THE COLLEGE
BY the time this issue is in alumni hands Dartmouth College will have launched No. 183 in its long and unbroken skein of academic years. October 1 is the official starting date, but the administrative wheels have been busily turning since early September, the library and faculty offices are well populated, and only the inrush of students remains to be experienced before the summer hiatus begins to seem like something that never happened at all. On the eve of its opening the new college year holds the prospect of being a lot more stable than anyone would have guessed a year ago. It is a cautious optimism that pervades the College as it again takes up its work, but, then, that is the only sort of optimism vouchsafed to anyone these days.
Summer Summary
HANOVER'S summer, on the whole, was quiet—except for the sound of rain on the roof. The moisture content of July and August was unusually high; local statisticians report 42 days of rain between July 1 and Labor Day. But in between these bouts of precipitation Hanover put forth days of summer splendor that were close to perfection and that were genuinely appreciated when they happened. The warm summer sun or the twilight glow on Dartmouth Hall when it is surrounded by the deep green of lawns and elms is a memorable sight, and it always seems too bad that students do not have the chance to know Hanover in a season that many consider its loveliest.
Students were going to be in town this summer, for a change, but the extra term was cancelled last spring when Selective Service policy regarding college students was clarified. Their place was taken after a fashion by a steady flow of tourists through town. Plain observation seemed to indicate that there were more visitors than ever before, and figures kept by the two student guides at the information booth in front of Robinson Hall came out well ahead of those compiled last year. It happens every year, and this year to us: a motorist stopped his car near Crosby Hall and asked,
"Where is Dartmouth College?" Among the familiar summer sights were the camp groups, togged out in their uniforms (nearly always green and white), trailing across the campus behind one of the student guides. Also encountered frequently were the groups touring New England by bus and stopping off in Hanover to see the Orozco Murals and to imbibe a bit of Dartmouth lore.
Among those who came and stayed a while were four summer conference groups. From June 26 to 29 Dartmouth was host to the 32nd annual conference of the Country Day School Headmasters Association. Some fifty headmasters from all parts of the country met in Hanover for the discussion of common school problems. They and their wives were housed in both Russell Sage Hall and the Hanover Inn and were guests of President and Mrs. Dickey at a reception and dinner.
From August 5 to 18 the Graduate School of Credit and Financial Management, sponsored by the National Association of Credit Men, was back at Tuck School for two weeks of intensive work. The 160 business executives enrolled this year considerably outnumbered the 106 who were in Hanover for the Graduate School last summer. Then from September 5 to 7 the Tuck School played host to a three-day Northern New England Accounting Study Conference, sponsored by the American Institute of Accountants. These sessions attracted 120 accountants from New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine and Massachusetts. Also in early September the College made its facilities available to 150 representatives of federal and state agencies in the New England and New York areas for a two-day meeting of the New England-New York Inter-Agency Committee. This was the fourth regional gathering of the Inter-Agency Committee, organized last year at the suggestion of President Truman to make a comprehensive study of the development, utilization and conservation of land, water and related resources in the seven-state area. Governor Sherman Adams '2O welcomed the group to New Hampshire at the opening session on September 6. All three of these summer conference groups were housed in Dartmouth dormitories and were fed at the Hanover Inn.
The summer had its sad side, too, and this was occasioned by the cutting down of six of the big campus elms and a like number of the town trees. Despite unsparing efforts to protect the elms with DDT spray and periodic inspections, twelve of them were killed by the American Elm 'bark beetle and had to be taken down. The last serious devastation by these bark bettles occurred about twelve years ago, after the trees were weakened by the hurricane. The dryness of the past three years has weakened the trees again, according to Gordon Clough, who looks after the elms for both the College and town; and dead wood deposited on the river bank as an aftermath of Wilder Dam operations has helped to give the beetles a local foothold. One thankful note in the endless battle to preserve Hanover's trees is that there is no sign of the dreaded Dutch Elm disease.
The mightiest of the campus elms to go down was the historic Webster Elm near Rollins Chapel. It was on a bulletin board attached to this huge tree that college notices used to be posted. A count of tree rings showed that the Webster Elm dated from the 1790's.
The Enrollment Outlook
AT this mid-September writing the Dartmouth Outing Club is putting the final touches on its preparations for the arrival on September 22 of some 160 freshmen who are coming to town four days early in order to take part in the annual outdoor introduction to Dartmouth life. Divided into two groups, under D.O.C. student leaders, the freshmen will make a synchronized swing around part of the cabin chain and will all spend some time at Mt. Moosilauke Ravine Lodge where they will be greeted informally by President Dickey, Dean Stearns Morse, Director of Admissions Albert I. Dickerson '30, and other college officers.
