Trustees and Alumni Council Hear 1970 Called "Great Year for Dartmouth"

The 121st meeting of the Dartmouth Alumni Council, held in Hanover last month when the Board of Trustees was also meeting, was far from being a routine gathering for the "senate" of the alumni.

A joint and open session with the Trustees was devoted mainly to the most far-reaching decision facing the modern College—coeducation. For the first time, members of the Council also met in executive session with the Board of Trustees and thus had an exceptional opportunity for direct "input" in the governance of the College. The joint dinner of the Councillors and Trustees was itself a special event, marking 1970 as "A Great Year for Dartmouth." Alumni and their wives, College officers, faculty, and students, filling Alumni Hall to capacity, celebrated the topping of the Third Century Fund's $51-million goal and paid tribute to Dartmouth's 1970 championship football team, which was represented at the dinner by its 26 senior members, next fall's co-captains, and newly appointed head coach Jake Crouthamel '60.

Dero A. Saunders '35, president of the Alumni Council, presided at the dinner, as he did at other meetings during the three-day period. He presented two Alumni Awards (see Page 26) and introduced as speakers Coach Crout- hamel, Trustee Chairman Charles J. Zimmerman '23, and President Kemeny.

Coach Crouthamel, making a winning address in his first appearance since being named head coach, introduced six senior members of the 1970 team — Co-Captains Murry Bowden and Bob Peters, Willie Bogan, Barry Brink, Jim Chasey, and John Short — as representative of a very special group of scholars and athletes.

Mr. Zimmerman did the Third Century Fund honors, saluting the leaders of the campaign and presenting as speakers Harrison F. Dunning '30, major gifts chairman, and William E. Buchanan '24, who took over as national chairman upon the death of Rupert C. Thompson Jr. '2B, who led the drive during most of its three years.

President Kemeny, who is shown on this month's cover responding to the applause for his vital part in the campaign as foundations chairman, spoke on the dinner theme, "A Great Year for Dartmouth." He mentioned, in addition to the TCF and football success, the revival of the M.D. program at the Medical School; further development of the finest educational computer program in the country, perhaps in the world; progress in equal opportunity programs; educational advances in custom-made majors, foreign study, and off-campus internships; authorization of the Murdough Center for the Tuck and Thayer Schools; better communication among all segments of Dartmouth; many faculty honors; and the first steps toward reorganization of the faculty into one College-wide body. Although not mentioned by Mr. Kemeny, 1970 also saw the inauguration of a new President and of what promises to be a great era under his leadership.

The January 14-16 meetings of the Alumni Council were uncommon in one other way; the sessions were open to the campus news media, and both The Dartmouth and Station WDCR reported them fully. Interviews with Trustees and Council members were added to accounts of the open sessions. John Marshall '71, undergraduate member of the Council, proposed that there be more than a single student member in the future. He also spoke feelingly at the joint Trustee-Council meeting, expressing student support of coeducation and the view that it could be adopted without the loss of those unique Dartmouth qualities that undergraduates prize as much as the alumni do.

The subject of coeducation was covered in depth at the joint meeting. A background paper, prepared by Provost Leonard M. Rieser '44, co-chairman of the Trustee Study Committee, had been sent to all members of the Council in advance. The main speaker at the meeting was the other co-chairman, Trustee Dudley W. Orr '29. Neither the background paper nor Mr. Orr's report represented any final conclusions of the committee, but there was clear indication that the study committee before April would recommend to the Trustees that Dartmouth adopt co-education in some form. It has already unanimously recommended "a greater feminine presence" at Dartmouth and has since been working, at Trustee instruction, on the kind of coeducation that will be most advantageous to the educational purpose and excellence of Dartmouth. Mr. Orr's remarks follow:

Report by Mr. Orr

The Trustees' Study Committee has already unanimously recommended a greater feminine presence at Dartmouth. Its specific proposal has not yet been formulated, but for the purpose of this discussion I will assume that it will be as follows:

By 1975 Dartmouth should have in its undergraduate body 900 women and 2700 men, a total of 3600, but there should be on campus at any one time no more than 3200 undergraduates. The increase in absolute numbers without increasing the number of resident students will be accomplished by increasing enrollment in the summer term and by expanding off-campus programs. Although the recommendation calls for a reduction in the number of undergraduate males, nevertheless the number of men in 1975 still will be 376 more than the total enrollment in 1930. The number of women in 1975 will not be merely a token group which would be worse than nothing. It will be about as great as the total undergraduate enrollment of the largest American college, male or female, at the time when Dr. Tucker was elected President. This is not a change that will occur tomorrow. It will take years to put it into effect.

