Letters to the Editor

Dean Chapman Replies

TO THE EDITOR:

Dr. Frable's letter concerning my resignation as Dean of Dartmouth Medical School interested me, not so much because it is overtly critical of my action, as because of the woeful lack of understanding it displays of the considerations that have to enter decisions to go or to come on the part of academic administrators (including chairman) of all sorts. Many are said to stay too long; some on the other hand, receive the sort of criticism levelled by Dr. Frable. It's damned if you do, damned if you don't.

In the last analysis, any academic administrator who takes his post in order to install a program in which he believes, must at all times have before him one compelling question: at what point have I taken the development as far as I can? It's possible to rephrase the same question in this way: at what point may my efforts in office become counterproductive for the institution I am trying to serve constructively?

There may, of course, be differences of opinion as to the precise answer to such questions; but, for any conscientious man, that answer has to be one that is, in the first instance, determined personally. Further, a great many academic administrators, including some of the most illustrious, have, for good reason, declined to stay in office long enough to see every aspect of their programs completely and solidly implemented.

My successor, working with a fine faculty, will have the deep satisfaction of continuing the implementation of the program that was evolved in 1967 and 1968. He will, no doubt, be able to correct mistakes which I have made, better, perhaps, than I would have been able to do myself. Also the faculty and the new dean will, acting on experience gained over the past few years, be able to modify and very creatively refine the program. But no one will be able, or wish, to jettison the main lines of the School's present development. Those lines were in important measure laid down before I came.

It would have been a source of profound gratification to me to be able to stay on until the last building block, figuratively and otherwise, was in place. But I will be no less gratified when precisely that is accomplished by other hands. My decision to depart at the end of the current academic year was a complex and very trying one; but that it was proper, and in the interest of the School and its program, I am in no doubt whatever. It was not a question of a more attractive job offer. In my biased view, in fact, the most gratifying, and one of the most important, prospects in American medical education is the completion of Dartmouth Medical School's present program of development. The faculty and my successor will take the School the rest of the way and it will be an exciting and rewarding time for them all. I trust that Dr. Frable and other alumni will do all they can to help the enterprise along. So will I.

Hanover, N.H.

Recommended: Support

TO THE EDITOR:

The vituperation which some alumni have heaped upon the Dartmouth administration over recent actions such as the abandonment of the Indian as symbol and mascot, the admission of women, the new academic calendar, the encouragement of blacks to enter Dartmouth, etc - in short to change Dartmouth from what they knew - leads me to make the following comments.

Some months after Harry Truman had retired to civil life after his presidency, he was asked in an interview what he thought of Eisenhower's handling of foreign affairs. Mr. Truman replied, "The president has access to so much information on the current international situation that it would now be hard for me to make any reasonable evaluation. I've been away from the White House for too long a time. I'm sure he is trying to do his best as he sees it."

Similarly on a much smaller scale, the president of a college has so much more information about the pressures being placed upon the college and about the changes that the college must respond to, that it is most difficult for the college's wellwishers to know whether he has made the correct decisions. For some years I served as assistant to two different college presidents and as secretary to the Board of Trustees and so I am aware of the kinds of pressures to which both are subjected. One example: my college was regularly inspected to determine that it was living up to the antidiscrimination laws and was threatened twice with the loss of its research contracts unless it enrolled a higher percentage of negroes despite the fact that it was actively searching for well-qualified negroes and had two black department heads doing the searching.

Dr. Kemeny's devotion to Dartmouth is without question. With his intellectual brilliance and sense of realism, he is well suited for the job. Until and unless we are in a position to have the facts about a situation that are as good or better than his, let's give him the benefit of the doubt. Even better, let's actively support him.

Clearwater Beach, Fla.

No Scholars, We

TO THE EDITOR:

In your January issue, you attribute to a professor of the Classics Department the statement that Hadrian's Wall was "erected to prevent raids by Scottish barbarians from the north." If this is true, Hadrian must have been the most prescient human who ever lived, as the Wall was complete circa A.D. and the first Scots landed in Caledonia circa 450 A.D.

