Building for Today—and 1969
CHAIRMAN, ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON PLANT DEVELOPMENT
THE purposes of Dartmouth College and its obligations to society have been clearly stated by the President and the Trustees. The College is now actively engaged in a program designed to fulfill these purposes and meet these obligations even more effectively in the future than they have been met in the past and to make more secure Dartmouth's position among the leading liberal arts colleges of the nation.
It is planned that this activity shall culminate in 1969, the occasion of the two hundredth anniversary of the founding of the College. Prosecution of the program is engaging the efforts of a host of alumni and friends of the College and is dependent on the integrated activity of many groups with varied talents and interests.
The Trustees Planning Committee, under the chairmanship of Harvey P. Hood '18, has overall responsibility for supervision and coordination of the work of these groups and individuals. It has delegated to sub-committees various phases of the total planning for the future of the College. One of these sub-committees is the Advisory Committee on Plant Development, which is charged with ascertaining the physical plant needs of the College both now and in the future and with making recommendations concerning them.
The Advisory Committee on Plant Development was appointed by President Dickey in the spring of 1954. Its personnel was not intended to be representative of various interests, but was chosen to take advantage of available experience and training pertinent to the problems involved and also to assure continuing exchange of information and cooperation between faculty, administration, and community. The present membership of the committee is:
Chairman - John P. Amsden '20, Professor of Chemistry, Vice-Chairman of the Hanover Town Planning Board.
Secretary - Edward S. Brown Jr. '34, Professor of Civil Engineering, Clerk of the Precinct Zoning Board of Adjustment.
James Campion Jr. '28, Precinct Commissioner of Hanover.
Richard W. Morin '24, Librarian of the College.
Hugh S. Morrison '26, Professor of Art, Chairman of the Hanover Town Planning Board.
Richard W. Olmsted '32, Business Manager of the College.
John L. Stewart, Assistant Professor of English.
Henry B. Williams, Professor of English.
Paul F. Young '43, Assistant Treasurer of the College, Consultant to the Hanover Town Planning Board.
The Committee has the benefit of the professional services of Nelson W. Aldrich, of the Boston architectural firm of Campbell and Aldrich, who have been retained as consulting architects to the College.
Since the obligation of the College to society is to provide men equipped to take responsible positions in that society, it should be concerned with making available opportunities and facilities for the development of all the qualities which go to make up such men. In other words, it must take thought not only for the cultural and technical education of these men but also for their social maturity and for their spiritual and physical well-being.
The task of the Advisory Committee on Plant Development is to recommend physical facilities which will best aid in meeting these obligations. This involves buildings not only for instruction but also for housing, for feeding, for health, and for the many social, recreational, and extracurricular activities, both athletic and nonathletic, which are an important part of the total experience offered by the College.
The Committee is also concerned with the provision of housing and other facilities which will make the community attractive for faculty and staff personnel.
In carrying out its assignment the Advisory Committee has inquired of academic departments and of people responsible for the other activities of the College, "What are your present and anticipated plant needs?" It has asked other institutions how they are meeting their building needs, and members of the Committee have visited many institutions whose experience might be helpful in the solution of Dartmouth's problems. The Committee has also endeavored to anticipate the future needs of the College in the light of what is now known concerning its future size and function. On the basis of the information accumulated and analyzed, the Advisory Committee has made and will continue to make recommendations for specific building projects.
These recommendations are made to the Trustees Planning Committee which in turn transmits them to the Committee on Buildings and Grounds of the Trustees. The latter committee reports to the full Board of Trustees. Upon the adoption of a recommendation by the Board of T. Trustees the responsibility of the Advisory Committee for that particular item ends and an ad hoc committee, with talents suited to the project, is appointed to "get the building up."
Along with the activities described above the Advisory Committee is working with the consulting architect, Mr. Aldrich, in the development of a Master Plan for additions to the College's plant to insure that they will be pleasing in appearance, efficient in function, and will be so located that future growth will not be hampered by current building.
Since the welfare of the College and that of the Hanover community are so inextricably linked, the Advisory Committee is working in continual close cooperation with the Hanover Town Planning Board.
The results of the Advisory Committee's activities to date may be divided roughly into three categories: (1) Recommendations which have been adopted and on which work is now in progress; (2) Recommendations which have been made but on which action must wait upon the availability of funds; (3) Projects now under consideration by the Advisory Committee but concerning which recommendations have not yet been made.
The Hopkins Center
In the first category the initial recommendation made was that concerning the Hopkins Center. This was adopted and the project was assigned to an ad hoc committee. The architectural firm of Harrison and Abramowitz, of New York, was retained and, with the successful petition of the College for the closing of College Street between East Wheelock and Lebanon Streets, plans are now advancing toward an early start on construction of this most important part of the College's building program.
The next recommendation was related to one of the College's most critical needs - dormitory housing for students. The Advisory Committee found that to relieve current overcrowding in dormitories, to replace obsolete accommodations, and to provide for the limited growth that is anticipated for the College there was need for the construction of dormitory spaces for 800 men. Our recommendation concerning this was accepted and there are now under construction on Choate Road, in fulfillment of the first part of the program, four dormitory units to house approximately 300 men. The type of dormitory being constructed is the result of recommendations of a special Dormitory Building Committee under the chairmanship of John F. Meek '33, Treasurer and Vice President of the College. This special committee had the benefit of comprehensive studies made by the Commission on Campus Life under the chairmanship of Prof. Frank G. Ryder, of the Department of German.
