Letters to the Editor

Frightening Questions

For the first time in over five years of reading letters in the ALUMNI MAGAZINE, I feel compelled to reply to one which particularly amazes me. I refer to the letter from Charles Hubbard '31 in the September issue. It doesn't seem worth the energy to respond specifically to Mr. Hubbard's warped ramblings; however, the nature of his comments raises some frightening questions in my mind.

Is this the kind of mental deterioration that lies in store for all Dartmouth people who graduated before coeducation? Since I graduated before coeducation, must I someday fall prey to the sort of distorted reasoning process which now apparently afflicts Mr. Hubbard? If an all-male Dartmouth produced the attitudes and absurd logic reflected in his letter, then that is proof enough of the need for coeducation.

I am continuously amazed at the fact that the "issue" of coeducation still dominates these pages. It is unfortunate that change comes so hard to some people, especially to those least involved in the results.

Burlington, Vt.

Reassurance

Wayne Young has given a fairly accurate picture of women's athletics at Dartmouth ["Vox," September issue] and is to be congratulated on his attitude and on his desire to see the program expand. He makes some very good points on women athletes and the values of athletics, but I don't understand why he is so pessimistic about the future of women's athletics at Dartmouth.

Speaking from the inside, I must reassure him that we are continuing to strive to provide the best opportunities that we possibly can for Dartmouth women athletes. The disparity in schedules that he mentions between men's and women's sports is not entirely true. As more women have been admitted, more games have been added and the budget has increased. What distorts the view is the large number of men's basketball and ice hockey games. Otherwise, women's field hockey plays more games than football and two less than men's soccer in regular season, but adds three more games in the Eastern regional championship. Women's squash and swimming had more meets last year than either of the men's teams, cross-country has the same number, skiing is the same, women's tennis has more than men's with both a fall and a spring schedule. Basketball is growing, and with the addition of more women and more support, more games will be warranted.

I disagree with the statement that since the development of various sports depends upon student interest, the burden of growth is placed upon the students. It is not a burden; it has served as an indication of what they want. The sports were developed by the women's athletic department and the opportunity to participate was given immediately. That is why so many sports were developed so quickly.

Our main emphasis at the moment is to develop quality in the program. Last year we hired two new full-time coaches, bringing the number to six full-time, three part-time, and a full-time trainer. We are continuing to ask for more.

His point about the educational values of competition is a good one. We agree and feel that the opportunity to compete is exactly what Dartmouth does offer to its women. There is not another institution of this size in the country that offers such a varied program. If participation and opportunity are the keys to a program that benefits the students perhaps more than the coaches, then Dartmouth can be proud.

Alumni can help us in two ways. They can help the women coaches identify outstanding high school students, and those with a special interest in women's athletics can contribute to our Friends of Women's Sports fund.

Hanover, N.H.

Eastman

I am writing to express to other alumni my shock and dismay over having just received promotional literature for "Eastman," the real estate development that Dartmouth has apparently involved itself in.

As a native of New Hampshire, I have long been concerned about the escalating development pressures coming to bear on the state. The last thing New Hampshire needs is the College actually adding to the development boom. No matter how "environmentally sound" this particular "resort community" may be, it is just one more step in a process which threatens continued subdivision of New Hampshire's forests for the benefit of the privileged few. Further, as it adds to the escalation of real estate values, it makes it increasingly difficult for people who live and work in the state to afford land as they are forced to compete with wealthy second-home buyers from the suburbs.

Wolfeboro, N.H.

[In 1969, Dartmouth joined with The Societyfor the Protection of New Hampshire forests,the Manchester Bank, and the United Life andAccident Insurance Company to invest in 3,500acres of land surrounding Eastman Pond inGrantham, New Hampshire, about 14 milessoutheast of Hanover. This group, known as theControlled Environment Corporation, retainedEmil Hanslin Associates to develop the tract under the name of Eastman. To date, 275 homes, agolf course, a ski slope, and some otherrecreational facilities have been built. Plansallow for 1,700 homesites in all (1,400 are sold),with 1,000 acres put aside as open space. Ed.]

Happy or Sad?

I don't know whether I feel happy or sad in reading in the September issue that there is now a Black Alumni of Dartmouth Association. Being a member of a minority group, I suppose I should be pleased that the black alumni of our college have met to discuss issues which are important to them as part of the College. I watched, as all of us concerned citizens watched, the response of the College to the blacks and other minority groups and we all hoped that we would be realistic in our approach.

