Letters to the Editor

Some Fund Facts

TO THE EDITOR:

With reference to Richard G. Heydt's letter (Class of 1925) in your October issue offering several constructive suggestions and comments on the Alumni Fund, I would like to share with your readers some brief portions of a reply I sent him last June.

"First, it is impossible, under the present system, to specify in detail how the proceeds of the Alumni Fund are used. The Fund is budgeted as income each year and is used each year, as gifts are received, to meet current College operating expenses in all areas. It combines with income received from tuition and income earned by our endowments. We could, of course, deliberately allocate Fund proceeds into specific areas, but here we feel that such actions might raise questions and might imply that more Fund dollars were going for athletics, say, than for faculty salaries or library books.

"Our total campaign expenses, including all salaries and costs, are reported each year, as a total in our annual Fund report. (The annual Fund report for 1972 is published as an insert in this November issue.) These have ranged from 6% to some 9%. Last year they amounted to 7% and this year should be somewhat lower for the current campaign. A recent study indicates that 10% is the average for major colleges' and universities' annual funds, so we are quite happy with our record and indeed recognize our obligation to be very prudent in such expenses since they are taken from the annual Alumni Fund contributions.

"As for contributions from students, faculty and administrative officers, I should respond as follows. We do not solicit students because basically most of them are on very limited budgets and they and their parents have enough problems meeting the increased costs of higher education. We do solicit all parents of our students, and currently receive about $90,000 a year for the Alumni Fund from parents. Most of the Dartmouth alumni who work here do give annually to the Fund, some of them quite generously. Our non-Dartmouth faculty members are solicited by their own institutions, and many of them are contributing to two or three other colleges, although a few also give to the Dartmouth Fund.

"I subscribe 100% to your thinking that so much giving is emotional. The emotional ties to this College are legendary, and thank the Lord this is so. And like you I lament the passing of some fine old traditions. I still feel that while much has changed here, for indeed changes must come if Dartmouth is to keep pace with the changes and needs of our society, there is still much which has not changed. As I write, I look across the Dartmouth campus which still looks in many ways as it did when I first came here in 1941. And, today's students are still, in many ways, the same in their eagerness for college and the opportunities which are offered at Dartmouth."

Executive Secretary Dartmouth Alumni Fund

Hanover, N. H.

Dartmouth in the Far East

TO THE EDITOR:

I wish to answer the student communication in the July issue of the AlumniMagazine. I would like to ask that I be given the same space and heading changed to: "Dartmouth in the Far East."

The Far East has been my home for over 52 years. I was brought to Shanghai in August 1920. My experience in the Far East must equal that of the entire student body at Dartmouth at any given time and perhaps several student bodies. I majored in International Relations and graduated with distinction in the Class of 1941. I served with the Navy for nearly five years in the Pacific in World War II. I have also the students' interest in world affairs as I have had three sons at Dartmouth, the last just now matriculating. All in all, I believe I can speak with authority and concern.

The President of Stanford is either at best a ninny or at worst a colossal hypocrite. The North Vietnamese have been overt aggressors for 27 years. I hand it to them for being overt. Their masters in the Soviet Union resort to this only in extremis.

"A war which is immoral at worst and a failure at best." Is black white and white black? Who has been attacking whom? The United States has been defending against the aggressor at a cost of 40,000 dead young men. Is that immorality?

There has been no failure. The North Vietnamese have not conquered by aggression the South. Even outweighing this, large consequences have come to our side. When I say our side, does anyone believe that enemies do not exist in this world? For at least 3000 years societies who have had this delusion have ended as slaves. A trivial reading of history shows this. Do students believe that they have instantaneously come to all wisdom in this world? The consequences to come to our side have been enormous. Indonesia is far and away the great power of Southeast Asia. Its 120,000,000 population (fifth largest in the world), and limitless resources came to us as a result of the smashing of the Communist takeover plot in 1965 only because the present Government saw America had the courage to place its armies in Vietnam. Japan with its great potential power is our friend for the same reason. Not another country in Southeast Asia can be considered friendly to the Communist Bloc for exactly the same reason. Not one of them is fooled. They trust and respect America's courage.

It is perfectly evident that in a relatively short time we will have relatively few forces operating in or around Vietnam. I cannot predict what will then happen, but I can see with a certainty that our experience there has not been a failure.

Hong Kong

Financial Obfuscation ?

TO THE EDITOR:

It's damned difficult for an alumnus to extract any semblance of order from the fiscal gobbledygook emanating from Hanover these days!

Contradictions yield to obfuscations which, in turn, are adroitly manipulated: all for the sake of justifying the costs of new administrative policies.

At long last (and may the good Lord rest the soul of my royal British contemporary who popularized that solacing ejaculation), the administration has condescended to part with nebulous and parsimonious fiscal data. In the July issue of the Dartmouth AlumniMagazine, they are obscurely embodied, if you please, in a story entitled, "Vincent Jones '52 Heads Alumni Council."

In that official report one finds no cause for alarm, no sense of urgency or basis for apprehension. All is implicitly and relatively serene. In the choicest of consoling phrases, yet with minuscule hard data, we are beguiled with the assurance that all will be quite well when the budget becomes fully balanced come 1976-77,... the point at which income and expense are expected [sic] to return to their normal balance."

But, mark you well, then comes this later and baffling contrariety: "Since the Council meeting last month [June], President Kemeny's hope that projected deficits could be eliminated or substantially offset has been realized with the receipt of a $500,000 foundation grant and other gifts. These [unidentified] gifts together will wipe out the anticipated deficit for 1972-73 and significantly reduce those estimated for the following years." Well, if you can bring order out of that chaos, please share it with me.

