HANOVER — With less than a week to go before the start of Dartmouth College’s fall term, rising senior Matt Jachim-Gallagher, of Newport, worked on a friendship bracelet on a bench across from Tuck Mall, where freshman orientation was underway.

As Jachim-Gallagher watched the young newcomers to campus, he contemplated the impending consequences of his own matriculation procrastination.

He has yet to start on his foreign language requirement, nor has he completed the physical education credits needed to graduate. 

On the former, he was leaning toward Latin because  there’s no “drill” — the dreaded, near daily quick-paced components of other language classes. (Call it a dead language perk.)

As for his physical education requirement: “I’ll hopefully get pickle ball.” 

Given the sport’s popularity on the campus, however, he knows it’s no guarantee. “I’m going to fight for it,” he said.  

Language credits and paddle sports aren’t the only unresolved issues heading into the new academic year for Jachim-Gallagher, who is vice president of the Class of 2025’s Council of Class Officers.

After a year of unprecedented upheaval on campus that saw students in conflict with the college administration on multiple fronts, reconciliation feels incomplete, Jachim-Gallagher said.

“I really do think the administration can take steps to building back up trust with students,” he said.

The class council — which is distinct from Dartmouth Student Government — has long tried to meet with administrators, Jachim-Gallagher said. “They’ve canceled on us three times,” he said.

‘That’s not somethingwe forget’

Between crackdowns on pro-Palestinian protests, labor strife with student workers and athletes, and tragedy, the last 12 months have been a challenging time for the Dartmouth community.

This spring, the men’s basketball team became the first group of U.S. college players to unionize and continue to fight for recognition from the college.

In May, graduate student workers went on strike for 59 days.

And at the largest political demonstration on campus in recent memory, President Sian Leah Bieilock’s administration had 89 people, including 63 Dartmouth students, arrested for criminal trespass on the Green. Police, equipped in riot gear, were summoned from across New Hampshire to halt the peaceful pro-Palestinian protest that saw those who were arrested led away in handcuffs and hauled in Dartmouth Outing Club vans to police stations and the Grafton County Sheriff Department’s headquarters.

At commencement in June, tensions were high. Dozens of graduates refused to shake hands with Beilock while receiving their diplomas to protest the college’s handling of the May 1 demonstration.

But as is the case with most higher education institutions, there are built-in timeouts. There’s also turnover — among the faculty, in the makeup of the student body, and in memory too.

It remains to be seen whether the start of classes on Monday will mark a reset, or if lingering resentment and simmering conflict have only been on standby.

“This is always a tactic used by our universities,” said rising junior Roan Wade this week. “They’re able to rely on the fact that we’re transient, that we’re going to leave in four years, to try to wait us out.”

But “when it’s gotten to the level where the university is subjecting its own students to police brutality, that’s not something we forget after a summer vacation,” she said.

Wade has been heavily involved in activism around Palestinian and labor causes at Dartmouth. Wade and rising sophomore Kevin Engel were arrested last fall for pitching a tent on the lawn of  Beilock’s office in protest of the college’s investment in Israeli industry. They have pleaded not guilty to criminal trespass. 

The fresh crop of faces that a new school year brings means that the organizations Wade has dedicated her time to are “putting a lot of investment” into training incoming freshmen and underclassmen to ensure they have “the skills and resources they need to continue this fight,” she said.

“The atrocities in Gaza are continuing,” Wade said. “This while our universities have spent the summer trying to restrict our right to freedom of expression even more.”

Two students were arrested last week at Columbia University in New York City as protests there began anew, and four community members were arrested at a campus event at the University of Michigan last month. 

“We’ve kind of come to the realization I think, both as a campus and as people, along with activists across the country, that there’s no way to actually get the systemic change that we need by conforming to the designated ways to express our dissent,” Wade said. “And so we plan fully on continuing to mobilize.”

The trial for Wade and Engel is scheduled to resume in Lebanon District Court on Oct. 28 – almost exactly a year after their arrests.

Minnesota attorney Kira Kelley, a Hanover High School graduate, is representing them pro bono, which Wade said allows them continue to fight the misdemeanor charge. 

“Kevin and I are low income,” she said. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t have been able to make it this far.”

Still, “we’re not optimistic that the university is going to listen to us,” she said. “We’re not optimistic that the university will reflect on what it’s done over the past year and change it’s ways.”

The college brought in an outside law firm to represent Beilock, who was subpoenaed to testify in the case. Judge Michael Mace, however, denied the college’s attempts to quash the subpoena.

In July, the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire penned an open letter to Beilock, along with University of New Hampshire president James W. Dean, urging the leaders to “publicly (request) that all charges be dismissed against the protesters” in the pro-Palestinian movement. 

While Hanover police prosecutor Mariana Pastore – with legal support from the college – continues to pursue the cases against Wade and Engel, she has opted not to pursue charges against 55 of the 89 people originally charged with criminal trespass on May 1. Pastore has charged the other 34 arrestees with a violation, which is akin to a traffic ticket, but can can still have lasting ramifications for anyone found guilty.

Meanwhile, Beilock, entering her second year in Hanover, has tried to repair her relationships with students. 

The daily student newspaper,The Dartmouth, reported that she has hosted lunches at Pine, the Hanover Inn’s upscale restaurant, for interested students. She invited groups on “Woccoms” – Big Green-parlance for a walk around the college’s Occom Pond.

