Hanover Conference Launches New Year of Bequest Program
OFF to an early start in the new college year, even before Dartmouth's doors were open for academic operations, the first working conference of alumni class representatives was held in Hanover last month. More than thirty class bequest chairmen or delegates met with College officers and members of the Alumni Council Committee on Bequests and Estate Planning, September 10 and 11, to review the past year and lay plans for 1954-55.
Edward Winsor '24, chairman of the Alumni Council committee, presided over this fourth annual gathering of bequest leaders. In his statement to the group, Mr. Winsor reported that during the past three years the College has received a total of $11,225,000 of matured estate provisions, and that in the same period the percentage of all living post-25th-year alumni known to have made estate provisions for the College has risen from 2% to 6½ %.
"Ours is not what one might term a glamor assignment," he told the class representatives, "but rather one calling for dedicated, mature and sustained effort. It is an extremely important job, for without adequate capital funds no plans for permanent improvement in the areas of faculty, students and plant can be realized."
Mr. Winsor's talk was made at the Saturday morning session at which important aspects of the estate program were discussed by a three-man panel of John R. McLane '07, Dartmouth Trustee and bequest chairman for his class, John F. Meck '33, Treasurer and Vice President of the College, and Ford H. Whelden '25, class bequest chairman and director of research for the Dartmouth Development Council.
Following this general business meeting in the Sanborn House library, class representatives held a luncheon session at the Outing Club House and there heard President Dickey close the conference with an informal talk on the "Why" of the bequest program, rounding out the "How" discussed that morning and the "What" presented the evening before.
"The 'why' of Dartmouth can be found on a number of levels," President Dickey said, "but most basically I believe it is in the unique historical commitment of the liberal arts college to see men made whole in both conscience and competence through the higher learning. Out of this duality of aim flows all else and on it has been built that institutional organism we call Dartmouth. The 'why' of the bequest program is that Dartmouth may continue to grow in strength as an institution through which the past meets the future in the work of the present. The strength given Dartmouth through such giving assures that the past will always play its part in fashioning that more worthy human future for which men have ever labored and given."
At the Friday evening meeting, which followed an opening reception and dinner at the Hanover Inn, the two principal speakers were Prof. Allen R. Foley '20, who reviewed the financial struggles of the College in his talk on "Dollars for Dartmouth, a Brief Historical Survey," and Prof. Carl D. England, who described the background and content of the new required freshman course, The Individualand the College, for which he served as chairman of the planning committee and is now the course director.
The conference arrangements were in charge of Ross Gamble '33h, Special Assistant to the President and executive secretary of the Alumni Council Committee on Bequests and Estate Planning. In addition to Mr. Winsor, Mr. Gamble and Mr. Meck, a fourth committee member at the meetings was Leon L. Freeman '23 of Racine, Wis., who also represented his class. Others present as class delegates were:
John R. Williams '19, for the class of 1886; Ralph S. Bartlett '89, Philip S. Marden '94, Thomas C. Ham '96, Dr. Frederic P. Lord '98, H. LeBaron Sampson 'OO, Edgar H. Hunter '01, Howard M. Harris '02, Morton B. French '03, E. H. Kenerson '03, Frederick Chase '05, Francis L. Childs '06, John R. McLane '07, Warren Currier '08, Russell D. Meredith '10, John C. Sterling '11, Henry B. Van Dyne '12, John J. Remsen '13, Pennell N. Aborn '14, James LeR. Lafferty '15, Gilbert N. Swett '17, Florimond Duke '10, Roger A. Clark '19, Allen R. Foley '20, Stanley P. Miner '22, Edward Winsor '24, Ford H. Whelden '25, Carleton Blunt '26, R. M. Nichols '26, John H. Minnich '27 and Herbert R. Sensenig '28.
Prof. Allen R. Foley '20 (right), with a sample of Vermont humor, holds the amusedattention of others who took a leading part in the meeting of class bequest chairmen:Ross Gamble '33h, Prof. Carl D. England, Edward Winsor '24 and President Dickey.
