The College

PUT yourself in the place of Cormac McF., who will do as an Everyman for the Class of 1979.

Young McF. leaves home in early September, boards a bus in Sioux Falls, and drones eastward across the dark fields of the Republic (Fitzgerald is his favorite author) for three days and three nights. McF. settles in Omer's Limousine at the White River bus station. In 15 minutes or so he reaches his destination, 1,500 miles from home, and discovers that Hanover, New Hampshire is not like Sioux Falls.

Lord Hall appears out of the gloom and McF. settles into his room (204, let us say, a double with bath and fireplace but no Riv. Vu.). McF.'s roommate is from Montclair. He plays basketball.

September 6: the Freshman Trip! - "a meaningful way to introduce a significant number of each fledgling Big Green class to the natural world of forests, mountains, lakes and streams which surround the historic College, northernmost of the Ivy Group." Given a choice between hiking, cycling, and fly fishing, McF. has elected hiking. Seven hundred and nineteen other '79s are going on the Freshman Trip. With 120 group leaders that accounts for 840 people charging around in the woods.

Two days on the trail for McF., and then a final night at Moosilauke Ravine Lodge for talks by President Kemeny and Dean Ralph Manuel '5B. Should McF. care, the Ravine Lodge is stocked with 520 chickens, 2,000 ears of corn, 3,000 cookies, 1,440 oranges, 1,440 eggs, 1,160 quarts of milk, 224 loaves of bread, 240 pounds of link sausage, 50 pounds of onions, 90 pounds of potato chips, 40 pounds of sliced cheese, 40 pounds of sugar, and six gallons of French and Italian salad dressing. (Before arriving at Moosilauke, McF. and his 839 trailmates were provisioned with 120 pounds of cheese, 180 dozen eggs, 240 Pounds of bacon, 360 loaves of bread, 1,440 packets of instant cereal, and a mass of ingredients for a dubious confection known as Mountain Sticky Stew.)

September 9: back home in 204 Lord. McF. not hungry. Has time to kill until the last wave of freshmen returns from Moosilauke. Wanders around, puzzles at the Bema, buys a book, pets dogs, meets girls, hears about basketball in Montclair.

September 15: Freshman Week - (McF.'s very own schedule is reproduced on the following page.)

Monday: Not much doing until '79 convenes for nighttime fandangoes in Webster Hall and in dormitories with the Interdormitory Council. McF. sees the whole class - all 1,058 members - together for the first time.

Tuesday: English proficiency tests in the a.m., language listening and reading tests in the p.m. No need for McF. to attend the meeting of Mathematics Advanced Placement Candidates or, for that matter, the Make-up German Reading Test. After dinner, back to hoary old Webster for talks by Dean of the Faculty Leonard Rieser '44, who discusses some aspects of scientific inquiry, and Professor of Drama Errol Hill. Da'aga Hill is one of McF.'s classmates; ergo, the Professor of Drama is a freshman father, too.

Said Professor Hill to McF. and Da'aga and their classmates:

Excellence denotes quality of achievement. It is allied to beauty (I recall my Yale professor once defined beauty as excellence manifested in a sensuous form). In my lexicon, excellence also connotes a certain moral imperative for I find it difficult to apply the term to any human action or product that caters to the base, the ugly, the immoral. I therefore urge you to make no compromise with excellence; be venturesome in your choices at College; cherish independence in your thinking and creativity in your work. Should you do so, I cannot promise that your undergraduate years will be a blast ... but they should be memorable and happy years, the kind of happiness young Thomas Jefferson spoke of that comes when men and women find a release of their powers, in an environment that draws them to the fullest enjoyment of beauty and excellence. May that be your experience at Dartmouth.

Wednesday: tests in history, physics, and biology. Meeting of financial aid students ("That," says McF., "is for me.") Then on to departmental open houses; "Meeting of Advisees with Adviser" (besides a quick lesson in academic lingo, McF. receives a thoroughly confusing ramble from his mustashioed Crosby Hall adviser); Green Key picnic in Bema, which begins to make sense; then to hear "Dartmouth's Past: A History Lesson for Freshmen" by Professor Jere Daniell '55, who succeeds the late Francis Childs '06 in this happy task; and finally to a concert by the Concord String Quartet, which McF. finds bracing.

Thursday: Matriculation and library instruction. ("Coats and ties for men and appropriate dress for women will be worn for Matriculation," enjoins the program notes.) Tests in psychology and tests in chemistry. McF. has had enough of tests. "Meeting of foreign students (except Canadians)." A late evening talk, "Introduction to the Upper Valley," by Robert O'Brien '40.

