About Students
Many private colleges are concerned today about whether they will be able to fill their freshman classes with qualified candidates. Due to the escalation of costs and the significant improvement in the quality of state institutions, applications to private colleges have been declining. This problem will become acute by 1980 when the number of 18- year-olds starts to decline. The decade 1980-1990 will be a period of trial for all private institutions, and I fear that a great many of them will not survive the much more intense competition. It is therefore most fortunate that Dartmouth will be entering the next decade in an extremely strong position.
The following table shows what has happened to the number of applications to the College. By opening the doors of the College to women students, we have increased spectacularly the total number of applicants. At the same time, it should be noted that the combination of coeducation and year-round operation has also made the College more attractive to male students. In four years the number of male applicants has increased 27 per cent This may be extremely important for the College in the decade of the '80s.
Applications to Dartmouth Class of '75 '76 "77 78 '79 (est.) Male 4,464 4,819 5,383 5,706 5,650 Female 956 1,790 2,090 2,290 Total 4,464 5,775 7,173 7,796 7,940
At the same time there has been a slight decline in the "yield," the percentage of those students who actually come to Dartmouth after being accepted. It is almost inevitable that a highly increased applicant pool will include students who do not have Dartmouth as a first choice. But even taking this factor into account, and the fact that we now admit a 25 per cent larger freshman class, it should be noted that for the Class of 1975 we had 3.2 applicants for every place, while for the Class of '79 we have 4.2 applicants for every place. This means that if during the next decade there is, let us say, a 30 per cent decline in applicants (and that could easily happen), Dartmouth would still admit only one-third of those students who apply and could maintain its very high quality. It is interesting that during these years we have gained somewhat in the yield as compared to our nearest competitors. Due to an increase in multiple applications, yields are down throughout the Ivy group, but Dartmouth does extremely well compared to its sister institutions - except for Harvard.
I have emphasized quantity because this will be a serious problem for most institutions during the next decade. The quality of the freshmen class is, of course, much more important for the future of the College. If one makes the appropriate correction for the fact that we now admit a much larger group of students with nontraditional backgrounds, the academic strength of the entering freshman class is as great as ever. But the real strength of a Dartmouth freshman class cannot be measured in terms of statistics. One has to know Dartmouth students personally to recognize the very special quality of the vast majority of our students. We may have every confidence that Dartmouth is continuing to fulfill its historic role of training leaders for our nation.
I have continued the policy of giving significant preference to the sons and daughters of alumni; today an alumni son or daughter is more than twice as likely to be admitted as the average candidate. Nevertheless, there are alumni children who 20 years ago would have been easily admitted but who today are denied admission. Some alumni have resented this bitterly, and one -feels a deep sympathy for their disappointment, but the overall rise in the quality of the class in the last 20 years has been spectacular and the competition is fierce.
We continue to give preference to students with a variety of special talents, whether in music, in the sciences, or in athletics. On this last category there seems to be a great deal of misunderstanding. The Ivy group has a strict policy that one cannot give any financial advantage to an athlete because he is an athlete. But preferred admission is not illegal; on the contrary it is part of our policy statement that we do take athletic talent - along with all other forms of talent - into account in the admissions process.
The net result is a freshman class which on almost any measure is more talented than the classes of 20 or 30 years ago. Each class also represents much greater diversity both in the types of talent and in socio-economic background, thanks to our equal opportunity program. Nevertheless, there is considerable concern on the part of many that private colleges will price out the middle class. My best evidence indicates that this has not happened, but there are some danger signals which should concern us.
The following table shows our best estimate of the family incomes of Dartmouth students as measured in terms of national income quartiles. One sees that the equal opportunity program has been successful in increasing significantly the number of students whose parents' incomes are in the lower half nationally. The table also shows that there is no truth in the belief that we attract only the very poor and the very rich. It is true that we have a disproportionately large number of students whose parents are in the upper quartile of income nationally. The number in the next quartile also is greater than either of the two lowest quartiles, but there are signs that we are slipping in our attractiveness to the third quartile group.
Family Income Distribution Lowest Quartile 2nd Quartile . 3rd Quartile TopQuartile of National of National of National of National Class of'70 4.1% 9.1% 15.6% 71.2% Classes of'75-'77 9.4% 10.5% 14.0% 66.1%
Dartmouth admissions is synonymous with Eddie Chamberlain '36, probably the most respected admissions officer in the country. No one could be better qualified for the multiple roles of guarding the quality of the student body, advising applicants in their own best interest, and showing compassion in conveying disappointing news to parents of well qualified applicants who must necessarily be turned down.
