About the William Jewett Tucker Foundation
Conscience and Heart: the two components that, when combined with intellectual
attainment, allow one to make a lasting or very strong impression on the world
- the two components that the Tucker Foundation believes are, in addition to
intellectual attainment, essential to a true liberal arts education.
In 1951, President John Sloan Dickey and the Dartmouth Board of Trustees founded
the Tucker Foundation in honor of William Jewett Tucker, the ninth President of
Dartmouth College. Charged with supporting and furthering the moral and spiritual
work of the College, the Foundation provides community service programs, off-campus
fellowships and internships, leadership development programs, and houses the Office
of Religious and Spiritual Life in an attempt to further develop and enhance our
local and worldwide community.
One-time Opportunities
The Foundation addresses issues of social concern and civic responsibility. In a bipartisan manner, the Foundation's Social Concerns programs provide a deeper understanding of citizenship, diversity, justice issues, poverty, and the many -isms of our society. These programs seek to produce dialogue and discussion that then lead to both individual and collective action. For example, every Tuesday the Foundation sponsors a luncheon with a member of the Faculty who speaks to students on what it is that he/she is passionate about. These luncheons aim to generate discussion among students and faculty and promote student/faculty relations within the community as well as open the doors of the Foundation to those who may not be familiar with its programs. The Foundation's Civic Responsibility Programs complement the Social Concerns programs in that they intend to make you use your education to enhance and develop the community. Whereas the Social Concerns programs promote discussion, the Civic Responsibility programs promote action. A major constituent of the Civic Responsibility category is our Sophomore Summer of Service program. This past summer, our Sophomore Summer of Service program sent students to Mississippi to install computers in second grade classrooms. Additionally, this past summer we launched the Summer Enrichment at Dartmouth program, which brought twenty-nine tenth-graders to Dartmouth for a week of classroom learning and leadership development. Twenty-nine Dartmouth students, representing primarily the Sophomore class, served as mentors to the tenth-graders, many of whom still keep in touch.
Weekly Commitments
Dartmouth Community Services (DCS) manages over forty programs, each of which provides a unique opportunity for community service, allowing students to serve in numerous capacities in the communities of the Upper Connecticut River Valley of New Hampshire and Vermont. These programs include: the Big Brother/Sister program, which has provided friendship and guiding hands to area children for thirty years; tutoring at area schools and prisons; the Book Buddies reading project for young children; wood and fuel assistance for the elderly and other families; an English as a Second Language service; assistance to families with HIV/AIDS; volunteer work at day care centers and residential facilities for children, and; a collegiate chapter of Habitat for Humanity, among many others. Dartmouth Community Services challenges students to explore the possibilities of learning through service to others, while meeting the needs of neighboring communities around Dartmouth.
Service Trips
Each spring, the Foundation runs a series of "Alternative Spring Break Trips", which place teams of college students in communities to engage in community service. Students perform short-term projects for community agencies and learn about issues such as literacy, poverty, racism, hunger, homelessness and the environment. Recent trips include: Tohatchi, New Mexico, Navaho reservation; Costa Rica community outreach; Jacksonville homeless shelter; and inner-city experience in South Carolina.
Additionally, the Foundation has recently undertaken its Cross-Cultural Service
Project Initiative. As its name suggests, the program is designed to engage students
in a service project in another culture. The program launched over the 2001-2002
winter break with a trip to Nicaragua. Over the course of the trip, one group
built a health clinic while another provided clinical and public health education.
Two more trips are scheduled for the coming year, one to Sopotskin, Belarus and
a return trip to Nicaragua. Eventually the program will expand to include full
leave-term opportunities.
Leave Term Opportunities
The Tucker Foundation's Fellowships and Internships enable individual students to work during their leave term at a variety of community service programs and agencies, both domestically and internationally. Students may work with governmental or nonprofit, private social agencies, educational institutions, or organizations that deal with important social issues. The Cabarete Project offers two internships each term for Spanish-speaking Dartmouth students to work in a primary school in Cabarete, a seaside village on the north shore of the Dominican Republic. The Bildner Urban Summer Internship program is offered every summer term - nine Dartmouth students work with children at the Boys and Girls Club in Newark, New Jersey. In addition to programs such as these, the Foundation also offers two post-graduate fellowships to recent Dartmouth graduates who are pursuing community service opportunities.
Religious and Spiritual Life
The Office of Religious and Spiritual Life provides for ecumenical, inter-denominational, and interfaith services in the Dartmouth community. In cooperation with denominational chaplains and campus ministers, local congregations, student groups, and faculty, Religious and Spiritual Life sponsors speakers and coordinates activities and programs that serve the variety of religious traditions within the Dartmouth community. The range of religious groups includes Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish, Muslim, and many others. There are over twenty student-sponsored ministries. In addition, the Chaplaincy seeks to meet the unique needs of students, encourages personal spiritual growth, helps in the clarification of personal values, and assists the community in examining moral and ethical choices. Rollins Chapel hosts a wide variety of services and religious gatherings, as well as musical events, speakers, and fellowship programs. Rollins Chapel is first and foremost a place for prayer, worship, and meditation for persons of every faith perspective. In keeping with its mission, it is open for a portion of each day for individual and group devotion or mediation. In addition to Rollins Chapel, the campus maintains two other religious facilities: The Roth Center for Jewish Life and The Aquinas House Catholic Student Center.
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