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Dartmouth College

Undergraduate School

Mailing Address
207 Parkhurst Hall Dartmouth College
Hanover, New Hampshire 03755
Phone
(603) 646-1110
School Information
"Founded in 1769, Dartmouth is a member of the Ivy League and consistently ranks among the world’s greatest academic institutions. Home to a celebrated liberal arts curriculum and pioneering professional schools, Dartmouth has shaped the education landscape and prepared leaders through its inspirational learning experience. "Dartmouth is home to about 4,200 undergraduates in the liberal arts and 1,900 graduate students in more than 25 advanced degree programs in the Arts & Sciences and at Dartmouth’s professional schools: the Geisel School of Medicine, the nation’s fourth-oldest medical school; Thayer School of Engineering, one of the nation’s first professional schools of engineering; and the Tuck School of Business, the world’s first graduate school of management." (Source: https://home.dartmouth.edu/life-community/explore-green/history-traditions)
General Information
Dartmouth College has taken two steps to placate advocates of critical race theory and anti-racism. First, it took down the Indian from Baker Library Weather Vane, since students advocates believed it was offensive. Additionally, the president and trustees made anti-bias training mandatory for all students, staff, and faculty. See developments below:

Actions Taken

Admissions Policies
  • On June 29, 2023, Dartmouth's President issued a statement in response to the Supreme Court's ruling on affirmative action which reads in part as follows: "First, I want to be absolutely clear: This decision in no way changes Dartmouth's fundamental commitment to building a diverse and welcoming community of faculty, students, and staff, as articulated in our institutional values. Diversity, including racial diversity, is vital to our mission of knowledge creation in service to society...In anticipation of today's ruling, Provost David Kotz has been meeting regularly with the admissions deans from across the institution, and other institutional partners, to discuss how to comply with the ruling and adapt their holistic admissions processes to this new legal landscape."
  • The University has reinstated SAT and ACT requirements, in an attempt to admit a "more diverse range of students."
Anti-Racism, Bias, and Diversity Training
  • The school had anti-bias training which was made mandatory for all students, staff, and faculty. However, it now appears that this is no longer in place, as the link was removed and no replacement program is required for all. In its place, there are optional trainings.
  • Dartmouth college promoted a leadership conference facilitated by Penn State’s Center for the Study of Higher Education entitled Academy for Anti-Racist Leadership. The college explained that the academy is a “companion program to [their] longstanding Academic Leadership Academy, which for over a decade has been preparing academic administrators to meet the ever-changing demands of higher education by enhancing their abilities to think critically and excel as leaders in their institutions.” Nominations for this program were accepted up until May 6, 2022, for faculty who desired to take the next step in the racial justice movement and their leadership.
  • The college's Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity published its Fall 2022 3-year institutional DEI strategic plan for Dartmouth entitled, "Toward Equity: Aligning Action and Accountability" which states, "Provide DEI training and education for all leaders (senior leaders, department chairs, deans, diversity deans, administrative leaders, etc.) to meet expectations for developed leadership competencies" and that "These trainings began in Summer 2022 and will continue through the duration of this plan. [Pg. 11]"
  • Dartmouth’s Iota Kappa Chapter of the sorority Alpha Phi enacted "diversity, equity and inclusion training efforts" for members. Reportedly, "the Iota Kappa chapter was one of the first chapters of the national sorority to integrate conversations and efforts surrounding DEI." The chapter also has a DEI task force.
  • The "Academic Impressions" is a DEI Training and Professional Development program for "leaders at colleges and universities." The program is currently being piloted by "a volunteer cohort of assistant and associate deans, directors of centers and institutes, and department chairs for the 2023-24 academic year."
Curriculum Changes and Requirements
  • The Philosophy Department announced, "Philosophy faculty continue to work on diversifying their syllabi for other courses, both with respect to authors and content. Courses from God, Darwin and Cosmos (PHIL 1.04), to Phenomenology and Existentialism (PHIL 28), to Realism and Anti-Realism (PHIL 31.04), now include a more diverse set of authors and address issues relevant to race."
  • The college's Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity published its Fall 2022 3-year institutional DEI strategic plan for Dartmouth entitled, "Toward Equity: Aligning Action and Accountability" which states, "IDE is developing a curriculum centered on topics related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. [Pg. 13]"
  • Dartmouth's Department of German Studies stated that it is "moving away from presenting German language(s) and culture(s) as a monolithic block that foregrounds the experience of a very small and exclusively White, heteronormative, economically independent middle-class segment of society" and it will shift its curriculum "towards the inclusion of diverse perspectives" as the Department "continues to evaluate what voices have, for too long, been silenced in the language classroom." The Department states that it strives "toward an inclusive representation of this diversity in [the] language curriculum."