Because of our concern for the problems of financing undergraduate education, with particular need to study the pattern and impact of financial aid, we initiated an extremely important study three years ago. We were fortunate enough to obtain a large grant from the Sloan Foundation on condition that we put a group of outstanding private institutions of considerable diversity to join the project. I -wrote to the presidents of eight other private institutions in the northeast, and all eight agreed to join in the study. The results of that study are now available and contain invaluable information for the future of private institutions. Some of the implications for the budget will be discussed elsewhere in this report. The most immediate effect on Dartmouth has been the launching of an ambitious new loan program.
While federal aid to higher education has been declining steadily, the government is playing an increasingly important role in loan programs for college students. Under the Federally Insured Student Loan Program (FISL), we can lend to students $1,000 to $1,500 a year under very attractive terms. For a student of proven need, the federal government will pay the interest until he finishes his entire education (including graduate school). After that time the student has ten years in which to repay the loan at seven per cent interest. To make such loans attractive to lenders, the government provides an interest subsidy which depends upon current interest rates.
The Sloan study concluded that while it would be wonderful to take care of the financial needs of our students by outright scholarship grants, none of our institutions could afford to follow that path. Therefore, while scholarships will continue to increase, loans will play an ever more important role in the total package of financial aid. For a family with three children the cost of educating those children will be their single largest capital investment, probably exceeding the cost of their house. It seems only right, therefore, that a portion of that investment be borne by those who will profit by it directly. Very few families ever pay for a house in cash, and it is equally necessary to find the means to allow paying for a portion of a college education out of future earnings.
The federal loan program provides a good vehicle for this, but there are a number of weaknesses in it. The major problem used to be the lack of available loan funds, and the uncertainty of being able to obtain loan funds in various parts of the country. As a result of the Sloan study, Dartmouth has become a major lender under the FISL program. Since the government guarantees these loans and also provides an interest subsidy, they are attractive as investments for the College. Furthermore, the government has created an agency, "Sallie Mae," which provides a secondary market for student loans; through Sallie Mae we are able to leverage our own loan funds five-to-one. This relatively simple step has made an enormous difference to our students. They no longer have to spend long and frustrating hours trying to find a bank that is willing to lend under the FISL program. They obtain a loan from Dartmouth by signing a simple agreement with the financial aid officer.
The second major difficulty in FISL is the inflexibility of the repayment terms. For many Dartmouth alumni a level, ten-year repayment plan is perfectly acceptable, but for others it creates undue hardships. Under the federal program there is no provision for those graduates who may enter a profession where it takes several years to obtain a reasonable salary level. Nor is there provision for those who may be out of work for an extended period of time - other than defaulting on the loan, a legal but undesirable alternative. Dartmouth took a bold step last year and offered its students an opportunity to turn to the College for help if they find that FISL loans borrowed from Dartmouth constitute an undue financial burden later on. The College will refinance their financial obligation to allow increasing step payments, or a longer repayment period, or both. Funds for these "supplementary loans" will have to come entirely from Dartmouth and will not be guaranteed by the government. Under this plan most of the loans issued by the College will be protected by a federal guarantee, but the College will come to the rescue of its young alumni precisely in those cases where the federal program is inadequate.
An important feature of the new loan program for middleincome families is that in the future we will be lending to a significant number of families that do not currently qualify for any form of financial aid. Such loans are legal under the FISL program, with the proviso that the families themselves must pay seven per cent interest while the student is in college. Our experience is insufficient so far to judge how many families will take advantage of these loans, but potentially they promise the best hope of continuing to attract to Dartmouth students from middle-income families.
An important outgrowth of the Sloan study was the formation of the Consortium on Financing Higher Education, consisting of 22 outstanding private institutions. The consortium will be an important forum for the exchange of information and for the formulation of future plans. We expect to profit greatly from membership in this new cooperative venture, and are proud that it all started with a Dartmouth initiative.
There have been major changes in the lifestyles of undergraduate students. It is hard to believe that just ten years ago there were strict parietal rules on the Dartmouth campus. These were abolished in the late '6os, shortly before I became President. The next major change occurred, of course, when the College became coeducational.
We have tried to provide as large a diversity of living accommodations as possible. Because of the preponderance of male students, nearly half of the dormitories are still all-male, three are all-female, and the rest are coed. The transition was not without irritation since, as conversion was made to coed or allfemale units, we had to move male students to other dormitories. We will reach a '"steady state" next fall, and therefore this particular source of irritation should disappear. All in all the transition to coeducational living quarters has been amazingly smooth.
