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Zonia Moore ’16

Zonia Moore, Class of 2016, applied to over 20 colleges. When it came time to decide where to apply, she knew that she wanted options, particularly in regards to financial aid. She hoped to find the school that best fit her, academically, socially and financially. Zonia learned about the College through her best friend’s father, a Dartmouth alumnus. During her senior year, he brought the two of them to Hanover for homecoming weekend. After narrowing down her acceptances to Dartmouth and Princeton, Zonia ultimately chose Dartmouth because she believed the focus would be on her as an undergrad. Her best friend also accepted a space in the Class of 2016. Zonia welcomed the idea of going to college with someone for whom she deeply cared.

Upon arriving her freshman year, Zonia dedicated herself to her studies. While she also worked to cultivate her social life and relationships among her freshman floor, a large portion of her time was spent studying and building connections with her professors. As a Romance Languages major who is also on the pre-med track, Zonia has had a wide variety of academic experiences in very different departments on campus.

Zonia firmly believes that she has created her own Dartmouth. As a Black woman, she feels that she is not able to participate in mainstream Dartmouth in the same ways in which her non-Black friends can. Though she has always felt safe on campus, Zonia notes that she has proactively taken steps to ensure that she does not place herself in an unsafe position or space. She does not think this should be her responsibility.

I’ve always felt that I don’t get to enjoy this space and exist in this space in the same way that being part of the majority does. Perfect example…My freshman spring I was considering streaking exams. I was studying in Moore with a couple of the Black ‘15s. I said, “I think I’m going to go streak some exams, guys.” The room went quiet for a second and they looked at each other as I was thinking about responding to this group text about going. They were like, “We just want to make sure that you know that if you do that, everybody is going to know who you are. You don’t get the same anonymity of these white people who could streak and then live their life on campus. Everybody will know it’s you.” I think it was Danielle Moore and Nia Fonéy. They was saying, “We were actually talking about this the other day. We realized… even if we streak with bags on our heads, people would still know who we are.”

Zonia recognizes how racially divided Dartmouth is. Even within common study spaces such as First Floor Berry (FFB) and King Arthur Flour (KAF), she can see the divide. An experience in her Geography 1 course showed her how many of her peers choose to overlook this reality.

[The professor] made us do an observation of a space on campus that we go to a lot. She said that in the papers, she was reading the reflections, and a lot of the white students would write about why they’re not going to say anything about race. Like they noticed there was something racially going on, but they’d say, “I’m not going to comment on this because…” So it’s kind of like willful ignorance. Willfully ignoring the fact that campus is racially divided.

As a woman at Dartmouth, Zonia counts herself lucky that she has not had to navigate the hookup and dating culture throughout her four years. She has seen the affects the dating scene has had on her close friends and is grateful to be in a long-term, committed relationship.

I only feel okay because I’ve been in a monogamous relationship for so long. I think if I were to have been on the dating scene for my four years here at Dartmouth, I would be so broken right now. Just because of the way it is. Because of the fact that, you know, being a Black woman on Dartmouth’s campus, I can’t participate in the frat hookup culture the same way that other people do. I’ve talked to my friends about this. I’ve helped them through it. I see how they experience it and I just know that I couldn’t. Not that it’s okay for them either because being a woman on Dartmouth’s campus is really hard. But even beyond that, adding the race factor on top of that makes it… like I can’t do the things they do and if I were to try to do them, it would be even worse for me than them. I feel lucky to have kind of been able to remove myself from that situation. But I feel worried for my friends. I feel worried for the future generation of Dartmouth women because this space also wasn’t built for them and you still feel it on campus.

Zonia has excelled academically at Dartmouth. She has been inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, the nation’s oldest academic honors society. She holds one of the top 20 cumulative grade point averages in the Class of 2016. Though, she has never regretted her decision to attend Dartmouth, feeling grateful to have spent her college years in Hanover, Zonia is also not afraid to critique the college she loves.

Dartmouth needs to know that my success here is in spite of campus, not because of it. There are so many things that could have been done to make it easier, to make me feel more welcome here. I’ve succeeded in spite of all of the challenges here, not because of them. My success is no indication of the fact that things are okay on this campus because they’re not.