Students

Diversity •fraternities •athletics •financial aid

The greatest change of the past decade has been the increase in the diversity of our student body. The presence of a large number of women students and a significant number of minority students has had a major impact on the institution. Those of us who were fortunate enough to witness the entire change will testify that Dartmouth is a much better educational institution as a result.

Today, Dartmouth admits only two of every nine applicants to the College. Of those admitted, close to 60 per cent decide to come. Since the students that we admit are of such a caliber that they typically are admitted to two or more other institutions of very high quality, it is eloquent testimony to the popularity of the College that a clear majority of all students admitted decide to come to Dartmouth.

Some schools play games with figures concerning their appli- cant pool. If we wished we could easily increase the number of applicants by a large factor. We have always tried to play fair with potential applicants, however, and have discouraged those who had little or no chance of being admitted. Some schools in- flate the number by counting all those who have made an inquiry about the institution, or at least all those who began preliminary steps in the application process. We see no reason for such ar- tificial inflation of the figures. What we care about are the truly outstanding students who seriously consider Dartmouth as one of their choices. It is our success within this portion of the pool that has a decisive influence on the quality of the institution.

Our current very strong competitive position is particularly fortunate because there will be a significant decline in the number of 18-year-olds in the present decade. A rough estimate indicates that we could admit twice as many applicants, to make a second freshman class of students we would still be proud to have at Dartmouth. Unless the relative popularity of the College declines, therefore, we do not expect to be seriously hurt by demographic factors.

The competition for the most able and most attractive students has always been fierce, however, and since by the law of averages they are likely to decline in proportion to the number of 18-year- olds, the competition for these outstanding students will become even more fierce. An institution's success in attracting a reasonable proportion of truly outstanding students has a decisive influence on its ability to attract and to keep the best faculty. As the competition increases, we must be sure to preserve the unique character of the College that appeals to outstanding students and to redouble the effort both by officers of the College and by thousands of alumni volunteers to persuade this special group to make Dartmouth the first choice.

The diversity of today's student body has had a major positive impact on the academic experience and on social life. While diversity occasionally leads to strife, it is the healthiest possible strife. We do not increase the richness of the educational ex- perience by exposing our students only to others with identical backgrounds, experiences, and beliefs. Similarly, the quality of discussion in a course particularly those courses that deal either with social experience or with questions of values im- proves significantly through an increase in diversity. Under- standing how others feel on key issues, particularly those people who are different from us either by race, economic condition, or by gender, is an extremely important part of the liberal learning experience.

I am surprised that I still occasionally get the question as to whether the change to coeducation was a good decision. It was not only a good decision, it was absolutely vital for the future of the institution. While some distinguished women's colleges can still attract first-rate students because for some able women an all-women's college holds a special appeal, leading male in- stitutions that tried to hold out against coeducation have had a quite different experience. Having studied one such case history an outstanding school that tried for a number of years to re- main all male I am absolutely convinced that if Dartmouth had remained a single-sex institution, we would now be well on our way to becoming a second-rate college.

Our experience has fully borne out the fact that women are at- tracted to Dartmouth for the same traditional reasons that have attracted men for over 200 years. The vast majority of them fall in love with the College just as men have always done, and they become as avid alumni and supporters of the institution as men. In an age in which women increasingly play significant roles in the professions and in decision-making positions in the private and public sectors, we would be training our students for an un- real world if they did not learn how to work side-by-side with members of the opposite sex. It is hardly surprising that the women students whom we have attracted are as able as male students and contribute in a wide variety of ways to all aspects of campus life.

While the number of minority students is smaller than the number of women, it has become significant. A college dedicated to training leaders for the future can take immense pride in its minority graduates who have gone on to distinguished careers and who will make important contributions to the nation. The number of black graduates of the seventies who are well on their way toward outstanding achievements should be a matter of pride to the entire alumni body. We may take equal pride in the positive impact the College is likely to have in the long-run on the future of Native Americans. American Indians, after hundreds of years of mistreatment, are desperately in need of the very best leadership. The College is finally realizing Eleazar Wheelock's original purpose in graduating each year a small but significant number of outstanding Native Americans whose cumulative im- pact on their own people is likely to be large and beneficial.

I am afraid that put in this form these descriptions tend to appear somewhat divisive in their nature. Perhaps a much more important statement is that our students whether white or black, male or female constitute a fascinating community. I have again and again heard visitors comment on the pleasure of meeting and chatting with a random group of Dartmouth students on the street. Visitors are astounded not just by how nice, bright, and friendly our students are but also by the way they invariably end up raving about their college. I have had un- usual opportunities to meet parents of Dartmouth students dur- ing the past two years, and I always ask them how their children like it here. My own personal poll shows that in about 90 per cent of the cases the answer is "they love it!" Since many of these parents did not go to Dartmouth themselves, they speak with awe and admiration about the kind of spirit that is generated on this very special campus.

That does not mean that we have been free of problems. Many of these problems we share with the rest of the nation; indeed, they arise out of experiences that students have before they enter college. The problem of hard drugs on the Campus has essentially disappeared, but alcohol today is a serious threat to our society. I cannot claim that my generation of college students consisted of teetotalers, but we seemed to drink mostly beer (that was all we could afford), with an occasional fancy party with outside guests where liquor might be served. Society has somehow swung around to a position in which very hard drinking is identified with having a good time. Perhaps that is the saddest comment on the state of the nation! There are segments of our student body (and of other student bodies) that seem to share that point of view, and the phenomenon of more-than-incidental drinking night after night is one that the College must somehow find a way of revers- ing. The Board of Trustees has made a very strong statement on this subject and has instructed me to come up with a new alcohol policy that will help to reverse the trend. The fact that my colleagues at other institutions tell me that these problems are widespread does not in any way make me feel better about the drinking problem on this campus.

