Coping

At their special budget session last month in Boston, the Trustees of the College determined on four extraordinary measures to meet the severe financial crisis brought on by inflation, a weakened stock market, and the energy-cost squeeze problems shared with all other similar in- stitutions - without jeopardizing the quality education Dartmouth has traditionally offered.

First, they authorized an adjustment in the total-return formula for endowment income to permit a higher-level utilization for the next five years. Secondly, they appealed to the alumni for an acceleration of growth of the Alumni Fund, by which 1976's projected goal of $4 million might be moved ahead to 1975, a challenge which Chairman Norman E. McCulloch Jr. '50 has accepted as achievable. Thirdly, they authorized an extraordinary $405 increase in tuition for three terms for next year. And, finally, they instructed the administration to make all possible budget cuts, a directive already implemented by decisions to hold salary raises to five percent considerably below cost-of-living increases for the year - and to prune $250,000 out of next year's preliminary budget.

Of the tuition increase, a decision made with great reluctance, $150 is directly attributable, President Kemeny noted, to fuel prices which have more than tripled since mid-winter of last year. He commented further that the tuition rise is average for those of the Ivy League colleges overall and expressed the hope that the College can return to "normal increases" in the future.

The measures the Trustees have taken to meet the current financial crisis and the means by which the administration is meeting their directives have been discussed in detail in a Bulletin President Kemeny sent recently to all alumni and other friends of the College.