Commencement

Emotional climate: sunny

IT was the Commencement of the Calculated Risk. In the early morning hours of June 12, it was raining hard. The skies, which had been leaden for days, were no less so at 9:00 a.m. But Fritz Hier '44, director of public programs, and Carleton Richardson, assistant director of buildings and grounds, his able side-kick in affaires Commencement, took a collective deep breath and said, "Roll 'em - outdoors!"

Not to keep you on meterological tenterhooks, let it be immediately said that their gamble paid off. The 207th Commencement of Dartmouth College went off, dryly. The skies did not get perceptibly less leaden (if one ignores a vagrant, watery bit of sunshine that leaked through at about 12:25), and, indeed, one observer thought blotters would be imminently necessary at about 10 o'clock. It was, withal, a fine day.

With these bows to the actual weather, let us turn to the emotional climate. It was definitely sunny, and there was an air of relaxed good nature about the proceedings that was both warm and touching.

From the moment that Hermon W. Farwell 'O2, jaunty in a cap, led the 50-year-and-older reunion classes down the aisle on Baker's sward, it became a Commencement of records. He is believed to be the only 75-year class member to have led such a procession; if not the only one, he is certainly the only one in recent years.

It was the Commencement for the largest graduating class in Dartmouth's history (930 was the figure given by Dean Ralph Manuel '58 from the Commencement platform), and it attracted the second largest crowd (estimated at more than 9,000 people) in history, second only to that which attended the ceremonies in 1953, when Dwight D. Eisenhower was granted an honorary degree.

Those are the numerical records. There were records of other, less precisely measurable, sorts. The Hartt Brass Ensemble under the direction of Roger Murtha seemed to reach new highs in the magnificence, and, well, sheer brassiness of their fanfares, particularly the one that heralded the arrival of the faculty.

Once again they came, these bright birds of academic plumage, led by Dean Manuel, iridescent in blue, with President Kemeny behind, glistering in gold. Among the faculty, as among the graduating class, there were variances in dress - business suits nicely pointed up the elegance of the gowns, hoods, and caps.

The Hartt music, playing during the long procession of the large graduating class to their seats, was cheery and various, the theme from the Masterpiece Theater sounding out regally and "Two Ayres for Cornetts and Sagbuts" rollicking out Elizabethan measures.

As the graduates filed toward their chairs, there were periodic incursions made to the Commencement platform by two dogs, one black, one golden, who seemed to be acting as surrogate procession marshals, staring thoughtfully out over the crowd, counting human heads with canine canniness. Some of those heads were higher than others. (A tattered note reads, "Much seat-standing for pix and waving.")

Then, with the singing of that simple but satisfying song, the traditional Milton's Paraphrase of Psalm 136, which followed Associate Chaplain Bruce Rodger's opening prayer for all those "in this small space at this great hour," the ceremony proper was on. The MBAs of Tuck School in the properly brown hoods of business came to the platform as did masters of other persuasions in orange or white, and the program worked its way up to the doctorates, with much tipping of mortar-boards betwixt the appropriate dean and President Kemeny.

Dean James C. Strickler '50, "on behalf of your elders," read the Hippocratic oath to the 50-odd newly minted doctors of medicine, and 50-odd becapped heads bobbed in assent to the oath at the proper time. A lone doctor of engineering followed (John P. Collier '72); 16 doctors of philosophy were created (a 17th, in an unusual ceremony, was conferred by Stanford with President Kemeny acting in locoalii); seven honorary degrees conferred; retiring faculty and officers (and Trustee Chairman F. William Andres '29) recognized; the valedictory to the College given by Mark R. Desnoyers of North Plainfield, New Jersey; and all were ready for the Big Act.

Top billing has always been given, happily, to the baccalaureate degree ceremony at Dartmouth. This year was no exception and on they came, the best and the brightest, shaking hands with Vice President Frank Smallwood '51 and Dean Manuel (and, if truth be known, an occasional kiss was planted on those wizened cheeks by cheery women graduates), and turning toward the stairs descended from the platform, some decorously, and many exuberantly with uplifted arms and brandished diplomas.

After President Kemeny's simple and straightforward valedictory to the class (how he manages this annual miracle from notes that are sketchy almost to the point of being cryptic is yet another measure of the man's genius) and after Chaplain Warner Trayham's benediction ("you are going into a world where human needs clamor to be met"), the recessional was underway, with Baker's bells and Hartt's brass impelling it joyously on.

The swirls of relatives, friends, and classmates pirouette around the College Green and, for the young, a new chapter was about to begin.