UP AND UP

ALUMNI FUND AGAIN SMASHES RECORD WITH 1945 TOTAL OF $337,451

DARTMOUTH'S 1945 Alumni Fund has put another severe strain upon the available supply of unused superlatives. Near-final figures on July 17 showed a total of 1337,451.29, for a new high mark in the Fund's 31-year history and a sizable margin over the 1945 goal of $300,000. This figure represents 112% of the campaign's cash objective and also marks the first time that the Fund has-gone into the $300,000 bracket. It is approximately $53,000 greater than the previous record set last year, when .results were called "incredible."

The number of contributors to this year's Fund was 13,347, a total second only to last year's record-smashing 13,509. The drop of 162 gifts is largely attributable to the greater number of Dartmouth men now in service and their much wider distribution throughout the world. The participation index under this year's new scoring system was 78%. In figuring the percentage of contributors the Fund now uses the total of living graduates plus one-third of the College's non-graduates, the latter group approximating the proportion of non-graduates who have contributed to the Fund in recent years.

The 1945 Alumni Fund results, coming at this uncertain period in Dartmouth's history, have been hailed as an unparalleled example of alumni devotion and awareness of College needs and hopes. Joshua A. Davis '37, Fund chairman, declared that this year's Fund results "constitute a record beyond anything we had a right to expect," and paid warm tribute to the Class Agents who made the record possible.

President Hopkins also expressed both pride and gratitude in the following message to the Class Agents:

My pride in belonging to the Dartmouth family was never so far beyond my ability to express it as now after studying the Alumni Fund figures for 1945. The final answer has been given, I think, to the question in the minds of many as to the possibilities of survival of the privately endowed undergraduate college of liberal arts under postwar conditions. Cumulatively, likewise, year by year answer is being given in this Fund, and never more dramatically than now, to those who in the past have questioned wherein lay the primary interest of the alumni body in the College. It is not to be unnoticed that this annual gift to Dartmouth is proffered by the alumni for the general purposes of the College without prescription or restriction of any kind in regard to its use. Speaking as representative of the operating force of the College, those on the ground in Hanover who in classroom and office strive to make Dartmouth's accomplishment of maximum significance, I can say no more than a simple word of gratitude to the thousands who in solicitude for the adequacy of Dartmouth's resources, and not infrequently in self-sacrifice, have made this result possible. Surely it is permissible for us to say of our College as has been said in another relationship that Dartmouth is not loved because she is great but she is great because she is loved.

In the adjoining columns the class standings with respect to percentage of objective are tabulated. Of the 65 classes to which cash objectives were assigned this year, 57 surpassed them. The Class of 1918 led all others in dollar totals, its $14,173.54 constituting a new high mark for an individual class. Close behind in money contributed were 1925 with $13,322.00 and 1923 with 111.093.75. Three classes above the ? 10,000 mark this year was something new in Fund history. Whereas only three classes attained the $8,000 figure last year, nine went beyond that .mark in the 1945 campaign, and 15 classes exceeded $7,000 compared with eight last year.

Nine classes this year had a participation index of 100% or better, led by 1886 with 200% and including 1900 with 172%, 1890 with 168%, 1887 with 165%, 1892 with 135%, 1884 with 130%, 1901 with 118%, 1898 with 102% and 1889 with 100%. If the former system of scoring participation on the basis of only living graduates had again been used this year, a much larger group of classes would have been listed within the perfect circle of 100% or better.

In total givers, 1941, which last year led all classes with 479 contributors, again came through in first place with 462 gifts. Second honors went to 1938 with 422 contributors, followed by .1923 with 419, 1928 with 409, 1940 with 403, and 1930 with 399. A total of 22 classes had better than 300 contributors this year.

The 1945 Green Derby winners, dettermined on the basis of combined percent of participation and percent of objective, were the following classes and class agents: Group I (1898-1907)—1900, Clarence G. McDavitt; Group II (1908-1917)—1917, Karl W. Koeniger; Group 111 (1918-1926) 1918, Richard A. Holton; Group IV (1927-1935)—1930, Alex J. McFarland; Group V (1936-1943)—1940, Jack Rourke; Little Green Derby (1944-1948)—1947, Edward P. Scully.