Trustees Meet with Alumni Council

Coeducation and the new Dartmouth Plan of Year-Round Operation, both approved by the Board of Trustees at its special November meeting, were central topics of interest when the Trustees and the Alumni Council met together in Hanover on January 13-15; but these topics did not monopolize the deliberations of the weekend and in addition to a long string of Alumni Council reports, attention was given to undergraduate life, the equal opportunity program, Indian American complaints, ROTC, and ways of increasing the interest of younger alumni.

Consideration of coeducation and year-round operation was largely confined, in fact, to Friday night's joint dinner, at which President Kemeny and Charles J. Zimmerman '23, chairman of the Board, were the speakers. Mr. Zimmerman's main theme was that the Board's decision is definitely made and alumni support and unity are now called for as the College moves into a historic new period.

While recognizing the place of nostalgia in alumni thinking and the tendency to recall the past as more satisfactory than it actually was, Mr. Zimmerman pointed out, "We are not dealing with our education; we are dealing with the education of those who are now on campus and those who will come to this campus in future years.... The Dartmouth of today is not the Dartmouth of your day or my day. Like every institution that has survived, it has changed, and on balance it has changed for the better. The more you love an individual or an institution, the harder change becomes; but if you survive that change, then love is stronger than ever because it is based on understanding."

President Kemeny, in his dinner remarks, said that now that the coeducation decision is over, "foremost in all our minds will be the resolve that the quality of education we provide for women of Dartmouth will be as good as we have provided for men of Dartmouth."

He spoke of The Dartmouth Plan as a means of keeping the cost of a college education down, and expressed the view that Dartmouth had done as much as any institution in the country to combat financial problems. The Plan will also permit Dartmouth, he said, to add new faculty when other institutions are either standing pat or cutting back. "This is a time when many institutions are running scared. At a time when they are cutting back or are engaged in a holding operation, we at Dartmouth are moving forward."

The Alumni Council, which devoted Thursday and the first part of Friday morning to its committee sessions, held its first full meeting Friday forenoon. That afternoon it turned to "Undergraduate Life at Dartmouth," with Dean Carroll Brewster and Prof. Jere R. Daniell '55, chairman of the Equal Opportunity Committee, as leaders of a panel which also included Assistant Dean Leroy Keith and three seniors, William E. Aydelott, Ralph A. Childs, and Joel H. Zylberberg.

Professor Daniell reported that since the fall of 1969 approximately 235 black students and 35 Indian Americans have matriculated at Dartmouth. Al- though it has been a slow and groping process, mutual understanding is growing, he said, and "what has happened here is representative of the best things happening in race relations across the country."

Students on the panel explained that there is currently no mood for campus disruptions and that energies are being channeled in other directions. Drugs are not a serious problem, they reported. but there has been a great increase in thefts, mostly by middle-class students "who have no particular regard for private property." Mention was also made of the readiness of students to "drift" for a year or two after graduation, especially since the job market is tight.

At the Saturday morning session of the Alumni Council, some members who had attended a campus symposium the day before asked that the Council hear from Duane Bird Bear '71 and Stuart Tonemah, Director of Indian Programs, concerning the policy statement issued this fall by Native American Students at Dartmouth. A spirited discussion focused on Dartmouth's use of the Indian symbol, and as an outcome the Council passed a resolution presented by Prof. Franklin Smallwood 51:

RESOLVED: That the Alumni Council request its President to appoint a special committee to study questions raised by Native American students at Dartmouth regarding the use of the "Indian" symbol, with instructions that this committee report back appropriate recommendations to the Council at its June 1972 meeting.

Also presented to the Council, by Robert P. Burroughs '21, was a resolution requesting the President and Trustees of the College to investigate the possibility of reinstating ROTC. After discussion an amended resolution was passed by the Council as follows:

RESOLVED: Recognizing the widespread concern of many alumni in the return of Army, Navy and Air Force ROTC programs to the Dartmouth campus, the President of the Council request the Board of Trustees to direct the President of the College to appoint a committee composed of faculty, students, administration and alumni to investigate the desirability of reinstating ROTC programs at Dartmouth. It is anticipated that the above committee will report on this matter to the Trustees at their June 1972 meeting.

Saturday morning's final session brought the Trustees and Council together for an informal question-and-answer discussion. Greatest interest was shown in College finances, especially in light of widespread financial difficulty for private institutions, and in the possibility of a deferred-tuition plan.

Among the committee reports heard by the Alumni Council during its Hanover sessions was an encouraging one from its Alumni Fund Committee. Thanks to a number of increased yearend gifts, the 1972 Fund as of December 31 was slightly more than $100,000 ahead of the Fund on the same date a year ago. Some of these gifts, it was reported, were made in support of the Trustees' decision on coeducation. The report on enrollment and admissions also dealt in part with the new factor of coeducation. In addition to hearing from the academic affairs committee, Council members met with faculty members at Saturday luncheon to discuss academic developments.

Council president Norman E. McCulochJr- '50 presided over the 123rdmeeting of the alumni "senate."

Trustee chairman Charles J. Zimmerman '23 who spoke at the combineddinner, and Mrs. McCulloch.