Also we "learn" that the Twentieth Legion guarded the Wall, rather than the Thirtieth (Ulpia Victrix). We are also told that "VV" stands for "Victoria Victrix," a redundancy, rather than the more generally accepted "Venus Victrix."

El Paso, Texas

Editor's Note: The scholarly lapses displayed in the story were entirely the fault of the AlumniMagazine in condensing a much longer story about the 2000-year-old piece of brick given to the College. Mr. Ireland is absolutely correct, and so were the Dartmouth professors of the classics who did the sleuthing and to whom we owe an apology for misrepresenting the excellence of their scholarship. Regarding Caledonia, the ColumbiaEncyclopedia says, "Modern rhetorical use usually refers to all Scotland."

Campus Thievery

TO THE EDITOR:

Who is responsible for stopping the thievery on the Dartmouth Campus?

The Undergraduate Chair article by Bruce Kimball '73 in the December 1972 issue of the Alumni Magazine lists the "rip-off' in excess of 510,000 for one month and this apparently does not include missing College property "which rarely even gets reported," nor the $200 per day stolen in food from Thayer Dining Hall.

If the students participating in the "rip-off" believe the College a "nebulous thing," how long can the College wait for her heart and life blood to be discovered?

Denver. Colo.

Editor's Note: Thievery, by no means the handiwork of Dartmouth students alone, is the constant concern of the Dean of the College, the College Proctor, and those assisting them. The real solution will not be found, however, until students themselves refuse to countenance the "rip-off" and decide to report those who steal.

Kemeny to the Rescue

TO THE EDITOR:

So I'm sitting there frantically trying to make sense out of huge tomes by double-domes on the life style of the computer ... trying to dig out enough info to write a brochure for a client.

Comes the mailman. Comes wife with the new Dartmouth Alumni Mag. I flip open the pages. Bingo! My jaded eye lights on a review of a book, Man and the Computer, by one John G. Kemeny.

I leap to the phone. "Hey bookstore, do you have ... you do ... one copy left? Hold it! I'll be right over!" Well, that was one of the best investments I ever made. In clear, concise, easy-to-dig language I learned in a couple of hours what a computer is ... what it does ... how it does it... how it interacts with Man.

If you're a business manager, engineer, educator - even a housewife - you'd better get with this computer bit - or you'll be out of it. And Doc Kemeny's book is the very best way to start. Great for high school kids (younger genii, too, I suspect). And you'll also find out how very much Dartmouth has contributed toward making the computer a more compatible companion of Man.

(Aside: Imagine you and your Carnival date playing games on the computer! Ah well, tempusfugit!)

San Diego, Calif.

Time to Reopen the Issue?

TO THE EDITOR:

The Daily D of February 9 quoted Vice President Donald Krieder as saying that the controversy over the Indian Symbol is in part "... a reflection of the feelings of certain members of the student body on the decisions made by the College regarding ROTC, coeducation and year-round operation."

This is interesting for several reasons. First, as Vice President for Student Affairs, Mr. Kreider's reading of student feelings certainly deserves serious credence. Second, because all classes now on campus have entered Dartmouth since ROTC abolition and the Parkhurst seizure in the spring of 1969, the student feelings to which he refers must indicate a continuing concern by some students with Dartmouth's failure to provide the opportunity of ROTC programs, - a concern which is now independent of the acrimony surrounding the events of four years ago. Third, if indeed the Indian controversy is serving as a screen for some other student dissatisfactions, would it not now be a healthy thing to reopen straightforwardly the ROTC issue itself?

Lastly, this suggestion comes at a time when the various prerequisites which have been stipulated in the past by College authorities for reconsideration of ROTC have been met: i.e., the end of American involvement in Vietnam, the opening of ROTC units elsewhere to women, and the adoption of an all-volunteer military establishment.

Hanover, N.H

Naming the Arena

TO THE EDITOR:

A number of years ago a man who had devoted almost his whole life to Dartmouth baseball was passed over in the naming of the baseball field in favor of another, whom he had given his start in his career. Jeff Tesreau influenced hundreds of Dartmouth men and was beloved by them and the whole Hanover community. Of course it was true that he was not a graduate and did not have a fortune. Money seems to be the important factor in the decisions of this sort.

