibly removed.
It was somewhat disturbing to look up on my way to class on Wednesday to discover that the large figure on the Green was headless. A question immediately rose to mind - does the sculpture look better or worse?
While the answer to that question is subject to personal artistic judgment, there is a second, more important question that arises. What drives someone to commit such an action?
If the head was removed by some angry Hanover youths, then the answer to the question is not that significant to the Dartmouth community. But what if it was Dartmouth students? If that was the case, then we have a situation where members of our community are destroying the work of others in that same community.
Another crime against the community has been perpetrated in the brand new Collis center. In trying to make a phone call the other day, I found that the convenient campus phone was missing. The guy at the info-desk said it was stolen.
What was once a boon for the entire community is now being used in some dorm room for the advantage of one or two students.
Both of these incidents indicate that there are students who are unclear on what it means to be a member of the Dartmouth community. We often speak of the "Dartmouth Experience" as something that is common to every student here.
What is common about the Dartmouth experience is not where we find it, but rather the effect it has on us. Some come into communion with Dartmouth through football games, some run around the bonfire, still others find it in a relationship with a professor.
On this campus, it is often falsely assumed that there is one correct way to reach this Dartmouth experience. While this is clearly not true, members of the Dartmouth community still have responsibilities in common.
These responsibilities include a respect for fellow members of the community. In the cases of the defaced sculpture and the missing phone, this responsibility is clearly lacking.
Whoever attacked the sculpture might argue that the action was a legitimate way to encourage change in the community. This argument is wrong. Many students put long hours into the building of that sculpture. Those students have rights as well.
There is no argument to defend the hoodlum that stole the phone from Collis. In that case, a student has completely ignored his or her responsibility to the College.
As the College moves into the future we will realize more and more that the Dartmouth experience is a heterogeneous idea. There is plenty of room for the improvement of this understanding.
At the same time, however, we must not forget that some of the consequences of that experience are very homogeneous indeed. The varied Dartmouth experiences should lead us to a shared sense of respect and responsibility towards our fellow members of the College community. There is nothing wrong in being homogeneous in our contempt for sculpture beheaders and phone stealers.
