n a campus where one sorority is fondly nicknamed “Visa Visa Mastercard” and DDS employs many green-shirted students who need the money to buy books, it seems ludicrous to pretend that class is a non-issue at Dartmouth. Despite rarely garnering the degree of attention as sex or race, issues related to class pervade campus, simmering beneath the surface. For instance, while the recent uproar over “Hip-Hop in the Hood” focused its attacks on the misogyny and racism of the advertising ploy, “the hood” also has significant disparaging class connotations.

Since much of the campus population fails to recognize the complicated socioeconomic differences surrounding them, the Hopkin’s Center has launched a three-year Class Divide program designed to raise awareness. Taking advantage of its position as our campus’ center for the arts, the Hop’s programming approaches class issues from an artistic perspective. While there are other initiatives targeting class issues, the Hop’s has been the most successful in drawing attention to itself and the problems it targets—although it remains widely unknown. Its partners include Dartmouth’s Economic Equity Initiative (EEI) and the national anti-classism organization Class Action. While I wouldn’t expect students to recognize the name of that national group, it seems that equally few know about our own campus’ EEI, a program within the Office of Institutional Diversity & Equity. Few people could explain what it does, myself included. I know (through blitz bulletin monitoring) that they have trainings and workshops; but I don’t know anybody who has actually attended one, so I wonder how effective it can be.

Meanwhile, the Class Divide initiative, now coming to the close of its second year, has brought performances, offered workshops, and coordinated film series, all addressing the barriers constructed by class. Upcoming events include a screening of the PBS documentary People Like Us: Social Class in America on May 12th, which was very well-received last term when it was shown by the Sociology Department. This term’s performances to date have included William Yang’s Shadows (See Leanne Mirandilla’s “William Yang: A Life in Pictures” in DFP issue 8.11) and Anne Galjour’s Work-in-Progress on class in the Upper Valley. Venture outside of Hanover’s veneer of prosperity, and there are plenty of overt instances of poverty to be found in the area.

Class Divide intern Yan Fan ’11 explains that these performances have had success in inspiring students to pay more attention to class, but at the same time, Fan admits that, “a lot of people know what class divide is, but don’t see it here.” That disconnect is difficult to bridge. The performances at the Hop aren’t about your neighbor one dorm room over (maybe they should be), so even once students start to comprehend classism on a broader scale, it’s a push to get them to apply that theoretical knowledge to daily life.

Something as simple as food can have major class dimensions. I would kill for a diner in Hanover. Some place cheap, preferably 24-hour. A place off-campus that I could walk to and briefly escape Foco food without having to utterly cringe at the check. I was crossing the Green last week when one guy called over to a friend, “You want to grab dinner at Molly’s tonight?” Their plans arranged, I considered the fact that it never occurs to me to just go to Molly’s for no reason other than being bored with campus offerings. While birthdays or organization functions (hopefully where they’re picking up the tag) can draw me across Wheelock Street, in general, I balk at the prices listed on a Molly’s menu. And I recently had my first visit to Canoe Club for a friend’s birthday earlier this term, where the cost was even worse than I expected. Lou’s is probably the closest thing here to a breakfast diner—a delicious, but quite expensive one. It really is nice to be able to walk someplace off campus and get a bite to eat with friends, whether it’s a special occasion or just an occasion when you feel the need for something special, but the expense means that is not an option for many students, who have to stick with their pre-paid DBA.

It is also quite common on campus to hear students refer to DBA or DA$H as “not real money.” Okay, there’s no cash changing hands, no dollar bills or loose change, but in my book it’s as much real money as a debit card. No one is automatically refilling my DA$H for me. When it runs out, I have to write a check or hand over my bank card to be able to buy batteries at Topside. As DBA goes, maybe there is a baseline where it’s not “real money,” since you have to get a meal plan, and if you don’t spend that money you lose it. But if you’re going negative, or if you don’t get the smallest meal plan, that is definitely real money going from you to DDS. Acting like it’s monopoly money shows a lack of sensitivity about what it means to other students.

While students can improve campus interactions through awareness of class issues, it’s vital that the Dartmouth administration recognize the difficulties faced by students due to their socioeconomic backgrounds. Required meal plans pose an irritant to some students, but for others who have trouble using all of their declining balance, that unnecessary DBA potentially means dozens of hours of work. And while the new financial aid program was a step in the right direction, in increasing aid and replacing loans with grants, it still mandates that students provide their own financial contribution that some struggle to meet. Work-study alone usually totals around a hundred hours of work, on top of the time students already spend earning money in order to participate in the Dartmouth experience: paying for books, or those five dollar (usually over half-an-hour’s work) tickets to shows at the Hop, or a warmer jacket than they’ve ever needed before because they live at a reasonable latitude. Or social dues, or transportation home. I have friends who, after paying for tuition and their basic necessities, send earnings home to help out parents or siblings. Perhaps it would be easier for Dartmouth to waive those work-study requirements and pay for books than it is for students to work hours upon hours at slightly above minimum wage on campus. It would be of more value than the projected monstrosity Thayer is going to be turned into, or the human hair that was hanging in the library (we can’t let that complaint die yet). Each time the College spends money on something, it might consider how many hours less a student could be working with those funds, how much more they could enrich the Dartmouth community without having to sacrifice that time.

Personally, I get almost all of my tuition bill paid for by my financial aid. My parents do still manage to help me out when I need money, so I haven’t been impacted by desperately needing funds the way some Dartmouth students are. I’ve been able to spend my time on classes and friends and this newspaper, which I deeply love, but which funds no more than the occasional pizza, instead of work-studying away my Dartmouth experience. I realize credit card debt concerns are involved in my ease; nonetheless, I feel fairly sheltered. Certainly I have trouble even conceiving of the life of my father, who grew up outright poor in Jersey City, or his father, who worked in the Civilian Conservation Corps and lived in barracks during the Great Depression so as not to starve.

But I’m still aware of a budget, and having to figure out how I’m going to survive the wonderful experience of my unpaid internship this summer, which has recently made my financial issues particularly lucid. Conversations with a couple of struggling friends have reminded me that, as hard as Dartmouth is for everyone, for some it is compounded by embittering financial difficulties. If the Class Divide initiative inspires serious evaluation of the unique kinds of opportunities and pressures caused by socioeconomic status, I’m in strong support. Class tensions cannot be swept under the rug and assumed to fade away. Willingness of members of the Dartmouth community and administration to engage with this issue and evaluate their own role in the kind of campus we have is the only way to avoid future blow-ups of the sort we’ve seen regarding race and gender already.