Careful investigation of the costs of this change indicates that at present prices the additional current expense would be $274,000 per year and that the capital expenditures necessary to support the change would be $6.5 million. Part of the capital expense probably will be incurred regardless of coeducation. To put these cost estimates in perspective with the balance of the operations of the College, the total net expenses of the College last year, exclusive of financial aid, were $21,049 million. This is a current figure against which the additional expense of $274,000 may be measured. From 1954 to 1969 the total footings of all College assets in the Treasurer's report increased from $44 million to $195 million. Also, during that period the Alumni Fund tripled, total assets increased 4.5 times, total income increased five times, and two capital gift campaigns, successfully completed, totaled $69 million. It is especially difficult to innovate at a time of financial stringency. One must not only overcome inertia but also suffer the surgery of giving something up. But if in hard times new programs are not introduced, the College may be going out of business.

Not increasing the number of resident undergraduates, while a significant number of women are introduced, both preserves an element of value in the Dartmouth experience and reduces cost. It has, however, difficulties of its own. It was apparent at least 17 years ago that any significant increase in the number of resident undergraduates would detract from the facility of communication, the cohesiveness, and the sense of identity that are such valuable attributes of Dartmouth. Our friends at Princeton and Yale have expressed their alarm about the increase in the total number of undergraduates that their method of introducing coeducation has caused.

It is easy to say that an extra 400 spaces at Dartmouth can be provided by increased use of the summer term and by expanded off-campus programs. The achievement of this goal will require much work and much imagination. These objectives, however, have merit independent of coeducation. It has been obvious for a long time that practically to shut down academic operations during the summer is an inefficient use of plant and a failure to capitalize on that part of the year when nature makes residence in Hanover most agreeable. Already enough is known of the educational benefits of a three-months' experience in a job-like situation to impel a search-for more such opportunities that have academic merit.

You should know how the Trustees' Committee was organized and how it went about its work of preparing the recommendations that I have just described. On February 8, 1969, the Executive Committee of the Trustees adopted the following vote:

"To undertake a comprehensive and concrete examination of Dartmouth's total existing and prospective program development for the decade of the seventies with particular attention to a study of the question of the education of women in the College as recommended by the Dartmouth Campus Conference; the study committee to consist of trustees, faculty, students, staff and alumni."

Pursuant to the foregoing vote, a committee was organized that included students, faculty, staff, Trustees, and alumni. This procedure followed the pattern of the Trustees' Planning Committee that was inaugurated 17 years ago by President Dickey to plan the College's entrance into its third century. During the past 1 5 years many plans have been made and carried out. The commitments, responsibilities, and ramifications involved in them are extensive. Around us there are many visible evidences of 15 years of successful planning: this Hopkins Center we now occupy, an expanded library and athletic plant, a refounded medical school, the Oilman Life Science Center, the Bradley Center for Mathematics and the associated Kiewit computer center, new dormitories, and a new Inn. Less tangible enlargements include graduate programs in several departments, a practically refounded Thayer School, a formal commitment by the College to guard its immediately surrounding physical and social environment, a large program for disadvantaged students, and increased compensation for the faculty and staff of the College.

These things are brought to your attention to emphasize that the study of the Committee was carried forward in full awareness of previous commitments. The Committee was also cognizant of. and in agreement with, the original Trustees' Planning Committee studies relating to purpose and size. No objective appraisal of coeducation at Dart- mouth is possible without understanding the purpose of the College. The first planning study was related to purpose and it was carried forward by President Dickey himself.

