When Honiely Aviles '28 joined Dartmouth's Hazing Prevention Coalition, aka D-HPC, she expected conversation about policies and prevention. Instead, she found a broader question at the center of the work: What does it mean to create a community where students feel they belong without having to earn it through risk or harm?
A senator in student government, an Admissions tour guide, and a Sexual Violence Prevention Project facilitator, Aviles came to see hazing prevention not as a set of rules, but as an effort to shape campus culture itself.
"Joining D-HPC, I have begun to look at the prevention work we are doing as a more deliberate and consistent effort to make our campus safe," she says. "Working alongside organizations like StopHazing makes me feel confident in what Dartmouth will build out in the years to come."
The expanded hazing prevention work underway is part of a holistic effort and investment at Dartmouth to increase student well-being, safety, and belonging and to decrease the high-risk behaviors that can derail academic success and, in worst-case scenarios, cause physical, mental, or emotional harm.
A Culture of Prevention and Connection
The question at the heart of this work is simple: What does it actually mean to belong?
"Hazing weaponizes a student's desire to belong, making belonging something that needs to be earned by jeopardizing one's health and safety," Aviles says. "If we focus on these sorts of mindsets that lead to harmful behaviors, students will view hazing prevention as something positive for their community."
The D-HPC draws together more than 16 organizations and departments across the university—spanning student government, Greek life, athletics, residential life, and administrative partners like Health and Wellness, the Department of Safety and Security, and Equal Opportunity, Accessibility, and Title IX. The coalition is developing a comprehensive prevention plan that includes expanded student leadership training, clearer reporting pathways, and deeper prevention program integration across student organizations.
Last fall, Dartmouth formally rejoined the national StopHazing Prevention Consortium, signaling renewed commitment to evidence-based prevention. This spring, Dartmouth took another concrete step by creating and hiring a dedicated hazing-prevention project manager position, designed to support D-HPC and drive implementation of a campus-wide prevention plan. Emily Ellert, who recently joined the Student Wellness Center in that role, said the groundwork she's encountered has been strong.
"I'm thrilled to be joining such a committed team at a pivotal moment," Ellert says. "What excited me most is the data, the partnerships, and the student involvement. My job is to help turn that into lasting change."
To achieve that lasting change, Dartmouth is also taking steps to study and improve the full environment in which students live, socialize, and make decisions about risk.
This spring, the Residential Communities Working Group, convened by Jennifer Rosales, senior vice president for community and campus life and chief student affairs officer, released a report (PDF) offering a comprehensive assessment of Dartmouth's three residential structures: house communities, living learning communities, and Greek life and student societies. The working group drew on a campus-wide survey of 866 students, plus interviews and focus groups.
The findings affirmed that Greek life and student societies draw the highest rating for fostering a sense of belonging while also identifying elevated perceptions of risk in Greek spaces, with students asking for more accessible low-risk events and more sober-friendly environments.
In the past year, the Office of Greek Life and Student Societies strengthened support for students through new leadership and increased staffing to provide enhanced leadership programs, additional coaching, new member education, risk management guidance, and community connection.
The report recommends improvements in all three residential structures including:
- Strengthening cross-class connection and student engagement in house communities
- Building greater consistency in mission, governance, and resources across living learning communities
- Ensuring Greek life organizations are better supported through annual relationship agreements and structured accountability pathways grounded in the belief that organizations are safer when they operate within Dartmouth's purview.
Meetings are underway with School of Arts and Sciences leadership to discuss how the report recommendations can best be implemented.
Sexual Violence Prevention and Substance Use Management
Perhaps no force shapes student behavior more powerfully than peer example. The Sexual Violence Prevention Project has become one of Dartmouth's most far-reaching student education efforts. In the 2025-26 academic year, the SVPP delivered 271 in-person trainings, with 98.5% of all first-year and sophomore students on campus completing their full sequence of sessions.