We have also tried during the past few years to make certain clusters of dormitories more than simply a place where students sleep. The experiments have involved the four dorms on Choate Road and the three in the River Cluster. Arrangements have been made for resident masters and for faculty fellows, who play important roles in the activities of these two clusters. The Choates are fortunate enough to have two large living rooms, in one of which cooking facilities have been added. A similar but more modest arrangement has been made in the River Cluster. Some student activity funds also are provided so that these dormitories can host events for their own members and for the rest of the College community. These experiments have been successful, but we need more experience to know the right level at which to maintain activities in the long run.
The office of Vice President Donald Kreider, which has dealt with long-range plans for the whole dormitory complex, has had a large number of successes and considerable frustration. Student opinions are highly volatile. One of the most frustrating experiences concerned a proposed "student center."' There was considerable agitation for some central facility, other than Thayer Hall, where students could get together for social purposes. Vice President Kreider launched a study of the problem and developed interesting, attractive, and not very expensive proposals - only to find that in a two-year period student opinion had changed and interest in a student center had evaporated! Instead, we propose making further improvements in the existing dormitories, including the addition of some living rooms in dorms that do not have a common meeting room and some additional modest cooking facilities. The previous changes and the proposed ones have been made possible by a very generous gift from an alumnus.
There has been significant change in fraternity life in the last five years. When I took office, most people would have given very little chance for the survival of our fraternity system. Two fraternities were going bankrupt, several others were in severe financial difficulties, and the number of students joining fraternities seemed to decline annually. In addition, many fraternities were mismanaged, they were not keeping up with the minimum amount of maintenance necessary for the safety of the buildings and there were a number of houses where one was ashamed to take a visitor.
There has been a dramatic upturn in the viability of the fraternity system. While perhaps one or two of the existing fraternities may not be able to make it in the long run, most of them now attract sufficient students to pay their bills. In fact, the majority of male upperclassmen are now fraternity members. And there have been a number of organizational changes that have also helped enormously.
The Board of Trustees established a fraternity governing board consisting of several house presidents together with a number of alumni house officers. This board has played an important role in bringing back a sense of responsibility to fraternities. One of its key actions has been the hiring of a business manager who not only brings more managerial responsibility to the houses but also brings about financial savings.
The fraternities have been helped by the Dartmouth Plan. First of all, they are now occupied for four terms. Just as for the College as a whole, it is a financial advantage to use the plant year-round. While initially there was considerable concern that not all of the members would be on campus at the same time, students are finding that this very fact makes it more attractive to belong to a fraternity. After a term away, it is possible to return to a dormitory to find that friends are on leave or have moved elsewhere on campus. Therefore, fraternities now play an increasingly important role in providing a continuity of friendships.
A major long-range question will be female membership in fraternities. I can find no interest in the formation of a sorority on the Dartmouth campus. However, six of the fraternities have opened their doors to women members, and this year one of the officers of the Interfraternity Council is a woman student. In general I find much greater diversity among the fraternities than was true ten years ago. By any criterion one could set there are fraternities that one would rank "excellent" and others "terrible." It will be fascinating to see which of these many diverse patterns will prove most attractive to the students in the long run.
During the late '6os, as political activism increased on campus, traditional extracurricular activities suffered. Since that time there has been a complete reversal in attitudes, and student participation in all types of activities is at a very high level. There are large numbers of students taking an active role in The Dartmouth, WDCR, the Outing Club, the Forensic Union, intramural sports, and many others, including a score of extracurricular activities fostered by Hopkins Center.
Many of us feared that the tradition of the Freshman Trip was slowly disappearing. Instead, participation today is at an all-time high. Last fall we could not accommodate all 700 freshmen who wanted to make the trip. We are planning improvements of the Moosilauke Ravine facilities to make sure that freshmen will never again be denied this important privilege. Here, as in other activities, we have found that women students participate in just as large numbers as male students. While some people have been surprised by this, I would have been surprised if it had not occurred. As has been true for generations of males, women students who wish to go to a first-rate educational institution and are interested in the out-of-doors, are much more likely to select Dartmouth than Yale.
