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Modisett: Senior (Sophomore) Spring

Chamberlain: Investing in Our Values

As our town moves towards a more sustainable future, I want to help build a Hanover that works for everyone. We have so much here — great ideas, fantastic people and stunning nature. We can build off of this to improve the health and well-being of more people. I’m running for Hanover Selectboard to improve everyone’s quality of life. My vision is simple – everyone counts. 

Verbum Ultimum: It’s Time to Speak Up

On April 21, the Office of the Provost informed the campus community that a swastika — a hate symbol representing antisemitism, genocide and Nazi ideology — was discovered drawn in the dirt on the side of the Green. Safety and Security found the swastika just days after the campus community commemorated Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, on April 18 with a reading of the names of every child who died in the Holocaust. As an Editorial Board, we stress the severity of antisemitism — both on campus and nationally. Antisemitism is rising at alarming rates, and it is critical that people learn to recognize antisemitism — in all its forms — and condemn it without qualification.

Letter to the Editor: Monopolies in the Ticketing Industry

Re: Trends: Access to Concert Tickets has Continually Diminished (May 1, 2023)

Verbum Ultimum: Every Vote Counts

On Wednesday, the Elections Planning and Advisory Committee announced the results of the 2023 undergraduate student elections. Besides the hotly contested elections for senior class president and vice president, the majority of races were either uncompetitive or nonexistent. Only two candidates were running on the ballot for three seats on the Class of 2026 class council, and four out of six Housing Communities did not have a full slate of balloted candidates for their respective class senator positions. Zero students ran for the Committee on Standards or Organizational Adjudication Committee seats, leaving these crucial roles in Dartmouth’s student disciplinary process temporarily undecided while the Elections Planning and Advisory Committee evaluates write-in candidates. Even in elections that managed to secure a full slate of candidates without write-in votes, there was only one contested election other than senior class president and vice president. Student indifference towards undergraduate elections hinders Dartmouth Student Government’s ability to represent the student body properly, and students should put in more of an effort to engage with their governing bodies — by voting in elections at a minimum, and by running for positions themselves if they want to effect positive change.

Dixon: A Story of Suppressed Dreams

In elementary school, I wanted to be a pilot. I spent hours researching different airplanes and drawing them. I’m sure most of us had such dreams — perhaps some wanted to be an astronaut, others hoped to be a doctor and even more imagined being president. While my dream of becoming a pilot turned out to be a phase, I’ll never forget the passion and drive that a dream creates.

Alsheikh: Make Fun With the Town

It’s well-known that Dartmouth and the Town of Hanover don’t often mix. Many students are too busy worrying about their 10-week term to really care about what goes on in Hanover, and residents of the town are too busy dealing with real-life problems to care much about what goes on at Dartmouth. Where we do interact, it’s rarely positive: issues of New Hampshire voting and election candidates for the state House of Representatives frequently pit college and town against each other, making for an oddly antagonistic relationship. 

Tobeck: Paying Our Elected Officials is Actually a Good Thing

Dartmouth students have often found ways to engage in politics at the state level. Several have run to represent Hanover in the state house, most notably Garrett Muscatel ’20, who won a seat in 2018. I like to think that this helps us pay a little more attention to local politics than we might otherwise. However, the state legislature has a perhaps unexpected, yet glaring, problem: elected representatives are paid far too little. Currently, New Hampshire legislators are paid only $200 per term in office plus some compensation for travel costs. Compare this to our neighbors across the Connecticut River in Vermont. Their legislators — who are paid around $700 per week during session — make more in a week than New Hampshire state representatives will make over the course of their two year term.

Ejiogu: The Dreaded Median

Wow! That class has a B+ median. I mean, I’m sure it’s a great class, but I can’t risk being below the median!

Kaye: The House Always Wins

Sweeney: What They Call It In France

Capone: Money Grows On Trees

Global efforts to reduce carbon emissions have led to a restructuring of how we value the world around us, yet they highlight the major consequences of commodifying nature. The economic value engendered by the renewed emphasis on environmental, sustainable and governmental (ESG) investing is perhaps the most visible corruption of capitalism to date.

Dixon: A Textbook Bait and Switch

When I toured Dartmouth, I remember being fascinated by the D-Plan — what an interesting and innovative idea, I thought. However, as I write during my off-term, I am struck by the many, many downsides to Dartmouth’s venerated D-Plan. Impressively, it manages to make both social and academic life more stressful and difficult — two birds with one stone — while also representing the outcome of a remarkably sexist decision made in the 1970s.