Now another great man whose influence on Dartmouth and United States hockey over the greater part of his life has been neglected in favor of a person who may never even have had on a pair of skates. It was the expectation of all who knew and honored him that the new hockey arena would be named for Eddy Jeremiah. It seems a shame that the whole facility to be built on Chase Field could not be named for the financial benefactor and the actual hockey rink for Eddy. Alumni Gymnasium is.still Alumni Gymnasium but the pool is the Karl Michael swimming pool. I am sure that a multitude of alumni will join me in feeling that a great injustice has been done....

Hanover, N.H.

Editor's Note: Although not settled to the point of public announcement, a memorial to Coach Jeremiah will be part of the new arenaauditorium.

"Permit Me"

TO THE EDITOR:

If nobody else around Hanover cares to say this to Thomas Pearsall '67 concerning his inquiry about Ellis Briggs and the comments that followed permit me:

When the Pearsall track record for service to Dartmouth College and to our country gives a small hint of the contributions and achievements of an Ellis Briggs then will be time to play the fool and to display ignorance in letters to editors. Meantime it seems advisable that the Pearsall typewriter and ballpoint pen be kept under wraps.

When your Alumni Advisory Board starts to chew on the question of paid ads advocating special causes, please tell 'em for me the present policy is just dandy and does NOT need change. For the present at least, the letters-to-the-editor section hardly seems sufficient for the "relegation" of causes, special or otherwise. If this were not so, Ellis Briggs and friends would have found other and more productive ways to spend their money.

Larchmont, N. Y.

December Deviation

TO THE EDITOR:

What a tragic happening! Has your staff been massacred? Has Big Principal Kemeny been scalped? Why has no order been issued recalling all copies of the December issue?

That shocking caricature of not one but two persons on the cover! And naked! And reading what is clearly not a birch bark scroll! What humilitation these noble persons must be suffering. I cannot name them en masse without using hated anglicisms, but we can all be thankful that the resident persons are obviously relatively placid Abenakis and not fiery Iroquois - else no white would have been left to rouse, come the morn of the magazine's appearance.

Where was your Student Board of Censorship? Could Age be corrupting Adolescence?

Sir, pull up your leggings. Your traditions are showing.

West Arlington, Vt.

The Indian Nickname

TO THE EDITOR:

The rules of logic in the use of names are complex if they even exist. We all have preferences about nicknames, and many people's real names are lost to all but the record because they had turned against them in adolescence. Names, comments, and slurs directed to individuals on the basis of bodily characteristics or nationality often arouse unpleasant reactions, although appellations like 'Alex the Bald' or 'Charles Redbeard' are useful, practical designations.

The son of American-born parents, I have been identified all my life with Scotland. Bruno, the Commons chef, referred to me (fondly, I hope) as "dot godammed Scotchman." For years, I have tried to laugh dutifully at all the thin, English inspired jokes about the alleged parsimony of the Scots. I ignore the supermarket caricatures represented by little bearded gnOmes in kilts carrying crooked sticks. The back of my fist to 3M! I know that Scots-Americans are better than anybody and I can now assert it loudly with bagpipes!

So, although I cannot think or feel like an Indian-American, I understand that being caricatured may be unpleasant to many of them. If it is unpleasant to my brothers and sisters in Dartmouth, let there be an end to it - officially, and privately, as well.

Hackensack, N.J.

TO THE EDITOR

News Item: A Navajo Indian, having been indicted in 1969 for failure to report for induction in the United States Army, was recently found innocent of draft evasion. It seems, according to him, that his great-grandfather had been killed in a battle with U.S. Cavalry and his feelings toward the military had been so affected by this circumstance that he became a Conscientious Objector.

