ABC Inaugurates Pilot Program at Hanover High

EIGHT of the 80 boys who completed the eight-week A Better Chance program at the College this summer are now living together in Hanover and attending classes at Hanover High School in an experimental endeavor that could provide a breakthrough of significance comparable to the Dartmouth-initiated ABC Program itself.

The idea of public school participation was prompted by the success of the 123 students who entered some 46 private preparatory schools after participating in the first two ABC summer programs, according to Associate Dean Charles F. Dey '52, the first Director of ABC and now the Chairman of the Hanover Resident Scholarship Program's board, the group overseeing the experiment.

ABC has been expanded to four other campuses — Mount Holyoke, Carleton, Duke, and Williams - raising the total of ABC students to 400. Most of these students entered independent secondary schools in September, but there is a limit to the youngsters who can be helped in this way. "Despite the expansion," Dean Dey noted, "more than 1,000 applicants, many of them obviously able and ambitious, had to be rejected."

The bottleneck is not in the summer programs. Many other colleges and universities stand ready to take on ABC programs themselves. "To expand secondary school opportunities we need public schools to supplement the successful work of the private schools," Dean Dey states. "If the program works as well in Hanover High School, it will be suggested to other public high schools as one way they can expand opportunities for disadvantaged youngsters."

For the eight boys living together in a large home on East Wheelock Street, just east of Alumni Gymnasium, the academic going will be as difficult as ABC itself was during the summer, but the program is not all classes and homework. The racially mixed group is already getting involved in 10th and 11th grade activities as well.

Several of the boys are on the soccer squad and three others are playing football. One unfortunately had the season end before it began by suffering a broken arm on the practice field.

Living with the eight boys are Thomas L. Mikula and his family and two Dartmouth undergraduates. Mr. Mikula, who has been ABC mathematics coordinator for two summers, is the resident tutor. He has been granted faculty leave of absence from Phillips Andover Academy. He will also teach mathematics part time at the high school and will work with Hanover and Norwich families who will serve in supporting roles for specific students. In addition, Mr. Mikula intends to help other communities, public schools, and colleges interested in developing similar programs.

Assisting Mr. Mikula, and living and eating with the boys also, will be Richard W. Clapp '67 of Lewiston, Me., and William McCurine Jr. '69 of Chicago. They serve as counselors to the boys, tutor them in the evening, and help plan weekend activities to make, as Dean Dey puts it, "the East Wheelock Street residence an educational facility."

The Board of Directors of the Hanover High School Resident Scholarship Program believes that the Hanover school can offer these boys a highly competitive precollege program that might not be available to them at home. The board also believes that the program will provide Hanover High students opportunities to learn and grow with students from diverse backgrounds. The School District will be fully reimbursed for actual student costs by the Office of Economic Opportunity through the Independent Schools Talent Search Program.