However, when I read the blacks now have an alumni association, my mind turns to 1945 when I entered as possibly the only Chinese in my class - I'll have to check the records - later joined by Calvin Sia from Hawaii and then Sam Chu, also from Shanghai. With Professor and Mrs. W. T. Chan, who very kindly had us over for a proper Chinese meal every so often, we were a small Chinese enclave, I suppose. Maybe we should have formed a Chinese Alumni Association, but then we were not as conscious then of our possible disadvantages.

So, now that Calvin, a physician, Sam, a historian, and I have survived, maybe we're not so lonely - but then maybe we never were. Now, I wonder if we may have missed something by not forming our Chinese Association. I really don't know whether I feel happy or sad. Maybe other alumni can tell me how I really feel. . . .

Toronto, Ontario

Scary Analogy

I enjoyed Professor Thomas Laaspere's article "Science and Technology Under Siege" in the September issue.

I was disappointed that he failed to mention the 1818 novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. The Baron Frankenstein as a college biology student project creates his monster but doesn't know what to do with it or him. The monster abandoned by his maker is coldly greeted by the world and returns to him. Through rage he kills his maker's younger brother, but the monster is saved by the intellectual curiosity of Baron Frankenstein's student friend. This ends in the friend's death and the monster's demise.

This story provides many a scary analogy to our present and future scientific works.

Note that Young Frankenstein, a movie by Mel Brooks released in the past decade, attempts to rehabilitate the monster by environmental and then surgical means, but it is only accomplished at a loss to the scientist.

This story has entered the folk culture but had a literary beginning. The new version by Mel Brooks gives us many a humorous analogy to the use of environment to modify behavior. Besides these main themes, the story deals with alienation, discrimination against deviants, and family life relations.

Tampa, Fla.

Examining Lives

The '61 reunion (September issue) sounds like a mini-Alumni College. We, too, read and discussed Passages with the advantage of a much wider age-spread, from teenager to nonagenarian.

About one-third of the participants were nonalumni, which perhaps adds some perspective, but I believe that alumni have preference. Anyone who is looking for intellectual stimulation, plus canoeing on the Connecticut, sailing on Lake Mascoma, golf on one of the most challenging courses in the East - and hasn't been to Alumni College - doesn't know what he/she is missing.

We frequently need that opportunity to reexamine our own lives in the light of the lives of other people and in the light of history, science, and the arts.

One can do it delightfully in Hanover each summer (Advt.).

Glen Rock, N.J.

Encore

Thanks for the September issue! The article "Thirty-Eight Days Alone" was truly superb! More like this please!

A happy reader.

New York, N. Y.

Shared Glory

The legendary names of Campbell, Evans, Nutt, Wilson, and Burton are familiar to kayakwatchers the world around, but, as the old baseball pitcher Satchel Paige once said, "I never look behind because somebody might be gaining on me."

The September Bulletin stated, "No school had more than one representative in the world kayak championships to match Dartmouth's four plus Jean Campbell."

Now hear this, you Greeners: There is a small liberal arts school down the Connecticut River valley near Amherst, Massachusetts, called Hampshire College, now in its seventh year of enrolling students. A first-year Hampshire student, Cathy Hearn, won a bronze medal at those same world championships (thus neutralizing Burton's bronze), and Kurt Feick, a fourth-year Hampshire student was named first alternate to the team. In addition. Hampshire's current kayak instructor, Carol Fisher, also competed at the world championships, as did Leslie Klein, who worked last year as an intern in Hampshire's kayak program.

Now, to share some glory: Dartmouth's Sandy Campbell founded the kayak program at Hampshire, and his wife Jean worked with Hampshire students. Then Eric Evans '72 followed Sandy as kayak instructor at Hampshire for the next three years. Interesting enough, our current kayak instructor, Carol Fisher, was once enrolled as a graduate student in the Thayer School of Engineering. I suppose one might tally the final score as: Dartmouth 5, Hampshire 4, with 4 shared, but at Hampshire our philosophy is that "to play is to win."

To paraphrase an old quotation, "Although Hampshire is still a small college, there are those who love it."

Amherst, Mass.

Thin Wine

I have just received the September issue of The Bulletin, a Dartmouth publication that is published five times a year and sent to all alumni, faculty and parents. This issue, in my opinion, sets a record for poor writing, ranging from the sophomoric to the soporific.

The first section of The Bulletin reads like a sports column from a high-school paper. One of the blurbier lines reads, "You've got Mt.. Everest is what you've got." The Sherpa that wrote that argot also produced this inscrutable paragraph (presumably about the Alumni Fund though it has no reference to anything at all) and I quote, "I don't know where it's likely to go any better." This line defies analysis.

