I have been an athlete, but not a great one. I like the arts, but I am not particularly artistic. I work hard and I am a good student, but I am not going to be your valedictorian.
What I am is a regular Dartmouth student, just like you.
So, why am I running?
Change is coming. A new era at Dartmouth College begins when President-elect Philip Hanlon arrives this summer, giving next year's students a unique opportunity to help him shape the future of the College. We believe that student voices from all over campus need and deserve to be heard. Making sure your voices are heard is one of the essential building blocks of our platform.
To accomplish this, we must first develop more and different avenues for communication between students and the administration. Currently, students are brought into Parkhurst Hall for conversations, but we also plan to bring deans and administrators to other locations on campus to meet with you. We will work with undergraduate advisors and cluster representatives to bring deans into residential communities in both formal and informal settings. Our intention is to encourage administrators to have conversations with a broader range of students.
Our platform is composed of two elements: practical, everyday issues that will improve daily life for all of us, with relative ease and minimal expense, and more long-term, visionary improvements that will make the College better for years to come.
Among our ideas to improve everyday life at Dartmouth are addressing GreenPrint issues by installing more release stations and working on troubleshooting issues, introducing more covered bicycle racks to address the many abandoned, rusty bikes across campus and working with undergraduate advisors to create dorm-wide intramural teams in order to foster community, especially in upperclassman communities.
As for longer-term improvements, we will address hazing head on by working with leaders of student groups across campus to develop a Dartmouth-specific definition to target Dartmouth-specific issues. We also plan to work with the Office of Residential Life to improve dorm continuity by giving students priority to return to their dorms from the previous year. In addition, we will continue building on current initiatives such as the peer-mentoring program that I helped develop as a member of last summer's Student Assembly executive board.
One of the initiatives that I am particularly excited for is a campus-wide philanthropic event that will bring together all the diverse elements of our campus for a good cause in the Upper Valley. Michael and I hope that this event will become a tradition that we pass on to the classes to come. Seeking your ideas and input for what we can do as a community will be one of our first priorities if you elect us. I believe a community event comes from the community's ideas, which already exist and which we plan to harness.
The strength of the Dartmouth community is impressive. We want to lead Dartmouth into the next era, leaving it a better place than when we came. We hope you will support us on Monday.
