The Undergraduate Chair

As usual, the winter term started L quickly and quietly with the customary jammed registration lines on Sunday, January 4, and classes beginning at 8 the next morning. Freezing rain three days after Christmas had left trees in Hanover coated with thick layers of ice, and a cold snap following the rain held the ice on the trees for close to two weeks. The result was extensive damage to branches and trunks, but for those who were lucky enough to see one of the ice laden trees against a January afternoon sunset the beauty compensated in some way for the damage, the cold, and the ice-covered streets and sidewalks.

For those who didn't make it to registration on time there was a $10 fine, one of those minor irritations that students grumble about but ultimately are forced to accept. There are other fines, too," including $5 to change a course and $10 for filing one's course selection card late. Many students find it difficult to decide in early May, the deadline for filing for fall term courses, what they will want to take in the fall. A friend of mine whose ideas changed between May and September, prompting him to change all three courses, wrote the bursar expressing his contempt for the system of fines and declined to lay down $l5. A bureaucratized memo in the return mail made the point that this individual was at liberty not to pay his $15 if he didn't mind discontinuing his education at Dartmouth. The argument proved persuasive and the student coughed up the money. Such is power.

The mood and appearance of students waiting in the long registration lines were inescapably those of winter. The freshness of fall was gone; rough edges had worn off freshmen, for better or worse, leaving them more settled and comfortable in the college environment. All dress was reduced to more or less the same essential elements: heavy coat, boots, and various kinds of scarves, mittens, and hats as optional extras. There was a kind of resignation to the long months of cold and isolation. The conversations were individual and private. For most students the fall had not been shaken by any particularly traumatic events. Few if any common college "issues" sprang automatically to the tongue. Even the seventy girls on loan to Dartmouth for the year mixed quietly as they signed the inevitable forms.

Some of them were hoping that this would not be the last winter they would be registering at Dartmouth. A petition had been sent during the fall to Katherine Stevens, Dartmouth's Dean of Women, requesting that girls who were juniors be allowed to return to Dartmouth for their senior year. The College agreed to look into the possibility on the understanding that any girls who returned for their senior year could not expect to receive a degree from the College but would have to get their home school to grant them degrees on the basis of two years' work at Dartmouth. The question is still under study.

For most students the fall was an uncommonly quiet time. True, most people were busy, but busy with private affairs rather than public issues. In October Bob Blackman, disappointed with student support for his football team the previous year, urged an outpouring of school spirit to help the 1969 team on its course. While many people continued to turn out for the bonfires, the Friday morning send-off rally prior to an away game dwindled to a small handful of students stopping on their way to and from Hinman post office. When the team left for the championship game with Princeton perhaps two hundred students turned out to send the team on its way in contrast to the two or three thousand who had turned out on an almost identical occasion four years before. There are few students here who regret the change.

WDCR conducted its annual "Let's Help" campaign this year for the benefit of the Lebanon Regional Training Center. One of the outstanding features of the campaign was "celebrity day" during which various members of the College and Hanover community took over the on-the-air work at the station. Dean of the Faculty Leonard Rieser and Frank Smallwood combined for the 6:00 news. Dean Carroll Brewster did half of the afternoon rock show and Al Foley took over the Daybreak show with assistance on news from Hanover Police Chief Dennis Cooney and College Proctor John O'Connor.

A few students and faculty were heavily involved in the boycott and picketing of the Hanover Co-op for its refusal to discontinue the sale of California grapes. The boycott was effective enough in cutting weekly sales at the Co-op to force the board of directors to remove California grapes from the shelves.

The October Vietnam Moratorium picked up only scattered support among the students. In November $756 was raised for the Quaker Community Hospital in Quag Nang, Vietnam, when 378 students gave up one day's meals in Thayer Hall; and as many as 100 students reportedly went to Washington for the November anti-war march. Some came back having found out first-hand the effects of tear gas and CS. One trustee, Thomas Braden, publicly endorsed the Washington march.

The fall gave birth to a new publication, The Dartmouth Review, which presented itself as an "important experiment" designed to provide a "format for in-depth, well researched articles dealing with diverse aspects of the College's activities." In describing its approach to college activities the review stated

We believe that any well-informed member of an institution should stand in strong support of the ideals and members of an institution, while remaining a staunch critic of the processes and politics that maintain and guide the institution.

In four issues during the fall term the Review offered a moderate selection of articles on the presidential search, the College Committee on Standing and Conduct, the Washington march, education vs. training in the university, the annual Course Guide, the black experience at Dartmouth, and previews of various lecturers. The quality of the layout and the diversity of the articles improved with successive issues. At least three different faculty members were induced to write articles, an important step in making the Review a community organ. Some of the more critical articles written by students were less than masterpieces of precision or even good exposition but here again the quality tended to improve in the latter two issues.

Whatever difficulties have been encountered in trying to establish a consistently high quality of reporting and analysis, the Review nevertheless fills a gaping hole here at Dartmouth. It is the only regular publication which offers the immediate hope of becoming a thoughtful and forceful instrument at the College. No other group either within the faculty, student body or administrative staff has managed to initiate such a publication.

In a situation where The Dartmouth suffers from its own gap in credibility and rarely prints articles of any depth, the Review offers the only outlet for writing which goes beyond the daily routine of college news, and in addition it is potentially the primary outlet for those in the Dartmouth community who would like to write an occasional serious article but who do not want to be caught up in the pressures of dealing with a daily newspaper.

Dartmouth deserves a great deal of credit for having put up enough money to finance the first four issues. Apparently the general financial squeeze here has precluded further College funding of the Review and the editors are now out looking for money to finance issues during the coming terms.

Ideally the kind of reporting the Review has attempted will eventually become a possibility for The Dartmouth. Restrictions on space, lack of manpower, and the problems of running its own printing plant have put great pressure on the existing staff of The Dartmouth. Most ideally perhaps, one would hope that instead of publishing its articles separately the Review, possibly with a semi-independent staff, could publish its articles on a continuing basis within the pages of the daily issues of TheDartmouth.

Dartmouth Radio Station WDCR in this year's "Let's Help" campaign raised$5,926.52 to help launch a Lebanon Regional Training Center for physicallyand mentally handicapped persons 17 years of age or older. The Center's director,Roger Allen (left), is shown receiving a symbolic check from three WDCR leaders: Peter Walkley '71, Jim Coakley '72, and Randall Davis '70.

New styles have hit the DartmouthWinter Carnival posters like everythingelse. Prize winners for this year's Carnival, February 12-14, were these designsby Stephan McKeown '70 (top) andWilliam Bailey '70. Alumni wishingposters at $1 each postpaid may sendorders to Dartmouth Winter CarnivalCouncil, Box 734, Hinman Post Office,Hanover, N.H. 03755. Also availableat the same price are six previous posters for 1962-63, 1965, and 1967-69.

New styles have hit the DartmouthWinter Carnival posters like everythingelse. Prize winners for this year's Carnival, February 12-14, were these designsby Stephan McKeown '70 (top) andWilliam Bailey '70. Alumni wishingposters at $1 each postpaid may sendorders to Dartmouth Winter CarnivalCouncil, Box 734, Hinman Post Office,Hanover, N.H. 03755. Also availableat the same price are six previous posters for 1962-63, 1965, and 1967-69.