It may seem unusual that a product of the Manhattan urban jungle will lead the freshman trips for the Dartmouth Outing Club this fall. "Oxymoronic" is how Heather Halstead, '96, described it.
For a night, a day, or maybe several days, hundreds of Appalachian Trail thru-hikers with fictitious names like "Pair O' Aces" and "Fly" will look out over the Green, do their laundry in town and sleep at Foley House in a real bed. But for the greater part of six months, their lives are vastly different than those of Dartmouth students. "Hiking the trail leaves you a lot of space where you don't have to deal with material things," Pair O' Aces said.
The speaker's there, professors sit down; but where is the large number of students?
Frances Fox Piven, political science and sociology professor at the City University of New York, said last night that the shift in power from workers to business has undermined the welfare system in the United States. "The attack on welfare is caused by political forces encouraged by changes in market," Fox Piven said to about 50 people in the Rockefeller Center for the Social Sciences in a speech titled "Markets, Politics and the Assault on Welfare." Fox Piven said throughout history, the welfare state has been described as a progressive entity, but "this evolutionary, progressive perspective cannot stand up under recent events." She said that in the post-industrial era, power relations have changed from the early 1900s when "labor was becoming decomm-odified through the ability to resist the demands of the market." In the early industrial period, workers had the power to strike and unionize and big business wanted to be conciliatory toward them, she said. "Now, we're in a second phase," she said.
Two Cuban reformers debated yesterday about the future of their country and offered their differing opinions on how to save their country's culture and independence. Eloy Gutierrez Menoyo, president of Cambio Cubano, said without economic reform, Cuba will soon lose its nationality. Maria Elena Cruz Varela, poet and professor at Universidad Interamericana in Puerto Rico, said Cuba needs to reinvent its culture if it wants to have a future. "We must rebuild the nation, the human side of it," Varela said.
Numerous scholars and Cuba experts will attend a College-sponsored conference on "The Future of Democracy in Cuba" from Feb.
"You can change America by changing New Hampshire," was the challenge issued last night by the populist, Democratic, New Hampshire politician, Deborah "Arnie" Arnesen. Arnesen delivered her speech, titled "Fighting the Religious Right: Democratic Strategies After 1994," in the Rockefeller Center for Social Sciences last night to about 40, primarily liberal, audience members who often cheered at her remarks. Arnesen, a former New Hampshire State Representative and the 1992 Democratic gubernatorial candidate, prodded audience members to fight the new Republican domination of American politics by focusing on practical issues with strong local participation. She discussed a wide range of national issues, ranging from religion to health care and welfare. She cited a loss of faith in government by U.S.