Experimental and Over-Subscribed.

The student-organized and run Dartmouth Experimental College came into being in a January tidal wave of applications. Although not the first of its kind in the nation, or the most ambitious, the D.E.C. can certainly claim the most enthusiastic claim to an opening invitation.

Within a week of the distribution of their simple but attractive catalog, the D.E.C. students serving as course coordinators had 1,057 applications for the seventeen courses being offered. More than half of the would-be participants were Dartmouth undergraduates; 299 were members of the faculty and others from the Hanover-Norwich community; and 173 were young ladies from nearby Colby Junior College.

This delighted Number One organizer Bob Reich '68 and his cohorts, but it also caused them some major headaches at the outset. They had hoped to keep the classes intimate, no more than fifteen participants in each, but with more than a thousand wanting in, they chose to compromise and accommodate as many as possible - the number depending on the nature of the particular course. Approximately 600 were admitted to D.E.C. and began their weekly classes in midJanuary in fraternities, dormitories, and club rooms.

There are no charges, no examinations, and no grades or credits. Some courses have optional reading lists, but nothing is required. The sessions vary widely in content and approach but all are, in Reich's opinion, "carefully designed courses in which creative innovation and free exchange of ideas will be the rule ... these are not mere bull sessions."

Applicants had a wide variety of subjects to choose from, including: Tolkien I; The Works of Immanuel Velikovsky: An Investigation into the Creative Process; Forum on Film; Contemporary Marriage; Jazz: A Problematical Survey of the Music, Its Criticism and Controversy; Ethical Theory and Problems; American Negro History: the Black Passion; The Development of Conservative Thought; Law and the Individual Conscience; An Investigation of Sex; ESP, LSD and the Frontiers of the Mind; An Introduction to Cut-ups, Projective Verse, and the New Music; The Adolescent Sub-Culture; An Inside View of the World of Computers; The Stock Market: an Introduction; and Man Faces Death.

Some courses are drawing on students, and others are calling on the College's faculty for instructional resources. The course on Creativity, for instance, was opened by Philosophy Professor Timothy Duggan and will continue with a powerhouse lineup of faculty talent including psychologist Rogers Elliott, mathematician John G. Kemeny, poet Richard Eberhart '26, and many others. Immanuel Velikovsky will be on campus to talk to participants in the course on his works, and President Dickey is listed as one of the lecturers in the course on Law and Individual Conscience.

The Winter Term program for D.E.C. is being supported financially by the William Jewett Tucker Foundation and the Committee on Freshman Reading. Plans are already underway for Spring Term offerings.