Letters to the Editor

An Ominous Proposition

Jesse Unruh, the former Big Daddy of the California legislature, once reflected to a reporter, "Academic battles are the worst because the stakes are so low." Professor Noel Perrin all but admits in the June "Vox" that in proposing a $1,000 prize for distinguished teaching he is asking someone to endow another low stake. Although he suggests the award might be most helpful in giving good teachers among the junior faculty an added edge in gaining tenure, I don't think it would eliminate the most publicized or seemingly unjust cases of tenure denial, and I don't think it would encourage good teaching any more than it's now encouraged at Dartmouth.

The number of junior faculty who come up for tenure in a given department at a place like Dartmouth in any one year is quite small, sometimes none at all. Tenured and junior faculty have been thoroughly exposed to each other over a period of years, and the senior faculty on tenure committees know just about all there is to know about junior faculty, professionally, socially and personally, by the time they come up for tenure. This means that the actual decisions on who stays and who goes are likely to be quite subjective, based as they are on several years of close contact and faculty politics. A teaching award would not change this, and in fact the conditions that surround the granting of tenure would also surround the award.

It seems a little ominous to me that Professor Perrin wants to couple an endowed annual luncheon for the chaired professors to the teaching award. This grafts it firmly onto the well-established order of things that has allowed the existing emphasis on publishing and committee work to develop, and it assures that no radical shift in emphasis toward teaching would actually occur. It also assures that the type of junior faculty who have been most visibly denied tenure in the past - the ones who are popular with students because of an iconoclastic turn of mind which the senior faculty on the tenure committee find offensive - will continue to be denied tenure.

It seems likely to me that an officially endorsed scheme of awards for good teaching would tend to become a self-reinforcing institution that would allow the faculty to congratulate itself on an appealingly uncontroversial approach and encourage the usual assortment of smoothies, audience flatterers, and flamboyant showmen to go on dressing cute remarks and pat answers in a guise of apparent profundity. Teachers who genuinely understood the material and presented it effectively but unexcitingly would go on being unrewarded. Under such likely conditions, the worst effect of such an award would be to place genuinely innovative and possibly iconoclastic junior faculty - who would probably not receive it - at a greater, rather than a smaller, disadvantage when they came due for tenure.

A more effective alumni effort might be for someone to investigate ways of insuring that the College has a steady supply of Herb Wests and similar gadflies. By their nature the things such people have to say are likely to be unpleasant, and they will not win teaching awards. In the end, though, I think they will be more impor- tant to the continued healthy moral, intellectual, and spiritual life of the College.

Los Angeles, Calif.

The Cover

Your recent covers on the ALUMNI MAGAZINE have in my opinion been atrocious for the most part. The April cover was the climax! If this is for the alumni, why affront them? First, the school color is green and there is no excuse for pink such as you used several months ago.

Secondly, I do not believe that the cover should have a picture of an individual whether he is black or white, and I don't think this departure has occurred before. In a time when tradition is being lost and when the College needs all the support it can receive, why go out of your way to destroy it? I would like to have you ask for the alumni to register their feelings on this matter, and if I am in a minority. I would be very much surprised.

I would like to have this letter published and would greatly appreciate your comments.

Bitburg, Germany

As a College employee (and a weekend tree farmer), I've been put on a limbo since last spring after hearing that some alumni "objected" to your April cover - a portrait of Professor William Cook.

Can one believe or fathom it? That kind of response from Dartmouth men when so many corners of this hard earth are crying out for understanding and brotherhood and justice.

One weeps.

Cornish Flat, N.H.

Horrible, indeed! Appalled? Laughable? Shocking and ugly best describe the letters from Wilbur and Cleary [June issue]. I have had enough of the racist wisdom of some of our alumni; the letters from Cleary and Wilbur mark the end of what any of us can afford to swallow or simply pass off with a shrug. I hope they have caused considerable anguish among all who believe that the College provides its undergraduates with a liberal arts education.

