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Dartmouth College is a private academic institution in Hanover, New Hampshire, in the United States. It is a member of the Ivy League and is one of the nine colonial colleges founded before the American Revolution. Founded in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, with funds partially raised by the efforts of a Native American preacher named Samson Occom, it is the ninth-oldest college in the United States and the seventh-wealthiest in terms of funds per student. In addition to its liberal arts undergraduate program, Dartmouth has medical, engineering, and business schools, as well as 21 graduate programs in the arts and sciences; hence it would tend to be called a university in standard American usage. For the sake of tradition—in part stemming from the legacy of the landmark Dartmouth College Case—and in order to emphasize the central importance it gives to undergraduate education, however, it refers to itself as a college. With a total enrollment of 5,744, Dartmouth is the smallest school in the Ivy League. It is incorporated as Trustees of Dartmouth College. In 2005 Booz Allen Hamilton selected Dartmouth College as one of the "World's Ten Most Enduring Institutions," recognizing its ability to overcome crises that threatened its survival (most famously Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward).* Dartmouth alumni are famously involved in their college, from Daniel Webster to the many donors in the 19th and 20th centuries. Over many generations, Dartmouth has had one of the highest alumni donor participation rates.
History
Presidents of Dartmouth College (the Wheelock Succession) Academics The centerpiece of today's Dartmouth College is its undergraduate college of 4,078 students, constituting one of the most selective undergraduate institutions in the world. For the Class of 2010, 13,933 students applied for a little over 1,000 places in the class, and only 15.4% of applicants were admitted. Median SAT scores lie within the low 700s for each subject, and 93% of the members of the Class of 2010 graduated in the top ten percent of their high school class. Alongside the undergraduate college lie small graduate schools, the Dartmouth Medical School (1797), the Thayer School of Engineering (1867), and the Amos Tuck School of Business Administration (1900). With these graduate programs, conventional American usage would accord Dartmouth the label of "Dartmouth University"; but because of the focus on the undergraduate body, as well as historical and nostalgic reasons (such as the Dartmouth College case), the school uses the name "Dartmouth College" for the entire institution. Board of Trustees Dartmouth is governed by a Board of Trustees. The board includes the College president and the state governor (both ex officio), eight trustees appointed by the board itself (Charter Trustees), and eight trustees (Alumni Trustees) nominated for board appointment by members of the Association of Alumni of Dartmouth College, a body created in 1854 that represents over 60,000 alumni. (Specifically, trustee candidates may be nominated by an alumni council or by alumni petition, then an election is held, and finally the winner is, by longstanding agreement, appointed to the board by all Trustees. Three recent petition candidates have become Trustees in this manner.) Academic reputation In 2007, Dartmouth College was ranked 9th (tied with Columbia University and the University of Chicago) among undergraduate programs at national universities, according to U.S. News and World Report.• Hopkins Center for the Creative and Performing Arts The Hopkins Center ("the Hop") houses the College's drama, music, film, and studio arts departments, as well as a woodshop, pottery studio, and jewelry studio which are open for use by students and faculty. The building was designed by the famed architect Wallace Harrison, who later modeled Manhattan’s Lincoln Center front façade after the Hopkins Center. Facilities include two recital halls and one large auditorium. It is also the location of all student mailboxes ("Hinman boxes") and the Courtyard Café dining facility. The Hop is connected to the Hood Museum of Art and the Loew Auditorium, where films are shown. The Hopkins Center is an important New Hampshire performance venue. Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and the Social Sciences The Nelson A. Rockefeller Center is a center for interaction and discussion on public policy. Dedicated in 1983, the center stands in tribute to Nelson A. Rockefeller (Class of 1930). Known on campus as Rocky, the Center provides students, faculty and community-members opportunities to discuss and learn about public policy, law, and politics. Sponsoring lunch and dinner discussions with prominent faculty and visitors, the Center aides provides close interaction and discussion. The Rockefeller Center has established a Public-Policy Minor at Dartmouth College and an exchange program on political economy with Oxford University (Keble College). In addition, the Center provides grants to students engaged in public-policy research and/or activities. The Rockefeller Center's Policy Research Shop is an innovative program that provides research upon the request of elected policy makers and their legislative staff throughout the year. The Center hires students to work under the direction of faculty members, who then produce reports that are typically between 5-15 pages long. The intent is to produce useful information in a timely fashion so that the information can be used in legislative deliberations. The John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding The John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding