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Dartmouth College

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Baker Winter Dartmouth College

Dartmouth College was established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, a Congregational minister, as a liberal arts college in the rural Upper Valley region of New Hampshire. It is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution, and one of eight members of the Ivy League, an NCAA Division I designation. Classified as a research university, Dartmouth consists of a liberal arts college, the Geisel School of Medicine, the Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences. As of 2014, its undergraduate enrollment was 4,289 students and total enrollment was 6,298 students.

History[]

Dartmouth was founded by Eleazar Wheelock, a Congregational minister from Columbia, Connecticut, who had previously sought to establish a school to train Native Americans as Christian missionaries. Wheelock's inspiration for such an establishment was Mohegan Indian Samson Occom, who was ordained as a minister after studying under Wheelock from 1743 to 1747.

Wheelock founded Moor's Indian Charity School in 1755, which proved somewhat successful, but needed additional financial support to continue school's operations. Its founder sought the help of friends to raise the necessary funds. Occom, accompanied by the Reverend Nathaniel Whitaker, traveled to England in 1766 to raise money from churches. With these funds, they established a trust to help Wheelock. The head of the trust was a Methodist named William Legge, Second Earl of Dartmouth, after whom the school was named.

Although the fund provided ample financial support for the Charity School, Wheelock initially had trouble recruiting Indians to enroll, primarily because its distance from tribal territories. In response, Wheelock relocated the school to New Hampshire with Royal Governor of New Hampshire, John Wentworth, providing the land upon which a new school would be built. On December 13, 1769, a charter was issued in the name of King George III establishing Dartmouth College for the education of Indian youth in reading, writing & all parts of learning which appear necessary and expedient for civilizing & christianizing children of pagans, as well as in all liberal arts and sciences, and also of English youth and any others."

Dartmouth is the nation's ninth oldest college and the last institution of higher learning established under Colonial rule. The school granted its first degrees in 1771.

Black History[]

Earliest Black Alumni[]

Dartmouth College was among the earliest institutions to confer a bachelor's degree to freed slaves and other black or mulatto enrollees. Among the school's alumni are Caleb Watts (Dartmouth College, 1775), the only black to earn an undergraduate degree before the American Revolution, Edward Mitchell (Dartmouth College, 1828), the third black to earn an undergraduate degree as a citizen of the United States, Ernest Everett Just (Dartmouth College, 1907), a founder of Omega Psi Phi fraternity, and Theodore M. Selden (Dartmouth College, 1921) a charter member of the Epsilon of Kappa Alpha Psi. Among its earliest black alumni are the following:

Anti-Slavery Movement[]

The New Hampshire Constitution of 1783 state declared "all men are born equal and independent," with natural rights, "among which are enjoying and defending life and liberty." This proclamation was very close to the language that led, via the courts, to the end of slavery in Massachusetts, but there are no judicial records to indicate that this was construed the end of slavery in the Granite State. The commonly accepted date for the end of slavery in New Hampshire is 1857, when an act was passed prohibiting slavery. By a strict interpretation, however, slavery was outlawed only on December 6, 1865, when the Thirteenth Amendment went into effect (ratified by New Hampshire July 1, 1865). Dartmouth College provided instruction to many leaders of the anti-slavery movement including the following:

  • Thaddeus Stevens (Dartmouth College, 1814) was a Radical Republican who fought against the disenfranchisement of African-Americans. He spoke out against the Compromise of 1850, and, as Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, suggested the Emancipation Proclamation to President Lincoln as the key strategy for the Union winning the American Civil War.
  • Salmon P. Chase (Dartmouth College, 1826) argued before the Supreme Court against the constitutionality of fugitive slave laws. He also argued against the expansion of slavery, and was a leader in uniting anti-slavery Democrats with the dwindling Whig Party, which led to establishment of the Republican Party.
  • Amos Tuck (Dartmouth College, 1835) organized a convention to form an independent movement in support of anti-slavery congressional candidate John P. Hale in 1845. This convention formed "the nucleus of the Republican Party," which fielded Abraham Lincoln, its first presidential candidate.

