Northern Studies

The program of northern studies to which Dr. James and President Dickey referred in their comments about the Stefansson library has been mentioned previously in these columns only in the most general terms. The project was given •substance and more definite form last month with the appointment of Prof. Robert A. McKennan '25, anthropologist and member of the sociology department, as director of the program and the naming of a faculty planning committee and also of an advisory panel.

These appointments by President Dickey represented a major step in advancing an interdivisional program where the work of undergraduates may be directed toward the Arctic. As demand for information about the North builds up in the College, the project will coordinate work on the northern frontier now offered in separate courses in the various fields of the college curriculum.

During the last five years Dartmouth has been gradually moving in the direction of greater emphasis upon such studies. It possesses unique physical assets for the accomplishment of this objective. Among these are Dartmouth-at-Moosilauke, the College Grant, a 27,000-acre tract of woodland in extreme northern New Hampshire, and ownership of the summit of Mount Washington.

For the last two years the Dartmouth Outing Club has been conducting an arctic program of weekly meetings and field trips. This year's series was on "Cold Weather Problems." And this semester Dartmouth has introduced an Arctic Seminar as a part of the curriculum.

In recognition of this student-faculty interest and to assist in the development of a coordinated program, the College has established a planning committee and an advisory panel. Most members of the two groups have actually had northern experience and have been active in a formal or informal" way in the northern studies for some years.

Professor McKennan, an anthropologist, has been interested in far northern peoples. During the war he served with the Air Force in Alaska and Canada, and was a co-author of several military reports and manuals dealing with Alaska and arctic survival. He has recently written articles on the Athapascans of both Alaska and Canada for the Encyclopedia Arctica, now being prepared.

The committee members, in addition to Professor McKennan, are: Trevor Lloyd, Professor of Geography; Richard W. Morin '24, College Librarian; and Richard E. Stoiber '32, Professor of Geology. David C. Nutt '41, arctic specialist, worked with the committee before he left for Labrador in March.

Members of the advisory panel are: W. Wedgwood Bowen, Director of the College Museum; Lt. Col. William C. Chase, Professor of Military Science and Tactics; Richard H. Goddard '20, Professor of Astronomy and Director of the Shattuck Observatory; Elmer Harp Jr., Assistant Professor of Sociology; Col. Jack C. Hodgson, Professor of Air Science and Tactics; William P. Kimball '28, Dean of the Thayer School of Engineering; Andrew H. McNair, Professor of Geology; John A. Rand '38, Executive Director of the Dartmouth Outing Club; Dr. Vilhjalmur Stefansson, Arctic Consultant to the Museum; Dr. Rolf C. Syvertsen '18, Dean of the Dartmouth Medical School; Capt. Thomas H. Tonseth, Professor of Naval Science; and Arthur M. Wilson, Professor of Government.