Abigail Neely is an associate professor in the Geography Department and serves in a student advisory role as a “house professor” for the student body’s School House.

In an email this week, she said that faculty – clear-eyed about the potential complications of the year to come – have been gearing up.

“We (house professors) have been working hard as a...collective to think proactively about programming around our theme of the year — living a meaningful life,” Neely wrote. “We are in dialogue with each other and across different campus constituencies to be prepared to best support students through what will likely be at once an exciting and a challenging fall.”

For its part, the administration sent a letter to campus Thursday afternoon “to highlight one of the fundamental aspects of living and learning in an academic community: our shared commitment to Dartmouth’s core values of freedom of expression and the respectful exchange of ideas,” read the email, which included hyperlinks to the school’s freedom of expression policy and mentioned work done over the summer by faculty-led groups on the policies, and on on “whether, or how, Dartmouth should make institutional statements that take a stand on controversial or current events.”

“Our campus thrives when every member of our community feels empowered to share their perspectives, challenge one another productively, and take part in meaningful dialogue,” continued the email, which counts among its signatories Beilock, Provost David Kotz and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Elizabeth Smith.

“Everyone in our community should feel welcome.”

Working considerations

It’s looking quieter on only some parts of the labor front. This summer saw the ratification of a new contract for GOLD-UE, the union of Dartmouth graduate student workers who walked off the job in protest of what they characterized as low pay and poor benefits.

The two month-long strike ended on July 1 when the union secured a salary bump of $7,000 – drawing their student “stipend” up from $40,000 to $47,000 – as well as annual cost of living adjustments, dental insurance, and protections against unfair treatment.

“This week we’re going to be working on orienting new graduate students into the union,” said Logan Mann, a member of the union, on Tuesday.

Under its new contract, GOLD-UE also received a commitment from the college to expand childcare offerings, and eventually open up access to graduate students. But, it wasn’t as “strong a commitment as we had hoped,” Mann said, adding that the news that Dartmouth is seeking to outsource the childcare center to a third-party, for-profit company has raised concerns among union members.

In the months to come, “we’ll be trying to organize quite a bit to make sure Dartmouth sticks to its commitments and make meaningful contributions to the community,” Mann said.

“In graduate student unions there’s a unique challenge and opportunity of a very high turnover,” he said. “You really have to build in the off season to make sure the union doesn’t atrophy, to make sure new people are aware and engaged.”

There are about 800 GOLD-UE members, with more expected to join this fall, Mann said. 

But the union representing the Dartmouth men’s basketball team remains embattled. Last month, Service Employees International Union Local 560 filed an unfair labor practice complaint against the school over its refusal to negotiate on a collective bargaining agreement. Dartmouth has appealed the complaint.

In a recent public statement, outside lawyers for the college argued  the the regional director of the National Labor Relations Board “made an extraordinary mistake” in determining that the students on the basketball team are in fact employees. “Varsity athletes in the Ivy League are not employees;” the statement continues. “They are students whose educational program includes athletics.”

The summer term also brought tragedy with thecca death of sophomore Won Jang, whose body was recovered from the Connecticut River on July 7.

He had been attending an alcohol-fueled fraternity party that evening hosted by since-suspended Beta Alpha house, of which Jang was a member.

He death has reignited conversations about an issue that has dogged the campus for decades: Greek life and the impact it has on socializing and unsafe behavior.

The Alpha Phi sorority, which was involved in the party, is also suspended and barred from campus recruitment this fall.

On Friday, Hanover police said the state medical examiner’s office had found Jang’s death to be accidental drowning. A toxicology report indicated that Jang’s blood alcohol content was .167 — more than twice the legal limit for driving. The investigation “into the events prior to Jang enterng the river is still ongoing,” police said.

Following Jang’s death, the Department of Safety and Security increased patrols along the waterfront, and added lighting and extra signage to reinforce swimming rules, according to college spokesperson Jana Barnello.

Barnello declined to comment on whether Jang’s death has spurred any new policy from the administration regarding its Greek spaces writ large.

‘Feels like a war’

Any campus chaos aside, Barbara Rosindo, a rising sophomore from Brazil, described her freshman year as tumultuous for “personal reasons.”

“By the time all the protests were happening, I was feeling well-adjusted,” she said this week.

Now, while looking forward to the fall term — particularly rush — Rosindo foresees more trouble ahead for her peers.

“It feels like a war with the student body and the administration, especially with workers,” she said.

Rosindo has been employed by the college as a research assistant and through Dartmouth Dining Services.

She doesn’t relish the conflict, but there has been a sliver-lining, she said.

“This is kind of weird, but because of the distrust in the administration, I feel that students were brought closer,” she said. “There are so many voices shouting, which I think is a good thing, and people are just starting to shout together.”

Still, the march of capital improvement pushes onward. Campus is abuzz with the sound of construction.

Digging for a heating and cooling geo-exchange system, which collects thermal energy from below the earth’s surface, has periodically closed off East Wheelock Street, Fayerweather Hall, Ivy Lane, and ar eas south of Alumni Gym as part of Dartmouth’s $500 million  effort to draw campus carbon emissions down to zero by 2050.

And the front of Collis Student Center is fenced off as workers address deferred maintenance to the building, which is more than 120 years old. For anyone confused, a sign on the opaque construction fencing reads: “COLLIS IS OPEN.”

Frances Mize is a Valley News   correspondent. She can be reached at fmize@vnews.com.