UNCLE SAM AT DARTMOUTH

One's first conjecture about Federal dollars in the financial bloodstream of Dartmouth College is likely to be the assumption that such support is not a big factor in the educational operations of the College. This idea might be based, understandably, on Dartmouth's relatively small size and on its primary concern with the liberal education of undergraduates.

But the assumption is dead wrong.

The $5 million of Federal money received by Dartmouth in 1965-66 admittedly is not of the magnitude of the $6O million received by M.I.T. or the huge sums granted to Michigan, UCLA, Illinois, Stanford, California at Berkeley, or to Columbia, Cornell, and Harvard (in that order) in the Ivy League. But Federal support represented 25.1% of Dartmouth's operating income for 1965-66, excluding auxiliary activities and athletics. This is exactly the same percentage of support that $42.2 million of Federal money provided in last year's budget at the University of Minnesota.

Uncle Sam's dollars come to Dartmouth with strings attached, of course. They are not "free" funds that can be used by the College to reduce the financial problems of its normal day-to-day operations; they are funds granted for additional, specific projects. And paradoxically, Federal largesse can cost the College money, because the institution is expected to bear some small part of the cost (maybe 5%) of many of the projects, especially those involving faculty research. Below-cost allowances for project overhead were a difficulty for all institutions until recently when a more liberal government policy was adopted.

The greater part of the Federal money received by Dartmouth is for faculty research and graduate training, and within that category the greater part of the support goes to the Medical School. At Dartmouth, as elsewhere in higher education, Federal money is very necessary if graduate-level programs and faculty research are to be carried on in any extensive and first-rate way, and many of the exciting and significant developments within the College in recent years could not have happened without the Federal support that now undergirds American higher education.

A Five-Year Climb

The steady growth of direct Federal support for Dartmouth educational programs during the past five years is shown in a comparative table on the next page. The grand total of that support has risen from $1,925,158 in 1961-62 to $4,973,- 085 in 1965-66, and to a good deal more than $5 million for the current year, not covered in the tabulation.

The two most significant categories of support, underlining the accuracy of Dartmouth's contemporary characterization as a small university in everything but name, are those in the top two lines of the table - "Research and Training" and "Graduate Studies," both of which have advanced in scope and in the amount of Federal money utilized. Three new categories, although not involving large sums, appeared last year for the first time-—Asian Language Studies, a Library grant, and the Office of Education's Work-Study Program for students. The "Facilities" category, which reached a peak in 1963-64 and is now tapering off, covers the government contributions for the Gilman Biomedical Center, laboratory improvements in Steele and Wilder Halls, and for the Kiewit Computation Center, to list the major items.

The most impressive dollar growth of all has come about through the College's highly successful operation of training programs for the Peace Corps. From a miniscule $2OB in 1962-63 the Peace Corps funds in the annual budget increased to $495,532 last year, and for the current year, with seven different projects under Dartmouth's direction on and off the campus, the Federal funds allocated will exceed $1 million.

Dartmouth is the only institution of higher learning in the country with a full-time Peace Corps Director, an office filled by C. Phillip Bosserman. The College has prepared trainees for India, Liberia, Gabon, Togo, Senegal, Chad, and the Ivory Coast. At least four programs involving 300 trainees will be operated by the College next year.

In addition to the $5 million of direct Federal support that appears in the annual operating budget, other government funds amounting to nearly $400,000 are administered by Dartmouth's Office of Financial Aid. Most of this - $350,000 last year — is in the form of National Defense Student Loans, a program of long-term, low-interest loans made available to needy students through the U. S. Office of Education. Eligible undergraduates may borrow up to $lOOO each year, to a total of $5000. With Dartmouth's own scholarship and loan funds never fully up to the growing need of today's undergraduates (tuition will be $2075 next fall), the amount of Federal loan money available each year is a substantial help on the financial-aid front. The Office of Education's Division of Student Financial Aid also has inaugurated this year a program of outright grants for low-income students with exceptional need, and Dartmouth has been allotted $40,000 for this form of aid.

Another $40,000 is available to Dartmouth students this year under the College Work-Study Program, which does figure in the budget. It enables students to earn part of their college expenses in jobs which can be newly created within the College or can be for a public or private non-profit organization beyond the campus (summer jobs included). The College or other employer pays only 10% of the student's compensation under this program.

The Office of Education was only one of fifteen Federal departments from which Dartmouth received funds last year for specified projects. The National Institutes of Health provided by far the largest amount of support (more than $2 million) with the National Science Foundation ($l.l million) next. Other sources of grants, in order, were the Peace Corps, U. S. Air Force, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, U. S. Navy, Atomic Energy Commission, U. S. Army (CRREL), U. S. Army (other), Department of Agriculture, Post Office Department, General Services Ad- ministration, Veterans Administration, and Office of Saline Water.

These are the agencies with which Dartmouth had direct relations. Other Federal money was involved in College programs sponsored by intermediate agencies, and the prime example of this is Project ABC, for which the Office of Economic Opportunity, as well as the Rockefeller Foundation, provided funds to the Independent Schools Talent Search Program. Dartmouth's ROTC units, the National Merit Scholars on campus, and certain scholarship and loan opportunities for the health professions are other forms of Federal input that do not show up directly in the budget. Loans for the construction of dormitories can also be added to the ways in which Uncle Sam is aiding the College.