For me, one answer suffices: the Dartmouth administration, including a nucleus of compliant Trustees, is being goaded into an insidious and pervasive academic grandeur which is beyond the capacity of that administration's ability or desire to account for, forthrightly and simply. "Cost" is a four-letter word extraneous to their lexicon, obnoxious to their sense of fitness, and repulsive, if not profane, to their limited conversancy with reality.

Without any given or vested right to protest on behalf of my fellow and frustrated alumni, I can and do, nevertheless, voice my lonesome opinion that the continued absence of freely admitted and detailed costs to the College and to the alumni body for the Dartmouth Plan constitutes a dereliction of administrative duty and an abrogation of the alumni's chartered right to have such essential data.

Hampton Falls, N. H.

EDITOR'S NOTE: We are sorry to have made our good friend Ralph Sanborn so unhappy. The President's report on finances was included in July's Alumni Council story because it was made to the Council and was perhaps the major item of business at that session. True, there was no detailed break-down of costs, but the figures were reported just as they were presented: namely, that transition costs for year-round operation and coeducation are budgeted at $537,000 for the current year and at $990,000 for the coming four years until the transition period is ended. Most of this cost comes from increased faculty and administrative personnel.

As for our failure to describe causes for alarm and apprehension, we do not see any basis for such reporting. For an update on Dartmouth's current financial position, we refer the reader to the opening of this month's "The College" section.

Cape Cod Seminar

TO THE EDITOR:

The Dartmouth alumni seminar at Cape Cod the last weekend in September was an exciting experience. The lectures by Professors Ballard and Daniell were top drawer presentations, admirably suited to the occasion. Professor Gaylord, as leader and host, set the stage for concerned discussion in the best Dartmouth tradition, with able assistance by each of the discussion leaders. But, more importantly, I believe we all came away with a sense of active participation in the larger Dartmouth community rather than just nostalgic pride in a one-time Dartmouth experience.

For all this I want to record the heartfelt thanks of both Mrs. Allen and myself, and the hope that such efforts as this, designed to involve the Dartmouth alumni more closely in the intellectual life of the College, will continue and prosper.

Concord, Mass.

Cheers

TO THE EDITOR:

Let's hear it!

Give a rouse for the Administration— Excelsior for Red Semper '65.

New York, N. Y.

A Flowery Proposal

TO THE EDITOR:

I suspect that it is only we old fogies who are objecting to the removal of Dartmouth's Indian symbol. Our idealizing of the Indian does not truly represent the white man's treatment of the Indian.

In the United States today, our minorities are being listened to, their fine objectives are given preference, and they are in fact showing the majorities how things can really get done. A career in minority group protests is one of the most exciting that a young man can undertake today.

And among Ivy League colleges, our Indian students have taken the lead in what surely must be a trend. Consider the Princeton Tiger. Tigers are on the endangered species list. After man's treatment of them, how can any college feel comfortable using tigers as a symbol? And the Yale Bulldog. Here is a pet to be kept only on private premises by law, led about on a leash, and bred so that owners might win a medal. Truly a sad situation for a noble animal, and not a proper college symbol.

In all logic, I feel that the only proper symbol for our colleges is flowers—flowers that man had cultivated and made beautiful. And think of the possibilities. Dartmouth picks the petunia, Yale the lily, Princeton the goldenrod, and Harvard a big red rose.

How colorful could be the show between the halves of a football game! Instead of the dull marching band, all of our girls— and boys too—could dress up as petunias and caper around the field.

It's a thought to warm the heart of an aging alumnus.

Rye, N. Y.

Admiration Cooled

TO THE EDITOR:

Every time I receive a new edition of the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, I look to see if you have not restored the heading "A Wah-Who-Wah for" in place of the asinine heading "Give a Rouse for" but no such luck. The longer this travesty continues the madder I get. The thought that the editor of this magazine would succumb to the "demands" of an insignificant and militant group of protestants, even if supported by the Board of Trustees of the College, and without the submission of the "demand" to the alumni, rankles me no end. I think it is ridiculous, presumptuous, and asinine.

Dartmouth has done many things these past few years that have cooled my admiration and love for the old College to a great degree.... Among the actions to which I object strongly are: (1) The phasing out of the ROTC program; (2) the elimination of all slogans and pictorial representations of the American Indian; (3) the action of yours, referred to in detail above; and (4) most of all, adopting coeducation in a man's college—one that was started as such and continued as such for over 200 years.

As an alumnus of Dartmouth for over 56 years, I am provoked, disgusted, and mad at the College for the various actions it has taken in recent years—those as listed above. My main interest now is the Class of 1916. This since Dartmouth College became Dartmouth Seminary.

Sierra Madre, Calif.

A Helping Hand

TO THE EDITOR:

On August 6, 1972 at three o'clock in the afternoon I received an unexpected long distance telephone call from Joe Garry '44 who was at Lake George, New York. He had read about the typhoons, heavy rains, and disastrous floods in central Luzon, Philippines. He asked for more details about conditions here especially concerning the sufferings of the people and their needs for food, medicine, and clothing.

Joe wanted to know what he and his friends could do to help. I suggested that he begin a fund-raising campaign and then later forward a check to me for Catholic Relief Services in Manila. The CRS could then purchase food, medicine, and clothing for the air-lift by US helicopters to central Luzon.

I wish to express my gratitude to Joe and his friends for their generous sacrifices for the people of the Philippines in their hour of need.

Xavier UniversityCagayan de Oro CityThe Philippines