That participation rate reflects a new process developed in collaboration with Community Standards—a shift from annual to termly accountability check-ins that produced a notable increase in timely, in-person engagement.
Students are not just showing up, they are finding the training useful. Ninety-three percent of first-year participants said the training would be valuable for their peers; 96.5% of sophomores agreed or strongly agreed that it gave them skills they could actually use, according to SVPP data in the Residential Communities Working Group report.
The curriculum builds progressively. This fall, SVPP will launch a required junior-year component. The elective-based model will allow upper-level students to choose a training from four options developed and offered in partnership with the Native American Program, the Office of Pluralism and Leadership, and the Office of Greek Life and Student Societies that aligns with their experiences and interests while still meeting the program's core learning objectives. The design was developed with student input through the Student Advisory Board and reflects a longer-term vision of a continuous four-year sexual violence prevention education for every Dartmouth undergraduate.
"Expanding into junior year provides an opportunity for upper-level students to apply what they have learned as leaders on campus. They set an example for their younger peers. That positive influence is powerful for creating culture change," says Caitlin Barthelmes, executive director of the Student Wellness Center.
Andrew Maguire '26, who was deeply involved in programming with GLASS, says, “When an upperclassman leader normalizes healthy habits—playing pong with seltzer water, calling Good Sam when necessary, treating others with respect, and so on—their underclassmen friends are likely to behave similarly.”
More than 50 students are involved in the SVPP as interns, training facilitators, and advisory board members. That peer presence extends into Greek spaces, where sexual assault peer advisors—Dartmouth students trained in trauma-informed responding—are now embedded in every Greek house. Meanwhile, WISE, a local advocacy organization supporting survivors of sexual and domestic violence, has a campus advocate whose position is funded by Dartmouth providing weekly office hours and confidential support for students, faculty, and staff.
The SVPP team is also leading beyond campus. A six-year research partnership between the Student Wellness Center and the Prevention Innovations Research Center at the University of New Hampshire has culminated in the analysis of five years of SVPP data. Early findings show promising impacts on students' learning and behavior.
In addition, this summer, Dartmouth is piloting an updated Alcohol Management Policy, which was developed with significant input from campus partners and student groups. The policy will take effect in fall term 2026. The updated guidelines provide a clearer framework for event registration and alignment with current regulations. As part of that effort, Dartmouth will continue to make nonalcoholic seltzers readily available at AMP-registered events, reducing opportunities for binge drinking while creating more inclusive social spaces.
Erika Huston '26, former president of Chi Delta, sees this kind of culture-first thinking as the approach most likely to stick. "The best kinds of prevention are those a group of students believe in and are inspired to do, rather than what is enforced by college policy," she says.
Mental Health and Belonging
The prevention efforts do not exist in isolation from the broader context of student life. Dartmouth has been building the infrastructure for campus where well-being is embedded in how students live, and the results are beginning to show.
Through Dartmouth's partnership with the JED Foundation, the university has tracked meaningful shifts in student experience. Among students surveyed through the Healthy Minds Study, those at risk for moderate to severe depression dropped from 33% in 2021 to 24% in 2024, while those at risk for moderate to severe anxiety fell from 27% to 23% over the same period. The share of students who agreed that Dartmouth prioritizes student mental health rose from 47% in 2021 to 72% in 2024.
That shift reflects the ambitions of Commitment to Care, Dartmouth's strategic plan for student mental health. To date, Dartmouth has addressed 63 of the plan's 73 action points. This summer a steering committee, led by Mark Reed, chief health and wellness officer, will develop the next phase of Commitment to Care.
All of these efforts acknowledge that culture changes when students themselves are invested in it.
Huston experienced that culture of care early in her time at Dartmouth. "From my own experiences joining club sports teams, clubs, and my sorority, I have never felt alone. Dartmouth students have an incredible ability to remember what it felt like to be new and unsure of your place—and to tell you as much."