The original declaration of purpose in the words of Eleazar Wheelock was "That this school of the prophets may be, and long continue to be, a pure fountain." This is, to modern ears, somewhat imprecise. President Dickey concluded that the responsibility of the College was to human society and that its purpose should be to educate men both in "conscience and competence," a phrase of President Dickey's that we all remember.

Dartmouth is remarkable in its steadfastness of purpose. Thirty-seven years ago, President Hopkins expressed it as follows:

"An intelligent man must have knowledge, but a man may have vast stores of knowledge and yet not be intelligent. Intelligence will demonstrate to any man that he does not and cannot live to himself alone. Consequently, the college becomes responsible for developing a social consciousness in the minds of men upon whom its influence is operative."

Noble declarations of purpose are well and good, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. In this respect, it is gratifying to know that the eminence on which Dartmouth set its sights 17 years ago substantially has been achieved.

Why does the Committee think that coeducation will increase Dartmouth's capacity to continue top quality higher education in the decade of the 19705? The Committee's recommendations are presented as a judgment. Analysis of the Committee's reasons will not conclude Q.E.D. in the same way that one might demonstrate the theorem of Pythagoras. The Committee has recognized the danger to the College of biting off more than it can chew. It is a regrettable fact that a substantial fraction of both those who approve and those who disapprove of coeducation at Dartmouth feel strongly about it. There is a good deal of emotional involvement on both sides of the issue. I hope that we can avoid those who darken counsel by words without knowledge and the fanatics on either side. The recommendations of the Committee must be accepted and supported by a great majority of the Dartmouth constituency if they are to turn out, in the end, to have any merit.

One final warning. The recommendations are not a commentary on, or a cure-all for, contemporary moral problems, violence among individuals and nations, the loosening of family ties, the abuse of drugs, alcohol and the environment and, above all, promiscuous sexual conduct among young people. The Committee recognizes these things and many others, the impending collapse of state and local government, for example. It merely asserts now a probability that Dartmouth graduates will be able, in the future, to make a better solution of problems if their liberal arts education includes a significant feminine participation. Having pronounced these caveats, what then, are the reasons for the recommendations?

The first, and to my view, the most important reason, is a matter of simple justice. If Dartmouth is as superb an educational institution as we say it is, why should women be excluded from it? If separate but equal is not good enough for minority groups, why is it good enough for our own daughters? It takes nothing from the validity of this argument to admit the continued existence of single-sex colleges for some men and some women just as some men and some women will repair to colleges where standards are lower and competition is moderate. But Dartmouth is neither a monastery nor a refuge for the indolent. Dartmouth is an educational institution that claims a place in the top 1% of the 2500 colleges in America. As a matter of conscience, women should not be excluded from such an opportunity for excellence.

A corollary of providing equal opportunity for women is the fact that the presence of women may be necessary to continuing excellence. It is more than a remote possibility that laws will be changed to require Dartmouth to admit women to the baccalaureate degree just as we are now required by law to admit them to the faculty. At present, there is no such constitutional requirement, but even a cursory survey of the enactments of the Congress and of state legislatures makes plans for coeducation essential if the College is not to take an undue risk of losing governmental grants and some of the tax benefits that it now enjoys. This is an area where the law is changing. The Tax Reform Act of 1969 is an example of the imposition of non-discriminatory standards on private charity. We now are practically without allies to oppose legislation restricting or taking away entirely our freedom to admit only men. Yale and Princeton and most of the women's colleges have deserted us.

The Princeton study of coeducation emphasized the handicap of drawing applicants for admission from only one- half of the available talent. For us who have so long heard of how many more applicants than places Dartmouth has had for so many years, it is hard to believe that a dearth of customers could develop. It is reassuring that until now the admissions officers have detected no such trend, but there are two things that make an adverse trend a serious threat. As tuition rates go up, the number of high school seniors who have both the talent to get in and the money to pay full tuition sharply contracts. Tuition from students is still Dartmouth's biggest source of "free funds." Last year it amounted to $6.1 million out of $15.45 million. This is one cause for concern.