  • Students are required to take at least one class focusing on Culture and Identity.
  • The Department of Agroecology's Ong Lab states that it "is dedicated to confronting and ameliorating the systemic racism that is perpetuated against Black, Indigenous, and People of Color in all areas of our society." The Lab actively "searches for and recruits new lab members that increase... equity and inclusion of [the] academic community." The Lab states it "strives to become a model of diversity, equity and inclusion."
Disciplinary Measures
  • Dartmouth's Student Affairs Department links to an online reporting form in order to "Report Bias."
Faculty/Staff Requirements
  • Dartmouth encourages all educators to “examine their biases” and to modify their pedagogy to reflect anti-racism. Several anti-racist resources are given in order to encourage such behavior.
Political Actions and Support for Anti-Racism
  • Dartmouth College was one of the signatories of a letter opposing "a bill that would ban Critical Race Theory in the state."
  • Recently Dartmouth College Ecology, Evolution, Environment and Society released a statement on anti-racism that fundamentally describes what racism is and how it has currently manifested itself within our society. As they recognize the ways they have been historically racist in the past, the difficulties Black, Brown, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) have and continue to face in the light of persecution, and lastly what causes racism they aim to begin resolving and creating an anti-racist institution. One way in which they plan to do that is by “incorporat[ing] anti-racism into [their] teaching and research. In addition, they seek to proactively “recruit, admit, and/or hire diverse students, post-docs, faculty, and staff to [their] program.” Lastly, they vow to “continue this work even as it feels hard and in moments when the intensity of the political currents and news cycles ebb and flow on these issues, and to commit to holding [themselves] and each other accountable.”
  • On May 23, 2022, Martin Luther King III spoke at Dartmouth’s Social Justice Awards Ceremony where he cited problems such as “racially motivated voter suppression and the mass shooting the targeted Black shoppers at a Buffalo, N.Y., supermarket.” King, much like his father, calls for justice to prevail against anti-racism and for “humankind to [become] reengaged.” He says to do this we must engaged critically withing voting. Our power, he explains, is in our ballot as “a voteless people is a powerless people.”
Program and Research Funding
  • The Philosophy Department will be hiring its "first Postdoctoral Fellow in Philosophy of Race, African-American Political Thought, or Africana Philosophy."
  • The Philosophy Department "began awarding Student Social Justice Research Grants in Spring of 2021, and we have so far made nine awards. These have enabled Dartmouth undergraduates to do independent research on topics ranging from water governance on indigenous lands, to the relation between anti-discrimination law and affirmative action and reparations, to climate justice and global inequalities."
  • The Class of 1982's Racial Justice Initiative "provides stipends for undergraduate research related to racial justice" and "funds racial justice internships, and creates an endowed academic enrichment fund for the African and African American Studies Program."
  • Dartmouth School House Anti-Racism Colition (SHARC) is putting on a shared anti-racism experience during the 2022-2023 school year in which will “build off [the] HBO’s Emmy-Award-winning series “Watchmen.”’ In an effort to promote engagement, SHARC will “reach out to instructors for 2022-23 to encourage them to incorporate the themes of the Watchmen and [their] Anti-Racism series into their course…”
  • The School House Anti-Racism Coalition recently hosted a lecture by Trevon D. Logan on the Sins of Economic History a series on “inequality, discrimination, and opportunity.”
  • William Cheng, a professor of music at Dartmouth College will be spending his fellowship year undertaking a “multimodal and genre-bending project called ‘Touching Pitch: A Decolonial Escapade.’” This album will “illustrate how culturally hybridized pedagogies and practices of Wester classical improvisation may empower minoritized musicians to animate a spectrum of anti-racist, anti-assimilationist, and anti-capitalist agendas in the 21st century.”
  • Dartmouth's Office of the President announced that "A generous $20 million gift is enabling Dartmouth to expand and permanently endow the E.E. Just Program, which provides mentorships and resources to underrepresented minorities pursuing degrees and careers in STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics] disciplines."
  • The University's merit scholarship is granted based on "a variety of factors" one of which is "the ability to contribute to the diversity of the Dartmouth community."
  • The Ecology, Evolution, Environment & Society Scholars Program is "dedicated to advancing justice, equity, diversity and inclusion." The program especially encourages "students with backgrounds historically underrepresented in STEM and environmental fields" to apply.
Re-Imagining Policing
  • The Graduate Student Council's Committee for Addressing Racism and Equity will host, "A conversation with S&S and Hanover police during spring term between Dartmouth POC, students from marginalized groups and staff about police regulations, police tactics and a better way to engage with the community."
