Best Man

When Addison L. Winship II '42 was a freshman, his classmates - in prophetic judgment - deemed him the best man among the 676 to handle class finances and elected him their treasurer. Last month the Trustees of the College approved his appointment, as the best of more than 350 applicants, to succeed George H. Colton '35 as vice president for development and alumni affairs.

In the interim Ad Winship has raised a lot of money for the College and earned the confidence of his fellow alumni, in class affairs, club affairs, and administrative posts of ever increasing responsibility.

Fund-raising statistics in the years of Winship's tenure as director of development speak for his skill in translating the affection of Dartmouth's sons and daughters and the respect of outside organizations into financial support for the College. When he assumed the office in 1966, the Alumni Fund was approaching $2 million in annual giving; last year it topped $4 million. In those nine years, $l50 million have been raised from private sources.

After four years as a Navy officer immediately following graduation and 13 years with National Dairy Products Company in Boston and Buffalo, Winship returned to the College in 1959 as a special assistant to President Dickey for corporate relations. When Colton became vice president for development and alumni affairs seven years later, Winship succeeded him .as development director.

His service to the College since his Navy discharge has been continuous. He has been a member of 1942's executive committee since 1946 and was head class agent from 1947 to 1952, winning the John R. Mason Trophy in 1951 for top agent among the ten youngest classes. He was a member of the executive committee of the Boston Alumni Association from 1950 to 1959 and an Alumni Councilor from 1951 to, 1954.

Winship's Dartmouth credentials are as varied and extensive as his service to the College. The late Roger Winship '15 was his father, the late Kendall Winship '13 his uncle. He has Dartmouth cousins, Dartmouth brothers-in-law, and a Dartmouth son-in-law. His alumni forebears date back more than a century.

When Winship moves next July 1 into the vice presidential office overlooking the Green, he sees as "the most fascinating and challenging aspect of the job - and its greatest personal satisfaction - communicating today's College, ever changing, to the people who care deeply about it but don't always understand the changes." The alumni, he feels, even where they were initially apprehensive about the changes that have taken place at Dartmouth, have seldom been long in understanding that they reflected changes in society in general and have "responded with fantastic loyalty."

"We are," Winship adds, "tremendously fortunate in Dartmouth's base of support, impossible to articulate and hard to define, that unique spirit which is an outgrowth of shared experience, of the nature of this college, and the quality of its people."

"Private institutions are undoubtedly in for a hard time," he says, "with many literally fighting for survival. Survival is not Dartmouth's problem. Ours in the years ahead will be maintaining traditional quality, a task for which the encourage- ment and support of the alumni are indispensible."

Vice President Ad Winship '42