Using the high-profile convocation ceremony to set his administration's tone for the upcoming year, College President James Wright greeted the Class of 2006 with an exhortation to challenge the stereotypes and assumptions of racism and white privilege.
Wright received a standing ovation from the crowd of faculty, students and administrators who packed into Leede Arena for his discussion of what he termed "one of the most pressing challenges of your generation."
The other convocation speakers -- Student Body President Janos Marton '04, Pulitzer prize winning journalist and Trustee David Shipler '64, and Dean of the Tucker Foundation Stuart Lord -- echoed Wright in setting diversity high on the College's agenda for the upcoming academic year.
The event's focus on diversity fits with the administration's recent stress on making Dartmouth a more representative institution. The creation of the Committee on Institutional Diversity and Equity in 2000, the establishment of the Korean Studies Department in 2001, last year's creation of new advising positions for minority students and this year's matriculation of the most diverse freshman class in Dartmouth history set the backdrop for Wright's remarks.
In a country in which minority groups constitute 30 percent of the total population and the majority in some states, Wright challenged the audience not to view whiteness as "normative." He said notions that minority students are "the other" and that they are disproportionately advantaged through affirmative action programs as "worse than untrue." Such views, he said, are antithetical to both the principle of community and the spirit of a liberal arts education.
"Recognizing advantage is not to ignore personal accomplishment," Wright insisted, citing his own hard work in becoming the first member of his family to earn a college degree. But he encouraged students to recognize the advantages that their race, class, gender and religion bring.
"Others were surely more capable [than I], but not so lucky," he said, citing his status as a white male as his own unearned advantage in his rise up the academic ladder.
In what was perhaps a mark of respect, students did not shout the "Lest the old traditions fail" line during the singing of the alma mater. Yelling, rather than singing, that line became widespread when many students perceived the Student Life Initiative as an attack on the Greek system in 1999 and when many opposed the advent of coeducation in 1972.
All speakers emphasized the personal responsibility that they said comes with the privilege of a liberal arts education.
"We do not own our community, we owe our community," Lord said.
Shipler agreed, pointing out that although only half of students receive formal financial assistance, the roughly $35,000 annual tuition supports only 59 percent of the cost of a Dartmouth education..
"So you are all on financial aid of a kind," he said.
Speakers said the next generation of Dartmouth students share in the responsibility to fight racism.
"You'd better get busy changing the world; it needs it," Shipler said, encouraging first-year students to "step our of your comfort zone" and to cultivate personal relationships with people unlike themselves.
Marton paid tribute to the last "Janos" to address a Dartmouth convocation -- former College President John Kemeny, who changed his name when he fled Nazi Germany -- in his call for "compassionate activism" among students.
"All mankind is your brother, and you are your brother's keeper," he said.
President Wright concluded the ceremony on a note of responsibility: "We have work to do, you and I, and it is time to begin. Welcome to Dartmouth."