Civil Rights Movement[]

  • Martin Luther King visited Dartmouth on May 23, 1963, at the invitation of Professor Hugh Morrison, who directed the Great Issues speaker series. The program included a required course for seniors that investigated national and international issues of critical importance of the day. Dr. King's first visit was scheduled for May 1960, but an unexpected court action from the state of Alabama forced him to cancel. A second invitation requested that he deliver a sermon at Rollins Chapel a year later. He arrived in Hanover, New Hampshire on May 20, 1961, however, a freedom ride protest in Birmingham, Alabama, a day earlier resulting in mass violence, caused Dr. King to divert his attention in support of protesters. A third invitation was extended to Dr. King, culminating in his Dartmouth Hall address, Toward Freedom, which spotlighted the rampant racism of the American South, as well as the many inequalities to which African-Americans were subjected nationwide.
  • Malcolm X visited Dartmouth on January 26, 1965, at the invitation of the Undergraduate Council to offer students an alternative viewpoint to that of Martin Luther King, Jr. and James Farmer, both of whom had visited campus previously. His lecture at Spaulding Auditorium was followed by an extended interview on the campus radio station, WDCR. The Dartmouth, the official school newspaper, reported that the civil rights leader promised "A Long, Bloody Summer," and a series of editorials alternated expressions of fear, hostility and admiration. Just a few weeks later, Malcolm X was murdered. In 1970, Cutter Hall on the north side of campus was designated as the home of the Afro-American Society, the school's black student union. Two years later, the society commission noted impressionist Florian Jenkins, to paint a mural cycle on the walls of their dormitory celebrating the life of Malcolm X. In 1993, Dartmouth established the El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz Center for Intellectual Inquiry, an affinity housing and learning program, whose dedication was presided by Betty Shabazz, the wife of the slain leader.

Notable Black Alumni[]

  • Leah D. Daughtry (Alpha Kappa Alpha; Dartmouth College, 1984) is the chief executive officer of the Democratic National Convention (2016) Committee, reprising the role she served in 2008.
  • Derek Sells (Alpha Phi Alpha; Dartmouth College, 1985) is the managing partner for the New York office of The Cochran Firm, which was founded by the late Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr. (Upsilon, 1956).
  • Christopher Williams (Xi, 1977; Kappa Alpha Psi; Tuck, 1984) is the founder and chairman of Williams Capital, the largest and oldest African American-owned investment bank on Wall Street.
  • Shonda Rhimes (Delta Sigma Theta; Dartmouth College, 1992) is a television producer, screenwriter, and the founder of ShondaLand, a television production company. Her award-winning credits include medical drama Grey's Anatomy, political thriller Scandal, and legal thriller How to Get Away With Murder.

Minority Enrollment[]

The undergraduate student population at Dartmouth is 4,289, of which 51 percent is male and 49 percent is female. The black population represents 6.6 percent overall (283 students); for the class of 2019 (1,116 students), the black population is 8 percent (89 students).

Greek Life[]

Overall[]

The Greek system has existed at Dartmouth since 1842, when Psi Upsilon established its Zeta chapter. Today, the school is home to 15 fraternities, 11 sororities, and three co-educational Greek-letter organizations. In 2005, the school stated that 1,785 students were members of a Greek organization, comprising about 43 percent of all students, or about 60 percent of the eligible student body.

National Pan-Hellenic Council[]

The first National Pan-Hellenic Council member organization to be established was Alpha Phi Alpha (Theta Zeta, 1972), followed by Kappa Alpha Psi (Mu Chi; 1982), Alpha Kappa Alpha (Xi Lambda; 1983), Delta Sigma Theta (Pi Theta; 1985), and Omega Psi Phi (1989). Currently, Kappa Alpha Psi, Delta Sigma Theta, and Omega Psi Phi are inactive.

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