In the Public Eye

CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC RELATIONS

PUBLIC relations, it often seems to me, might be likened to an iceberg. Not for coldness or hardness, nor for the danger that we associate with icebergs floating in the shipping lanes. The resemblance, and let's admit that in part it's far fetched, arises from the fact that public relations and their effects, like an iceberg, are only about one-ninth visible; the remaining eight-ninths are present, very much so, but are only to be detected by careful soundings and study. The simile is one for which I, as chairman of Dartmouth's Committee on Public Relations, must be grateful: it makes easier the telling of what the committee has been doing and, more important, what has been happening in the broad field of Dartmouth's public relations.

The committee came into being two years ago, in January 1952 after discussions among members of the college administration and by approval of the Alumni Council. Its charter was a broad one. The committee was assigned the job of studying the objectives of the College's public relations program, of defining these and then measuring them against what was actually being done, of advising on what could and might be. If the charter was broad, so was committee membership, for it drew not only upon alumni (five), but upon undergraduates (the president of the student council, the editor of TheDartmouth, the manager of WDBS), the faculty and administration. It included ultimately a College Trustee, Charles J. Zimmerman '23. Sid Hayward '26, as Secretary of the College and the administrative officer most directly concerned with public relations, has been both a member of the committee and, quite naturally and logically, the focus of its activities.

When the committee started, it had to face the fact that while, on the whole, Dartmouth's public relations were good, and certainly by comparison with those of some other institutions superior, there was room for growth which some might spell improvement. In administration alone, for example, the problem of coordination had been recognized but hardly met. Over the years the business of the College had become big business, and it was debatable whether public relations had kept pace. There was uncertainty as to the philosophy behind the public relations of the College. In some minds there may well have been uncertainty over the difference between public relations and publicity, a difference that some, I'm sure, felt was akin to the difference between boarders and paying guests.

So it was that the Committee on Public Relations set to work, and the committee, it should be noted, had no experts among its membership except Charlie Moore '25, who soon after the committee was formed became public relations director for the Ford Motor Company. All came together as men who had had experience in dealing with people, or with the news about them; all came together in a spirit of humility, anxious and ready to learn about Dartmouth's public relations and the problems that attend them. We had no prejudices, or if anyone did, none was apparent.

If the committee members had fully appreciated the complexity of what they were tackling, they might have met with greater trepidation than they did that first session in Sid Hayward's office in Crosby Hall on one of 1952's winter mornings. Instead, quite casually, all of us arranged ourselves around the table, lit pipes, cigars or cigarettes and, almost spontaneously, and within the hour, agreed that the guiding principle of Dartmouth's public relations should be (how obvious it now seems!) the fact that Dartmouth is an educational institution. Before the morning was over, we had so reported to President Dickey, who not only approved but welcomed the agreement with delight. That principle has been and remains the guide.

At the moment, however, the committee, at least the alumni members of it, were still aware only vaguely of what the College was doing in the field of public relations. It knows much more now. I have suggested that the problem is complex. It is also far-ranging. When we talk about Dartmouth's public relations, we are talking about relations with a large public - with alumni, with students and faculty, with parents of students, present and prospective, with prospective students themselves, with friends of the College and those we would hope to be friends, with headmasters and their teachers, with that large and unbounded body of Americans whose interest in college education per se may not be great but who can become exercised and excited by accounts of the good and the bad and the exaggerated on any campus. The list could probably be extended.

This is a large public, and it is also a public in which the only common denominator is interest, actual or potential, in Dartmouth. That means that the points of view and prejudices are many, that boiling points differ, but are often low. What is true for the whole is equally so for the fairly close-knit Dartmouth family. For public relations to attempt to resolve these differences would be quixotic; the important thing is to recognize them and be guided accordingly.

WHILE public relations always have as one aspect the winning of friends and the influencing of people, the broad and basic purpose of Dartmouth's public relations, at least as I see it, is to tell and explain to all concerned or even mildly interested what the College is up to and why. In other words, those conducting the College's public relations activities are themselves involved in education, in spreading knowledge that ultimately could be the foundation for sound opinions about Dartmouth today. The tools of this educational program are many, ranging from a straight news story of some Dartmouth event, happy or unhappy, to a bulletin that carries to secondary school teachers the text of a significant lecture delivered at the College. The ALUMNI MAGAZINE is a familiar agent in the business of telling the what and the why, and in recent years it has placed more and more emphasis on passing along to its readers not only reports from the playing fields but reports from the classroom as well. From Hanover, a special magazine for non-alumni parents, reprints pertinent material from the ALUMNI MAGAZINE. Movies like "My First Week at Dartmouth," slides, recordings, the annual Dartmouth calendar, these, too, belong in the public relations tool box.

What I have mentioned are, of course, the more obvious aspects of public relations work. There are many others, some readily apparent, some less so. From Hanover, for example, goes out every year a procession, or at least to critics of this activity it seems like a procession, of men who visit secondary schools, who speak to alumni groups, who represent the College in meetings called to' consider educational questions, the financial needs of colleges, athletic programs. Into Hanover come men for such occasions as last June's Petroleum Convocation, which brought together leaders of the oil industry to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first scientific examination of crude oil - an examination conducted in what is now Crosby Hall.