The third recommendation concerned housing for faculty, staff, and married students. The Advisory Committee's investigations indicated that within the next ten years the College will need 25 new housing units for married members of the faculty and staff in addition to the replacement of sixty units now in use which are rapidly becoming obsolete. Adequate housing for unmarried faculty and secretarial personnel would require the construction of fifty units, while the housing of married students, who are apparently a permanent feature of the college community, would call for thirty units to supplement Sachem Village housing when Wigwam Circle becomes no longer habitable.
As a first step in implementing this recommendation there are being built, on the west side of North Park Street, two new apartment buildings to house ten families.
Concurrently with this activity independent groups have been responsible for expansion of the College's dining facilities in Thayer Hall and for the construction of the Dartmouth Skiway at Holt's Ledge.
More Library Space
In the second category - recommendations made but waiting for available funds - are several items. The first of these is for the addition of space in the interior courtyards of Baker Library, to permit expansion of the working area of the Order and Catalogue Departments, and for extension of the top floor of Steele Chemistry Building to provide badly needed laboratory space.
To meet the growing needs of the academic departments and to replace present instructional facilities which may be converted to other uses the Advisory Committee has recommended the eventual construction of approximately 120,000 square feet of instructional area. This will include lecture rooms in addition to the large one planned lor the Hopkins Center, seminar, laboratory, and office space, as well as space for the increasing number of special projects being undertaken by the faculty. This is the equivalent of three buildings the size of Steele. Some of this space can be provided by recommended additions to Steele and to Silsby, but much of it will require the construction of a new building or buildings on sites to be determined in consultation with Mr. Aldrich as part of the Master Plan.
The administrative services of the College are in serious need of additional working space and recommendations have been made concerning the provision of this relief.
An Auditorium-Arena
There has been a long-recognized need for an auditorium with a seating capacity that will permit gathering of the entire undergraduate body for convocations and other important all-college occasions. Such a building would also permit a larger attendance at concerts, lectures, and other cultural events than is now possible. At the same time there is need for increased spectator capacity for basketball and other indoor athletic events. As a result of its investigations the Advisory Committee believes that it is possible to meet all these needs satisfactorily in a dual-purpose auditorium-arena building and it has recommended that such a structure be built.
The location and climate of Hanover place a handicap on certain of Dartmouth's outdoor athletics, as all baseball, soccer, and lacrosse players well know. To solve this problem, we have recommended both an indoor cage and improved drainage of playing fields to permit earlier access to them in the spring.
Swimming Coach Karl Michael's eloquence and our visits to other colleges and universities have emphasized the inadequacies of the Spaulding Pool for presentday intercollegiate swimming. The Advisory Committee has recommended the construction of a new pool for this purpose. This will release the Spaulding Pool for recreational and correctional swimming, which need its full-time use.
Non-athletic extracurricular activities are fully as important a part of what the College should offer its undergraduates as are the athletic ones. This was recognized by the construction, in 1914, of Robinson Hall, especially designed to house these activities. It performed this function admirably, but for a student body less than half the size of the present one. The Advisory Committee recognizes a need for more space for this important side of the College and has recommended it.
The College takes justifiable pride in Baker Library as the leading liberal arts college library in the country. It has maintained this position by comprehensive and discriminating acquisition of books. Continuation of this program, which is essential to the life of the College, means that within the next ten years extensive additions to the stack and working space of the library must be made, and we have recommended them.
A separate study by a special task force has resulted in the recommendation of an entirely new Dartmouth Medical School plant. The Trustees are convinced that the third oldest medical school in the country must replace its ancient and improvised quarters if it is to continue at Dartmouth.
In the third category - projects now under consideration - are two items, but there undoubtedly will be more in the light of future experience.
The first of these is the provision of additional dining facilities, probably located separately from Thayer Hall to serve the residents of the new dormitories yet to be authorized.
The second is the provision of facilities enabling the College to meet its obligations in the area of the spiritual life of its students. This area has been the subject of intensive study by the Committee Advisory to the Tucker Foundation. Our Committee has deferred consideration of physical facilities pending the selection of the Dean of the Tucker Foundation.
Although the recommendations made have been the result of thoughts about the future of the College, most of them represent immediate needs for buildings which could be put to good use today if funds were available to build them.
Some of the proposed buildings are for uses which should make them in general self-liquidating financially. Others, such as the Medical School Building, may be financed, it is hoped, by grants from foundations or governmental agencies. The rest will be made possible only through the generous interest of many people who believe in the value of what Dartmouth has done in the past and can do in the future.
John P. Amsden '20, Professor of Chemistry, who heads the committee on plant planning.
The greater part of the capital funds to be raised in Dartmouth's Bicentennial Development Program will be devoted to meeting urgent plant needs of the College. A blueprint of immediate plant development has been drawn up by the Advisory Committee on Plant Development, headed by Prof. John P. Amsden '20, and has been approved by the Trustees for action as the necessary funds become available. Professor Amsden has been asked by the Alumni Magazine to write this article describing the work of his Committee and the specific building recommendations made to the Trustees.
