I am a member of the Class of 2014, hailing from Grand Rapids, Mich. I am a chemistry major and government minor, music director of the Dartmouth Cords, a member of Alpha Chi Alpha fraternity, service chair of the Inter-Fraternity Council, tour guide, Trips leader and DREAM mentor. As a former Tucker Fellow, I spent my junior fall volunteering at an elementary and middle school in Ghana.
While my Student Assembly experience at Dartmouth is admittedly limited, this means I bring new ideas and a fresh perspective to the Assembly. Through my different involvements on campus, I have spoken to a diverse group of students and had the chance to listen to what they feel needs improving at our school. One of the concerns I hear most often is that it is difficult for students to contact the administration and that students feel their input is not valued. Kelly and I will change that. We want to bring deans and administrators into everyday student spaces like Collis, Baker-Berry Library and the Hopkins Center. Currently, students need to actively seek out these administrators in order for their voices to be heard. We feel that this important change will make communication between students and administration easier and more effective.
Kelly and I also want to bring back some successful ideas and initiatives from Dartmouth's past. Most people have seen the intramural champion signs in dorm doorways. From speaking to alums, their dorm clusters and floors were some of their most important campus communities during their time at Dartmouth. It is our goal to start the process of bringing back this sense of dorm pride and identity. While this task may not come to completion over the next year, we can start laying the very important groundwork for such a change to occur. For instance, we can work with Office of Residential Life to give priority to students returning to the same dorm. This way, students who lived with a great freshman floor or great freshman dorm would have first pick of returning to that dorm with those friends. By building this type of community in our upperclassmen dorms, we will be able to bolster what is already an amazingly strong sense of Dartmouth community.
Finally, we want to be able to make some immediate changes to the infrastructure of this school. GreenPrint can be astoundingly annoying and problematic. This should not be the case. There is no reason for printers to be out of order as often as they are, or for buildings like Kemeny Hall and the Rockefeller Center not to have GreenPrint stations. Another vital item that Dartmouth is missing is covered bike racks. In a state where it can start raining without any notice and snow in October, Dartmouth absolutely needs to provide students with covered bike racks. The lack of these racks often leads students to abandon their bikes, causing campus to be littered with broken bikes. A simple fix like covering bike racks will prevent a lot of ruined, rusted bikes and save students the time and cost of fixing bikes destroyed by the New Hampshire weather.
Kelly and I make a great team. We are good enough friends to tell each other exactly what is on our minds but new enough friends that we are still constantly learning from one another. Our easy teamwork and cooperation will ensure that we work efficiently and effectively from day one and can immediately start helping this school and this student body.
Our campaign is not about what we want to say for you. Our campaign is about what you want to say for yourself. Student Assembly should be a voice for students. Kelly and I are happy to be that voice, but, more importantly, we want you to have a voice for yourself. Ultimately, we hope to create a campus atmosphere where every student can be heard, not just a small minority of our population.
Kelly and I are excited to be running together and we have so many great ideas for this school. So Wood Zhu vote for us on Monday, April 15th? I hope the answer is yes.
