Alumni Fund Ahead in Dollars, Seeks New Participation Record
COMPARISON with its dollar and contributor totals as of the same date last year is one yardstick by which the Alumni Fund measures its daily progress toward new goals. On May 19, a few days past the midway point in the 1954 campaign for $600,000 and 17,000 alumni contributors, the Fund had ,1359,945 in dollars - a gain of $11,319 over the comparable date in 1953 - and 8,472 contributors - a drop of 20 from the participation figure of the year before. The average gift showed an increase from $41.05 to $42.48.
Although the participation record needs improvement, Alumni Fund leaders were pleased by the fact that after being 350 contributors behind on April 19, the gap had virtually been closed. The participation goal set for 1954 is the highest in Dartmouth's Fund history and would mean a new record of 70% of all alumni as contributors. Dartmouth has long held the participation leadership among all colleges and last year set a new mark of 66.6%, but this alumni distinction has been seriously challenged by the 68% reported by Princeton at the close of its 1953-54 campaign.
The Dartmouth Parents Committee, with a Fund goal of $50,000, on May 19 had received $26,563 from 494 contributors. This was a drop of $4,970 and a gain of 29 givers, compared with the figures for the same date last year. The 1954 Parents Committee is headed by David F. Sibley of Brookline, Mass., the Harvard father of a Dartmouth senior.
About June i all alumni whose contributions are not yet in will receive from the Alumni Fund Committee a letter written by Chairman Roger C. Wilde '21 and a printed statement by John B. Stearns '16, Professor of Greek and Latin, concerning the importance to the College of topquality students, many of whom owe their chance at Dartmouth to the scholarship aid coming from the Alumni Fund. John R. Scotford Jr., 1938 class agent, designed and illustrated this final mailing piece.
In his letter addressed to Dartmouth alumni, Mr. Wilde says:
"You are not the teachers, and no longer the students. Yet, except for you, today's teaching and learning at Dartmouth would be something less,. Furthermore, as John Stearns '16 suggests in the accompanying leaflet, it has all been a matter of faith.
"No handful have done it, either. It has been all of you, hundreds upon thousands, each adding what he could. And you have become a legend. Round the globe Dartmouth has stood alone... a towering symbol of alumni devotion.
"This June you have the opportunity of proving once more that this cherished reputation shall continue."
DAVID F. SIBLEY, of Brookline, Mass., father of David N. Sibley '54, heads the Dartmouth Parents Committee in the Alumni Fund campaign.