Without going further into details - Sid Hayward, in a report to the Dartmouth Trustees, needed almost 15,000 words to describe the College's public relations work — let these items stand as suggestive of the variety and scope of what is being done. But to revert to the figure of the iceberg. These planned and visible activities are only a part. Beneath the surface, as it were, extends the almost subtle and extremely effective public relations endeavor represented by such varieties as the good letter from Hanover to an angry or anguished parent or alumnus, the strategic work of alumni in the enrollment program, the luncheon or dinner table talk by a Dartmouth teacher, Trustee or administrative officer, President Dickey's membership on boards of foundations, the role of Dartmouth graduates in public life and community service. Here again the full story would be much longer in the telling, and even then one would have to determine which of the many stones cast into the pool set up the farthest ripple.

These were some of the things of which the public relations committee immediately became aware when it got down to work. The actual operation and administration of the program were something else, and of these also the committee had to learn before it could advise. It met again and again - attendance has almost never been one hundred per cent and much of the work has fallen to an executive committee of three (the chairman, and Sidney J. Flanigan '23, and the Secretary of the College) - to ask questions, make suggestions (often off the top of the head), spin grandiose schemes, frequently to wander far from the topic on the tapis. Out of all this, however, has come familiarity with the College's public relations, their aim and conduct. We have looked at the whole. We have looked at its parts.

The committee has discussed, and studied, too, ways and means. It has gone into such subjects as Hanover mailing pieces, and there are a lot of them, class newsletters, the ALUMNI MAGAZINE, correspondence from Hanover, the organization for public relations in Hanover. A year ago the committee's concern focused on the alumni aspect of public relations, and while its examination could scarcely be called exhaustive, it did point up certain problems, certain questions, and create an awareness. This current college year the committee has been interested in the public relations problems that swirl, inevitably, as they must in any college, around the system of admissions and its administration. Here again it is not for the committee to reach final conclusions so much as to fill the job of suggesting, emphasizing, even exaggerating for effect.

Ever since adoption of the guiding principle for Dartmouth's public relations - that Dartmouth is an educational institution - the committee at its meetings has hammered on the, need to carry that principle over into as many phases as possible of our public relations work. Emphasis on this principle helped to shape the Saturday Evening Post article, "Why We Picked Dartmouth," by Pete Martin and his son. It was not that the committee wanted to portray Dartmouth as an institution of greasy grinds, but that it did feel that in the past the College had tended to hide its educational light under a bushel, that it had come to be known best as an institution of winter sports and exuberant house parties. The time had come, it seemed, to put things in proper proportion and perspective.

That meant, for example, that the sort of news sent out from Dartmouth would be immediately affected. Sports news, good and bad, tends to take care of itself, but news reports of happenings in edu- cation do nothing of the sort. It is not only hard to interest newspapers in education stories, the news itself is often not easy to find, or once obtained easy to make into an acceptable or readable news story. It was quickly seen that at Dartmouth manpower was lacking for an adequate job in this field. The upshot was a study of news services and public relations departments in eight Eastern institutions, a study made by Sid Hayward for the committee. Out of it came a recommendation for a full-time director of the news service. Frank A. Pemberton (Harvard '43) moved into that slot on February 1, a year ago.

The flow of news about Dartmouth education has accelerated steadily since his appointment, as many a newspaper reader will testify. It has been legitimate news and thus has been a public relations activity of the best kind. The news service, and the whole public relations organization, was put to the test last June at the time of President Eisenhower's visit to the Dartmouth commencement. That the event went off without a hitch is something for which all concerned might take a bow.

The public relations committee throughout its life has pressed for publication and circulation as widely as possible of material representative of the College, and most especially statements by President Dickey. The circulation last year of the pamphlet containing four of his significant addresses was a committee project. The response to that pamphlet was so enthusiastic that perhaps a pattern has been set.

Sometimes it seems as though the relations between a committee of this sort and the college administration were like those between flint and steel. Struck together they give off a spark, and someimes this lights the tinder. The very fact of a committee like this one may be more influential in shaping the College's public relations than any one is fully conscious. The committee's existence has made everyone in Hanover who deals with public relations more aware of problems involved and more anxious to meet them. Interest has been whetted, interest has been kept alive. Moreover, the meetings of committee members with officers of the College makes possible an exchange of ideas and transmission of opinion from alumni and others vitally interested in Dartmouth. As John Dickey once told members of the committee: "It's good to know that you're keeping tabs on us and are ready to help and advise. It keeps us on our toes. It's good to have you around."

A sampling of the varied printed material that forms an important and unceasing part of the public relations effort to tell the "what" and "why" of Dartmouth College.

FRANCIS BROWN '25, chairman of the Public Relations Committee established jointly by the College and the Alumni Council two years ago, is Editor of The New York Times Book Review. Before taking that position in 1949 he was a senior editor of "Time" magazine. Mr. Brown taught citizenship and history at Dartmouth for three years, was associate editor of Current History from 1930 to 1936, and for the next nine years was chief writer for The New York Times Review of the Week. Holder of the Ph.D. degree from Columbia, he has published three biographies and was awarded Dartmouth's honorary Doctorate of Letters in 1952.

ON THE OPERATING FRONT: Sidney C. Hayward '26 (center), Secretary of the College and executive head of Dartmouth's public relations organization, is flanked by Robert L. Allen '45 (left). Assistant Secretary of the College, who is in charge of movies, radio, television and special publications, and Frank A. Pemberton (right), director of the Dartmouth College News Service, the office responsible for public information concerning the College's educational program and general activities.