Resources
  • The college library has an "Anti-Racism: Resources for Education, Allyship, and Medicine," which includes "How to Be an Antiracist" by Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo's "White Fragility."
  • The School House Anti-Racism Experience will host a year of events around HBO's "Watchmen." The program will "use Watchmen as a jumping-off point for the whole campus to engage more deeply with issues related to anti-Black racism, white supremacy, and social and economic justice."
  • The Student Wellness Center has a page on "Racial Justice & Wellbeing," which partially reads, "The team at the SWC strives to manifest the intersection between social justice and public health by committing to intentional work together to better understand the connections between systemic racism and inequities in wellbeing." They also have a link to "Resources for Racial Justice & Wellbeing."
  • The Philosophy Department will hold its "second annual Race, Gender and Justice Workshop will be held on April 7-8, 2022." Sessions include "Is the U.S. Constitution an Anti-Racist Document?" and "Covid-19 Anti-Vaxxers, White Supremacist Suicidality and Racialized 'Risk.'"
  • Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning (DCAL) has a list of resources for educators which includes “how to become an anti-racist educator.” Under this resource tab, DCLA “recognizes the importance of diversity and inclusion in teaching effectiveness and believes that in order to have an equitable teaching environment for all students, instructors must commit to anti-racist educators and actively combat racism in their classroom.” The resources listed under this tab include articles, books, videos, podcast, and different actions a anti-racist teacher must commit to.
  • On February 9, 2022, Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning (DCAL) hosted an anti-racist pedagogy reading group that “explore[d] the principles and practices of anti-racist pedagogy.”
  • One of Dartmouth Library’s research guides for the Classics and Greco-Roman Archaeology is geared towards race, gender, class, and migration.
  • The Dartmouth College Diversity Curriculum Project is a project "conceived by Dartmouth graduate Shanée V. Brown '12 as a way to directly address the various challenges of exclusivity, prejudice, and intolerance within the Dartmouth community." The Project aims to "directly address these ills by creating a student-organized and student-taught curriculum which introduce Dartmouth freshman to opportunities for constructive learning and discussion  with their peers about issues pertaining to class, race, gender and sexuality."
  • The Dartmouth Consortium in the Studies of Race, Migration, and Sexuality (RMS) is an "interdisciplinary research and teaching initiative aimed at deepening social and cultural analyses of worlds and works shaped by the colonial and transnational forces of race, migration, and sexuality."
  • The Dartmouth Library links to a book titled "Critical race spatial analysis : mapping to understand and address educational inequity," which is describes as a "tool for critical race research in education."
Symbolic Actions
  • Removal of Indian from Baker Library Weather Vane.
  • The Hopkins Center for the Arts will be hosting an Opera entitled The Ritual of Breath is the Rite to Resist. The opera is about an “infamous police killing of a Black man on a New York City sidewalk.” The seven-movement piece calls for “justice and healing” as it responds to police violence.
  • On February 1, 2023, the school's News section published an article titled, "Toward Equity Launch Gets Enthusiastic Reception" which features a discussion presented by Senior Vice President and Senior Diversity Officer Shontay Delalue. Regarding the death of Tyre Nichols, Ms. Delalue stated, "The weight of systemic forms of oppression is heavy. We are all gathered today with some semblance of hope for what we can do here at Dartmouth to dismantle systems that negatively impact groups based on their race."
  • On September 23, 2020, The Dartmouth Consortium in the Studies of Race, Migration, and Sexuality (RMS) issued a "Statement on Critical Race Theory" and stated that "RMS stands in support of all pedagogies and practices that are associated with critical race theory, from comparative Ethnic Studies, Black Studies, Indigenous Studies, Latinx Studies, Asian American Studies, to Women, Queer and Trans of Color Critiques. We support schools that use The New York Times Magazine’s 1619 Project in their teaching. We support black feminist and queer of color pedagogies in K-12 schools." RMS ends the statement by saying, "To persecute the searching, critical mind is to live a stiff, insecure and unenlightened life. Long live critical race theory!"
  • During commencement week, the University holds "Community Graduation Celebrations" including the Lorna C. Hill Black Graduation, the Pan-Asian Family Reception, and the Latine & Caribbean Graduation & Awards Ceremony.
  • The University hosts a "black convocation" during the first week of the fall term as a "welcome ceremony for the new incoming class who identify as Black and Pan African."
  • The Tuck School of Business DEI Mission states it "will model what truly diverse and inclusive leadership looks like within academic and business communities."
Last updated December 12th, 2024
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