Taking Initiative

The College is obliged to provide an environment that encourages young adults to reach their lull potential.

The student life initiative, launched a year ago, has given our community the opportunity to assess whether our current residential and social systems offer the quality of environment that an institution of Dartmouth's caliber should provide to its students. As this is an academic community in which much learning takes place outside the formal confines of the classroom, our task as an educational institution extends further than providing our students with an excellent faculty teaching in excellent academic facilities. We do that exception ally well, but we must do more.

There is consensus among all segments of the Dartmouth community that we need to address matters of student life. Over the last 30 years we have seen significant changes in the student body: Dartmouth is now larger and coeducational, and our students are more diverse in background and experience. Life at the College is richer in many ways—and it is also more compli- cated because of changes such as the Dartmouth plan, expanded off-campus programs and the growing complexity of American life. In the face of these realities, I set out to reaffirm some of the values that have traditionally marked the Dartmouth experience—as an academic environment that encourages an inclusive sense of community, friendship and belonging.

To accomplish this goal, we need additional residential space to relieve overcrowding and accommodate all students who wish to live on campus. We need greater continuity in residential living so students can forge friendships that extend beyond a 10-week term. We need more social space controlled by all students, and more opportunities for inclusive, coeducational social experiences that represent all student interests. Not least, Dartmouth also needs to face problems associated with the abuse of alcohol.

Thousands of parents each year entrust their sons and daughters to us. I take this responsibility very seriously. I have tremendous faith in the young people we admit: they are among the most talented students in the country. They seek to learn here, to enjoy Dartmouth as a place and as a community, as generations of students have before them. When we make a commitment to them, and to their parents, we take on the obligation to provide an environment that will encourage them to reach their fall potential as students and as citizens.

Since February 1999 we have had many discussions about how we can best prepare our students for the world in which they will live and work, about the sort of residential college Dartmouth should be in the twentyfirst century. Our conversations this winter term have concentrated on the recommendations made by the Committee on the Student Life Initiative this January and on the broader issues they have raised. On the evening the report was released nearly 600 students met with faculty and administrators in 30 small groups to discuss the recommendations. Since then the community has engaged in a variety of discussions, including campus fireside chats with trustees, dinners hosted by senior administrators for students, faculty-student discussions, a satellite broadcast for alumni, alumni club events and faculty meetings.

The report is not a blueprint for what the trustees will ultimately do, but it is an important guide—a focus for discussion. The committee spent many hours assessing the out-of-classroom experience and crafting recommendations to strengthen it as a complement to the academic experience. The committee's work is helping us all to reflect on the elements that are the essence of the Dartmouth experience. The student life initiative builds upon the best of the past to meet the needs of the future. Dartmouth has always been a community of learning, where the faculty are committed to teaching and to creating new knowledge, where an academically talented student body learns and grows, and where a special sense of place fosters friendships and a sense of belonging. The initiative is about our values and purposes, our traditions and aspirations.

I thank all members of the Dartmouth community who have contributed to our discussions. If you would still like to contribute suggestions, you may do so either through the Dartmouth homepage (www.dartmouth.edu/~sandrl) or by writing to any senior administrator at the College. And I call upon all of us to remember, as we forge our future, that we must not let the best be the enemy of the better.