Townie etc.

Ten years ago March 1, the math professor, John Kemeny, became president of Dartmouth. To celebrate the Kemeny decade, the Dartmouth Club of the Upper Valley held a party in Hanover on the last day of February, with students, faculty, administrators, alumni, townsfolk, and the Kemeny family doctor on the invitation list. Someone from each category, including the family doctor, gave a speech.

The chairman of the Undergraduate Council "indicted" Kemeny for violating the norms of college presidents ("you are too accessible to students"), the professor applauded him for his support of coeducation and academic quality, the dean of the College praised the president for his "sensitivity and compassion for the people of the College"; and the doctor, representing the Mary Hitchcock Hospital and the Hitchcock Clinic, characterized Kemeny's relationship with the local medical community as a "love affair and a pain in the neck" and thanked him for his leadership in bringing the Medical School back to solvency.

Actually, the longest speech, a kind of comfortable, laid-back encomium, came first. It was given by James Campion III merchant and chairman of the Hanover selectmen, who spoke for the "townies" with whom he identified himself. Campion said that Dartmouth presidents are expected to love Dartmouth-"they're paid for that"-but the three presidents he has known have also carried on "a mysterious kind of love affair" with the community. Campion recalled how Kemeny a couple of years ago had mentioned in a talk to the Hanover Rotary that he felt almost "like a native" after more than 25 years of residence here. "Let me tell you, John," Campion said with a glance to the man from Budapest, "you'll never make it as a native but you really are the Number One Townie."

To this and the other speeches Kemeny responded: "I have been here for more than 25 years, and occasionally my assignment changes. In my early years, I spent more time on teaching and research, but I also did some administration as chairman of a large and significant department [mathematics]. When I was asked to administer the College, I still taught. While I did less research, I still managed to write a book and some articles. Some day, my assignment will change again, and I will do more teaching and begin to catch up on the research I haven't been doing. In time, I hope to become emeritus and have lots of time for thinking and writing. In all, my commitment to this college is the same as to my wife: 'Until death do us part.' "

On Webster Avenue, viewed by some as a mean street, fortunes fell and rose in March.