This issue sees the inauguration in the DARTMOUTH ALUMNI MAGAZINE of a plan which is now sponsored by the alumni organizations of ninety-three colleges working with the managements of forty hotels for the realization of the Intercollegiate Alumni Hotel plan.
The plan was originated by the alumni secretary of the University of California who conceived the idea of having suitable hotels in various cities of his state act as official headquarters for the alumni of the University. Publicity was given to the plan in the California Alumni Monthly through advertisements paid for by the selected hotels and the plan was so enthusiastically endorsed by the alumni of the University that its association grew in three years from three thousand to eighteen thousand members.
Other California universities copied the plan and in 1924 the alumni secretaries and editors at their annual convention at Lehigh University gave serious discussion to the proposal of extending the system throughout the country. The following year a committee accomplished the organization of the Intercollegiate Alumni Hotel plan. As evolved, this cbntemplated the designation in every large city in the United States and Canada of an intercollegiate alumni hotel. At the hotel was to be maintained a card index of the resident alumni of all the participating colleges and to the hotel were to be sent current copies of the alumlii publications. A suitable shield was designed to be displayed by the hotels in the lobbies with a reproduction of the shield to be used on the stationery of the hotel if it so desired.
A non-profit corporation was formed to administer the plan, the directors of which were alumni secretaries and editors serving without compensation. A small central organization was created to present matters to the hotels throughout the country and to effect the necessary contacts and arrangements indidental to the completion of the work at hand. The hotels were called upon to pay a fee, which fee was to be used for publicity purposes and for organization and material. The alumni organizations were to pay the costs incidental to the disemination of the lists of alumni and in supplying the cooperation necessary to success.
The plan has now been in orperation since September 1926 when it was started with thirty cooperating hotels. Now more than a million alumni in the United States have for their convenience and comfort, facilities which total to a value of more than $40,000,000. Alumni gatherings of all sorts are held in these hotels. The graduate managers of athletics frequently direct their teams to them and some of the hotels have set up small reading rooms in which are contained the index of resident alumni and the alumni magazines of participating colleges. The number of these colleges has now increased to ninety-three.
The following are the hotels now designated as Intercollegiate Alumni Hotels. Attention of Dartmouth alumni is called to this opportunity for extending their acquaintance with the alumni of other colleges when traveling throughout the country.
Albany, N. Y., The Hampton Amherst, Mass., Lord Jeffery Baltimore, Md., Southern Hotel Berkeley, Cal., Claremont Hotel
Bethlehem, Pa., Bethlehem Hotel Boston, Mass., Hotel Bellevue Boothbay Harbor, Me., Sproucewold Lodge Chicago, 111., Blackstone Chicago, 111., Allerton House Chicago, 111., Windermere Cleveland, Ohio, Allerton House Columbus, Ohio, Neil House Detroit, Mich., Book-Cadillac Freno, Cal., Californian Kansas City, Mo., Muehlebach Lexington, Kentucky, The Phoenix Lincoln, Neb., Lincoln Madison, Wis., Park Hotel Minneapolis, Minn., Nicollet Hotel Montreal, Canada, Mount Royal New Haven, Conn., The Taft New Orleans, La., Monteleone New York, N. Y., Roosevelt New York, N. Y., The Warwich, 65 West 54th St. New York, N. Y., The Westbury, 15 East 69th St. New York, N. Y., Waldorf-Astoria Oakland, Cal., Oakland Philadelphia, Pa., Benjamin Franklin Pittsburgh, Pa., Schenley Rochester, N. Y., Powers San Francisco, Cal., Palace Scranton, Pa., The Jermyn Seattle, Wash., Olympic Syracuse, N. Y., Syracuse Toronto, Canada, King Edward Urbana, 111., Urbana-Lincoln Washington, D. C., Willard Williamsport, Pa., Lycoming