Shores: A Semi-Official Petition to End Dartmouth’s Puritanical War on Outdoor Drinking Games

The weather is warm, the birds are chirping and Dartmouth students are once more emerging from their respective dens of sin and iniquity to bask in the ephemeral glory of the New Hampshire spring. Just a few days ago, a few of the good brothers of Theta Delta Chi fraternity and I decided to play a game of pong. This game of pong, however, came with a twist. Instead of playing in the muck and squalor of the TDX basement, we thought, hell, why not go play pong outside? So we set up a table on our lawn, cranked up a speaker and got to work. It felt pretty innocent, perhaps even wholesome — just a couple of good friends having a few beers on a Saturday afternoon and enjoying the good weather. Or so we thought. As soon as they got wind of our outdoor pong game, Safety and Security officers arrived with a response time likely faster than the local police. After a cordial greeting, we were told by the Safety and Security officers that our game was, in fact, against the rules. Specifically, students are forbidden to drink “outside of, or on the grounds of, residence halls, Greek facilities, undergraduate and senior societies, academic affinities, special interest houses or other student organizational facilities and in any other specified areas including decks, porches, fire escapes and roofs,” to quote Dartmouth’s Official Alcohol and Drug Use Policy.

Verbum Ultimum: To Form a More Perfect Union

On Wednesday, the Graduate Organized Laborers of Dartmouth won their vote to unionize by an 89% margin. Although this week’s vote was a triumph for the rights of student workers, the path to arrive at this point has been ridden with attempts by the College to derail GOLD-UE’s unionization efforts. Prior to this week’s vote, the College announced it would continue its efforts to delay its recognition of GOLD-UE, claiming that large portions of the graduate student population were ineligible to vote based on the technicalities of how they are paid. The lengths that the College has gone to in order to impede graduate students’ rights to unionize are embarrassing and unbecoming for a school of Dartmouth’s standing and resources. We call on the College to end its union-busting methods and take steps to ensure that student workers’ rights to unionize are never infringed upon again. 

Norris: Owl Professor

Modisett: Sweaty Spring

de Wolff: It Can’t Happen Here

In the past year, Stanford University has come under fire for its poor treatment of Stanford students. A November lawsuit alleges that Stanford’s accusations against Stanford women’s soccer goalkeeper Katie Meyer directly contributed to her suicide a year ago. Subsequently, several articles appeared describing the stifling atmosphere the bureaucratic administration has created on Stanford’s campus in the last decade. A piece from Palladium Magazine explained how Stanford administrators have “eviscerated a hundred years of undergraduate culture and student groups” in their efforts to sanitize campus of any tradition or institution that could lead to bad publicity. Another article from The Stanford Daily described how the cancellation of the fraternity event Eurotrash last fall led to students making posters with the words “Stanford is Anti-Fun.” The recent coverage attributed the growth of Stanford’s unaccountable, overreaching administrative bureaucracy to the loss of student freedoms on Stanford’s campus.

Lane: Let’s Have a Dream

We are currently amidst a sea of calamities. There’s the recent expulsion of two Black Tennessee state legislators from their seats for having the gall to partake in a protest advocating for gun control that cruelly didn’t make its targets feel all warm and fuzzy inside. There’s the ever-shrinking legality of abortion in states across the country. Some Republican politicians in Wisconsin have childishly threatened to impeach newly-elected state Supreme Court justice Janet Protasiewicz before she has even taken office. There’s the ongoing assault on LGBTQ+ individuals in wide swaths of this country. We just found out one of our Supreme Court justices has been taking lavish and likely illegal gifts under the table from Republican megadonors for the past 20 — that’s right, two-zero — years. If that wasn’t enough, Iowa and Arkansas are trying to make sweatshop-style child labor cool again, too. I, for one, need something to look forward to.

Goebel: One Way or Another, Union Yes

Graduate student-workers at Dartmouth formed the Graduate Organized Laborers of Dartmouth-United Electrical Workers — GOLD-UE — out of a dire need to improve our quality of life. I joined the GOLD-UE Organizing Committee in April 2022 because I personally felt this obvious need. Though I’m fortunate to be advancing in my career, my living conditions have only worsened over the past four years. I’ve had to remain in the same apartment because finding better, more affordable places to live is nearly impossible. At the same time, my rent has increased by $300 per month, while my pay has not kept pace. Without reliable public transportation from where I live in Vermont, I’ve had no choice but to take on credit card debt to cover essential — and expensive — maintenance when my car’s brakes failed and wheel bearings needed urgent replacement. I’ve only visited the dentist twice in the past four years because Dartmouth offers us no dental coverage. I consider myself lucky to have avoided further crippling medical debt because Dartmouth doesn’t provide us adequate health insurance coverage. It shouldn’t be controversial to say that Dartmouth’s graduate students need a union. Only since the formation of GOLD-UE has Dartmouth started to take our pleas for a cost of living adjustment and other necessary changes seriously.