On page 3 is an ever-so-first-person account of a coed canoe trip down the Connecticut River. This article is written in a folksy, gee whillikens style that would make even a National Geographic editor gag. One line from this purple picaresque that gets the Giant Gelusil is, and I quote, "... more casseroles, I'm sure, than there were pebbles on the beach."

Winding up the canoe trip, the writer asks two questions as follows: "Highlights? How do you highlight a seven-day, steady, perpetual highlight?" No way obviously, but I did wonder what he was giving those kids to drink all the way from Hanover to Long Island Sound!

The last page of The Bulletin contains the report of the 1977 Alumni Council president, and it reads like a printout from a computer. I would give it the Sominex Award. The final zinger, so help me Kemeny, reads, and I quote, " . . . and one of the significant satisfactions which accrued to me during my tenure is the knowledge that alumni involvement contributes very significantly to the ongoing quality of our college." Where has he been?

I can remember when The Bulletin was interesting and well written ... a kind of tripledistilled Dartmouth brandy to savor. Now, the wine is very thin, indeed. Dartmouth deserves something better!

Water Mill, N. Y.

Obvious Answer

This is my first letter to the ALUMNI MAGAZINE since graduating 48 years ago with the Class of 1929, and probably my last.

In reply to your query on page 3 about the cover on the September issue as to "Why do wood choppers wear red suspenders?" The answer should be obvious: 1) To hold their pants up; 2) to keep from being shot in the back while at work in the woods, especially during our hunting season. Believe me, I know.

Aberdeen, N.C.

Fifth Down and More

I have a couple of personal postscripts to offer regarding two memorable Dartmouth-Cornell games. They might be of interest to those who saw the encounters way back when.

1) I met Red Friesell at a cocktail party in Ft. Lauderdale about 15 years after his infamous "boner" of November 16, 1940. After a few social belts, I told him that despite his November 17 public apologies for his lousy arithmetic, I felt it was still my duty to throw him in the canal which bordered our host's splendid backyard.

Red (who was really gray) agreed to come quietly if I really felt it would erase forever the tears and frustration he had caused me, Lou Young Jr., and many others that dismal afternoon of long ago.

Of course, we agreed to have a final cocktail (for the canal), and he proceeded to tell me how the Fifth Down was the greatest thing that ever happened to him. How it brought him fame, and afforded talk-show exposures and paid, allexpenses trips to the annual Boob Banquet in New York City, honoring the likes of Roy Riegels, Wrong-Way Corrigan, and jockeys like Eddie Arcaro, who had turned down chances to ride eventual Kentucky Derby winners.

After several more refreshments, Red and I cordially allowed as to how we were both fairly jolly good fellows. I think I even shook the rascal's hand when our host asked both of us to go home.

2) I believe it was the 1937 game when Brud Holland, Cornell's great all-America "endaround" end was knocked silly the first time he had the ball. I recall clearly that he sat out the rest of the game, not on the bench, but on a chair, holding and shaking his wounded head.

As a sensitive Dartmouth freshman, I had uneasy feelings of guilt that day, wondering if my Indians had deliberately injured the opposition's star in a cheap shot at an Ivy League victory.

Years later I met Brud for the first time. He had been personnel director of Sun Shipyard (while I was with Sun Oil, the parent company) and was being inaugurated as president of a Negro college. We discussed the '37 game and my emotional state at the time.

Brud laughed and said, "Thanks, Hank, but I hope you haven't lost any sleep over it. The game films show clearly that I was kicked in the head by one of my own teammates. And I'd like to believe it was accidental!"

Claremont, Calif.

The Symbol (cont.)

After years of debate over the status of a symbol for the College, we propose a solution. In the seldom sung second verse of "Men of Dartmouth," Richard Hovey '85 writes:

They were mighty men of old That she nurtured side by side Till like Vikings they went forth From the lone and silent North . . .

Hovey's words suggest a symbol for Dartmouth College which captures the spirit of both past and present generations of the Dartmouth family, and which we hope future generations will retain. Let's go Vikings!

Hanover, N.H.

The ALUMNI MAGAZINE welcomes comment from its readers. For publication, letters should be signed and addressed specifically to the Magazine (not copies of communications to other organizations or individuals). Letters exceeding 400 words in length will be condensed by the editors.

[Mrs. Kurtz is assistant director of athletics Ed.]