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Faculty Perspectives on the Student Life Initiative - Introduction and Summary

July 1,1999

Introduction

In February 1999, the President and Board of Trustees of Dartmouth College asked the Provost to work with the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences to elicit comments and proposals from members of the faculty regarding the recently announced Student Life Initiative (SLI). This report responds to that charge.

The faculty's initial reaction to the announcement of the SLI in February was one of surprise. Like most Dartmouth constituencies, the faculty was simply caught off-guard. A petition was immediately circulated among Arts and Sciences faculty to call a meeting to hear the President explain the rationale behind the initiative.

About 125 members of the Arts and Sciences faculty attended the special meeting on 18 February, one of the largest turnouts in years. There was considerable unhappiness expressed at not having been included in the process leading up to the decision to launch the SLI. But there were also expressions of support for the President and for the principles underlying the initiative. Some who had been at Dartmouth for many years noted that the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on various occasions has recorded its support for significant change in the social and residential system. After a long discussion during which some faculty had to leave because of the lateness of the hour, the following motion was passed by a vote of 82-0.

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences expresses its support of the five principles articulated by the Trustees of Dartmouth College (Statement from the Board of Trustees, February 6, 1999). We too believe that these principles should guide changes in the residential and social system at Dartmouth. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences further expresses its trust in the President and Trustees to appoint, through appropriate conversations with the Committee on Organization and Policy, the proper consultative bodies to elaborate specific plans for implementing these principles in a timely fashion.

In the days following the announcement, many faculty wrote to the President directly expressing enthusiastic support and commending the initiative as courageous and long overdue.

Engaging the Faculty

Following the February announcement, Provost Prager, Dean Berger and Professor Ulf Österberg (Chair of the Standing Committee on Student Life) contacted the faculty urging them to become involved in the process of helping to define the future shape of student residential and social life at Dartmouth. The Provost also discussed the initiative at a meeting of the Humanities Divisional Council.

The next attempt to systematically engage the faculty came at a meeting of the Committee of Chairs on 3 May, comprising the chairs of all Arts and Sciences departments. After a full and substantive discussion, it was decided that chairs would brief their respective departments and call for volunteers interested in participating in further discussions about how to re-imagine student social and residential life at Dartmouth.

Provost Prager and Dean Berger subsequently met on 3 June with 26 faculty members from Arts and Sciences departments who had responded to the call for volunteers. Senior, junior and non-tenure-track colleagues were present. The faculty members on the Committee on the Student Life Initiative—Deborah Nichols, Mary Jean Green, and Ulf Österberg—attended as observers. The discussion was very productive and confirmed that Dartmouth faculty members care deeply about their students. A meeting scheduled for 90 minutes on a sweltering afternoon during the busiest time of the year ran over by about 20 minutes and led to further communication by BlitzMail.

On 7 June, Provost Prager met with five veterans of the Choate and East Wheelock Cluster residential programs. This group had extensive first-hand experience with Dartmouth's attempts to involve faculty directly in student residential life.

On 8 June Provost Prager and Dean Berger met with a group of about 12 faculty from Arts and Sciences graduate programs and the professional schools who had volunteered to discuss the SLI as it might pertain to graduate students. This group argued very persuasively for the need to improve the residential and social amenities that serve graduate students.

Provost Prager wrote to the entire faculty at the start of summer term encouraging anyone who wished to offer a comment or proposal to do so. There were several responses to that final appeal.

Main Themes

The following suggestions and insights emerged from these various conversations with faculty and from the communications several colleagues submitted in writing. The charge to Provost Prager and Dean Berger was not to rank the ideas or comment on them. Rather, they were asked simply to collect input from the faculty and pass it on to the Committee on the Student Life Initiative. The pages that follow present the suggestions that were received, organizing them by general theme as they regard residential facilities, social space, dining, alcohol consumption, the CFS system, and the special needs of graduate students.