Friday: Registration. ("Bring pens for registration. It normally requires about one hour.") Football scrimmage vs. Bowdoin - a cool, rainy but mildly satisfying scrimmage victory, and certainly better than listening to Montclair's basketball exploits. A faculty talk on "Why I Teach What I Teach," followed by the Dartmouth Aires in concert. McF. concludes his evening with a short film on Dartmouth football highlights of 1974.

Saturday: football scrimmage with Williams, soccer against the alumni. McF. is a third baseman, thank you. A Green Key Mixer followed, blessedly, by a 10:30 p.m. showing of Treasure of the SierraMadre.

Sunday: McF. walks to late church, then catches ride to picnic with mustashioed adviser and family. Montclair comes back from his picnic disconsolate: "We had to pick apples all afternoon. ..." After lecture by Eleanor Holmes Norton, New York City Commissioner on Human Rights, McF. suddenly conscious of crowds of upperclassmen engaged in preclass revelry. No hazing. McF. doesn't know what he's missing.

Monday: McF. lugs seven-pound history text to class, a high school practice to be warned against. Phys. Ed. registration at the gym. ("Freshmen must take Swimming Test during Freshman Week.") After dinner, a stroll to the Gym again for Convocation. McF. listens intently to the invocation by Warner Traynham '57, dean of the Tucker Foundation; to Fred Wall '76, representing the upper classes; to President Kemeny; to Dean Manuel, who has something to say about student conduct; and to John Hennesey, dean of Tuck School, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year.

We now expect more of those who manage formal organizations [says Hennessey], Time collapses and complexity stuns; we can't wait for better delivery of legal and medical services for wiser management of the cities, for more prescient processes of congressional decision-making, for more optimal balancing of private rights and public values. Management - the science and the art - has become an urgent matter, much too important to be left to chance.

McF. has a few sharp words for the management as he and several hundred other students search in vain for the traditional post-ceremony cider and doughnuts. Ah, young man, "slashed" from the budget.

For Cormac McF. '79, now more or less introduced to the mysteries of Dartmouth College, the fortnight has been quite an experience. And he has until June 10, 1979 - Commencement - to tie up loose ends. Montclair and his basketball willing.

CONSTRUCTION of a new three-story apartment dormitory near the River Cluster began this fall amid assurances the new structure does not imply further growth of the undergraduate body.

The new housing unit, the first to be built since 1966, was authorized by the Board of Trustees to relieve the dormitory crowding that has developed as the popularity of on-campus living and the fall term of the Dartmouth Plan created extra pressure for student housing.

The new dorm, priced at $1.1 million and expected to be ready for occupancy next fall, will contain 18 apartments of four residents each. The apartments will have four single bedrooms clustered around a living area, and kitchen and bath facilities. The structure will have a red brick exterior.

CHARLES B. McLane '41, professor of government and a specialist in Soviet sphere politics, has been named the fifth holder of the Class of 1925 Professorship.

McLane, who succeeds W. Lawrence Gulick, a psychology professor who resigned to become dean and chief academic officer at Hamilton College, has studied the relationships between the Soviet Union and the Third World and his three-volume work, Soviet-Third WorldRelations, was published in 1973.

He did graduate work in Slavic literature and Soviet politics at Columbia and earned his M.A. in 1949 and his Ph.D. in 1955. He taught Russian history at Bard College and government at Swarthmore before joining the Dartmouth faculty in 1957 as professor of Russian Civilization.

The Professorship was established in 1962 through contributions totaling $344,530 by members of the Class of 1925.

ALMON B. Ives, professor of speech emeritus, took on 1,058 new duties this fall when he became acting dean of freshman. Ives will serve until a permanent successor to Ralph N. Manuel '58, the former freshman dean and the new dean of the College, can be found.

Ives, who retired from the Dartmouth. faculty in 1974 after 35 years of service, was an associate dean of the College during 1962-63. He also served for many years as faculty adviser to WDCR and was secretary of the Dartmouth College Radio Council, a member and chairman of the Dartmouth Television Advisory Committee and director of the Freshman Orientation Program and the General Reading Program.

A former head groundskeeper of the College's athletic fields, who lived in unpretentious quarters in Davis Field House and parlayed his modest earnings into a six-figure estate, has been memorialized by a $46,500 bequest to Dartmouth.

The bequest was given in memory of Clarence W. Jellis, who died in 1957 while working at his job in Alumni Gymnasium. He had been employed by Dartmouth since 1928. The gift comes from the estate of his son, Clarence W. Jellis Jr., who died in 1972, and will be "related to the College's athletic plant or program."

No one can say that Dartmouth shirks itsresponsibilities when it comes to testing,lecturing, prodding, inspecting, and indoctrinating freshmen in the mysteries ofcollege life. Just ask Cormac McF. '79.