Circling the Green

• Dismal reports of declining Scholastic Aptitude Test scores nationwide to the contrary, Admissions Director Edward T. Chamberlain ’36 says that there has been no noticeable change in average scores of freshmen entering Dartmouth.

• President Kemeny has registered his concern at the “undue haste” with which legislation barring mandatory retirement at 65 is progressing through the Congress. Such a law he considers detrimental to employment oppor- tunities for recent Ph.D.s, young faculty members’ chances of gaining tenure, affirmative-action programs, and educational budgets.

• “Wakonda Auga,” the Ledyard Canoe Club’s homemade war canoe, manned by 13 undergraduates and re- cent alumni, last month won out over 11 other New England contenders in the ninth annual Ice Breaker Races on the Sudbury River in Concord, Massachusetts.

• Baker Tower gleams brightly and nightly once more, following installa- tion of special new spotlights that will do the job for an annual $l6O, instead of the $1,200 incandescent lights would cost. The Class of 1940, which has been picking up the tab for lighting on ceremonial occasions, last month presented the new energy-efficient spots to the College.

• There were so many Senior Fellows a few years back that it became necessary to limit the number to an an- nual dozen. Only three applicants emerged from the Class of 1978, com- pared with more than 20 the previous year, and they were all accepted. Various explanations for the drop in- clude the proliferation of other special programs, the Dartmouth Plan, and rigid requirements of pre-professional majors and that it’s merely an anomaly.

• The Student Advisory Committee has requested a mandatory one-day reading period on what would normally be the last day of classes, as a buffer between the end of courses and the start of final exams each term.

• Freshmen may be able to bring cars to Hanover in their fall and winter terms if the idea is approved by a College committee now studying it. “Change is a fact of life,” according to one committee member.

• Henceforth, students, personnel from the Art Department and Hopkins Center, fund raisers, and local architects will be in on decisions about where to place outdoor sculpture on the campus, if the pattern established for the relocation of X Delta is followed. English Professor Henry Terrie is chairman of the committee charged with recommending where the massive di Suvero sculpture will be permanently planted in concrete. X Delta’s current position on Sanborn House lawn has not been universally acclaimed.

• Topic-of-the-month: “Problems of Doctor-Patient Communication: A Contemplative Stroll Through the Valley of the Shadow of Malpractice,” a talk for the Dartmouth Humanities Forum by Professor Charles Willard of the Speech Department.