Letters to the Editor

Where Else?

TO THE EDITOR:

I read with pleasure of the appointment of Professor Kemeny as President of the College.

The choice is apt and represents the great strength of our society in recognizing ability and promoting people on this basis. Where else but in America could a person gain an advanced degree at a young age, become a professor and department chairman before thirty, and president of an outstanding university in the strength of his days?

Crane, Ind.

Coeducation

TO THE EDITOR:

As an undergraduate only a few years ago, I was known as one of the foremost defenders of Dartmouth's all-male structure. I was sentimentally inclined to preserve the tradition and the all-male fellowship which were - and still are — so distinctive of Dartmouth.

Nevertheless, my views have changed somewhat over the last several years as a result of my graduate experience at the University of Oregon. Rather than sticking stubbornly to what I so vigorously defended in the past, I think it would be useful to air my present thoughts.

As a graduate student with women on campus I spent less time worrying about when I was going to lech my next female and certainly less time in arranging it. As a result, I spent more of my creative thinking in pursuit of my studies.

I am undecided as to whether having women in classes made them more intellectually rewarding. I am inclined to think it didn't make any difference, but out-of-class discussions on academic matters were certainly more frequent whether or not women were present. Perhaps there is something to the argument that a different intellectual atmosphere pervades at coed universities.

I never accepted the argument that Dartmouth's monastic setting causes her undergraduates to develop a warped view of the female species. However, there is something to the assertion that it retards understanding of the female psyche at a time when such understanding ought to be multiplying by several orders of magnitude. After all, if a fellow is going to survive in this world, he needs to know something of the fathomless depths of those swindling minds. If you all don't mind my being a bit autobiographical, I wish I'd learned sooner how characteristically bitchy and scheming the whole damn lot of them are.

The College should not necessarily be shackled to the mores of centuries gone by. Times have changed. Television has had an enormous impact on today's youngsters. They are terribly more sophisticated than their parents were at a similar age. Trends in education reflect the extent of the change.

It seems to me that if women on campus are an unqualified asset to education in matters academic and non-academic, the College should move immediately to establish coeducation, all traditional sentimentality and fellowship notwithstanding.

If, on the other hand, my intellectual enrichment as a graduate student was due only to my peculiar circumstances and goals, the College should tread carefully before introducing such pollution.

In any event, I'd love and be proud of Dartmouth if she went coed tomorrow or if she never went coed. This brings me to my final point. I have nothing but scorn for the attitude expressed in one recent letter the author of which declared his intent not to contribute to the Alumni Fund until Dartmouth admitted coeds. I also reserve the same scorn for those alumni who threaten to withhold aid if the College does admit women or if some other policy irks them. Dartmouth is in the learning business, and you are either on the side of quality education or you are not.

Brighton, Mass.

TO THE EDITOR:

As my only son will enter college next fall, both of us have done some research on colleges the last 6-9 months. The specifications both of us were looking for was a male, private, 4-year college east of the Mississippi. The source we used was the. 1967-68 edition of the LIAMA college listing which lists over 1200 4-year colleges as male, female or coeducational. Much to my surprise, omitting the purely parochial schools, we were able to list only 19 schools. As of today from this list of 19 there are only two which are not already or have not announced they will start taking girls for degrees starting in 1970 or '71. The two are Dartmouth and Amherst, and although Amherst has many programs with its several distaff neighbors, I think I am correct that they are still not giving girls degrees. I for one think it a shame that there no longer seems to be any choice.

Several years ago our mail was flooded with literature on the proposed Yale-Vassar marriage (my wife is a Vassar graduate). I think the most loudly voiced argument in favor of the merger was that "we cannot attract the top students and faculty unless we go co-educational." If this argument is advanced as far as Dartmouth is concerned, it just must be pure nonsense. As Dartmouth is now practically by itself among the major institutions in that it has not so far succumbed, I would suspect the admissions department does not have a dearth of qualified applicants nor can I believe that there are not many excellent faculty prospects who would not welcome the chance to teach in an all-male school.

My oldest daughter, who is a junior in high school, until recently was convinced she wanted to go to Dartmouth first, then Williams, Yale, Princeton, Colgate, etc. Fortunately after last fall's Princeton game we spent the evening with a large group of about 18 Dartmouth juniors and seniors who convinced her that girls at Dartmouth from the girls' standpoint was a terrible idea. A nameless senior told her: "Perry, can you imagine a Yale man dating a Dartmouth girl," and "Most of the students at Dartmouth want no part of girls during the week. On weekends fine (and weekends often last from Thursday to Monday) when there are plenty of girls around and not from Hanover."

What's the matter with Dartmouth being the only private men's college? I think it would be great.

Springfield, Mass.

Credit Overdue

TO THE EDITOR:

An open letter to Blair Watson and Robert Gitt:

First, let me thank you for the Dartmouth Film Society programs you have sent me since I graduated. I find them to be superb collections of film descriptions and stills. They and the programs they describe surpass any available elsewhere. Once every three months, when your latest program arrives, I tell my wife "I'd give anything to go back to Dartmouth just to see these films." Not only are Dartmouth film audiences unique, so are Dartmouth films.