Secondly, ever since President Tucker set the College on a program of expansion, institutions like Dartmouth have operated in a seller's market. In 1900 only 4% of the 18-21 age group were enrolled in some higher educational program. This year, according to a recent statement by President Nixon, that fraction has risen to 58%. Before long there may be more supply than demand. Not only are a major fraction of the potential students already enrolled, but that fraction of the population between 14 and 24 that stands at 19% now will shrink to 17% fifteen years hence. For eighty years a steadily increasing college-age population and an increasing fraction of the college-age cohort seeking admission, plus a shortage of supply to meet growing demand, have caused all the breaks to go our way. It is obvious that, country-wide, the tide is turning. Some private preparatory schools are having trouble to keep up their normal enrollment.

The amazing growth in knowledge is another development that complicates higher education. Mr. Hopkins referred to the burden of the increasing quantity of knowledge 40 years ago when the total volume of it was a minor fraction of what it is now. It is at least anomalous that an institution like Dartmouth should turn its back on half the brains in the country. Higher education must deal with a snowballing onrush of knowledge. In this matter the Russian procedure may prove wiser than our own.

In the area of education that may be described as associative relationships, the role of women in American life has changed so much that a single sex college may foster an abnormal, if not an exotic, atmosphere. Since President Tucker was inaugurated, the percentage of women in the work force has doubled. Recently, other equally fundamental changes such as, for instance, alterations in the methods of waging war and the concern of people for the effect of unlimited production on the natural environment, have made male dominance of politics and business more of an anachronism. The chief of government in India, the second most populous state in the world, is a woman, as is also the chief of government in the state of Israel, a nation whose people have as sternly a masculine tradition as our own. The Old Testament is the most effective piece of propaganda for male supremacy ever written. There are no goddesses in Eleazer Wheelock's pantheon.

It is tempting to recite the variety of changes in the status of women, to analyze the causes and to conjecture about their consequences, but anyone who can walk into a bank today and remember who were the tellers 30 years ago, will know what I am talking about.

If human life is to survive on this planet, more attention must be accorded to the traditionally female virtues of accommodation and obedience and less to the masculine ones of conflict and mastery.

Coeducation is now the normal pattern for education at all levels in our country. I do not know how to put the matter of associative relationships better than in the words of Vannevar Bush:

"The task of teaching in the colleges is not merely to provide students with the skills necessary for a professional career and also to prepare them for the bases on which informal collaboration with their fellows is facilitated, but to go beyond these and provide the foundations for associative relationships that may become worthy, not merely trivial, and which confer genuine satisfaction upon those who participate."

The final reason for the recommendations of the Committee is the fact that the people most intimately concerned, namely faculty and students, strongly favor coeducation. The faculty is reported to favor it ten to one, and the students six to one. Confronted with such overwhelming statistics, I often think of the man who met an acquaintance and said, "How's your wife?", and his acquaintance replied, "Compared to what?" We do not know how the faculty or the students would compare coeducation with some of the other benefits or programs that the College affords, such as its generous scholarship program. I believe it to be a demonstrable fact that tax money has been available to private institutions to redress social and economic inequalities in greater quantities for health, care of old people and children than for education. In the long run, one may hope for help from this source. It is doubtful that, in the pursuit of excellence, we can respond to this demand with an alternative. To some extent the administrators and Trustees of the College must make choices among many worthy and desirable activities. Too many good things need to be done for Dartmouth to be able to do them all, but if the College fails to undertake programs that either faculty or students want very much, one may expect, in the long run, that both faculty and students will turn away.

The reverse of this proposition is also true. Changes that respond to what society needs and wants will distinguish a college. The story of President Tucker's fruitful deficits is the story of his response to a growing demand in American society for a college education and his response to a demand by students for courses in addition to Latin, Greek, mathematics, and natural philosophy.

The issue of coeducation is not merely a matter of where emphasis in education should be put, on competence or on conscience, for instance, but the demand for coeducation grows out of profound and rapid social changes. American boys and girls mature physically earlier than they used to and they roam the world together; they are in instant communication with other youth all over the world via the satellites and television. It is not surprising that most of them find it curious that a top grade four-year liberal arts program should be offered to only one sex.

