The invisible class divide at Dartmouth

It was her first term at Dartmouth. She walked into Spaulding, where she received a file containing her financial information. She looked around and saw other financial aid recipients with their files. The files were color-coded based on the types of loans; anyone could tell who was receiving Stafford and who was receiving Perkins. While financial aid officers talked about the loan papers, everyone sat closely together so they could hear. She felt that in that room everyone got to know everyone else’s financial business. “Personally, it was really humiliating to be there,” she said. “Would the college say ‘Hi gay freshman. You’re required to attend this meeting so that we can educate you on what it means to be gay at Dartmouth’?”

Even within the comfortable boundaries of our Hanover Bubble, real world problems manifest themselves from time to time. This past fall, the topic of racism appeared on center stage after a series of inflammatory incidents polarized our campus. Since then, we have witnessed a surge in diversity discourse, but the issue of class has gone largely unidentified.

Some believe that since there are no readily apparent class issues on campus, creating discourse would inevitably lead to labeling and open people to previously unfounded prejudices. “If we could just forget about race, forget about class, forget about all those things,” one such student stated, “everybody in the world would be so much happier.”

“This is the classic example of silencing an issue,” responded a student who identifies with a lower class background.

“Class” is a difficult term to define, given the wide range of factors that come into play, but the financial aspect is universal. At Dartmouth, many students seem to associate the notion of class with family’s income and wealth. “Dartmouth is a place where money and elitism get thrown around a lot…in general,” said one ’07 male.

Money is an uncomfortable topic to discuss, and the lack of discourse leads to a general lack of awareness about class. In addition, class issues are deeply intertwined with more popular issues such as race and gender. “I’m not sure if there is a class problem,” said one student, “I feel that class divisions here either mirror racial/ethnic divisions or they just don’t matter.”

Harmful Assumptions

Since middle- to upper-middle class culture pervades our campus, class manifests itself in very subtle manners. Margaret Lawrence, Director of Programming for the Hopkins Center, recalled a meeting about class held by the Hop’s Student Advisory Council in the fall. “[Students] felt that class wasn’t referenced visibly at all, but there were all kinds of codified ways that class got discussed on the campus,” she said. The simplest conversations could contain markers of class. For example, talking about what someone did on an off-term reveals whether that person had the resources to go on a vacation to a distant location or had to stay home and work or had to remain on campus for their job.

“The way you experience classism [at Dartmouth],” according to one student, “is through the assumption that everybody is from the upper-middle class… .”

Many students assume their peers can afford expensive, time-consuming activities. “I’m in a singing group,” said one student, “and someone proposed that for our tour next year, we should go…take a skiing trip, not realizing that not everyone can afford [it].”

Such oblivious proposals are made on a daily basis. “It’s just a matter of people not knowing how to deal,” said a female ’09. When hanging out with groups of people, she would often hear people propose to spend a weekend in New York or Montreal. “People don’t take into account that some of us can’t afford to do that. And…we try to explain saying ‘Oh, we’ve got work,’ because we don’t necessarily want to say ‘Oh, yo, I’m poor’.” She has work and can’t miss it because she needs the money, but because she doesn’t make the connection, people naively ask “What’s the big deal of missing two days of work?”

Furthermore, the Greek system institutionalizes assumptions about class on this campus. Participants assumedly have the ability to pay expensive dues. The fact “that you have to pay to be part of a social culture [blows my mind],” said one affiliated ’09. Houses do have varying forms of financial aid, but some require recipients to do custodial work, which many students view as demeaning. Lawrence recalled a comment about such forms of aid a student made at the Hop’s Student Advisory Council meeting. This student, as an African-American woman, questioned whether that form of aid could place her in the symbolic role of the house’s cleaner, wearing a cleaning rag on her head just so that she could be a member.

Many non-Greeks (and some Greeks) believe the Greek system creates and perpetuates a class divide. This divide could exist on two different levels: one’s family’s socioeconomic status and one’s social status on campus. Since different houses have different price tags, students may self-select along class lines during rush. Anyone who knows anything about the Greek system could tell which houses have the rich kids. The reputation and stereotype of each house can situate affiliated individuals on the campus social ladder. There are times, one affiliated student said, “when you meet someone who’s in a sorority and you say you are a part of [a certain house], and it’s like, brick wall.”