Which leads me to my second point. People are becoming aware that film is important as entertainment and as art. Films are more and more a crucial part of the humanities manities of the 20th century. And, in my opinion, Dartmouth has the best arranged and best presented film programs of any university or college in the world. These achievements should be related to Dartmouth's alumni and who better to do that than you gentlemen, the prime movers behind the phenomenal development of the Dartmouth Film Society? The ALUMNI MAGAZINE is the ideal format to detail such accomplishments as the following: eight definitive retrospectives of the works of major film directors, Arthur Penn (director of Bonnie & Clyde), Jean Renoir (22 films shown at Dartmouth), Jean-Luc Godard (16 films), Joseph Losey '29 (15 films, Losey in residence at 'Dartmouth this quarter), Howard Hawks (30 films), Fred Zinemann (10 films), Alfred Hitchcock (26 films), and Robert Flaherty; retrospectives of major cinema actors' films including Robert Ryan '32, Katherine Hepburn, and nonetheless than Bullwinkle J. Moose; major retrospective programs of important themes in movie history and development, films of horror, fantasy and the supernatural (35 films), fifty years of film (70 films), an movie villains (50 films).

Any one of the above programs furnishes adequate bases for scholarly courses on motion pictures and indeed have served as such for the courses of Arthur Mayer an Maurice Rapf. Film programs of this scope, quality, and imagination are truly unique and the story of how you shaped the Dartmouth mouth Film Society into the best should be told. Films were a major part of my education. I saw two to three hundred as a member of the Film Society, all for a cost of about $25. You two gentlemen are long overdue for credit and praise for a job done not just well but done no less than perfectly.

Santa Barbara, Calif.

A Game with Grambling?

TO THE EDITOR:

With the change in the NCAA policy concerning the number of football games that can be played in one season, I suggest that Dartmouth try to develop a home-and-home scheduling with a suitable opponent chosen from among the black colleges, e.g., Grambling, Texas Southern, or Florida A & M.

Dartmouth has established a proud tradition of working with the minorities; such a game would be a continuation of the pioneering tradition that was established by Eleazar Wheelock.

I encourage Coach Blackman to consider this alternative.

Lexington, Kentucky

A Medical Gain

TO THE EDITOR:

The January ALUMNI MAGAZINE makes mention of the fact that I am the Executive Director of the Myasthenia Gravis Foundation. Thanks for the plug!

It is interesting to note that one of the first physicians in the United States who worked in the field of myasthenia gravis, a very serious neuromuscular disease, was the late Dr. Henry Viets '12. MG had been considered sidered very rare with a fatality rate of over 90%. Dr. Viets soon established the first clinic for myasthenic patients at Massachusetts General Hospital. He was fascinated with the ups and downs common to the patients suffering from myasthenia and urged research into the cause.

Later through the dedication, leadership and drive of Dr. Viets this organization was established and we can now report that the mortality rate has dropped to approximately 15%, within two years after diagnosis, and because of physician education it is no longer considered a "rare" disease, but one recognized more and more by the neurologists. gists.

I find it good to be carrying on in the field opened up by my fellow alumnus.

Los Angeles, Calif.

Another Warning

TO THE EDITOR:

We, the undersigned, welcome reinforcements (John Shaw '27 in ALUMNI MAGAZINE of January 1970) and the additions to our list of suggested required reading.

Also, we are gratified that edification has been salted with amusement for Mr. Stearns Morse '52 and his coterie (ALUMNI MAGAZINE of January 1970). We take pleasure in forwarding to them, via the editor, a copy of You Can Trust the Communists(to be Communists) by Fred Schwarz. Vive la hilarity!

Communism, of whatever stripe, sweeps away from human experience all the great ideals for which mankind has struggled through the centuries. In the space of 45 years, by force, deceit and ruthlessness the Communists have taken control of one-fourth of the world's territory and one-third of the world's population. It would be impossible to count the millions of people throughout the world who have been deceived by them. There

There are those who welcome this development; there are those who deny this menace; there are those who drowse in the path of the tidal bore; and there are those who, as one of Khrushchev's henchmen once cracked, "can't sleep for laughing."

Irony and Disparity

TO THE EDITOR:

How ironic it was to receive a letter from Chairman Rupert C. Thompson '28 of the Third Century Fund who asked for a sharing of capital with the College. It was ironic because of the disparity between the immediacy of present problems and Dartmouth's languorous response.

The slavery of black men and Indians in America has been a highly visible issue since America was founded. Dartmouth's recent commitment to equality of educational opportunity comes a century or so late. The oppression of American women has been an identifiable issue for at least fifty years. Dartmouth equivocates on equal rights to education for women. The struggle of young people for a share in the decision-making processes which affect them, shook all levels of American society in the decade past. Last spring Dartmouth resolutely spurned not only her radical sons, who found themselves in jail for their concern, but also many of her more moderate sons, whose voices continue to be heard only in absolutely minimal ways within the decision-making structure of the College. The struggle of American citizens to control the largest military budget in the world, and to deal with the inflation, rotten cities and useless and immoral wars it spawns has not yet seen success. And awareness of the price we pay for our gluttonous consumption and overpopulation in the pollution and destruction of our environment is newly on the scene.

But Dartmouth College has faced long identifiable problems only when they become so pressing as to allow no further delay. And I can see no evidence that the College is making any serious effort to identify and anticipate the issues with which it will inevitably be forced to grapple.

Sadly, I wrote to Chairman Rupert C. Thompson Jr. '28 to explain that there are concerns which will preempt any small gift I could make until Dartmouth catches up to the present.

Boulder, Colo.