To ask which comes first, a good faculty of a good student body, is a sterile inquiry. Faculty and students interact in subtle ways. They attract one another. If a large majority of the faculty feels that the policy of the College repels good applicants and in any case, disqualifies half the core of talent for the sole reason that it is female, the likelihood is that a faculty of talent gradually will move elsewhere.

In sum, we find, first, that coeduca- tion treats women with equity and justice; second, that the presence of women among the undergraduates will strengthen the College, intellectually, socially and, in the end, financially; and third, that coeducation responds to what the faculty and students want.

The Committee has not ignored the substantial amount of responsible opinion and argument against coeducation at Dartmouth. In all of it that I have read and listened to I have found no satisfactory explanation of why young males should study liberal arts in a totally masculine ambience, no such explanation, for instance, as Plutarch gives of why the Spartans separated the sexes and made them behave as they did. All advocates of a "for men only" policy at Dartmouth have affirmed their good will towards women. There has been no opposition for the reason that uppity females should be kept in their places. ...

The real opposition to coeducation seems to grow out of the normal human distaste for change in anything that has been heartwarming and familiar and, in addition, a genuine conviction that there is something of value in the all-male tradition of Dartmouth that would be lost if it were shared with women. It is an unstated premise of this position that separate but equal is good enough or, at any rate, that Harvard, Yale and Princeton are good enough for women. Except as it forecloses freedom of choice for the women who might prefer Dartmouth, it is not an ungenerous attitude, but it implies that Dartmouth is more a gentlemen's club than an educational institution.

Distaste for coeducation at Dartmouth was eloquently and movingly expressed by Governor Adams in his address on behalf of the 50-year class last June. He asked the question, "Is there still a place for one superlatively good men's college, and cannot that college be Dartmouth?" In the judgment of the study committee the answer to that question must be "no" because no college can be superlatively good, in view of what is happening to our country, without women among its undergraduates. A single-sex institution may be adequate but not superlative.

We may be wrong in our conclusion. Perhaps the changes in American family life, in sexual behavior, in the social, political and economic status of women are really not so great that most of the associative relationships of Americans have changed. We may be wrong in thinking that it will get harder and harder to attract top faculty against top competition when Dartmouth is the only one of the nine colonial colleges and the only one in the Ivy League that has no undergraduate women. Dartmouth is one of the twenty-odd most selective colleges in the country. All of them may be out of step on coeducation but us. Yet, to "hazard Dartmouth's future on being the solitary relic of the all-male college in this elite group is to put all our chips on a single roll of the dice.

Governor Adams said, "When I face the choice between Dartmouth declining and Dartmouth undying, I'll take coeducation." A year and a half of study have convinced us that coeducation is much the safer way to guarantee that the eminence of Dartmouth in the future will at least equal its illustrious past.

Trustees listening to the coeducation discussion at joint meeting were (from left)Dr. Ralph W. Hunter '31, F. William Andres '29, John D. Dodd '22, Lloyd D.Brace '25, Harrison F. Dunning '30, William E. Buchanan '24, Robert S. Oelman'31, and Ralph Lazarus '35.

Among the senior football players whowere honored were (top) Jim Chasey,(center) Willie Bogan, shown with Prof.Frank Smallwood '51, and (bottom)John Short, with his fiancee Teddy Both,John Hubbell '21 and Orton Hicks '21.

Among the senior football players whowere honored were (top) Jim Chasey,(center) Willie Bogan, shown with Prof.Frank Smallwood '51, and (bottom)John Short, with his fiancee Teddy Both,John Hubbell '21 and Orton Hicks '21.

Among the senior football players whowere honored were (top) Jim Chasey,(center) Willie Bogan, shown with Prof.Frank Smallwood '51, and (bottom)John Short, with his fiancee Teddy Both,John Hubbell '21 and Orton Hicks '21.

Trustee Dudley W. Orr '29, co-chairmanof the study committee on coeducation,presenting his interim report.