Regarding residential facilities

Several faculty members voiced the opinion that the older dorms are elegant but overcrowded and the newer ones ugly. Rooms should be bigger. Doubles should consist of two rooms. New construction should avoid the cramped, alienating design seen in modern dorms, but instead should capture some of the generous proportions of the classic dormitories.
Residential space, like social space, should be designed to function around the clock and to serve the needs of students at all hours, recognizing that some will be asleep while others are very much awake.
We should boldly eviscerate the old dorms and remodel them. Take over CFS houses to provide contiguous social space.
Faculty acknowledged the need to provide greater continuity in housing so as to provide more stability in social relationships. More beds are needed to counter the effect of the D-plan. The shortness of terms, combined with the discontinuities of residence plans, undermines the social atmosphere.
Instead of investing to counter the effects of the D-plan, some faculty suggested that the College should look to eliminate it altogether.
The popularity among students of the non-College apartments and houses along West Wheelock was pointed out. There appear to be several groups of 6-7 students living in there. If this is what students want, let's provide it.
Concern was expressed about the overcrowded and substandard conditions of some off-campus housing. The College should not depend on private rentals to solve its housing problem.
Some faculty strongly endorsed the idea of academic affinity housing. This would result in smaller, more intimate space, gathering students with similar intellectual interests. This arrangement seemed particularly attractive to faculty in disciplines that benefit from complete immersion, such as language study. Another suggestion was to designate housing for students in other disciplines: a math house, a writer's house, studio art house, a film studies house. Students should help define what these academic affinity units should be. It was also suggested that clusters of rooms, and indeed an entire dorm floor, could be assigned to students from a particular major.
There was a proposal to build residential facilities and classrooms at the Organic Farm in order to complement an academic program that is being developed integrating the activities of the Organic Farm with the liberal arts curriculum. There was also a call for an environmental dormitory or affinity house on campus.
Other faculty members were less attached to the idea of affinity housing and were concerned about fragmenting Dartmouth's residential system into an archipelago of special interests.
There was some opposition to housing first-year students together. The objections weren't fully articulated, except to note that Orientation Week is an alienating experience for some students because of the emphasis on class. One faculty member stated that Dartmouth over-emphasizes class affiliation.
The word "dormitory" should be deleted from our vocabulary. Instead use the term "residence halls" and view them as centers of living, dining and teaching. Attach faculty associates. Use graduate students as resident advisers. Provide high-quality study spaces in the residence halls.
Several faculty endorsed the Yale residential-college model. Groups of about 300 students share a home base for sleeping and eating. Students can enjoy affinity ties to students elsewhere on campus, but their residential college is where they sleep and eat for their four years. If such a model were implemented at Dartmouth, students would always return to the same home base throughout the twists and turns of their D-plan. Faculty would be associated with each college.
Others we heard from felt that the "faculty master" model hasn't worked at Dartmouth because it has been hard to interest senior faculty in living among students. The difficulty of finding affordable high-quality real estate in Cambridge and New Haven helps explain why senior faculty there are readier to participate in such a system.
Some noted that it is very difficult to get faculty meaningfully involved in the East Wheelock Cluster program. Incentives should be created to encourage faculty members to "adopt" each floor of the cluster.
Living in proximity to two fraternity houses is a major disincentive to being a faculty associate in the East Wheelock Cluster.
It was suggested that the College could involve more faculty in the residences without requiring them to live there. The most effective format for involving faculty is to invite them to make short and informal presentations that permit a casual interaction with students.
There has been little success in introducing academics into student residences. Instead we should concentrate on drawing students into academic space by creating comfortable, accessible space in and around departments—a place for casual interaction among undergraduates, graduate students and faculty. Afternoon tea at Sanborn House was cited as a model, as was the Kellogg cafeteria under Mrs. Ou's regime. Space of this sort used to exist on campus, but has tended to be converted to other uses in recent years.
Faculty formerly associated with the residential cluster program complained about lack of administrative support and occasional frustrations with bureaucratic responses to issues that go to the core of the residential program.

