Unprecedented Challenge for Alumni Fund

KEYED TO DARTMOUTH'S undiminished efforts in the crisis and accorded an unprecedented importance in the long history of the Alumni Fund, the 28th annual Fund campaign got off to a strong start last month. An extra edition of The Dartmouth, carrying a message from President Hopkins and summarizing the College's war program, was mailed to all alumni as the opening communication from the Fund Committee of the Alumni Council, and early returns to Fund headquarters in Hanover are indicating that alumni, aware of the College's unusual need, are willing to meet the 1942 challenge.

An encouraging feature of the early returns has been the high percentage of gifts from men in the armed services. Bertram R. MacMannis, Class Agent for 1939, reported at the New York dinner for Agents that 80 per cent of his returns to date have been from classmates in the service and that their gifts represent a 30 per cent increase in amount over last year. The Fund's only problem in connection with the large number of alumni in the Army, Navy and Marines is that of reaching them, and in the solution of this problem the Fund Committee is asking the cooperation of families and is sending all communications by first-class mail.

Friends of the College who contributed to the Hopkins Fund last year have in a number of cases sent unsolicited gifts to Dartmouth in recognition of great financial need and in tribute to the leadership which Dartmouth has taken in adjusting higher education to war demands. Continuing interest on the part of parents of undergraduates and recent alumni has also been evidenced early in the campaign, and at present a committee of such parents to aid the Fund is being organized by William H. Coulson, honorary member of the Class of 1918 and father of Dartmouth sons in the Classes of 1939 and 1940.

Class Agents are once again "running the show" in the Fund drive. They are setting their own class objectives this year, and in most cases are aiming at totals roughly 10 per cent ahead of last year. Agents' dinners in Boston, New York and Chicago were held early last month, and on the week-end of May 15-16 the Class Agents will gather in Flanover, where a proposal for a permanent organization similar to those of the secretaries and treasurers will be considered.

Symbolically, the Agents carried through their New York meeting despite a blackout. Between fifty and sixty men gathered there, with a similar number at Boston and about thirty at Chicago. Chairman Harvey P. Hood II '18 and Albert I. Dickerson '30, executive secretary, spoke at all three dinner meetings, outlining plans for the campaign and expressing confidence in the answer which Dartmouth men would give to 1942's challenge.

In addition to Mr. Hood and Mr. Dickerson, this year's Fund Committee of the Alumni Council includes Henry E. Atwood '13, Thomas D. Cunningham '13, Edward E. Martin '19, and William R. Abbott Jr. '27. They will make a second general appeal before the campaign closes June 30.