Environmental Program Aided

Another major gift to advance the College's work in the environmental field is a four-year grant of $100,000 from the Richard King Mellon Foundation in support of student initiatives in conservation. It will be used to underwrite projects and experiments growing out of the new partnership between extracurricular and curricular programs in environmental sciences.

The projects will draw upon the resources of the Environmental Studies Division of the Dartmouth Outing Club, the Office of Outdoor Affairs, and the Environmental Studies Program to respond to thoughtful student proposals for preserving our environment.

Initial projects will be a study of the effects of snowmobiles on the natural environment of the Dartmouth College Grant, and an extracurricular course in forestry, emphasizing the forest as a natural resource.

Policy decisions on projects to be undertaken under the grant will be made by a committee primarily composed of D.O.C. Board members and chaired by C. Allison Merrill, Director of Outdoor Affairs at Dartmouth.

President Kemeny welcomed the gift as imaginative and important funding, and noted that "changes in society, which are inevitably reflected on college campuses, require such imaginative efforts to adapt traditional strengths to new needs. In the Dartmouth Outing Club we have long enjoyed a very constructive student initiative which now branches out into this concern for the environment."

As one of its conservation activities this year, the Dartmouth Outing Club has established a special regional environmental library, featuring what is believed to be the most comprehensive collection of reference works, books, reprints, and federal and state government planning and research reports on problems of environment in New Hampshire and Vermont.