Non-Graduate Loyalty

One who contemplates alumni Fund reports is sure to be more or less bewildered by the percentages cited, but one thing in the two most recent tabulations (for 1941 and 1942) stands out so clearly as to involve no misunderstanding. That is the practically constant proportion of non-graduates who annually participate in the raising of the Alumni Fund. This year, as last, an almost exact quarter, 25 per cent, of the living nongraduates joined in the contribution. That quarter constituted 13 per cent of the total number of contributors; and the money they gave, which totalled $12,964.47, was 7 per cent of the total amount received.

This is a showing which it is felt the College should be proud to record, especially as the virtual duplication of the 1941 figures this year is evidence that non-graduate fealty to the College and readiness to translate that fealty into practical terms tend to be trustworthy constants on which it is reasonable to rely. In other words, the fund managers even in rather abnormal circumstances may count with fair certainty on the fact that of the living nongraduates about one-fourth will participate by contributing to the fund, and that their gifts in the aggregate will furnish slightly less than one-tenth of the total sum collected.

Probably every class that emerges from Dartmouth finds that some of its most steadfastly loyal members are among the men who, for one reason or another, did not receive their degrees when the class graduated or very possibly were not actually with the class for more than a year or two but none the less are as actively interested in class affairs and in the College as are those who were fortunately able to remain with it to the end. "Mortality" among classmates during the course naturally varies and results from a variety of causes which are by no means always scholastic. Illness, straightened resources, death of parents, or a dozen other circumstances may lead to the untimely termination of a man's connection with the College quite as surely as would inability to keep abreast of the scholastic requirements. Presumably it is from the economic casualties that the response chiefly comes when opportunity arises for service of the College or the class.

Rather naturally there have been suggested various ways of making a better recognition of the non-graduate alumni, who differ from graduates only in the fact that the latter won through to their baccalaureate degree while the former were prevented by circumstances not within their control, but without diminishing their love for Dartmouth or their eagerness to participate with their more fortunate fellows in support of the College interests. So far, no very satisfactory solution of the problem has been offered. The A.B. degree is almost never awarded as an honorary distinction. It is a certification of scholastic work duly completed, and when the work has never been completed an award would seem to be inappropriate. Hence, though applications for such award have often been made by classmates on behalf of some thoroughly deserving associate who was prevented from graduating by some especially deplorable mischance, the plea has almost invariably been denied—partly because of the manifest inappropriateness of granting it save at the successful completion of the college course, and partly because acquiescence in some cases would obviously open the floodgates of trouble, through the setting of a precedent sure to lead to embarrassing distinctions among non-graduates.

The problem may, however, be worthy of prayerful discussion, designed to discover some better way than now exists for eradicating invidious distinctions in the multitude of cases where nothing invidious is involved. Not alone in Alumni Fund support but also in a variety of other Dartmouth projects—in fact every activity of the College—are the strength and interest and devotion of these sons felt.

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