Dartblog

As of 1am EST on March 1, the Defending Dimensions Facebook page had 2,538 members. Meanwhile, The D ran about the sloppiest piece of journalism ever yesterday: essentially, it seems, the Admissions department is blaming the College’s recruiting problems on Dimensions. Hmmm. I can think of one or two other reasons why students would hesitate to come to Dartmouth these days, and they have nothing to do with the Dimensions show.

In the article, Dimensions director Ashton Slatev ‘15, confirmed that the acoustics in Leede Arena were not an issue in the discussions to change the show:

Students working on the Dimensions show had agreed that Leede was a poor location, but venue issues had not been cited by the Admissions Office as a reason to change the show, Slatev said.

“It is a bit fishy that this entire time they’ve expressed that the show is not academic enough, but now apparently it’s a venue issue and they say that if we can find a venue then they’ll support it,” Slatev said. “It makes me wonder if this is just a facade to qualm [sic] the student backlash, or if this is an actual change and they’re going to give us back creative control in a location that’s better than Leede, and certainly better than five different resident halls.”

Once again, we see back-and-fill reasoning from an intellectually dishonest administration.

Finally, in The D’s Mirror section, the Moderately Good Advice with Gardner and Kate column has a slightly different perspective on the brouhaha:

Dear Gardner and Kate,

As someone who chose Dartmouth over a host of other schools because of the Dimensions show, I literally cannot believe that they are “not canceling the Dimensions welcome show.” Do you think the admissions office will take students’ opinions into account and keep the show?

— Big Green Benjamin ‘15

Gardner: We can only hope that they listen to the absurd amount of student feedback and keep the show. Unfortunately, what I’ve gleaned from this whole process is that the administration thinks that the student body currently isn’t good enough so I don’t see why they would listen to our thoughts. Does it seem like a good idea to try to convince the most academic high schoolers to pick Dartmouth over Harvard? Yes. Will it work? No.

I’m afraid that in the quest to win over those prospies that would realistically never choose Dartmouth, we’ll lose the outgoing, fun-loving prospies to Penn or, God forbid, Cornell. Those are the people that come year after year and make Dartmouth what it is, Dartmouth. But I’m a Dartmouth College student so I don’t know why our administrators would listen to me.

The mood is sour in Hanover.