Generations of Community
Dartmouth can be envisioned as a universe of communities. There is the singular community of everyone who has ever been involved with Dartmouth. There are also many communities that have existed within this universe across the College’s history, and they are the focus of this exhibit. Generations of Community explores the ways in which fellowship has and has not been manifest throughout the history of the College. How have people at Dartmouth connected with each other? Where do they find meaningful communities? What does the concept of fellowship mean across different facets of campus (and post-campus) life? In what ways have communities at Dartmouth been inclusive, and in what ways have they been exclusive?
You can view “Generations of Community” in the Baker Library Main Hall. The exhibition will be up from July 3 until September 18.
Curators' Statement
In curating this exhibit, we spent many hours in Rauner Special Collections Library learning about Dartmouth’s history. We were faced with 250 years of history and many generations of students, and the desire to represent that in an exhibit with only a few dozen objects. We knew that it would be impossible to be comprehensive in creating this exhibit, and that some facets of campus life would not be represented. In deciding which objects and stories to include, we sought to highlight a diverse range of Dartmouth student and alumni experiences.
Dartmouth has experienced many changes over the past century, and so we were particularly interested in showing the ways that communities have evolved in these times. We selected stories that focused on the ways that communities have formed and changed and how students have found fellowship at Dartmouth. We hope that you will find stories that resonate with you and that you will be inspired to reflect on how you find and participate in your Dartmouth communities.
We are grateful to the Rauner staff for helping us to understand and explore the College’s archival collections. We are particularly thankful to our advisor, Caitlin Birch, Digital Collections and Oral History Archivist, for her invaluable guidance on this project.
"Generations of Community" was curated by Katie Harding and Shaun Akhtar. Project advised by Caitlin Birch. Exhibit design by Dennis Grady. Omeka exhibit by Joshua Dacey and Madeline Miller.