It is impossible to think of freshman traditions without thinking of the late Al Dickerson '30. The memorial volume of his selected writings that has just appeared captures the reason Al meant so much to generations of Dartmouth freshmen and their parents. We are fortunate that this great tradition is ably carried on by Ralph Manuel '58. Overall responsibility for the welfare of our students belongs to the Dean of the College. It is a testimonial to the quality of the deans we attract that Carroll Brewster, like his predecessor, has been called to become president of a fine liberal arts college.
I want to make special mention of the student radio station, WDCR. Over the years this has grown into an important station serving not only Dartmouth students but also the entire community. Completely under student direction, it is a high-quality commercial radio station which operates full-time and year-round. WDCR has recently obtained an FM license in addition to its AM license. The student directorate is hard at work formulating plans for the necessary physical construction and for staffing two radio stations.
The William Jewett Tucker Foundation was established to look after the moral and spiritual needs of the student body. To this mission was added a new dimension during the 1960s fostering the social concerns of students.
Under the deanship of Charles F. Dey '52, the activities of the foundation expanded far beyond the Dartmouth campus. At such diverse sites as Jersey City, Kicking Horse, Montana, and northern and southern California, student interns engaged in important conscience-raising endeavors. Unfortunately, these very ambitious programs have been affected by changes in student attitudes and by the coming of the Dartmouth Plan. Byproducts of year-round operation have been a significant increase in our foreign study programs as well as a reduction of graduation time from 12 terms to 11 terms. At the same time our students have become much more concerned about their careers. While most of them are still eager to spend one of their 11 terms on foreign study, few of them have recently elected to spend an additional term in an internship. It therefore seems that the main challenge to the Tucker Foundation will be to develop a significant role on campus in the coming years.
When we lost the services of Doc Dey, we were very fortunate to attract Warner Traynham '57 as the new dean. He fully realizes the new challenge and is extremely well qualified to carry it through to a successful conclusion. While I am convinced that the role of the Tucker Foundation in 1980 will be quite different from its role in 1970, I am equally convinced that it will be just as significant a force in the Dartmouth community.
Much has been said about the changing attitudes of today's college students. Political activism, which flourished for several years and reached a peak after Cambodia and Kent State, vanished the next year. Many have interpreted the present attitudes of students as apathy. I believe this is a serious mistake. I am convinced that those attitudes toward our society which were pressed by the students have since become the attitudes of the majority of adults as well. The change is not one of lack of concern, but rather a disenchantment with the more radical forms of political activism. Many activists have faced the fact that the main beneficiaries of radicalism have been conservative politicians. I feel that "disillusionment" is a much better description than "apathy." It must also be recognized that while the student activists had a strong interest in many issues, only Vietnam could raise thousands of students to a high emotional pitch.
Changing external conditions have also had a major impact on student attitudes. The job market today is extremely poor. As one former activist told me: "When you were offered ten different jobs, it was very exciting to turn them all down, to continue your political activities. But today we are concerned about having even one job available to us." At the same time that the general job market deteriorated, the market for Ph.D.s went completely to pieces. Today, many students who might have engaged in academic graduate activities instead choose to go to professional schools. These schools, particularly schools of medicine and law, are swamped with applications. The result is t at undergraduates heading for these two fields tend to panic.
n discussions with fellow presidents I have reached the conclusion that the single worst influence on our liberal arts curriculum today is the impact of professional schools. Some students are so worried about being able to get into a high-quality professional school that they distort their entire undergraduate experience for the sole purpose of accumulating a high grade average. A premed student who receives a B+ in a course where he thought he deserved an A— will tell the teacher that his entire life has been ruined! We wish we could reassure our students that this attitude is ridiculous, but until one has a policy statement from the leading schools of medicine and law that they will consider admission factors other than grades, this reassurance will not be forthcoming. There are many of us who are determined to bring about such a change.
At the same time I find an attitude represented on this campus, at almost the opposite extreme, which disturbs me equally. We have a small but vocal group of students who espouse a strongly anti-intellectual attitude. I have never considered that Dartmouth's exclusive role is to turn out future academicians; indeed, graduating a thousand potential Ph.D.s from Dartmouth would be a disaster. But a college is primarily an institution dedicated to the life of the mind. It is very destructive to have a group of students who ridicule intellectual activities and who bring pressures on their peers not to take their academic work seriously.
Fortunately, these two extremes do not represent the majority of Dartmouth students. The average student is exactly what one hopes to find in an undergraduate liberal arts institution with a very broad educational program. It is for that reason that most faculty members are delighted with the quality, with the intellectual awareness and interest, and with the brightness of their students. As a member of the faculty, I can testify that teaching Dartmouth students is our greatest reward.
