Reunion Week

More than 1000 Sons of Dartmouth and a still larger number of their wives and children came to Hanover in successive waves in mid-June to renew old friendships, establish new ones, examine the State of the College, and consider some common concerns shared by their contemporaries and their College.

The 50-year Class and its elders held their reunions on Commencement Weekend, with two of the four oldest living alumni—Carroll W. Davis of Paradise, Calif., and Charles W. Dudley of Hanover, both 94—returning for their 70th reunion. The Classes of 1932, 1941, 1942, and 1943 were in Hanover for the first half of Reunion Week. The 25-year Class of 1947, guests of the College on Thursday, June 15, was joined by 1962, 1966, 1967, and 1968 for the final three days.

The weather demonstrated the caprice which can characterize June in New Hampshire, ranging from a clear, blustery, football-type Commencement morning with frost warnings to a sultry following weekend. But only the 1947 Class Picnic at Storrs Pond was rained out.

Although there was no dearth of traditional "there's old what's-his-name who sat beside me in Prof. Hull's Physics," beer picnics, and off-key renditions of El-e-a-zar Wheelock in the class tents, and Tuck Mall reverberated far into the nights with rock 'n roll from the teenagers' tents, Class Reunions in 1972 were rich too in the speeches, seminars, and discussions which have played an increasingly prominent part in annual Dartmouth get-togethers.

There were common ingredients of all the reunions. President Kemeny reviewed important decisions and events of the past year and responded to questions from alumni at a morning meeting during each reunion period. A short computer course was offered to each of the groups. The Associated Schools and academic departments held open houses and seminars for those sharing their special interests. Each class held its five-year meeting and elected officers to carry on interim business and plan future gatherings. And each met in solemn service to honor its dead, the older classes primarily by the inevitable attrition of time, the middle group by a dispropordonate number of World War II casualties.

The discussion topics commanding the attention of the various classes differed with their ages and tended to mirror their immediate concerns as well as more general issues of contemporary society.

The Class of 1941 sponsored a panel on "Should We Change Careers at 50? A Challenge for Graduates," with George E. Herman '41, CBS Washington correspondent, as moderator. Panel members, all but one of whom have drastically altered professional course in recent years, were A. William Larson '41, Frank H. Simpson '41, Edward N. McMillan '41, A. Alexander Fanelli '42, and Prof. Robert Sokol of the Sociology Department.

Sponsored by the College for midweek reuners and by 1962 for the classes which came on the weekend was a seminar on "Personal Values Reconsidered," with lectures by President Kemeny, Religion Professor Fred Berthold Jr. '45, English Professor Harold L. Bond '42, and Tuck School Dean John W. Hennessey Jr. An advance reading list provided background for the lectures, small discussion groups at lunch in the Bema, and a concluding forum.

A panel discussion on "The Current Crisis in Private Education," sponsored by the Class of 1947, was moderated by Class President Edmund R. Senghas. Contributing their professional insights as panelists were Joseph F. Marsh Jr. '47, President of Concord College; David F. Squire '47, Vice President of Brandeis University; and Prof. Donald L. Kreider, Vice President for Undergraduate Affairs at Dartmouth.

Rogers Elliott, Professor of Psychology, was the speaker and led a discussion on "Future Shock and the Dartmouth Experience," sponsored by '66, '67, and '68.

Outdoor activities likewise reflected the tastes and vintages of reuning classes. A bus tour of the area was part of the early reunion period; golf and tennis tournaments and an Outing Club trip to Velvet Rocks were on the midweek agenda; a Mt. Moosilauke DOC trip was scheduled for hardy members of the 25-year Class and their families and for the Classes of the '60s.

Alumni and wives back for reunions had a chance to take a short course withProfessor Donald L. Kreider, entitled "Getting to Know the Computer."