How miserable, how utterly impoverished Wilbur's education must have been if all he can remember is "the old College cheer," "the Indian physique," and "Dartmouth in the spring." What a veneer for racism is Cleary's warning to us about the effect of the April cover on the campaign for funds. The letters are a slander against Dartmouth, Professor Cook, and the multi-ethnic community we are proud of. Unless we take a clear stand against such racist attitudes, the spirit of Dartmouth will suffer poverty far greater than the threat of withheld dollars. Cleary and Wilbur owe Professor Cook and the College an apology.

In the meantime I urge them to begin recovering what they lost at Dartmouth by reading Sartre's "Portrait of an Anti-Semite." Wilbur and Cleary would want us to be rocks, mountains, granite; anything but human beings. Vox Clamantis In Deserto?

Hanover, N.H.

I really liked the April cover photo of Professor Cook. I am amazed that his smiling visage could upset anyone as it did two alumni whose letters appeared in the June issue.

Although I doubt these two letters represent the attitude of most alumni, I feel the publication of divergent alumni views is instructive and useful toward further communication and understanding.

San Francisco, Calif.

Advice to the Unhappy

It is evident from letters-to-the-editor that there are some alumni who are unhappy about both the format and contents of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE. I would remind them that the Magazine is a creature of the Secretaries Association, under the direction of an alumni advisory board whose names appear on the masthead of the Magazine.

I suggest if an alumnus has such "unhappiness," that in addition to writing a letter to the editor, he address a personal letter to one of the members of the board, c/o the Magazine, 212 Nugget Building, Hanover, N.H. 03755.

As the prime contact between the alumni body and the College, it is indeed unfortunate that the Magazine seems to have, as its objective, the "stirring up" of unnecessary controversy, thus doing harm to relationships which otherwise would be relatively tranquil.

West Lebanon, N.H.

A Cheer for the People

The answer to Douglas Schwarz' question at the top of page 18 of the May issue is: You do not laugh or cry, you cheer. Obviously the "people" have far more sense than the traitors who came to stir up trouble could possibly imagine.

Hong Kong

[Douglas Schwarz '81 was lamenting the smallturnout of Dartmouth students at meetings todiscuss racial policies in South Africa. Ed.]

Beautiful Spirit

How beautifully American is Geraldine Morris' refreshing, healthy provocation at Mr. Conley's carrying a "C" label with him through Dartmouth and, alas, perhaps through life! [Geraldine Morris responded in the June issue to an earlier "Vox" column, by Larry Conley '75, on the condition of blacks at Dartmouth.]

Is it too much to hope that her trenchant "This is what Dartmouth tried to get you to do - look at them without the 'C' label" might provoke militant causists - white, red, and black alike - to ponder the desirability of their promotion of "C" labelism, however well meaning their motives and smug their righteousness?

Anyhow, God bless her health of mind and beauty of spirit, however "old fashioned" or even "spiritual dinosaurish" it may seem to those who think they alone are "with it."

Darien, Conn.

Steadying Influence

In the June issue the late William McCarter '19 is quoted as wondering what he ever did with his senior cane, presumably setting untold scores of alumni to wonder the same thing. And I might well wonder, too, except that I know.

Evidently, I deposited mine in the hall closet of my parents' home 38 years ago, where it stood for some 33 or 34 years until my father, then nearly 90, found it an excellent cane to help steady him a bit when he went on a walk - which he did almost daily.

Just a year ago he entered a very nice facility for senior citizens - Church Home - here in Baltimore, taking the cane with him. It was much admired there, by many of the residents and staff, and whenever I visited him, he was using it and, indeed, handling it somewhat cavalierly.

This January, after a brief illness, he died, well into his 93rd year. When I went to the home to clear out his effects, the home administrator asked me if I would leave the cane there, since it was so highly regarded by the residents; of course, I did so.

All of which amply demonstrates that there is life after Dartmouth, even for a senior cane.

Baltimore, Md.

An Impression

Hallelujah! Even though our Ivy League brethren (and cistern) derisively refer to Dartmouth as "Kemeny's Komputer Kollege," and one would get the impression from the Alumni (Alumnae, Aluminum?) Magazine that robots, testosteroned feminists and sad "gay" sodomites are running the College, there is hope! It is nice to know that even now, almost 50 years after the Golden Age when I was in Hanover, the top priorities of Dartmouth students still are "to get drunk, get laid, and play Softball on the green."