The semi-chubbers of 1955 will be back in Hanover in time to join the rest of their classmates for the September 26 meeting at which the new class will come into corporate being. This year's entering class of approximately 760 men will have clear title to being the biggest class in Dartmouth's history. If all those whose deposits have been paid and whose names remain on the active list actually arrive for matriculation, 1955 will number about 35 more men than the Class of 1952 which started off freshman year with 724 men and the Class of 1945 which had 723.
The size of the freshman class will somewhat offset the expected shrinkage of approximately 150 men in the upper classes. The Registrar's Office is hazarding a guess of about 2,700 for total enrollment for the fall semester. This compares with 2,813 men enrolled last September. Estimating enrollment before the students actually register is especially "iffy" this year, however, for there is no way of telling how individual men have fared with their local draft boards over the summer. Requests for official statements as to where men stand scholastically in their respective classes arrive daily in the offices of the Dean and Registrar, indicating that many Selective Service cases are still up for review on the eve of the opening of the college year.
What's New?
THE answer to this question is "Quite a lot." In the interests of national defense, Dartmouth this fall has a new Army ROTC Unit and a new Air Force ROTC Unit in addition to the Navy ROTC Unit that has been a part of the College since the end of World War II. The Department of Russian Civilization joins thirty other academic departments with the start of the new college year. Freshman Commons in College Hall is no more—at least for the time being—and freshmen will take their meals in Thayer Hall with the upperclassmen this year. And one should not forget to mention the new William Jewett Tucker Foundation which has been established to promote the moral and spiritual values in Dartmouth's work and which is the subject of the lead article in this issue.
The number of students who will be enrolled in the three ROTC programs is expected to exceed 1,000. Except in the Navy Unit, which has had six years of consecutive operation, the ROTC enrollment will come largely from the freshman class; although new policies announced over the summer will make it possible for more upperclassmen to enroll in the Air Force Unit than was at first expected. The First Air Force area, embracing the northeastern states, will seek 21,000 to 25,000 freshmen this fall, or 37% of the goal for the country as a whole, it was announced in August. Estimating a breakdown of total enrollment for the three Dartmouth Units is an even more uncertain business than guessing the size of the Dartmouth student body this fall, but at one point this summer, we can report, it was thought that the Army ROTC Unit might have about 450 men, the Navy 350 and the Air Force 300. Since then, however, the new Air Force policy has been announced.
The appointment of Lt. Col. William B. M. Chase, USA, a graduate of West Point in 1937, as commanding officer of Dartmouth's Army ROTC Unit was announced in our June issue. New commanding officers for the other two Units have reported to Hanover during the summer months. To replace Capt. Willard M. Sweetser, USN, as head of the Navy ROTC Unit, Capt. Murvale T. Farrar, USN (Annapolis '33), has come from the Portsmouth Naval Yard, where he was administrative officer. Also newly arrived as commanding officer and professor is Col. Jack C. Hodgson, USAF, who heads the Air Force ROTC Unit. Captain Farrar, who served aboard the battleship Nevada and the aircraft carrier Lexington, was planning officer on the staff of the Commander of Amphibious Forces in the Southwest Pacific. After the war he was in command of the Naval Ordnance Plant at Baldwin, N. Y„ and then headed the Navy ROTC Unit at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute until last year. Colonel Hodgson, who has been in the service since 1916 and in the Air Force since 1923, came to Hanover from Mitchel Air Force Base, N. Y., where he was Air Liaison Officer for the First Army. During World War II he was senior military attache to the American Embassy in Ottawa and later commanded the U. S. Army Forces in Canada.
Aside from the courses to be offered by the two new Departments of Military Science and Tactics and of Air Science and Tactics, curriculum developments this fall are related almost entirely to the Department of Russian Civilization which makes its bow when classes resume on October 1. The program of Russian studies initiated at Dartmouth last year has been expanded into this new department which will offer the first inter-divisional major in the College's history. Of special interest among the Russian Civilization courses open to general election is the new one-semester "Introduction to the Soviet Union." Nearly 100 men have elected the introductory course for the fall semester, and the number of men taking the intensive Russian language course has doubled, necessitating the scheduling of two sections. The enrollment in these courses, which are elementary requirements for the major, indicates that a number of men are looking ahead to the new inter-divisional major, to be taught not only by the Russian Civilization staff but also by professors from the social science departments of history, government, economics, sociology and geography.
Another piece of the answer to "What's new?" is the decision to close down Commons in College Hall and to transfer freshman meals to Thayer Hall, beginning this fall. The consolidation of both freshman and upperclass board in Thayer Hall is being effected as an economy move. The large cafeteria will be operated as the new Freshman Commons, while cafeteria facilities in the Colonial Room will be available to upperclassmen on a voluntary basis. An innovation this year in connection with the upperclass cafeteria is the requirement that meals there be taken by the half-semester rather than by the week or by the single meal as in the past. Single meals may still be obtained in the Hovey Grill, but the Colonial Room will be open only to those who elect the new half-semester plan. Under this plan, upperclassmen will have the further option of contracting for their meals on the basis of either seven or five days a week. By adopting the new upperclass arrangement, the College expects to effect economies in both food and labor costs and to avoid waste, thus making it possible to serve better meals at lower cost than would otherwise be possible. The full seven-day rate for both freshmen and upperclassmen in Thayer Hall this year is $220 a semester.
