At the annual spring meeting of the Dartmouth Board of Trustees last month, the Board elected two new Charter Trustees, one of them the first black alumnus ever to serve as a Trustee of the College.
The new Trustees are Richard V. Hill '41 of Marblehead, Mass., chairman and chief executive officer of the First National Boston Corporation and its subsidiary, the First National Bank of Boston; and R. Harcourt Dodds '58 of Brooklyn, N.Y., executive assistant corporation counsel of the New York City Law Department.
The Board vacancies they fill will occur in June with the completion of Trustee service by Lloyd D. Brace '25 of Needham, Mass., former chairman of the bank Mr. Hill now heads, and William E. Buchanan '24 of Menasha, Wis., chairman of the Appleton Wire Works Corporation, Appleton, Wis.
Mr. Hill, who earned a master's degree from Tuck School in 1942, joined the First National Bank as a loan officer in 1948, following four years of World War II duty as an underwater demolitions officer in the U.S. Navy. He rose steadily through the ranks of the bank, becoming an assistant vice president in 1951, vice president in 1955, president in 1966, and chairman two years ago, succeeding Mr. Brace.
Mr. Hill is a member of the Corporation of Northeastern University, a trustee of the Boston Urban Foundation and the North Shore Children's Hospital. He is a director of the New England Telephone and Telegraph Co., John Hancock Life Insurance Co., and Polaroid Corp. He is regional chairman of the Urban Affairs Committee of the American Bankers Association, vice chairman of the Business Council for International Understanding, and a member of the Japan-U.S. Economic Relations Advisory Council. A director of the New England Region of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, he also has given regional leadership to the Boy Scouts of America, the Salvation Army, and the Massachusetts Bay United Fund.
Mr. Dodds was graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Dartmouth and earned a law degree from Yale in 1961. He started his career by accepting a two-year appointment as assistant commissioner for Native Courts, Ministry of Justice, in Northern Nigeria.
Returning to the United States, he was named Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, criminal division, serving in that capacity until 1966, when he joined the legal division of Charles Pfizer and Company, Inc.
Mr. Dodds, who was brought up in Harlem, returned to public life in 1967 as deputy commissioner in charge of legal matters for the New York City Police Department, and was named to his present position in 1970. He was admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1967, and is a member of the bars of New York and Washington, D.C. He is a member of the boards of the Police Athletic League, Reality House, and Operation Broad Jump; a past trustee of the First Unitarian Church in Brooklyn, and a member of the special committee on penology of the Bar Association of the City of New York and of a committee on court decorum and allied problems of the first and second departments of the New York State Appellate Court.
Both of Dartmouth's new Trustees have been leaders in Dartmouth activities, as undergraduates and alumni.
Mr. Dodds, who had high academic ranking as a Rufus Choate Scholar, was a member of Palaeopitus, Green Key, and Casque and Gauntlet. He was treasurer of both Chi Phi fraternity and the Interfraternity Council, and was active in the Forensic Union, Pre-Law Club, Dartmouth Christian Union, and Green Book. Fie was graduated magna cum laude and was awarded the James B. Richardson Fellowship for graduate study. He is a member of the executive committee of the Class of 1958 and of the steering committee of the Black Alumni Caucus, formed last year to relate to the concerns of black students now at Dartmouth. He is married to the former Barbara Arrington and they have two sons and an infant daughter.
Mr. Hill rowed on the freshman crew as an undergraduate, was president of Sigma Nu fraternity, and was a member of the Green Collegians orchestra. As an alumnus, he is an Overseer of the Tuck School, was a member of the corporate committee for Dartmouth's Third Century Fund drive, served from 1967 to 1970 on the Dartmouth Alumni Council, and is past president of the Dartmouth Club of the North Shore. He also served for five years (1951-56) as chairman of the Class of 1941.
He is married to the former Mildred Bergsted and they have a son and a daughter, both now undergraduates at Dartmouth, and second son still at home.
Mr. Hill and Mr. Dodds will take their places on the Board the day after Commencement. As Charter Trustees they may serve a maximum of 15 years.
As currently constituted, the Dartmouth Board of Trustees consists of 16 members: the President of the College, the Governor of New Hampshire ex officio, seven Charter Trustees whose service on the Board is limited to 15 years, and seven Alumni Trustees, also called Term Trustees, whose service, is limited to two five-year terms. Alumni Trustees derive their name from the fact that they are nominated by the alumni, usually through the Alumni Council. Charter Trustees are chosen by the Board itself.
Richard V. Hill '41
R. Harcourt Dodds '58