Plus ça change, plus de même chose!

Wading River, N. Y.

[The reference is to Professor Roger Masters'ascerbic comment, quoted in the June"Undergraduate Chair," on student priorities. Ed.]

A Reply

The ladies who complain with such noise, Losing cool, perspective and poise, Are tricked by their fate Which has pricked them with hate - They can never be one of the boys.

Kansas City, Mo.

Odd Treatment

This is to comment on the odd treatment accorded two Dartmouth authors in the "review" of Alternatives to Growth—I, edited by Professor Dennis Meadows, and Energy, aCritical Decision, by Samuel Dix '39, in your May issue.

In his lengthy review, Arthur Kantrowitz managed only to tell us (in less than two sentences) that the books are extensions of the Limits to Growth literature, and that they "describe a future without technological surprise." The rest of the "review" comprised his ideas about Malthus and his personal faith in technological surprise. He provided no information about the subjects the books covered, the ways the ideas were presented, nor the alternatives they offered; nor was it possible to discern the fact that the books differ greatly in style and content.

These books were the products of Dartmouth people who are well-known and highly honored, at least outside Dartmouth. Dr. Dennis Meadows (along with his wife, who authored two of the articles contained in Alternatives) has significantly influenced world-wide, scientific opinion. His information and opinions are sought by the media and decision-makers. Sam Dix was asked to be the lead speaker before state legislative and congressional committees studying energy.

Both books provide a wealth of information and thoughtful ideas on vital subjects of resources. Kantrowitz might be reminded that technological surprise and wise decisions are less likely to develop if people aren't given the facts and ideas needed to understand the problems, nor even to learn that there is a problem. On reading such an uninformative and misleading review, one must seriously doubt that he read either book.

The books, their subjects, the authors, the College and your readers deserve better.

Belmont, Mich.

The Good Family Name

As a son of Margaret Frisbie Wood; a brother of the late Frisbie Wood (who announced in desperation, aged five, that his name was John); and the father of Mary Frisbie Wood, I am perhaps qualified to confirm the Connecticut origins of the Frisbies; the longtime existence of the Frisbie Pie Company; the tendency among males in the family to become professors and/or Congregational ministers; and to add that we have always believed that the misspelled game had family origins. [See James L. Farley's account of the origins of the Frisbee, "Rev. Frisbie's Wonderful Discovery," in the May issue.]

Dr. Johnson's story of the Frisbie Pie Company and Yale is, of course, the best known of the creation myths, but it has failed to gain our favor. Rather, we think that the modern version of Cousin Levi's discovery first emerged at Amherst in the late 1940s and early 19505. Unmarked pie tins from a bakery in Holyoke, Massachusetts, were first employed - though round serving trays provided by beer companies were also acceptable - and initially the sport had no name.

As it happened, though, Amherst in those days still required chapel of its students every morning at 8:30. This was an obligation much resented, except on those occasions when the chapel talk was given by my cousin George Frisbie Whicher, an Emily Dickinson scholar and, more to the point, an enormously witty man. Searching for a name for this newly rediscovered sport; finding Cousin George's middle name as ridiculous as had my brother; and yet thinking that the borrowed use of it would both honor and amuse George, Amherst students began to call their new recreation "Frisbie" and the pie tins/beer trays, "frisbies." The corrupted form, with the final double "e," came only with the commercial manufacture of the now-familiar plastic platters. Whether this corruption resulted from ignorance of the true spelling or simply from fear of family suits, I am unable to say.

Although the Frisbie Pie Company is gone, I should point out that the Pillsbury Doughboys of TV fame were the inspired creation of my grandfather, William Alfred Frisbie, who first drew them as streetcar cards in Minneapolis at the turn of the century. Thus, even while lamenting the demise of the pie company and the poor orthography that is the plague of the modern world, I can still take comfort in watching, on Green and tube, vestiges of those ancestral Frisbie accomplishments that are so very much a part of my roots.