Research and Training

Last year $4 out of every $5 received by Dartmouth from the Federal government went into research and training. This money was devoted almost entirely to the sciences. Of approximately 110 faculty members of the Medical School, Thayer School, and undergraduate College engaged in Federally supported research, only ten were in the social sciences and none was in the humanities. Since research and training support is geared mainly to the graduate level and Dartmouth's doctoral programs at present are all in the sciences, this heavy emphasis on the sciences is especially pronounced at Dartmouth.

The growing number of Federal programs under the Office of Education portends an upswing in support for the social sciences nationally, and the new graduate programs in this area being planned at Dartmouth almost certainly will mean more government grants. Federal support in the humanities is just barely beginning. For the coming summer and academic year, three members of the Dartmouth faculty have received some of the first Federally financed fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

At the Dartmouth Medical School, to which 60 per cent of Dartmouth's Federal research and training money goes, some thirty members of the full-time faculty are currently engaged in government-financed projects, and associated with them are most of the postdoctoral research fellows and trainees at the School. Federal funds to support these biomedical studies come almost entirely from the Public Health Service and the National Science Foundation. To an extent not true of other segments of the College, Federal dollars at the Medical School have also been a resource for research facilities.

In the undergraduate College of arts and sciences, approximately $1 million of Federal money was expended for basic research last year. Of sixty faculty projects, fifty were in the sciences and involved physics, chemistry, mathematics, biological sciences, geology, and the engineering sciences. Those in the social sciences were mainly in psychology, an- thropology, and government.

New directions in government interest and support seem to be away from the individual project and toward the research unit, the institutional development of areas of excellence in basic research (such as the Defense Department's THEMIS), the alliance of the university with the community for continuing education and community services, and the development of educational ventures of broad application. This may have a significant bearing on the future character of Federal support at Dartmouth, where up to now the individual project has been the main thing in the research category.

Graduate Studies

One of the Federal government's most confirmed areas of support is that of graduate studies. In direct correlation with the establishment and growth of graduate programs at Dartmouth, Federal support in this category has increased from zero five years ago to $192,000 last year. A further growth this year to about $240,000 has taken place.

Support of graduate students in most cases takes the form of three-year fellowships which are awarded through the College. Each of these involves approximately $5OOO a year, half of which is a stipend to the student and half of which is an institutional grant to cover tuition and other costs. Prof. James F. Hornig, director of graduate study at the College, reports that 48 graduate students this year are receiving fellowships by means of funds provided by NASA, which is interested in graduate studies in space-related fields; the National Defense Education Program, which supports graduate students going into teaching; and the National Science Foundation. The National Institutes of Health also provide substantial support for graduate work at the Medical School.

Graduate studies at all universities depend heavily on Federal support to both the students and the institution. If Dartmouth's projected plans for new and expanded programs of graduate study are carried out, this is a category in which the College's partnership with Uncle Sam will be markedly broadened in the future.

Non-Federal Support

In addition to the Federal dollars received by Dartmouth last year, more than $450,000 for sponsored research was added from private sources such as the Sloan Foundation, the Tuck Associates, American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, Ford Foundation, Carnegie Corporation, and business corporations.

The whole business of what is termed "Sponsored Activities" has added a complicated new responsibility for the administration of every university, and has necessitated specialized personnel to handle matters on the faculty side as well as on the side of contract negotiation, financial management, and accounting. Dartmouth now has three executive officers - William B. Durant Jr. for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Richard L Low for the Medical School, and Desmond E. Canavan for the Thayer School - whose duties are extensively involved with sponsored research. Douglas D. Perkins '53 is Assistant Treasurer for Sponsored Activities, and in the Comptroller's Office a special staff of six (five on Federal projects and one on private) is directed by Assistant Comptroller Foster W. Blough, whose job it is to keep nearly 600 separate accounts in such up-to-the-minute order that even Uncle Sam's meticulous auditors will be happy. Besides these full-time "sponsored activists," at least another twenty persons around campus are to some extent involved in what is now a big part of the daily business of higher education.

Despite the attendant problems and debatable implications, the great advantages of Federal financial support are quite clear and no university of any stature would willingly be without them. The wish to be responsive to national needs to which the government gives high priority and billions of dollars each year is also an important consideration. The danger that Federally funded programs will shape the institution is perhaps greater and more subtle for unified colleges like Dartmouth than it is for huge universities that are composites of autonomous segments. But certainly no one at the College seems alarmed in the present circumstances, and Uncle Sam is a welcome presence.

Direct Federal Support in Past Five Years 1961-62 1962-63 1963-64 1964-65 1965-66 Research & Training 1,816,032 2,519,388 3,217,879 3,525,509 3,923,950 Graduate Studies - 5,435 44,453 75,394 192,034 Asian Languages - - - - 25,000 Library - - — - 5,000 Matching Equipment 1,270 16,961 37,845 11,580 19,338 Work-Study Program - - - — 11,764 Peace Corps - 208 66,772 303,434 495,532 Other Institutes & Conferences 78,391 94,777 81,458 126,214 173,824 Facilities 29,465 64,261 966,114 209,858 126,643 Annual Total 1,925,158 2,701,030 4,414,521 4,251,989 4,973,085