'57 Fund Shoots for New Records
WITH a dollar objective of $865,000, the largest in the 43-year history of the Dartmouth Alumni Fund, the 1957 Fund campaign opens April 1. Although this year's goal is $90,000 higher than for 1956, it is only a few hundred dollars beyond the amount actually received last year, and the Fund Committee is confident that for the 19th straight year the dollar objective will be exceeded.
A new high in alumni participation - 70.9 per cent - was set by the Dartmouth Fund last year. Fund Chairman William G. Morton '28 and his army of 2,000 workers will be pushing especially hard for the sought-after mark of 75 per cent participation, and this can be the year for reaching that milestone, they feel. The alumni participation record has climbed for four consecutive campaigns, and the total number of contributors has gone up steadily for ten years in a row.
In the opening Fund mailing piece, sent to all alumni in late March, Chairman Morton sets forth the 1957 Fund uses approved by the Alumni Council's Fund Committee. To help meet the College's
operating expenses for the current year, the Fund will provide the $720,000 requested by the Board of Trustees. This sum is 13 per cent of the 1956-57 budget.
After this primary purpose of the Fund is fulfilled, the Alumni, Fund moves into the critical faculty salary area. In the next ten years Dartmouth faces the retirement of approximately seventy teachers, men who have dedicated their services to the College and her students. These are critical losses because they will occur at a time when the supply of competent replacements is limited and the competition from other colleges, industry and government agencies is at its highest.
Recognizing the challenge Dartmouth must meet on this front, the Alumni Fund Committee has earmarked $80,000 to help the College in attracting top faculty prospects and in retaining the able young teachers now on the campus. This amount will match the full income of the Ford Foundation grant of two million dollars for faculty salaries and will serve notice that Dartmouth alumni are aware of this problem and are willing to take an important step in meeting it.
Toward this year's $865,000 objective the Fund Committee is counting on $60,000 to be raised by the Dartmouth Parents Committee for the Alumni Fund, $65,000 from Memorial Fund income, and $40,000 from miscellaneous sources, with the balance of $700,000 from the alumni. The alumni objective has been increased $50,000 over last year and roughly approximates the total given to the 1956 Fund by 17,832 alumni contributors.
The Parents Committee of fifty members is headed this spring by Stuart V. Smith of Philadelphia, Pa., vice president in charge of sales for Wyeth Laboratories and a past member of the Parents Committee. He is tire father of Stuart V. Smith Jr. '57. Last year under the chairmanship of Michael L. Adley of New Haven, Conn., the Parents Committee set two new records, raising $55,795 from 1,298 Dartmouth families.
President Dickey and Fund Chairman Morton were the principal speakers at each of the four Alumni Fund Class Agents dinners in March. These meetings, setting the stage for the 1957 effort, were held in Boston, New York, Cleveland and Chicago.
Eight new class agents are taking over top direction of their class campaigns in the 1957 Fund. They are A. Gordon Weinz '09, Roger Salinger '27, Forrest C. Billings '28, John W. Little '40, Russell Hartranft '42, Philip E. Penberthy '44, Herman W. Schulting III '46, and Glendon E. French '56. Bernard J. Lewis '52 has returned to guide his class Fund effort alter a year's absence.
Alumni Fund Chairman William G. Morton'28 (right) with Provost Donald H. Morrison.
