"The Individual and the College"

DARTMOUTH'S LATEST GROWING POINT

You wouldn't explore the headwaters of the Amazon River without first talking to persons who might have been there and reading beforehand about how to negotiate the trek, what to take, what not to take, and what kinds of flora and fauna to watch out for. You would try to find out ahead of time all the other details that would spell the difference between a happy, successful and rewarding adventure, and one that would be a trial from start to finish.

Dartmouth College this fall inaugurates a new freshman one-semester course, called The Individual and the College, that is designed to do much the same thing for students starting out on a four-year safari through the fascinating and limitless land of learning. If their trek here is successful, they'll be happily journeying for the rest of their lives.

How often, in talking with persons who have graduated from college, not just Dartmouth but any institution of higher learning, have you heard them say, "I wasted the first year or so of my college education before I really began to understand what it was all about." Or how often have you heard, "If I'd only been told how to go about this business of obtaining a college education, college in its main purposes would have been much more rewarding to me."

Prof. Carl D. England, chairman of the committee in charge of the course, has mapped out with the committee a complete "explorers' guide" of what lies ahead for the men of 1958 and succeeding classes. But his group has done more than merely describe the flora and fauna and the excitements and adventures to be found in these new lands. They have also described, in part, how students may react to the sights they will see and experiences they will have on their journeys.

But this course won't make decisions for students. The committee recognizes that education is a very personal thing, and while you may help a student to narrow his choice of the stream branch he will take, he must in the end make his own selection, and once having made it, each must paddle his own canoe. As President John Sloan Dickey says each year at Convocation, "Your business here is learning, and that is up to you."

Professor England, speaking of The Individual and the College, says, "This is not a subject-matter course in the sense of history or chemistry or many of the other offerings. It is concerned with what will actually help the student to adjust better to college." The course will fill the important function of helping the student to get more out of his subject-matter courses than before.

During the next four years, The Individual and the College will have a constantly increasing impact upon the life of Dartmouth. By the end of that time, every student on Hanover Plain will have been through it, will have had the common experience of being better prepared to make the most out of the four really short years allowed him here.

"It is easy to expect too much of a course," Professor England points out, but then he adds with measured optimism, "I am fascinated just the same by the prospect of how at the end of four years this course may have a real impact upon the overall functioning of Dartmouth as an institution of learning."

THE course meets twice a week in Webster Hall and carries one hour of credit toward the bachelor's degree. It is divided into five parts, each specifically designed to brief the student upon definite areas of experiences he is likely to encounter in the lands he is entering.

Compulsory for freshmen, the course begins with a series of five lectures devoted to the history, traditions and functioning of Dartmouth as a college of the liberal arts. At the opening meeting, Dean of Freshmen Stearns Morse introduced Professor England, who gave a preview of the course and its purposes. He also introduced John L. Callahan '55, chairman of Palaeopitus, who discussed the student origin of the course and the part played by the Educational Committee of the Student Council in first proposing the program. Dean Joseph L. McDonald, Prof. Allen R. Foley, President Dickey and Dean Donald H. Morrison covered various aspects of the College and its relation to the individual student and his own aims.

"Every element of the functioning college is represented in this first part," Professor England points out. This is the guide book part, the descriptive geography of the land of learning as it exists in Hanover.

The second section will consist first of a lecture on the intellectual life, its motivations and rewards. This will be followed immediately by a pair of lectures, by Prof. Robert M. Bear, director of the Reading Clinic, on good reading and study habits. As students make their way up the Amazon of learning, they must maintain good march routine so that they can proceed with ease and have an opportunity to get the most out of their experiences.

These first two parts contain much of the material commonly found in college orientation courses, generally held during the customary freshman "pre-registration week." But the committee felt that it would be better to include this in the course itself, in view of the fact that registration week is full of language qualification tests, appointments with faculty advisers, and equally important appointments, for various reasons, with upperclassmen.

The third part, consisting of four lectures, will be presented by Dr. Thomas P. Anderson and Dr. William N. Chambers, both teachers in the Dartmouth Medical School. Dr. Anderson whose specialty is physical medicine, will give two lectures on body mechanics, and Dr. Chambers will talk twice about diseases and injuries as an expression of man's relationship to his environment.

It has been found, for example, that just before examinations college health authorities face an upsurge in the number of students with colds, headaches, and similar ailments, and even an upswing in the number of injuries. These are not consciously induced by a desire to avoid the coming test, but may be an expression of subconscious forces at work.