was established in 1982 to honor Dartmouth's twelfth president (1945-70), John Sloan Dickey. The purpose of the Dickey Center is to "coordinate, sustain, and enrich the international dimension of liberal arts education at Dartmouth." To this end, the Dickey Center is committed to helping Dartmouth students prepare for a world in which local, national and global concerns are more strongly linked than ever. It strives to promote quality scholarly research at Dartmouth concerning international problems and issues, with an emphasis on work that is innovative and cross-disciplinary. And it seeks to heighten public awareness and to stimulate debate on pressing international issues. The Dickey Center also hosts several student-run organizations, such as the Dartmouth World Affairs Council (WAC) or the War & Peace Fellows, which foster undergraduates' awareness of international affairs. Several grants and awards are also administered by the Dickey Center, including the prestigious Chase Peace Prize, conferred annually to the senior thesis that contributes most significantly to an understanding of the causes of peace and war. Aquatic facilities Alumni Gym hosts two pools, the Karl Michael Competition Pool and the Spaulding Pool. Together they comprise a total of fifteen 25-yard lanes and two 50-meter lanes. The Karl Michael Pool, constructed in 1962, was designed by former Dartmouth College Men's Varsity Swim Team captain R. Jackson Smith, class of 1936. In 1970, it was formally named the Karl Michael Pool, after the coach of the men's varsity swim team from 1939-1970. The pool features eleven 25-yard lanes, with a special bulkhead that can be lowered to create two 50 meter lanes. The pool area has a seating area for 1,200 spectators. The Michael Pool hosted the 1968 Men's NCAA Championships, in which several American records were set. The pool also features one and three meter diving boards, with a water well 12 to 14 feet deep. Adjacent is the Spaulding Pool. Spaulding Pool is a 10 by 25 yard pool constructed during 1919 and 1920 and designed by Rich & Mathesius, Architects. The Spaulding Pool is one of the oldest continuously operating pools in the United States. The pool's interior walls feature original encaustic tiles designed by noted ceramist Leon Victor Solon, although a later mezzanine housing locker rooms has obscured some of the designs. The pool has seating for several hundred spectators. Both pools are currently used by the Men's and Women's Varsity Swim Teams, as well as a host of other programs within the college. Housing clusters As opposed to ungrouped dormitories or residential colleges as employed at such institutions as The University of Chicago and Yale, Dartmouth has several housing clusters located throughout campus. The College experienced a slight housing crunch due to the unusually high yield of the class of 2005. Partially as a result, the College erected temporary housing, and two new dormitory clusters were completed in the fall of 2006. Also starting in 2006, the College will guarantee housing for students during their freshman and sophomore years. Athletics As of 2004, Dartmouth College hosts 34 varsity sports: sixteen for men, sixteen for women, and coeducational sailing and equestrian programs. This places it among the top United States colleges and universities in this regard. In addition, there are twenty-three club sports and twenty-four intramural sports. Nickname, symbol, and mascot Since the 1920s, the Dartmouth College athletic teams have been known by their unofficial nicknames "The Green" or "The Big Green." The nickname is based on students' adoption of a shade of forest green ("Dartmouth Green") as the school's official color in 1866. Until the early 1970s, teams were also known as the "Indians," and athletic uniforms bore a representation of an Indian warrior's head. That representation and similar images, called collectively "the Indian Symbol," as well as the practice of a cheerleader dressing in Indian costume to serve as a mascot during games, came under criticism. During the early 1970s the Trustees declared the "use of the Indian symbol in any form to be inconsistent with present institutional and academic objectives of the College in advancing Native American education." Some alumni and a minority of students, as well as the conservative student newspaper, The Dartmouth Review, have sought to return the Indian symbol to prominence, but no team has worn the symbol on its uniform in decades. Various student initiatives have been undertaken to adopt a new mascot, but none has garnered sufficient support from students or alumni to become "official." One proposal devised by the college humor magazine, the Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern, was "Keggy the Keg", an anthropomorphic beer keg who makes occasional appearances at college sporting events, but Keggy has only received approval from the student government. The Moose ("Dartmoose") appeared at some athletic and other campus events, though it has not been seen for several years. Varsity teams Dartmouth's varsity athletic teams compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I, in the eight-member Ivy League conference, which includes Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Brown, Columbia, Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania. Some teams also participate in the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC). Dartmouth athletes compete in 34 varsity sports. In addition to the traditional American team sports (football, basketball, baseball and ice hockey), Dartmouth competes in many others including track and field, sailing, rowing, soccer, skiing, and lacrosse. Many are highly