The President’s Office—A Site for Occupation and Student Resistance

In 1967, a group of students occupied the President’s office protesting the College’s investment in Eastman Kodak, a photography company that had refused to hire black employees. Two years later, 40 Dartmouth students took over the Parkhurst Administration building in protest of the College’s ROTC policies during the Anti-War Movement. In 2014, about 40 students occupied President Phil Hanlon’s office demanding a point by point response to the Freedom Budget—a document including more than 70 demands for transformative justice at Dartmouth for marginalized students. The images of each of these demonstrations across nearly 60 years of Dartmouth history are striking—students have continued to occupy the President’s office as well as the Parkhurst administrative building in response to College policies, reactions, or inaction. In physically occupying this space, students have commanded the attention of the College. We also chose to highlight the different student demands from the Afro-African Society in 1979 and the demands listed in the Freedom Budget in order to show the permanency of these concerns. Issues surrounding the enrollment of minority students and the recruitment and retention of minority faculty across departments plague Dartmouth’s current climate. Time and time again, the administration responds to these concerns by commissioning diversity reports and piloting working groups. When the Afro-American Society presented the administration with a list of demands, the College worked with students and reached agreements on many of these pleas. This kind of administrative accountability is essential to creating a truly diverse and inclusive Dartmouth community.

Further reading:

http://thedartmouth.com/2014/04/02/students-occupy-parkhurst-demand-point-by-point-response-to-freedom-budget/

http://thedartmouth.com/2016/02/12/activism-at-the-college-a-history-in-many-parts/