Almost everybody, unaccustomed to public speaking, experiences various symptoms of nervousness, from sweating to feelings of nausea. Subconscious forces may produce other effects. This section of the course is designed to help students recognize such reactions in themselves and, knowing their cause, be better equipped to cope with them.

The fourth section deals in four lectures with such stresses, and then nine lectures cover in detail various reaction patterns commonly found. In addition to three members of the Dartmouth faculty, several visiting lecturers will present this part.

Professors Roy Forster and Francis W. Gramlich and Dr. John J. Boardman will be joined by the following: Dr. Herbert Harris of the health program at Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Dr. John M. Murray '19, a former consultant in psychiatry at Dartmouth and a speaker in Great Issues; Dr. Gregory Rochlin of the Boston Psychiatric Clinic; Dr. George E. Gardner '25, head of the Judge Baker Clinic in Boston; Dr. Dana Farnsworth, director of health services at Harvard; Dr. Selden Bacon, head of the School of Alcoholic Studies at Yale; Dr. Jack B. Ewalt, commissioner of health in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts; Dr. Florence Clothier, head of the Home for Little Wanderers in Boston; and Dr. John P. Spiegel '34, author with Dr. Roy Drinker of the noted World War II study, MenUnder Stress.

As a sample of what this section will offer, the first lecture by Dr. Harris is described as follows:

Pressures of College Life: What is a College Freshman like? What are the problems of transition from home to college life? (Dependence to Independence), (Maturing of Internal Drives). What are the normal and the maladjusted ways of reacting to these environmental and internal pressures?

In other words, this section will chart fairly typical reaction patterns and students forewarned will be forearmed.

Christmas Vacation is the next item on the agenda; at least it is listed in the course syllabus. It might well be considered a part of the course, because students must adjust to a new relationship between their families and themselves. When they left home in the fall, many of them had never been away for more than a few days at a stretch. Now they will return from an absence of several months, during which they will many times have had to make new decisions on their personal behavior.

The concluding four lectures and final examination come in rapid succession after the winter vacation period. Everett Hunt, dean of students at Swarthmore College, will discuss social adjustment in college, ranging from the advantages and disadvantages of popularity and friendship to the selection of extracurricular activities.

"There is nothing lonelier than the man, very popular on campus, who has no really close friends," Professor England points out. Students who consciously strive for leadership at the expense of forming several very close attachments may miss out on one of the most rewarding aspects of going to college.

Dr. Alan Gregg, a New York physician and vice president of the Rockefeller Foundation, will discuss the very real advantages of planning one's life and career while still in college, on the basis of self-knowledge acquired in the classroom, in conference with teachers, and in dormitory associations. Prof. Fred Berthold '45 of the Dartmouth faculty will talk about religious life in college, the intellectual basis for religious faith and internal and environmental pressures which affect religious attitudes, customs and beliefs.

The concluding lecture, briefly titled "Social Responsibility," will be given by Judge Amos Blandin '18, associate justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court. For many years he has been active in college affairs, particularly in offering his aid in personal and vocational counseling.

Judge Blandin's interest is typical of that displayed by many members of the Dartmouth family—the judge even plans to take the entire course himself, from the first lecture to the final one he will give. A committee from Palaeopitus also will sit in, both to see the results of their own assistance in planning and to aid in improving subsequent offerings. In fact, Professor England has extended an invitation to any members of the faculty or residents of the town to attend as many of the lectures as they desire. He requests only that they sit in the gallery.

"The committee and the course director want criticisms of the course and the speakers," Professor England says. "We want suggestions for change and improvement. In fact, the only requirement made of the students, outside of the examinations, will be written comments on the speakers." From the way he expressed it, Professor England won't be satisfied with thoughtless comments. Students will really have to "give back" in return for what has been given to them.

A final feature, and an important one, is the opportunity for questioning the speakers individually at the conclusion of the lectures. The course will have its own office in the study hall in Baker Library's northeast wing, where a special collection of reading material will be available, and it is hoped that those speakers who may be able to spend a few days on the campus will make the office their headquarters so that they may take an active part in the teaching.

It is also hoped that this common educational experience for all the freshmen will promote more active group thinking and discussion about where they are headed, both individually and as a class, as they go about the very important business of educating themselves.

Serving on the committee in charge of the course are Dean Morse, Prof. James F. Cusick who served as chairman of the study committee which offered the course for faculty approval, Prof. Francis W. Gramlich, Dr. Chambers, and Dr. Henry M. Helgen, director of the Office of Student Counseling and Assistant Dean of the College.

Prof. Carl D. England, director of the newcourse required of all freshmen.