THE COLLEGE

HERE we are once again gathered together as a community of learning much as this community for nearly two centuries now has gathered annually under the aegis of Dartmouth."

These words by President Dickey were spoken to the entire College, assembled in the west wing of Alumni Gymnasium early Monday morning, September 22, for the formal opening of Dartmouth's 190th year. Spread before him, under the flagdecked rafters, were the gowned faculty and the fall term's 2850 undergraduates, including a brand-new freshman class of some 770 men - workers of some sort of legerdemain by inducing a sophomore at the end of orientation week to state that 1962 looks like "a really sharp class."

There was more than tradition in the air as the College again took up its work after the summer recess. President Dickey spoke of "this, pioneering Dartmouth year" and all hands were keenly aware that they were about to become participants in an educational experiment holding as great promise for the strengthening of the College as any student-faculty program ever undertaken at Dartmouth.

The new three-term, three-course curriculum is, in fact, the first major educational change at the College since the introduction of the "Richardson curriculum" in the fall of 1925. And only two other College years before that, 1880 and 1902, saw an educational change of similar proportions. Something of the aims and mechanics of the new program is described in this issue, on page 24. The double launching last month of Dartmouth's 190th year and the "three-three" plan made for an especially auspicious Convocation. What develops from here on in will make exciting watching, and the ALUMNI MAGAZINE, starting a new half-century with a few changes of its own (see our new cover design), will keep you posted.