Perhaps the least expected element of the “Moving Dartmouth Forward” plan was a renewed commitment to academic rigor. In his Jan. 29 address, College President Phil Hanlon proposed earlier class times on Tuesdays and Thursdays in addition to encouraging professors to no longer cancel class surrounding big weekends, with the implication he may institute other measures as well. The more nebulous suggestion that the College as a whole needs to increase its academic rigor is misleading and misplaced.
To be clear, I am not against bolstering the level of academic rigor. I think all too frequently students at the College — and universities in general — do not truly take advantage of the wealth of opportunities available to them. We often think of college as a place to party and revel in the combination of our youth and lack of pressing commitments. Many of us prioritize socializing and enjoying ourselves first and studying second. Yet I am of the opinion that no matter how fun college is — and it is quite fun — we are here for a reason. That reason is education, rather than inebriation.
I’ll admit I am far from unfamiliar with the pleasures of inebriation, and I ought to be the first to mention that I could use my own dose of academic rigor. First, as an English major, I spent a good deal of time during my sophomore year trying to convince myself that it was not a soft major. Though I do my reading and write papers that I find meaningful, I know it is not the same as other disciplines. One can argue that there are not soft majors and hard majors — but my department features, this very term no less, what many consider the biggest layup in the school, “American Drama.”
Even with apparent layup classes in various departments, some students take this avoidance of rigourous courses even further. I know students who have never taken a 10A or 2A because it gives them whole days of free time. For many, distributive requirements — meant to force us to learn about a broad range of topics — have become a search for the easiest class that will fulfill the requirement. There are classes in which attendance is essentially optional. I do not think it is going out on a limb to say that “Sports, Ethics and Religion,” for example, would have benefited from an increase in academic rigor.
Yet, for all of the people who take academics less than seriously, there are as many students and as many classes that are just as rigorous as they need to be. Does anyone really think that the engineering major needs to be more difficult to finish? Are people concerned that the legions of highly motivated and competitive pre-professional students in economics classes are not working hard enough?
For the most part, students will work as hard as they are inclined to, and nothing short of extreme measures from administrators can change that. If classes begin at 8 a.m., there will in all likelihood be more students who won’t take them. There are differences in the variety of courses students take, and I suspect there always will be. Some will be more time-consuming and some will be less. Regardless of any top-down moves by the College, students who want more time to drink and party will likely find it.
I suspect that for President Hanlon and the “Moving Dartmouth Forward” campaign, increasing academic rigor is a measure aimed at reducing “extreme behaviors” like binge drinking. While I agree that the College ought to take steps to curb high-risk drinking, the concept of increased academic rigor is misplaced. President Hanlon and his administrators must be careful that their rhetoric is not empty, and that our collective actions achieve the ends we set out for them.
At an institution of higher learning, the idea of making academics more rigorous sounds ironclad. But the College needs to — and I would assume wants to — give its students the freedom to decide for themselves what classes they will take and how invested they will be. Holding the feet of engaged, hard-working students ever closer to the fire will likely do little to affect those who have avoided 10As to squeeze in one more game of pong on Wednesday night.