competitive at the national level, earning berths into NCAA championships and tournaments. As is mandatory amongst all Ivy League schools, Dartmouth College does not offer athletic scholarships. Despite this restriction, it is home to many student athletes. As many as three-quarters of Dartmouth undergraduates participate in some form of athletics, and one-quarter of Dartmouth students play a varsity sport at some point during their undergraduate years. The percentage of varsity athletes and varsity sports are thus disproportionately greater than at many much larger colleges in the country. In addition to varsity sports, Dartmouth students may also participate in several club sports, such as rugby, water polo, figure skating, men's volleyball and ultimate frisbee. These teams generally perform well in their respective regional and national competitions. The figure skating team has performed particularly well in recent years, winning the national championship in each of the past three consecutive seasons. Venues Dartmouth hosts many athletic venues. Alumni Gymnasium, the center of athletic life at Dartmouth, is home of the Dartmouth College aquatic facilities, basketball courts, squash and racketball courts, indoor track, fencing lanes as well as a rowing training center. The College also maintains the Memorial Field football stadium, Edward Leede Arena (basketball), and Rupert C. Thompson Arena (hockey), as well as a rowing boat house and a tennis complex. Dartmouth's original sports field was the Green, where students played cricket during the late eighteenth century and Old Division Football during the 1800s; some intramural games still take place there. Student groups Dartmouth hosts a large number of student groups, covering a wide range of interests. Students are commonly involved in more than one group on campus. As of 2006, the College hosted at least 11 literary publications, 8 a-capella groups, 10 other musical groups, and over 200 organizations recognized by the "Council of Student Organizations". Notable student groups include The Dartmouth, one of America's oldest college newspapers (established in 1799), The Dartmouth Review, an independent conservative newspaper, The Dartmouth Film Society, the nation's oldest college film society, and The Dartmouth Aires, an award-winning a-capella group. Greek life Dartmouth College is host to many Greek organizations and a large percentage of the undergraduate student body is active in Greek life. In 2000, nearly half of the undergraduate student body belonged to a fraternity, sorority, or coeducational Greek house. First year students are not allowed to join Greek organizations, however, so the actual fraction of Dartmouth students that become active in Greek life during their studies at the College exceeds half of the student body. Dartmouth College was among the first institutions of higher education to desegregate fraternity houses in the 1950s, and was involved in the movement to create coeducational Greek houses in the 1970s. In the early 2000s, campus-wide debate focused on whether or not the Greek system at Dartmouth should become "substantially coeducational," but most houses retain single-sex membership policies. The college has an additional classification of social/residential orginazations known as undergraduate societies. These organizations are not part of the official Greek system, but serve a similar role on campus. Technology Technology plays an important role in student life, as Dartmouth is perennially ranked as one of the most technologically-advanced colleges in the world (as in Newsweek's ranking of "Hottest for the Tech-Savvy"). BlitzMail, the campus e-mail network, plays a tremendous role in social life, as students tend to use it for communication in lieu of cellular phones or instant messaging programs. Student reliance on BlitzMail (known colloquially as "Blitz," which functions as both noun and verb) has led to computer terminals being installed all around campus, so that students can check their "blitz" in between classes or while away from their rooms. Dartmouth has more than 12,000 computers available for use on campus. * Dartmouth was also notable as the first college campus to offer entirely ubiquitous wireless internet access by 2001. The wireless network is available throughout all college buildings as well as in most public outdoor spaces. Other technologies being pioneered include college-wide Video-on-Demand and VoIP rollouts. Native Americans at Dartmouth The charter of Dartmouth College, granted to Eleazar Wheelock in 1769, proclaims that the institution was created "for the education and instruction of Youth of the Indian Tribes in this Land in reading, writing and all parts of Learning ... as well as in all liberal Arts and Sciences; and also of English Youth and any others." The funds for Dartmouth College were raised primarily by the efforts of a Native American named Samson Occom. While Dartmouth's students since have mainly been white, the college still claims to have a long history of involvement with Indian education. In 1970 the school established Native American academic and social program as part of a "new dedication to increasing Native American enrollment." Wheelock, a Congregationalist dedicated to converting Indians to Christianity, was head of Moor's Indian Charity School (1753) prior to establishing Dartmouth. It was this institution that Mohegan preacher Samson Occom raised money for; Occom was bitterly disappointed to see Wheelock transform it into an English college. Traditions
Alumni Notable graduates and students at Dartmouth include: See also | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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