ALUMNI COLLEGE '65
Special Anthropology Course Added for Children
ONE book is missing from the display of 1965 Alumni College "assigned reading" that illustrates this page.
Before 208 Dartmouth alumni and their wives who are currently registered and working hard at their reading go scurrying to booklists to see what's amiss, it should be stated that this particular book is not for them. It's for junior and junior-miss.
The book, America's Buried Past: theStory of North American Archaeology, is assigned (and being sent) to those youngsters among the 85 or more accompanying their student-parents to Hanover, August 15-26, who will be 9th graders or higher next fall - and who wish a short, intensive, and thoroughly enjoyable course of study designed especially for them. Anthropology-Archaeology 001 has been developed and will be taught by Professor Elmer Harp Jr., Director of the Dartmouth College Museum.
The course covers, and uncovers, a lot of ground in eleven days. In broadest outline, its first phase will consist of informal lectures and discussions about primate and human evolution; man's relationships to monkeys and apes; early forms of primitive man; and the development of modern man and human races. The second phase of this course will concentrate on man's early prehistoric tools, methods of manufacturing tools, and the uses of culture for exploiting various geographic environments. There will be laboratory practice in making, hafting, and using simple stone and bone tools.
The final phase of the course will be concerned with archaeology as an important aid to written history, with approaches to field work and the prehistoric stages of man's cultural development. Highlighting this portion of the course will be a field trip to nearby Indian sites.
For those juniors not eligible (by virtue of age) or interested in the academic course, Alumni College Director J. Michael McGean '49 and junior program coordinator Robert W. MacMillen '40 have planned a production of a show with music to occupy the identical time segment of the morning program. In addition to performance opportunities, there will be scenery to paint, costumes to design, curtains to pull - all the mechanics and art of the musical theatre culminating in a performance on the afternoon of August 26.
Recognizing that there may be juniors with little interest in the stage or in exploration through archaeology, the Alumni College staff also offers instruction in tennis and swimming at the same morning hour. The other morning class hour provides the participants from age 7 and up with a selection of Hopkins Center Studio classes in drawing, modeling, woodworking, and graphic arts. In addition to instructors from last summer, Mrs. Patricia Musick, Winslow Eaves, and Walker Weed, the Studio faculty will also have Professor Ray Nash who heads the College's Graphic Arts Studio. For the very young, ages 3 through 6, the morning activities will consist of supervised activities at the Hanover Nursery School.
Director McGean thinks the Alumni College offers an exciting children's program and because of this he is quick to state that the junior activities exist for one purpose: to provide the student-parents with as much time for study and post-class discussion as possible. Children who can't bring along parents wanting serious liberal arts refreshment are just out of luck!
Along with their books, registered alumni students and their wives are receiving innocent-looking papers entitled "Study Questions" and each pertains to one of the reading assignments. They vary in the number of questions, from Professor James Cusick's eleven-page question-guide to Bunting's The HiddenFace of Free Enterprise to Professor Timothy Duggan's one-page, seven-question listing that concludes with "Does Sartre offer a code of ethics for our consideration? What is his view of the nature of man?"; but all provide evidence of the type of educational experience in store.
With the usual caution of an "admissions officer" dealing with a selective (i.e. limited) enrollment, Director McGean offers the following information for alumni families interested but necessarily on the fence now, or who might find it possible to make such plans later: "There is usually some attrition in the month or two before Alumni College because of family or business emergencies. These vacancies will be filled from a waiting list and last-minute applicants. Of course, there is no guarantee that such space will open up, but we will do our best to accommodate alumni and their families with an interest in this type of an educational experience. In fact, I had one couple cancel this week!"
