CENTER CAMPAIGN OPENS

October Meeting of Alumni Leaders Marks Official Start of Nation-Wide Effort to Raise $4,000,000 For Hopkins Center and Enlarged Physics Building

DARTMOUTH'S campaign to raise 54,000,000 for the Hopkins Center Project was officially launched in late October with a "kick-off" meeting in Hanover of alumni leaders from all over the country.

With that gathering, and the printed report mailed to all Dartmouth men a few days before, the fund-raising phase of the Project came to the fore, where it is expected to remain during the next year or two. With architectural plans nearly complete and the campaign for funds now under way, the third and final big step will be taken when construction actually starts on the $3,500,000 auditorium building and the $500,000 addition to the Wilder Physics Building, which together form the expansion project bearing the name of President-Emeritus Ernest Martin Hopkins.

An extensive organization of Dartmouth men, both on a national and regional basis, has been perfected to carry on the fundraising work for the Hopkins Center. Unlike many colleges and universities which have entrusted their current campaigns to professional fund-raising organizations, Dartmouth, under the joint direction of Trustees and Alumni Council, will rely upon its own alumni and some of its nonalumni friends to do the job.

The national chairman for the Hopkins Center Project is John W. Hubbell '21 of New York, executive of the Simmons Company, who is a member of the Alumni Council and former chairman of the Alumni Fund Committee. The important post of chairman for regional organization is held by Charles J. Zimmerman '23 of Hartford, Conn., assistant managing director of the Life Insurance Agency Management Association, whose organizational skill has been invaluable in laying the basic plans for the campaign. Mr. Zimmerman is past president of the National Association of Life Underwriters and in 1942 was named "Insurance Man of the Year."

Sigurd S. Larmon '14 of New York, president of Young and Rubicam, has accepted the chairmanship of the committee for special alumni gifts. The solicitation by this committee will be confined to only a small portion of the Dartmouth alumni body, since it is the plan of the directors of the Hopkins Center Project to seek the bulk of the necessary funds from sources outside the alumni ranks. Dartmouth alumni, through the annual Alumni Funds of recent years, have already contributed the million and a quarter dollars now in hand for the Center, and it is the definite decision of the national committee that gifts from the rank and file of Dartmouth men should continue to be received through the medium of the long-established Alumni Fund.

Substantial support is counted upon from the parents of Dartmouth men, and to head up this phase of the Project the national committee has been fortunate to secure Lowell Thomas, noted radio commentator, who is the father of Lowell Thomas Jr. '46. Mr. Thomas has for many years been a devoted friend of the College, and his close personal relationship with Mr. Hopkins has been another reason for his willingness to render this service to Dartmouth.

Roswell Magill '16 of New York, former Under Secretary of the Treasury, is also serving on the general committee as national treasurer. Gerard Swope Jr. '29, counsel and manager of the law department of the New York office of International General Electric, has accepted the chairmanship of a special committee to handle the Physics Building portion of the fund-raising campaign. A former physics major at Dartmouth, Mr. Swope will direct the solicitation of contributions from individuals and organizations especially interested in developing this field of science.

Two other young Dartmouth men with special responsibilities on the national committee are Arthur H. Ruggles Jr. '37 of Deerfield, Mass., chairman for class war memorial gifts, and Milburn McCarty '35 of New York, chairman for information. The Class of 1937, of which Mr. Ruggles is treasurer, was one of the first to make plans for a war memorial in the Hopkins Center, and many other classes are expected to follow suit under the coordinating efforts of this special committee. Each interested class will have a member on the committee. Mr. McCarty, one of Dartmouth's most prominent public relations experts, is now vice president of the Douglas Leigh Sky Advertising Corporation.

The man who has carried the heaviest load of work on the Hopkins Center Project and who will continue to give full time to it from his Hanover headquarters is Robert K. Hage '35, executive secretary of the national committee. He joined the administrative staff of the College last March for the purpose of serving as executive officer of the Hopkins Center organization, and he will direct the actual operations of the campaign in coming months in much the same way that the executive secretary of the Alumni Fund gives Hanover direction and coordination to alumni efforts in the annual Alumni Fund.