All Dartmouth Dining Association operations are now under the direct management of Miss Jeanette Gill, who for many years has been in charge of the dining room of the Dartmouth Outing Club House. Besides Thayer Hall, the DDA also operates Stell Hall at Tuck School.
Building Report
OVER the summer the new wing at the north end of Wilder Hall was completed and made ready for the opening of college. The added laboratory and classroom space, together with the workshop wing finished last year, fully answers Dartmouth's need for enlarged facilities for the teaching of physics. The north section of the main building has been remodeled so as to tie in better with the new wing, and although this work is not yet completed, it is progressing rapidly and will soon put the finishing touches on a bigger and better Wilder Hall.
By far the biggest construction job on the Hanover scene these days is the expansion of the Mary Hitchcock Hospital. Following completion of a new nurses' residence and cafeteria building, work this year has centered on the $2,000,000 Faulkner House, which will add 120 more beds to the hospital, plus modern surgical, administrative and doctors' facilities. The exterior structure of Faulkner House is now being completed, and the new unit is expected to be ready early in 1952.
Nothing going on in Hanover this summer attracted as much interest, sentimental or otherwise, as the building progress on the new Nugget on South Main Street. The town's movie house, plush beyond the dreams of those who frequented the original, garage-like theatre on Wheelock Street, opened its doors on September 24. Just for old time's sake, the first movie shown was a Charlie Chaplin silent film, and Bill Cunningham '19 was at the piano, just as he was when the original Nugget opened in 1916. The present undergraduates, who have never known a real Nugget since the Wheelock Street firing range burned down in 1944, have a pleasant surprise in store when they head for the "flicks" on South Main Street. The comfortable, glistening, acoustically perfect theatre has set the Hanover Improvement Society back a handsome sum, but nothing was ever more appropriately named than The Nugget, and as long as students are around, business will be brisk.
"The Dartmouth Plan"
SINCE it was established by the Trustees in 1949 the Dartmouth Development Council has been busy and has produced many needed dollars for the College. It has not gone full speed ahead, however, because this initial period of its operations has had to be devoted also to the careful formulation of a long-range policy for Dartmouth's overall fund-raising efforts. This month, in a progress report from the Development Council's chairman, H. Richardson Lane '07, a definite "Dartmouth Plan," as evolved by the Council and approved by the Board of Trustees and the Alumni Council, is being announced.
As it affects the alumni, perhaps the most interesting of the four parts of the plan is the inauguration of a class bequests program in each of the classes more than 25 years out of college. This new activity will move to the fore after each Class Memorial Fund campaign terminates with the 25th Reunion. Dartmouth's present endowment has come largely from bequests, and the permanent support of the College through the steady addition of such gifts is accorded top importance by the Development Council as it now moves ahead to put "The Dartmouth Plan" into effect. This phase of the program will be actively directed by Nichol M. Sandoe '19 of New York, chairman of the Alumni Council's Committee on Bequests.
As outlined by Mr. Lane, the other parts of the Development Council's overall plan are (i) effective maintenance and development of the Alumni Fund and Class Memorial Fund programs, (2) a new regional organization of alumni for the solicitation of capital gifts from alumni and nonalumni donors, and (3) the seeking of gifts from non-alumni sources, including individuals, foundations and corporations. The overall financial goal for the next five to ten years is the increase of Dartmouth's endowment by an annual average of §1,500,000 to $2,000,000, over and above anticipated growth of annual gifts for current use from the Alumni Fund.
Miscellany
ALL four of the 1951 summer conferences Ix. rolled into one will seem like child's play next June 22-28, when some 2,000 persons invade Hanover for the annual national conference of the American Society for Engineering Education. Thayer School of Engineering will be host for this big gathering of the top engineering education society in the country.
The Hanover Inn has just announced the dates for its annual ski school: December 26 to 31. Rates and other details can be obtained by writing to the Inn.
The addition of the Class of 1951 has pushed the number of living Dartmouth alumni past the 25,000 mark for the first time. Of the August 1 total of 25,295 alumni, 24,379 are men who matriculated in the undergraduate college.
COMMANDING OFFICERS of Dartmouth's three ROTC Units this year are (I to r) Lt. Col. William B. M. Chase, USA, who directs the Army ROTC program; Capt. Murvale T. Farrar, USN, newly appointed commandant of the Naval ROTC Unit; and Col. Jack C. Hodgson, USAF, who came to Hanover last month to head the new Air Force ROTC Unit.
