Dartmouth Outing Club First-Year Trips director Doug Phipps ’17 and associate director Apoorva Dixit ’17 announced the 19-member 2017 Trips directorate last Thursday.
In a campus-wide email, Phipps and Dixit announced the cast of “superstars” who will come together to “make [Trips] more thoughtful, inclusive and welcoming than ever before.”
The group includes Dru Falco ’18 and Ivan Cornish-Morales ’19, who will both serve as outdoor logistics coordinators. Nitasha Kochar ’19 and Kristina Heggedal ’17 will be this year’s outreach coordinators, while Nakia Wighton ’18 will serve as risk management coordinator and Madison Sabol ’18 will be sustainability coordinator. Three students — Lily Eisner ’18, Lucia Pierson ’18, and David Mannes ’17 — will be tasked with training this year’s trip leaders. Heading the Grant Croo will be Jesse Feldman-Stein ’18 and Michael Baicker ’17, while Sarah Petroni ’18 and Terence Hughes ’17 will lead Hanover Croo. Claire Apuan ’18 will direct the Klymbing Croo and Chris Huberty ’18 will serve as Oak Hill Croo captain. Tasked with ensuring safety, Francesca Governali ’18 and Leah Alpern ’18 will be Vox Croo captains. The students in charge of first-year students’ final days of Trips at Moosilauke Lodge will be Lodj Croo captains Sarah Salzman ’18 and Milan Chuttani ’18.
Serving as an outreach coordinator on the Trips 2016 directorate, Phipps said he realized not only the importance and excitement of participating in Trips but also “how much room Trips has to improve in making sure that we are providing the best experience possible for every single individual incoming student, not just many of a certain identity.”
Dixit said that she shared a similar experience with Phipps, adding that as a trip leader trainer last year, part of her job was to help trip leaders provide an experience that would cater to students of all kind. Given her experience advising trip leaders, she said that Trips must ensure it is “inclusive of other identities at Dartmouth” and does not only “present one narrative of Dartmouth.”
“It is important to break down and deconstruct the image of the perfect Dartmouth student,” Hughes said.
Phipps and Dixit released Trips directorate applications to campus on Dec. 7, 2016 with a deadline of Dec. 30, 2016. Those selected as members of this year’s directorate were notified on Jan. 15.
“The directorate represents a wide variety of Dartmouth experiences, and we’re proud of that,” Phipps said. “The people that we have chosen are extremely self-aware of the experiences that they’ve had and the experiences that they haven’t had and will work incredibly hard to make sure that the voices that are not represented on the directorate are represented in the volunteer core.”
Dixit agreed, saying she hopes that the directorate will be able to improve the Trips experience with a more representative volunteer core and that the current one does not represent the full breadth of all of the experiences that can be found at Dartmouth.
The Trips directorate features students with vast academic and extracurricular interests, Phipps and Dixit both said.
Phipps added that there is one characteristic that unites the students: the desire to make students feel welcome.
“What we were looking for in a directorate was a group of students who are passionate about making students feel welcome at Dartmouth, whether that be through Trips or just being a friendly person on campus,” said Phipps, adding that he and Dixit were looking for people who could question the traditions and expectations for Trips while also coming up with innovative ideas to “thoughtfully and critically” improve the program.
Phipps said that he and Dixit are pleased with the group they have assembled.
Now, the directorate will move forward into a “think big phase,” Hughes said, adding that he envisions the directorate will now set its sights on “brainstorming big changes, big goals and big missions for Trips.”
Dixit said that the directorate will be releasing volunteer applications to campus later this term.
“I think Trips is one of the things that Dartmouth does best,” said Dixit, adding that she hopes this year’s directorate will make Trips even better.
Dixit is a former member of The Dartmouth Staff.
