Brevities . . .

PRESIDENT EISENHOWER has named President Dickey to the Board of Visitors to the United States Military Academy. The board will meet at West Point on April 26-28 to review the work and program of the academy. Some years ago President Hopkins also served on the Board of Visitors.

¶ At the end of the first semester only one member of the 700-man freshman class was separated for academic failure. This must be a record, and is a tribute to the predictive powers of the Office of Admission, which has incorporated the required College Board Scholastic Aptitude Test into an academic index developed in recent years to a point of almost foolproof effectiveness. Twenty-one freshmen were placed on scholastic probation and were told to dig in if they wanted to know what it's like to be a Dartmouth sophomore.

¶ The Class of 1957 further performed in admirable fashion in staging Freshman Fathers Weekend late in February. The attendance of approximately 275 fathers was not quite up to the record total of 291 entertained last year, but it was one of the largest and most enthusiastic groups in the five years of the freshman event, and the weekend was a great success. A smoker, a dinner and a chapel service were formal events for the three days, which were well filled with all the daily doings of freshmen in classes, Commons, dormitories and extracurricular activities.

¶ Hanover's annual Student and Community Art and Furniture Show held sway in the Carpenter galleries last month and once again was proof of what an amazing lot of talent exists in Hanover. Oils, watercolors, pencil and ink sketches, sculpture, mobiles and constructions were some of the art forms represented. From the Student Workshop came several hand some pieces of furniture and even an eight-foot pram, as trim a little craft as ever took to water. Deserving of a special accolade was a collection of miniature Kachina statuettes carved and painted by Dr. Frederick J. Dockstader, curator of anthropology in the Dartmouth Museum These were made in connection with his studies about the Hopi Indians of Arizona

¶ For this year's College Chest Fund, conducted annually by the Undergraduate Council, a record objective of $12,000 was set. After four days of carefully planned solicitation that reached into every nook and cranny of the campus, the students exceeded their goal, and gave evidence that in their way they can match the results associated with the alumni in Dartmouth's annual Alumni Fund campaign. Fourteen charitable enterprises will benefit from the money raised in the student drive directed by C. Bayard Johnson '54, captain of last fall's football team.

¶ A planning and steering committee for the new freshman course, "The Individual and the College," slated to replace the required Hygiene course next fall, was named last month. It is headed by Carl D. England, Professor of Speech, and also includes Prof. Stearns Morse, Dean of Freshmen; Arthur H. Kiendl Jr. '44, Assistant Dean of the College and Director of Student Counseling; James F. Cusick, Professor of Economics; Francis W. Gramlich, Professor of Philosophy; and Dr. William N. Chambers, Instructor in Medicine in the Medical School. The new course that the committee will map out is designed to get freshmen off to a more responsible start in college and to acquaint them with the meaning and opportunities of a liberal education.

¶ The duPont Company has informed the College that it is again making a contribution of $2,500 to support the work of the Chemistry Department for the academic year 1954-55. A similar grant was made for the current year. The funds are to be used by the Department to satisfy special needs and to engage in activities that would otherwise not be possible; they are not intended for routine maintenance of laboratories or for operating or building expenses.

¶ During the past month the College has given the first showings of the film depicting President Eisenhower's visit to Dartmouth for the 1953 Commencement. Through Dartmouth College Films the black-and-white, sound movie is now available to alumni groups. It was photographed by J. Blair Watson, films director, and produced by Robert L. Allen '45, Assistant Secretary of the College, with narration by Norman R. Bander '54, WDBS production director.

¶ Barbara Ward, author and assistant editor of The London Economist, is establishing for herself a special niche among visiting lecturers at Dartmouth. Her previous talks at the College were enormously popular and on the evenings of March 22 and 23 she twice packed Webster Hall for two lectures on "Moral Realities in the International Outlook." The senior class attended the first as part of the Great Issues course and was back in force the second night without any attendance check. Miss Ward's lectures were sponsored by the William Jewett Tucker Foundation as well as by the Great Issues course.

¶ When the 15-day spring recess ends on April 12, the seniors will begin the last lap of the Great Issues course with a lecture by Irwin Edman, Professor of Philosophy at Columbia, who will discuss the function of the creative and the aesthetic in any culture. Other distinguished visitors to the course in April and May will be Bartlett H. Hayes Jr., director of the Addison Gallery of American Art at Andover; Philip Johnson, director of the architectural section of the Museum of Modern Art; Harry T. Levin, Professor of English at Harvard: Raphael Demos, Professor of Philosophy at Harvard; Rollo May, author and psychologist; Paul Tillich, Professor of Philosophical Theology at Union Theological Seminary; and Robert Frost '96, poet, whose topic will be "The Natural and Supernatural Bounds of Science." The final section of the course this year deals with "Humanistic Issues for the Individual."

¶ William G. Mattox '52, a geographer, has been awarded the Dartmouth-Iceland Exchange Scholarship for 1954-55 and will make a study of climatic change in that island nation. He: is now a student at the University of Uppsala, under a grant from the Swedish government, and has been making a similar study in Spitzbergen. Previously he has been in Norwegian Lapland and has made two trips to Greenland. As part of the exchange plan, a student from the University of Iceland, not yet named, will come to Dartmouth next year.

¶ Baker Library periodically distributes a mimeographed list of newly acquired books. Most intriguing item under "current general titles" in the March 15 announcement was William Senior's NavelHistory in the Law Courts.