Assumptions create an atmosphere in which it is difficult to articulate feelings in uncomfortable situations due to class-related factors. In addition, people can dress middle-class by saving up and buying that one crucial piece of clothing. “Passing,” as it is called, is not always a harmful act. It allows for people to be on level playing ground on the surface, mitigating divide and discomfort in social situations. “If you are of a lower class background and are ashamed of it,” said one student, “you can save up to buy the black North Face that everyone has and just blend in.”

In Hanover, the lack of dining, recreational, and shopping options blurs the visibility of class. “[W]e don’t have a lot of options for places to shop, so it’s not like ‘Oh my gosh, she’s wearing [some expensive brand],’” said one student, “…and [for food we] use our DBA and no one sees money changing hands as often as if we went to a school in a big city….” Furthermore, no apparent stigma is attached to certain campus jobs or financial aid recipients. Since over 50% of students receive some form of financial aid, the sense of stigma could even be attached to guilt-tripped non-recipients.

Some students struggle to have the promised “Dartmouth Experience” due to financial constraints. “I work between fifteen to twenty-five hours a week…but I want to do it all and be the typical Dartmouth student,” said one student. “I pack my schedule,” she continued, “but I don’t have the privilege of not doing work that I don’t necessarily like.” Some students cannot even afford books for classes all the time. One student mentioned that she’d heard students make decisions not to take classes that require many books, because they simply cost too much.

Many students can’t afford certain glorified aspects of the “Dartmouth Experience.” Take study abroad programs. One student said: “…if you don’t have the extra spending money to spend traveling and have the ‘abroad experience,’ you’re not going to put yourself in the position that you’re the only person who can’t go… .” Even those who have participated in programs realize that some students cannot afford certain social activities that others can since many of these take place in expensive cities.

Creating Discourse

Discourse can exist without labeling or identifying socioeconomic backgrounds. People of less privileged classes do not need to be identified individually to have productive discourse. One student expressed that she simply wanted privileged people to recognize their privileges and that white male Protestants need not feel “like the devil.” “The best kind of responses I get from people [when telling my story],” she said, “is just to be listeners and start deconstructing their role in society.”

“I don’t think it needs to be dissected even necessarily,” said Lisel Murdock ’09, Hopkins Center’s Class Divide Student Intern. She continued that there should be an awareness of the divide, and that since the divide in American society is growing daily and is going to be a significant issue in the world we will face as adults, we should start thinking and even taking baby steps about it.

Though largely under the surface, strong feelings about class exist on this campus. “I think the students here are ready to talk about it,” said Lawrence, citing the high attendance of the Student Advisory Council’s meeting on class and the large amount of art received for the Student Creative Project that Murdock had organized earlier in the term.

The greatest challenge in raising awareness about class or about any other issue is to present the problem without forceful exposure. Simply putting the word out is a good first step. The Hopkins Center recently received a large national grant for its three-year Class Divide initiative that will “explore social and economic class through the powerful lens of art.” Lawrence elaborated on the philosophy of this initiative: “The arts can often create a space where it’s not only safer to think about challenging thoughts but where people are brought into someone else’s point of view much more successfully perhaps than going to a lecture… .” While the Hop tries to lead the way in innovatively examining class, the administration and students can do a lot more to raise awareness about this issue. For one, there could be more student workshops, some of which Murdock and Anjali Deshmukh ’07 have started.

On a different note, the Greek system can accept greater responsibility for its treatment of class and about making participation more affordable for everyone. “[T]he Greek system can hold itself more accountable,” said Elizabeth Sherman ’08, President of Epsilon Kappa Theta. “I look at the instances of theme parties that make a mockery of class…and think it’s irresponsible because we are not having conversations about the way in which the Greek system inherently promotes classism.”

Class divide will not disappear if we ignore the fact that it exists. To start tackling the issue, we must create an atmosphere where class discourse can grow. Even students who refuse to acknowledge that class divide exists on our campus should recognize that the divide is growing daily in American society and in the world. All of us are privileged in the fact that we receive a top-class undergraduate education. We do not have the right to be ignorant about serious issues in our society, even if it means stepping out of our comfort zones. Once we leave Dartmouth, we will be forced to face challenging issues that we cannot simply ignore. It’s about time that we started being aware of hidden but profound campus issues.