Heat and Hubbub
The stereotyped description of mid-September has the freshmen bringing the summer calm to an end. But this year there never was a summer calm, unless one speaks relatively; there was too much going on in Hanover from late June until the middle of September.
As a sort of mobile backdrop for the summer's events, the tourists poured through Hanover in greater numbers than ever before. Spud Bray, who was inveigled away from White River Junction to run the Hanover-College information booth in front of Robinson Hall (see Page 95), kept careful statistics which are not immediately at hand, but the figures add up to the main point that a record number of persons visited the campus this summer, using the student guides or browsing about the College on their own. The Carpenter art galleries were kept open as a successful innovation, and Baker Library and the Orozco murals were, as always, a main attraction.
While some fifty visiting scholars from widely scattered institutions made use of Baker's facilities for most of the summer, four different conference and study groups also were guests of the College for varying periods. The 60th annual meeting of the American Society for Engineering Education, June 23 to 27, brought approximately 1800 persons to Hanover for the largest educational gathering of the sort ever held at the College. Dartmouth's dormitory, dining and conference facilities were taxed to the limit, but the fiveday meeting went off smoothly and a flood of complimentary post-conference mail was a tribute to the careful planning and hard work of the local committee headed by Dean Kimball of Thayer School.
The Social Science Research Council had two separate study groups at Dartmouth for a two-month period, beginning late in June; and from August 3 to 16 the Graduate School of Credit and Financial Management held its third consecutive session at the Tuck School, with approximately 190 business executives enrolled. The final group to which the College played host was the 12th Brookings Institution Seminar, which held a series of meetings and discussions, September 4 to 11 on international relations and some of the problems of U. S. foreign policy. This last conference produced its own special excitement when one of the government consultants chose his Middle Mass dormitory room as the place in which to commit suicide by hanging.
For Buildings and Grounds the summer was a period of general refurbishing and some construction, none of which could be classified as major. The Dartmouth was deprived of one of its perennial editorial gripes when new lighting was installed in Baker Library. A scientific job, handled by a firm of lighting experts, covered all the study areas except the Reserve corridor and the Tower Room, where experimentation with custom designed fixtures will be carried on for a couple of months before a final choice is made. The finished areas include the main lobby, the periodical and reference rooms, the map library, the 1902 Room, the reserve reading room, and nearly all the stack space. The Public Affairs Laboratory of the Great Issues Course was done earlier.
The Freshman and Admissions Office in Parkhurst Hall was completely remodeled with new ceiling, Boor and lighting. Office space was re-partitioned and improved, and new furnishings provided for the staff and reception areas.
Awaiting the students in the basement of College Hall was the new Snack Bar, proposed last spring by the Undergraduate Council as a means of meeting to some extent the need lor attractive social headquarters lor students and their guests. The main attraction is the large downstairs room with a soda fountain and sandwich bar, operated by the DDA, and tables and chairs for approximately 75 persons. The room has a colorful, modern decor designed by Barbara LeSourd, Hanover decorator. In addition to the new Snack Bar, the main floor of Dartmouth House has been done over and now provides separate rooms for pool, ping-pong and cards, a powder room for feminine guests, and an amplifying system so dances can be held in the old Freshman Commons. The new social facilities fall far short of what is proposed for the Hopkins Center, but they nevertheless are a helpful step toward filling a major need in undergraduate life.
The athletic plant also received some improvement over the summer. The brick end walls of the west football stands were replaced with walls of reinforced concrete, and the stadium aisles were given painted numbers for easier seating arrangements. The high-jump pit and shotput area were relocated at the south end of Memorial Field, bringing together all the field events, and the varsity baseball diamond was completely resurfaced.
