Assets Grow Nearly Fivefold

Dollars and plant facilities provide the sinews of first-rate education, and they also serve, perhaps more graphically than anything else, to point up the dimensions of Dartmouth's growth over the past twenty years.

Back in 1945, Dartmouth's total assets were $31 million; today they are in excess of $140 million at book value. Endowment has grown from $22 million to more than $114 million at market value.

When John Dickey assumed the presidency in 1945, Dartmouth's annual operating budget for educational and general purposes was approximately $2.25 million. Both the scope and form of financial reports have greatly changed since then, but the comparable figure for fiscal 1964-65 is $15 million. The latter figure includes $3.2 million for sponsored research and Hopkins Center expense of $545,000, both of which were non-existent twenty years ago, as well as $1.5 million of additional expense to cover the much broader program of student services provided now as compared to 1945. The College's total expenditures are now $21.5 million per year if student aid at $1.2 million and the gross expense of athletics, dormitories, dining halls and other auxiliary activities are included.

Over the past twenty years instructional expense has risen from $1.2 million to $5.6 million, library expenditures from $163,000 to $760,000, and plant operation and maintenance from $219,000 to $1.5 million, reflecting the great expansion in plant facilities.

Dartmouth's ambitious construction program, begun ten years ago as part of the 15-year prelude to the Bicentennial, has been mainly completed. Current construction of the Kiewit Computation Center and plans for another new dormitory and for modernizing the Hanover Inn round out an expansion and modernization program that has changed the face of Hanover and given Dartmouth a very fine plant in which to carry on its daily work. Not counting extensive remodeling throughout the College plant, major items in the building program of the past decade include the Hopkins Center, the Gilman Biomedical Center, Leverone Field House, the Bradley Mathematics Center, Gerry Hall for psychology, eight new dormitories, four faculty housing facilities, a new swimming pool, Dartmouth Skiway, Hanover Inn Motor Lodge, new steam and electric power distribution systems, and additions to Baker Library, Steele Hall, and Thayer Hall. Of the total plant outlay of approximately $28 million nearly $16 million has gone to academic facilities and more than $5 million to student housing.