THE COLLEGE

As spring moved up the valley, engaging in probing actions before the big breakthrough and suffering what looked like a serious setback when a blanket of snow greeted Hanover on the morning of April 20, the College last month was kept well aware of colder days and regions through a series of announcements and events related to the North. The news front at least was still held securely by wintry forces.

The announcements were of Dartmouth's permanent acquisition of the famous Stefansson library on the polar regions and of the appointment of Prof. Robert A. McKennan '25 as director of the College's Northern Studies Program. Supplementing these developments in a project that gives Dartmouth a new kind of educational leadership, Colonel Bernt Balchen, USAF, world famous arctic explorer, arrived in mid-April, as the emissary of General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, to evaluate the Northern Studies Program for the Air Force. A few days after Colonel Balchen left, pleased with what he had learned, Commander David C. Nutt '41, USNR, of the Dartmouth Museum returned from his second winter expedition to Labrador, with the report that the Arctic had experienced one of the mildest winters on record. With snow then on the ground in Hanover, it sounded as though spring had made an amphibious landing far behind the lines. Hanover was ready to surrender.