Early in this century my first cousin, a young mining engineer, accompanied by four others on a surveying trip in New Mexico, was ambushed, shot and killed by a band of Navajos. It did not occur to me at that time, however, to resent Dartmouth's buildup of the symbolic Indian which had become a tradition long before my own Freshman year in 1916. But now what happens?

Because a miniscule group decides, a half century later, to object, the College agrees to forget tradition and accedes. In my opinion, assuming it does have regard for its Alumni and what has hen sung and written about the so-called "Dartmouth Spirit," it is making a grave error.

Philadelphia, Pa.

TO THE EDITOR:

We have always been led to believe that, regardless of his ancestral origin, any one who was born in this country was a native American. We are not willing to give up this distinction for we do not believe that the use of the term should be confined to those who might otherwise be known as Amerindians.

According to the Valley News, Stuart Tonemah and his followers feel that the Indian symbol, as used at Dartmouth College, is a vile caricature of 'Native Americans' but, if one considers the outrageous caricatures made of the President of the United States and other prominent figures, he must look with wonderment at the deep concern feigned by these individuals because of the use of a stylized figure which was intended to honor and not defame the Indian.

Now that "The Big Green" has been tentatively ADOPTED as the Dartmouth symbol, some of our college opponents are referring to the football team which dignified the name of "the Dartmouth Indians." as "The Big Greenies" while our freshman teams are called "The Little Greenies."

Since these Native Americans have been recruited to attend a white man's college instead of an Indian school, we think that they should not take themselves too seriously and we respectfully suggest that a course in American humor should be included in their special curriculum in order to give them a better understanding of the sociological atmosphere of the world in which they propose to cast their lots.

Sun City Center, Fla.

TO THE EDITOR:

The recent furor over the playing of the National Anthem in Madison Square Garden bears a curious analogy, yet a distinct contrast, to the abolition of the beloved Indian symbol at Dartmouth. In New York the public protest was loud and successful and the track meet promoters re-installed the playing of the Anthem. At Dartmouth we alumni, including me, weakly sat on our hands and let a tiny band of Indians destroy one of the great traditions of a great College. A referendum should have been held among the alumni and in my opinion the vote would have been overwhelmingly in favor of continuing a harmless, yet colorful, tradition.

However, we stood by submissively and let it happen to us. Many like myself, said to themselves: "Bob Kilmarx is such a nice guy that I guess I'll go along with his Committee's recommendation to kill off the Indian." Now I'm disgusted that I did not try to do something about it. Minority rule appears to be the "in" thing at Dartmouth these days so my protest certainly would have done little good.

The "silent majority" among Dartmouth alumni should arise, be counted and make themselves heard as did the "silent majority" of Americans in the last national election.

London, England

TO THE EDITOR:

Quite frankly I do not understand all this furor over the Indian symbol for Dartmouth.

As I understand it, this clever and evocative symbol was the invention of a Boston sportswriter in the mid-thirties. Where "Wah Hoo Wah" came from I have no idea, nor do I care.

In a reasoned and lengthy report we are told that the Indian is demeaning to what we used to call "Indians" but now must refer to as "Native Americans" as if we immigrants have not yet achieved citizenship.

We are told that "Wah Hoo Wah" means sodomy in Sioux, a language we all speak. For all we know it may mean something else in Athabascan. Was Dartmouth founded to teach the Sioux? ...

Your Dean of Faculty is doing a supreme job. While skiing in the area of New London we saw a notice from a member of the Dartmouth Faculty inviting all who wished to dodge the draft to consult with him. As a former member of the Regular Army, I would not wish Military Service on anyone, but if a College Senior hasn't the wit to read the Law and avoid what he does not want to do, then perhaps a couple of years of unpleasantness might help his maturity. I find this advertisement disgusting.

We are told that alumni contributions are vital to the continued operation of Dartmouth. Your dividends and capital gains from the endowment, made by alumni, are not enough to meet expenses. How efficient.

If the above be true, I suggest you ask who is paying your collective salaries, who is paying the difference between tuition and cost, who is paying for the necessary expansion of your programs and curriculum, and who are you antagonizing?

How soon before Dartmouth Hall is painted black?.

Westwood', Mass