College is sometimes described as a time to find one's own place in the world. No wonder things have been getting so heated about 'who's empowered in what space when.' Jean Ellen Cowgill explores the politics of space further in what she promises is not just another article about Beta.
Over the past year, we sons and daughters of Dartmouth have talked a lot about the politics of space. Who gets space on the Board of Trustees? What do we do about the male-to-female space ratio? How do we secure on-campus living space for all four years? How do we create safe space, neutral space or even just enough space in which all students can rage, sleep, study, eat and live as they please? And don't even get students started on parking space.
Students have marked off their spaces all over this campus like hyper, adolescent dogs -- y'know, without the raising-the-hind-leg thing. The front steps of Robo, the couches in Collis -- we all know these spots have been claimed. I'm just waiting for the day when the artsy majors and the athletes finally duke it out in the open over the Hop -- I'm envisioning a West Side Story, Sharks-versus-Jets style showdown with lots of choreographed snapping. After all, the theater majors would be involved.
On the subject of cheesy musicals, I am reminded of that sage of the cinders, Cinderella: "But I know of a spot in my house where no one can stand in my way. In my own little corner in my own little chair, I can be whatever I want to be."
Corny, maybe. But Rogers and Hammerstein understood Cindy's plight. In a house full of bitchy stepsisters making various demands on her time and with an endless to-do list of work, Cinders had found a space to take a deep breath, to collect her thoughts and to call her own. Sound familiar?
Now, I'm not claiming that the life of a Dartmouth student is akin to familial indentured servitude. But we do tend to over-program ourselves. And sometimes our professors, our coaches and even our friends can act a tad "bitchy stepsister" (Sorry guys! Love you!). Like weary Cinderellas, we need the spaces that help us breathe, whether that be in our own little nook in Collis or at our own little pong table in our own little house on frat row.
"Periodicals is wonderful, a little haven away from the craziness that is third and fourth floor Berry," said Lily Macartney '08. For similar reasons, Sarah Herringer '08 chose to move off-campus. "I chose to move off because I wanted to keep home and school spaces separate," she said. "I needed a space to unwind."
From the moment we arrive in our freshman dorm room with one outer room and one inner (who gets the latter?!), Dartmouth provides us with ample training in the complex negotiations of space. During Orientation, your first hookup, with whom you were sure you were going to spend the rest of you pong-playing days, tells you, "Um, yeah, I need some space." An unsuspecting 'schmen, you plop down at a spot in the libs only to have the imposing shadow of a peeved senior hover over you and say, "Um, you're in my space." Sophomore year, rush begins, and some house hopefully says "We want you in our space," and you start the process all over again.
As one of my bitter '08 stepsisters said, "Sometimes people need space because they decide that they're overwhelmed by the crazy requests of a girlfriend who'd like to, I don't know, see them once in a while, maybe hear how their day went, maybe get a romantic meal in FoCo once in a while, in which case that someone decides the best course of action would be to tell their beloved to back the f*ck up out of their lives because they're feeling tied down, and God knows Dartmouth sons have to watch out for those daughters trying to clip their manly wings..."
Right. Anyway.
My jilted friend's diatribe may seem a tad off subject, but in her fury she reveals an important point: How do our needs for personal and shared space relate to the spaces we choose on campus?
In the library, I think the answers are pretty obvious. If you are an FFB (First Floor Berry) person, or even worse, Novack, you clearly have selected ease of sociability over productivity -- facetime over study time, if you will. If the archway cubbies of Periodicals are more your style, you like the illusion of socializing, but with columns and wrought iron to block off your turf because, hey, you've got shit to do. As for you Stacks studiers, the bleak walls, dim lighting and uncomfortable chairs are silently saying, "You have entered the solitary confinement dungeon of studious hell. You may not speak until you finish that problem set."
The personal-to-communal space ratio applies elsewhere on campus. What's the best way to kill a dance party? Get rid of a quarter of the dancers; with a little extra space, everyone stops bumping and grinding their badass selves and looks around awkwardly (unless, of course, everyone has imbibed enough to misjudge space, time and their ability to Superman). We may complain, 'Oh my god, Fraternity Chi was so packed last night,' but what do we say when we aren't getting pushed around by our sweaty peers like bumper cars? "Ugh. Let's leave. This place is dead."
Space means something to us, especially in college. And that is what makes the current campus controversies (say that three times fast) so problematic. Beta alums own what they fondly remember as their space, complete with all the comforts of home. But in the time since that fine fraternal order got so unceremoniously booted from the Dartmouth scene, another group has made the leftover space their own. Yes, Beta owns the house. But that isn't so comforting to a group of 200 women looking around at their options and seeing, well, there's always that off-campus house that holds, what, seven beds?
Is this the answer then? Has all space at Dartmouth been peed upon, figuratively speaking (mostly)?
I'm not going to try to solve the sorority space problem here -- I'm already over my word limit -- but I would like to remind everyone of another time when people argued that there just wasn't enough space here for women at all. In the end Dartmouth got creative, and coeducation and the D-plan made their debut. So now we gals have space in the classrooms, the dorm rooms and the locker rooms, but finding our place on this campus is about controlling our own little corners of social space as well. Isn't it time we Cinderellas owned as many ballrooms as the Prince Charmings?
Jean Ellen is a staff writer for The Mirror. Her space is the third nook on the left in Sanborn, so don't you dare sit there!