Hanover, N.H.

Change

Regarding the letter from one of the "mature alumni" in the June issue, the text is to me somewhat recondite. I gather that he is not in sympathy with the present Dartmouth administration -for whatever reasons he doesn't say. Every organization is entitled to a "loyal opposition." However, I am not exactly sure of the nature of an ombudsman. A sort of unofficial adviser, I suppose, without any real authority. I would guess that President Kemeny and the Trustees receive plenty of advice on how to run the College, without having an official adviser.

I suppose many of our vintage are disturbed about certain developments in the administration of the College. And I suppose there were many in the Class of 1876 who were critical of many of the policies in force at the time our class was about to graduate. There were probably some who were very upset at the behavior of the undergraduates then in residence on Hanover Plain. However, I doubt very much if anyone out of college 50 or more years can be sufficiently acquainted with today's problems to be of any real help. Speaking in Frankfurt, Germany, in June 1963, John F. Kennedy said: "Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future."

Sarasota, Fla.

The following letter was written to several members of the Class of 1928, the 50th reunion class. Friends have suggested that it might be of interest to other Dartmouth alumni.

1928 minus 50 equals 1878 minus 22 equals 1856. When the Class of 1928 was about to graduate, how much attention would its members have paid to a guy born four years before the Civil War? We would have respected his antiquity and we would have listened to him politely, but we wouldn't have taken what he said very seriously, especially if he complained that Dartmouth "ain't what it used to be."

We're soon to be at the point where there'll be more news about classmates in the necrology section of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE than in the Class Notes. Let's, therefore, make the most of the time we have left to enjoy each other's company rather than argue about our perceptions of the College's shortcomings.

As one of the nation's leading colleges, Dartmouth must be responsive to the pulse of the world and not to the pulse of its has-beens, as much as it values their contributions - intellectual, financial, and moral.

Yes, I'm on my soap-box because I'm deeply disturbed by the growing disaffection among us at a time when we should be stressing affection and appreciation of each other.

As a former college administrator, I realize that colleges can't tell even their closest adherents the basic reasons for some of their actions - not that these reasons are nefarious or questionable - but for a great variety of causes. Any college engaged in government research, for instance, is subject to regulations that appear inexplicable - not that there's anything immoral, wrong, or shoddy about their silence. RPI, for instance, was forced into more "affirmative action" than it was prepared for by the threat of the loss of over $5 million in research commitments that it would have had to pay for out of its own funds if the government withdrew. Hence the sudden influx of black faculty members, two of whom proved to be so good that they are now department heads.

What I am pleading for is more faith in the Dartmouth administration and Trustees. Individually they're fine, reasonable people, most of whom we are darn proud to know and be associated with.

Of course, each person should stand up for his convictions and principles. But those convictions and principles are applied to information as it appears to us. Separated from Hanover by great stretches of time and distance, we may often be criticizing a mirage rather than the real thing. The values of 1878, the circumstances, and the moral climate were different from those of 1928. And as far as we Dartmouth seniors were concerned, the people born four years before the Civil War might have been contemporaneous with those who emerged from the Ark.

True, the young people "ain't what they used to be." They're smarter, more sensitive, more aware of what's going on in the world than we were. Let's continue, if we wish, to disagree with them. That's our privilege. But let's have faith in them. And let's give them an example of loyalty and devotion to one of the finest institutions in the United States.

Troy, N.Y.

Men of the College

I noted with sadness the death of Professor John Hurd in a recent issue of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE. Professor Hurd was a dynamic and personable English teacher who placed the student first in his priorities. He presided in my freshman winter of 1960 at 8:00 a.m. in a small chilly classroom in the white-frame Fairbanks Hall. Professor Hurd's Socratic method was an exciting introduction to Joyce, James, Hemingway and other great writers. He retired soon after and the original Fairbanks Hall is gone. But I "shall never forget both.

Fresh Meadows, N.Y.

The personnel events of the past several months have left me in a severe mental shock. I refer first to the death of a very long-time friend. Professor Allen Foley, retired.