Regarding social space

It is essential that facilities and resources be available to serve student needs when students most want them—social spaces, cafés, studios, workshops, weight rooms, performance spaces, media centers, need to be open (and staffed) into the wee hours.
Students must have real (i.e. not filtered by well-meaning deans) autonomy over their social space. One colleague noted that the great attraction of the CFS system is precisely that it offers a refuge from parents, administrators and faculty. Students should control programming budgets. Faculty who were veterans of the Choate or East Wheelock residential programs were particularly insistent on the importance of having students feel that they were in control of the cluster activities and budget.
Need to create spots where students (and faculty) can congregate casually all over campus. The English "local" pub or French corner café provide a model for neighborhood meeting places that lie a block or three away from where people live and that provide the common space for recreation and socializing. The north side of campus is particularly lacking in such resources.
Certain recreational amenities—for instance, weight rooms—should be distributed across campus so as to be closer to users in their off-times. There is a concern, however, about how to enforce security over scattered facilities that are open late into the night.
Students should be charged a flat activity fee—and receive free access to all College events. There is too much "nickel-and-diming" of students by the College.
Space suitable for events serving 300-400 students is urgently needed to replace Webster Hall.
It was noted that the Hop lacks the scale, scope and community inclusiveness found in other student centers around the country.
There were suggestions about the use of particular sites: the Top of the Hop should be converted into some sort of student café, the Tabard Room at the Inn should be opened as a student hang-out, the Inn itself should be made more student-friendly. The most ambitious suggestion was that the town of Hanover might become more exciting (and a better competitor to the CFS system) if entrepreneurial young alumni were encouraged to return to set up businesses catering to students.

Regarding dining

There was very consistent if not unanimous feeling that decentralized dining was the key to any change in the social atmosphere of Dartmouth. This can be achieved by establishing (à la Yale) a set of residential colleges where students eat and sleep, thus reinforcing social continuity. There was agreement that eating together regularly creates an almost sacramental bond of companionship.
Alternatively, some faculty suggested that decentralized dining can be separated from residential affiliation and achieved simply by building dining facilities serving the areas of campus furthest from Thayer, Collis, and the Hop. This arrangement would offer students greater flexibility and variety—a student could eat in different locations over the course of a week, sometimes close to that student's dorm, sometimes closer to the lab where the student is working late, etc. It was suggested that the various dining facilities should offer varied fare and not just replicate Thayer.
Faculty who have served in the Choate and East Wheelock programs were in unanimous agreement about the importance of decentralized dining.
Dining Services should report to the Dean of the College rather than to the VP Treasurer. The emphasis should be on the quality of student life rather than on the financial bottom line.
Faculty should be given funds to entertain students at home.
Departments should have funds for regular student-faculty dinners or get-togethers.
In order to provide opportunities for casual faculty-student exchange, faculty members should have a pass that lets them eat for free in student dining areas, up to a certain dollar limit each term. This would allow faculty and students to intersect more often on common ground.

Regarding alcohol consumption

There was general agreement that the situation was better back when the drinking age was 18. When students and faculty could drink together, students were being educated by example about responsible consumption of alcohol.
One faculty member observed that alcohol is not the problem; rather, it is the misogynist, racist and dysfunctional culture of alcohol that plagues the existing social system at Dartmouth. Although residence halls can go some way to forging strong social bonds, food seems to be the only social "tool" strong enough to transform the existing system.
Bartenders should be professionals. Drinks should not be free. Hanover Police should enforce state drinking laws. This would level the playing field in the competition between the Greek system and other social alternatives. While this would not eliminate underage drinking, it would reduce it.
Some argued that faculty can alter drinking culture by enforcing much higher academic demands on students. Students should be held to higher academic standards. Others contended that many faculty are already very demanding and have students who indeed work hard. The problem is that it is possible for students to cruise through Dartmouth selecting courses that are less taxing. The NRO should be abolished. Grade inflation should be reversed.

