But Don't Talk About It?

It's been quite a year. Wish you were here. You missed the woodsplitting on the Green, when a hundred students and administrators joined together under the shadow of the bonfire structure to cut firewood for the Upper Valley needy. Then there was the Montgomery lecture by Nobel prize-winning scientist and anti-nuclear advocate Philip Morrison, and a debate between Morrison and Major Thomas Wheelock on a nuclear freeze. There were speakers, films, and discussions on United States foreign policy toward southern Africa and apartheid. There was the Convocation for an End to the Nuclear Arms Race, a week-long series of events focusing on the threat of nuclear war; a presentation by alumni from the Foundation Years program of the late sixties, when 15 inner-city blacks were boosted from the streets to the College; the continuing series of presentations and debates on the United States' role in Central America; and the activities of Ground Zero week — 18 events in seven days. There have also been several discussions on women's issues as well as campuswide protest over administrative budget cuts in the Tucker Foundation.

It's been a busy time. Had you been around you might also have stopped in to see a Dick's House contraception clinic or contraception information "road show." They do at least one of those a week. There are, also Dick's House student-growth groups, dealing with topics from sexual identity to overeating, and counseling and awareness programs on alcohol abuse. Just in the past four days, you could have caught Dr. Sanford Gottlieb's talk on nuclear arms reduction, then raced over to a discussion on Sexual Assault Awareness and Self-Protection, then participated in a Tucker Foundation-sponsored "inter-religious dialogue."

I imagine that you didn't know that so many of these kinds of events — and many more just like them — ever happened at Dartmouth. Certainly, the Dartmouth image is not of a school fermenting over issues of social change. We're supposed to be the conservative ones, the backward boys and girls who publish anti-social, anti-everything newspapers, drink a lot of liquor, then rush out to become vice presidents of First Nationals. Just ask Time and Newsweek. They'll tell you that student activism is either a cute, nostalgic trip back to the sixties, or an anachronism replaced by anxious, narrow students concerned only with their first mortgage payment, or dead and buried.

Campus activism, at least at Dartmouth, is none of these. Concern over issues of nuclear weaponry, energy dependence, American involvement abroad, and poverty at home hasn't disappeared from campus. Rather, it has taken a different form. Student activists today are learning to create coalitions of people with diverse views, and "activism" more and more takes the form of educational presentations. These presentations don't always draw hordes of concerned students, but neither are students unwilling to protest more vehemently when necessary. When I was a freshman, hundreds of students joined hands and circled Parkhurst one afternoon, chanting their demands for a sex-blind admissions policy. Everybody had told me that such a thing could never happen at Dartmouth. It happened.

I wish you had been there, or at any of the events I've mentioned, because I don't think alumni have a sense of the extent or intensity of activism at Dartmouth. Such activism addresses problems that are as much a part of Dartmouth as Dartmouth is a part of the world. To deny that the College is part of "the real world" is false and foolish: The Ground Zero panelists discussing the possible effects of nuclear war in Hanover made clear that we may pay dearly for such denial.

But just how much should Dartmouth speak out? The College's primary purpose is education — that much is obvious. Not so clear are the boundaries of that educational mission. For instance, should the institution teach by example as well as by textbook? If Dartmouth wishes to educate its students to make a "significant positive impact on society," should the College itself lead the way by disassociating itself with corporations that have a negative impact on society? Can Dartmouth expect its students to fix social problems that the College itself is helping to fund? Should the College's mission be defined to include thorough education for students on current social issues?

These are questions that demand alumni consideration. It is alumni money being used for investment in corporations with questionable social awareness. It is their college whose survival is threatened by problems of national scope. The alumni, expert in many different fields and bonded together by a common concern for the College, are in an ideal position to discuss and debate these issues. But they seldom do. Instead, they bicker exhaustively over such things as the Indian symbol, rather than consider, say, Dartmouth's investment portfolio, Dartmouth's position on the arm's race, its efforts to meet the needs of less fortunate neighbors, or its current efforts, such as contraception clinics, to meet the social needs of its students.

Part of the reason that alumni don't debate these important issues among themselves is because they have little or no idea of the strong undercurrents running through Dartmouth. Fund-raising literature and official College publications rarely reveal anything about the kinds of social issues and problems that Dartmouth students are confronting. While it is understandable that the ALUMNI MAGAZINE and other College publications primarily be a means of presenting the most positive and non-controversial aspects of the College, it is senseless for Dartmouth habitually to present an incomplete picture of what happens inside the College. Shouldn't alumni be presented with the whole picture and be allowed to decide for and among themselves where they stand on these issues? A Dartmouth education both enables and entitles them to do at least this much.

If the 'College doesn't offer them that opportunity through its publications, the alumni should demand it, and demand it soon. Because next year promises to be every bit as exciting as this one. Hope to see you there.