While most students spent Saturday afternoon floating down the Connecticut River in a drunken stupor, Karen Wilkes '00 caught up on some much needed sleep.
Wilkes had been up all night Friday talking with friends, and, although she said she regrets missing Tubestock, she thought the conversations were productive.
"[We] really opened up to each other," she said. "It was amazing."
Last weekend was not the first time Wilkes has sacrificed a carefree afternoon for the opportunity to reach out to Dartmouth students.
She has made a career of getting to know her classmates, from serving as summer chair of the Student Assembly's Student Life Committee to acting as president of the College's chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers.
Getting in touch
Wilkes plethora of campus activities includes a post as the Afro-American Society's Concerned Black Students chair, a role that she said helps further her goal of "increased student interactions."
Wilkes said she wants students to recognize the uniqueness of one another's cultures, but does not want these to hinder communication.
She said she wants "to change multi-cultural barriers into boundaries."
As chair, Wilkes has organized community dinners open to all students and has engineered "ladies' night" and "gentlemen's night."
During ladies' night, students watched movies and talked about how they could increase the respect they afford each other during interactions, Wilkes said.
As Chair of the Assembly's Student Life Committee, Wilkes is endeavoring to improve campus communication through the Conversations program, discussions of sensitive issues.
The first Conversation event will feature a chance to talk with Montgomery Fellow Manning Marable, Student Assembly Summer Chair Janelle Ruley '00 said.
Wilkes, who is majoring in engineering modified with economics, is also involved in programs intended to increase the number of women and minorities who remain in the sciences.
She said she has worked with the E. E. Just program, designed to recruit minority students in the sciences and encourage them to remain in the discipline. The E. E. Just program offers students full-time and part-time internships and familiarizes them with campus resources, Wilkes said.
Wilkes is also a member of a Women in Science Project mentor group, five students who meet at least twice a term to discuss issues relating to women in the sciences.
The students advise each other on which courses to pick and sometimes lend each other books, according to Wilkes.
She also spends her time assisting students making difficult choices concerning drug and alcohol use.
As a Drug and Alcohol Peer Advisor and through the Peer Education Action Corps, Wilkes acts as a personal resource for students dealing with the effects of drug, alcohol or sexual abuse.
She is also a member of Green Key Society and serves as a Programming Assistant for the River Apartments, where she coordinates events, including "ice cream socials, study breaks [and] barbecues."
As a sophomore, Wilkes experimented with the College's Reserve Officer Training Corps program. Although she eventually decided to quit ROTC, she said she is pleased she learned how to break down and clean machine guns.
World Traveler
Last winter, Wilkes and other students in Dartmouth's chapter of the NSBE traveled to a convention in Anaheim, where the weather disappointed, but recruiting opportunities did not.
Several students in Dartmouth's organization, which raised money for the trip by contacting campus organizations, alumni and businesses, landed interviews with big-name engineering firms, but the students had to see sunny California through a rainstorm.
Wilkes said one of her favorite Dartmouth experiences was a trip away from the College, a Language Study Program in Mexico.
Wilkes said the program was an opportunity to get "to know a different group of people" including the group's teaching assistant and professor.
The TA and professor "were very comfortable and real with us," Wilkes said.
She said she might spend next winter in Peru with the group's TA.
However, she said her plans for after graduation are uncertain, although she plans to do some sort of community service, perhaps through Teach for America.
In any case, she will continue to try to understand and to unify the College and her community.
"So many people do want to reach out," she said.