Allen originated in Framingham, Massachusetts, where his father Billy Foley had a prosperous hardware business, heavily patronized by my father who had charge of all the school plant in Framingham.

Billy had two sons: Allen was the outstanding scholar. His becoming an outstanding, not-to- be-forgotten Dartmouth professor was no accident!

With a rather good high school academic and extracurricular record, one favorite aunt wanted me to go to Holy Cross, a curate favored Boston College, and my father, Billy, and Allen preferred Dartmouth - as a result I am a member of the Class of 1931, a record which does not require an apology.

It never dawned on me how old Allen was, because of his marvelous personal philosophy, intelligence, and contagious, rolling sense of humor; he was, a Christian creation one never thinks of as leaving us in any way. Of course, he has not, and although "six-feet under" he is a multi-million feet within our soul-spirit which projects our total College life span. How great can one get?

In sharp contrast to this wonderful friend is another tremendous tradition to be etched in our school history - I describe a brilliant and singularly constructive member of our recent staff, John Meek.

I knew Allen had a few years on the scoreboard, but Johnny was to me only a kid. As a member of Phi Kappa Sigma (now Gamma Delta Chi), it was my responsibility to invite him to join our fraternity, but he was too outstanding to join our simple mediocrity.

At that time I was Class of '31, he Class of '33, so you can see when I read of his demise, age 66, it occured to me that at 68-plus maybe my utility had begun really to shrink. When gold is actually buried like Allen and Johnny one wonders why there is any need to exist at all.

This was further brought out when I recalled the several times going to Hanover to see Johnny on behalf of several young men that I thought would be invaluable members of the upcoming freshman class.

The wonderful pictures of Allen and Johnny, framed, shall be on my desk.

It is my hope that their two names will be inscribed on several prominent buildings to be constructed in the near future!!

Keep up the good work!

St. Petersburg, Fla.

One of the Al Foley anecdotes referred to in "A Presence on Main Street" [May issue] has a Dartmouth setting, and it is a story Al wryly told on himself.

My husband and I were crossing the campus one June day when we met Al. It was one of Hanover's perfect summer days, so we were surprised to find Al somewhat out of sorts. We soon learned why.

He had just encountered Mrs. Tibbetts, then the widow of Howard M. Tibbetts 1900, former registrar of the College. (She was eventually to become the second Mrs. Hopkins). Al and she were old friends, and in the course of their conversation he had said something vague about his giving a cocktail party. Tibby was a sprightly lady whose New England response was quick: "Talk's cheap; rum costs money."

Norwich, Vt.

An Invitation

The Hop Shop, a museum-type sales shop in Hopkins Center, is a new project of the Friends of Hopkins Center. AH the profits from it will be allocated by the executive board of the Friends for the benefit of the Center.

Among the exclusive items (such as replicas of the key to the original Dartmouth Hall and limited edition, silk-screened notecards of. the Triton shell trumpet used to summon Dartmouth students to chapel) are works by Dartmouth alumni who are artists and craftsmen. Four of them currently are producing works for us: Rix Jennings '67, who does imaginative puzzle paintings and has a professional background in graphic arts (he was with the design studio of Hopkins Center from 1974-76); Paul Gross '73, a jeweler whose pieces in rosewood and silver are especially remarkable (Paul presently is the head of the jewelry workshop at the Center); Brian Cummings '74, who does delicate wrought iron objects and accepts orders for individually wrought iron fixtures for homes; and David Petraglia '58, who makes ocarinas of the finest, lead-free pewter known as Britannia metal.

The purpose of this letter is to invite other Dartmouth alumni who would be interested in the Hop Shop as an outlet for their work. We feel the Hopkins Center is a focal point for Upper Valley residents and visitors to Hanover as well as the entire Dartmouth community.

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.

[Hans Penner is Phillips Professor of Religionand chairman of the Religion Department. Ed.]

[Joan Wolfe serves the Michigan Departmentof Natural Resources. Ed.]

[Suzanne Wins ton is director of the Hop Shop. Ed.]