In addition to the nine men listed above with special responsibilities in the campaign, fifteen other prominent alumni are serving as members-at-large on the national committee. They are Albert Bradley '15 of New York, chairman of the financial policy committee of General Motors; Thomas P. Campbell '18 of Denver, head of the Campbell Investment Company; Channing H. Cox '01, former Governor of Massachusetts, now chairman of the board of the Old Colony Trust Company of Boston; J. Frank Drake 'O2 of Pittsburgh, president of the Gulf Oil Corporation; Edward S. French '06 of Boston, Dartmouth Trustee and president of the Boston and Maine Railroad; Harvey P. Hood '18 of Boston, also a Trustee, president of H. P. Hood and Sons; George H. Howard '07 of New York, former president of the United Corporation; Nathaniel Leverone '06 of Chicago, chairman of the board of Automatic Canteen Company of America; William J. Minsch '07 of New York, Dartmouth Trustee -and President of the investment firm of Minsch, Monell and Company; Basil O'Connor '12 of New York, lawyer and national chairman of the American Red Cross; John C. Sterling '11 of New York, publishing executive with This Week; Martin L. Straus 2nd '18 of Chicago, president of Eversharp, Inc.; John L. Sullivan '21, Secretary of the Navy; Enders M. Voorhees '14 of New York, chairman of the finance committee of the United States Steel Corporation; and Walter F. Wanger '15 of Hollywood, Calif., motion picture producer.

Serving under the national committee, and in a very real sense the key workers in the whole Hopkins Center Project, will be some sixty regional committees, each headed by an alumnus as chairman. The Dartmouth men who have agreed to take on the duties of regional chairmen will be found listed in the tabulation of Project leaders which accompanies this article. In all cases, they are men prominent in Dartmouth alumni affairs and known for their long and active interest in the College. Many of the regional chairmen are present or former members of the Dartmouth Alumni Council.

More than thirty national committee members and regional chairmen gathered in Hanover on October 23 and 24 to discuss Hopkins Center Project plans with College officials and to mark the opening of the campaign for funds. Upon their return to their home cities, the chairmen were scheduled to hold similar "kick-off" meetings with their respective regional committees, after which the work of soliciting gifts for the College was slated to get under way in earnest throughout the country.

The alumni leaders meeting in Hanover were told that a substantial start toward the goal of 14,000,000 already existed in the fund of 11,227,022 which has been accumulated from Alumni Fund surpluses of the past six years and which has been designated for Hopkins Center purposes by vote of the Alumni Council.

They inspected a complete scale model of the exterior of the huge auditorium building which will stand at the southeast corner of the campus, where Bissell Hall is now located, and saw slides of the interior of the building presented and explained by members of the advisory planning committee. President Dickey was a principal speaker and campaign plans were outlined in detail by Mr. Hubbell, Mr. Zimmerman, Mr. Hage and others.

The main piece of campaign literature will be an illustrated brochure on Dartmouth College, entitled "Voices for the Future." It outlines the historical and present-day purposes and achievements of the College, presents a detailed description of the Hopkins Center Project, and stresses the idea that an investment in Dartmouth is "an investment that will bring returns to you, to your community and to the nation."

As supplementary mailing pieces to prospective donors the national committee will also prepare three smaller booklets dealing separately with the musical and dramatic programs o£ the College, which will be vastly improved in the new Hopkins Center, and with the need and plans for expanding the present physics building.

Three days before the campaign leaders gathered in Hanover for their October 23 meeting the Project's executive committee, representing the Trustees, Alumni Council and the national committee, sent all Dartmouth men a printed report on the plans and progress made toward fulfilling the goals set by the Alumni Council in January 1946. "The fulfillment of these plans for necessary expansion," the report stated, "has waited for almost two decades. Although nearly $3,000,000 must still be raised, alumni support already received has encouraged the Board of Trustees to announce that construction on the Hopkins Center and the physics laboratories will begin as soon as building conditions permit."

A message from President Dickey was also a part of the general alumni report. He made the point that the Trustees are agreed that Dartmouth's prime plant needs of an auditorium building and expanded physics facilities must be gotten "without deviating from Dartmouth's first determination, namely, to build and maintain a faculty second to none among the liberal arts colleges."

KEY FIGURES IN HOPKINS CENTER PROJECT: John W. Hubbell '21, national chairman (left), shows Robert K. Hage '35, executive secretary, how high the returns of a successful campaign are expected to reach.

THREE ALUMNI LEADERS serving on the national committee for the Hopkins Center Project are, left to right, Sigurd S. Larmon '14, chairman for special alumni gifts; Roswell Magill '16, national treasurer; and Charles J. Zimmerman '23, chairman for the important regional organization that carries the main responsibility.