About 200 faculty members and students showed up to a Student Assembly-sponsored rally in Webster Hall Saturday night for an evening filled with entertainment and information.
The event was an attempt to rally students behind the Assembly's initiative to convince the College to build a replacement to Webster, currently the only medium-sized performance venue at the College.
Webster is currently slated to become a Special Collections Library.
The rally's line-up was filled with faculty and student speakers, student-composed entertainment groups and the always popular free food.
Performances were given by the Aires, the Decibelles, the Dog Day Players and jazz-singer Neisha Powells '95.
"We tried to show a variety of perspectives on the need for Webster Hall," Assembly President Rukmini Sichitiu '95 said.
A dozen students interviewed at the rally said they came for Saturday night entertainment, but some also expressed a concern for the cause.
"I am here for the entertainment, but I also think it's important to have a programming space of this size," Molly Heath '98 said.
"I like the performances. I really don't know that much about it," Wendy Kitchens '98 said. "I'm not very informed."
Students and faculty expressed the need and the importance for a building like Webster.
Sichitiu said it is important to have a space like Webster on campus.
"I want to stress to you that Webster is more than just any other campus building. It is a campus center," she said. "And it has become a fixture and a nucleus in the lives of Dartmouth students since the turn of the century."
In a speech, Drama Professor Sam Abel affirmed Webster's historical significance.
"It is not an exaggeration to say that history has been forged in this building," he said. "This is a student performance space."
Laurel Shanks '95, former president of Young Democrats, pointed out the need for Webster as a venue for presidential candidates during the New Hampshire presidential primaries.
Shanks urged the College not to make the Special Collections move into Webster until after the 1996 primaries.
"Intellectual and social life at Dartmouth revolves around the kind of facility you're advocating," said Lewis Crickard, director of the Hopkins Center for the Performing Arts.
The Assembly also held a petition drive at the event which garnered almost 200 signatures.
Another petition drive will take place in The Hop Monday through Wednesday. Sichitiu said the Assembly's goal is 500 signatures.
Sichitiu said she will be meeting with College Treasurer Lyn Hutton and Dean of the College Lee Pelton on Tuesday to discuss the Webster issue.
She will also meet with the Board of Trustees at its meeting this weekend and will give a presentation on the importance of constructing a replacement building for Webster as soon as possible, she said.
The Assembly's original goal was to stop the planned conversion, but Assembly members say they changed their position to address the complex issue of the move.
Assembly member Grace Chionuma '96 said the Assembly changed its position because some students would rather see Webster converted into Special Collections.
"We're not trying to get rid of the building, we're trying to replace it," Chionuma said.