Regarding the CFS system

The nature and problems of the CFS system were touched on in our small-group discussions with faculty and addressed more explicitly in several subsequent written communications. Faculty traditionally have favored the abolition of single-sex Greek organizations, and voted overwhelmingly in 1978 to do so. The unanimous vote in February 1999 in support of the SLI was preceded by many faculty expressing the view that this action was long overdue. Several faculty who responded to the request for input into the SLI argued that the Greek system encourages crude, disruptive behavior and should be abolished. The exclusionary nature of the system was also criticized. One faculty member recalled that the cliquish insularity and anti-social proclivities of fraternity members participating in an off-campus program she directed undermined the experience of the other students on the program
A minority of the faculty we heard from was of the view that the CFS system had improved in recent years and that the College ought to distinguish between "bad" and "good" houses. Others noted that getting rid of the Greek system would not of itself solve the abuses associated with it.
There was a recognition that the lack of social alternatives and the discontinuities of the D-plan contribute to the centrality of the CFS system at Dartmouth—autonomy over one's social space and the sense of sodality with one's brothers and sisters provide a strong allure. To successfully compete with the CFS system, the alternative would have to match or surpass the psychological fulfillment that the CFS system seemingly provides.
Several faculty said that a viable alternative to the CFS system needs to be in place before shutting down a system that many students support.
Concern was expressed about those students who are not drawn into the social life of the dominant culture on campus and find no alternatives to it. These students don't feel the glow of "Dartmouth Undying" and find themselves insufficiently mentored by the institution.

Regarding the special needs of graduate students

Graduate and professional school students have had little done for them. Their residential and social needs should be urgently addressed as a matter of equity. The Dean of Graduate Studies controls only 36 beds to serve a graduate population numbering in the hundreds. While some graduate students may prefer to fend for themselves off campus, many do not. It is particularly important that housing be available for first year international students.
The poor quality of the amenities serving graduate students is threatening Dartmouth's academic reputation.
Faculty were concerned that the quality of graduate student life at Dartmouth was sadly lagging behind that of schools we compete with, and that we are losing students as a consequence. Attracting quality graduate students has an impact on faculty recruitment and retention. A lot of the intellectual excitement of Dartmouth—from which undergraduates obviously profit—can be sustained by addressing the basic needs of our graduate student population.
Undergraduates who do honors work or independent projects tend to be more satisfied with their Dartmouth experience. Research in the sciences is enriched by the presence of graduate programs. Having satisfied graduate students as role models might encourage more undergraduates to go to graduate school.
There were differences expressed on how graduate and undergraduate living space should be related to each other. One model proposed dual-wing dorms, with one wing devoted to graduate students, the other to undergraduates, with a shared social space in the middle. Others felt that graduate students did not want this and would prefer to live with their peers.
The most fruitful interaction between graduate students and undergraduates is the casual encounters in public spaces, or in social spaces linked to particular disciplines. But graduate students also need their own space, which they control. Only in the past few weeks—and only after fighting an uphill battle—have graduate students been given their own small space in Collis.
The use of graduate students as resident advisers was discussed. Currently, around six graduate students serve in this capacity, and perhaps a further six are interested. Faculty are divided about the advisability of encouraging this further: some feel that undergraduate advising is a dangerous distraction from research, while others pointed to examples of graduates who were offered good tenure-track teaching positions in part because of their demonstrated commitment to working with undergraduates.
Graduate student housing needs to be reasonably close to where students work. Experiments often involve a researcher visiting his or her lab several times a day, including in the middle of the night.
Residential needs for graduate students should be addressed through a combination of traditional dorms and condo-style apartments. Ideally, sufficient dorm space should be available to house all first-year graduate students, and there should be enough College-owned apartments to house half the upper class graduate students. The balance of the graduate student population can find housing in non-College rentals, and might even prefer to do so.
Ideally, Dartmouth would have a graduate center, integrating students from all graduate and professional programs, complementing and supporting the academic excellence of those programs. Notre Dame has a very good one. Dartmouth should study the best practices at other institutions, particularly the ones we lose students and faculty to.