Many of the most unfortunate incidents of recent years, some of which received extremely bad publicity, can be traced to abuses of alcohol. Perhaps my generation was raised too strictly there were many examples in those days of college students from overly strict homes who went wild under the freedom of a college campus but I still feel that there must be some happy compromise between over-strict standards of the past and the ex- cessive permissiveness experienced by today's teenagers. In effect, we are an institution struggling to arrive at the right mores for the 1980s.

It was natural, under the circumstances, for the faculty to point its accusing finger at the system of fraternities. It is true that a few fraternities glorified excessive drinking and failed to recognize that some brothers were turning into alcoholics. It is also true that these fraternities are the exception rather than the rule and that excesses exist in dormitories among non-fraternity members as well. It is sad that there is so little understanding within our society about alcoholism. The College has launched a very ambitious program to educate the campus on the uses and abuses of alcohol. We also have a program at the Medical School (funded by Operation Cork) to make sure that future doctors fully understand the problems of alcohol.

It is important to recognize just how significant the progress has been with fraternities. Until a year ago, the College had no effective legal means of combating the abuses. While unaccept- able conduct outside of fraternity houses received normal punish- ment under the Dartmouth judicial system, the fraternities are private clubs and claimed the privilege of doing anything they wanted within their own houses. When John Dickey was asked how he had achieved some major reforms in the 19505, he responded by saying that he simply told the fraternities what they had to do and, fortunately, no one questioned his authority for issuing orders. He also advised us strongly not to try that 25 years later since there never had been a legal basis for his actions. In this day and age, everyone questions the legal powers of authority. Under the very able leadership of the dean of the College, Ralph Manuel '5B, a constitution for the system of fraternities and sororities was painstakingly negotiated between the College and the houses. Ably assisted by his colleagues and by several trustees who worked very hard on this issue, the dean now has an important document that spells out the rights and responsibilities of any organization that wishes to remain a recognized fraternity or sorority of the College.

The document also set up a Fraternity Board of Overseers con- sisting of faculty, students, house corporation officers, alumni, and administrators. This very hard-working group has already been responsible for an ambitious program aimed at rehabilitat- ing the dilapidated physical plants of many of our fraternities. I believe there is a natural correlation between depressing physical facilities and unacceptable behavior. If fraternity members can- not take pride in their own house, they are less likely to take pride in the activities of their brothers.

The fraternity overseers have also set standards of acceptable behavior and reactivated the judicial system of the fraternities. Most important, at the request of the trustees, they recently con- ducted the first annual in-depth evaluation of all fraternities. The seven fraternities that received a less-than-satisfactory rating had to appear at extensive hearings to justify their existence. Two cleared themselves completely, but the other five have received stern warnings. If those houses do not show significant improve- ment within the next 12 months, they will lose their affiliation with Dartmouth College and will presumably go out of ex- istence. The battle for reform is far from over. Still, I believe that the goal of restoring the system of fraternities and sororities to an important and positive force on the Dartmouth campus now has a better chance of succeeding than it has had at any time in the past decade.

Equally important have been our discussions and efforts to create social alternatives to the fraternities. A'major step forward in this has been the creation of the Collis College Center, thanks to the most generous single gift the College has ever received, a gift from Charles Collis '37. Collis Center has truly provided a focus for student activities on campus. Even in its short existence it has demonstrated the breadth and imagination of our students and the Collis staff in mounting worthwhile and popular ac- tivities. Whether students drop in to participate in a special event or simply drop in to meet friends, Collis Center is playing an in- creasingly important role in the life of the student body.

Two other major organizational changes deserve note. A few years ago the Board of Trustees responded to student complaints that there were insufficient exchanges between trustees and students by creating the Trustee Committee on Student Affairs. It has served as an important channel for having the voice of students heard by trustees. At the same time it has served to give signals to the student body of the judgments of the board and of the board's expectations of students at Dartmouth.

From the beginning of my presidency, I complained about the absence of student government. It was extremely frustrating to be visited by three different groups of students during the same of- fice hours and to be told three completely different versions of what students "universally" believed (or wished). Last year, through a dedicated effort on the part of a small number of students, a new Undergraduate Council was created. While still going through a difficult period of trying to establish its own best mode of operation, the Undergraduate Council has the potential of becoming a major forum for the confrontation of conflicting student views and of being an important voice for the student body. It is already fulfilling one extremely helpful role. As in the seventies students gained the right to serve on a wide variety of decision-making bodies, including a trustee committee, there was a continual outcry that the students picked for these committees were "not representative." By agreement, the power of nominat- ing students for these various committees has been given to the Undergraduate Council. There is no magic formula by which two or three students serving on a committee could ever represent the wide diversity of views within the student body, but at least these members are now picked by the students' elected repre- sentatives and therefore there is a new legitimacy to their service on committees.

But there is a limit to what trustees or administrators can do for students. The most important contact is between faculty and students, and here I am sorry to have to report a very unhappy de- velopment. While relations in the classroom are as good as ever and the faculty continues to be exceedingly generous in being available to students outside the classroom, we are slowly losing one of the major advantages of Hanover. There was a time when the vast majority of the faculty lived within easy walking dis- tance of the campus. The College tried to encourage this and to protect it by having an extensive and generous program of helping faculty members build houses in the central part of Hanover. Although the College retained the right of first refusal when these houses came on the market, the planners of that program did not foresee the incredible escalation of real estate values within the town. Most of these houses, when they do come on the market, command such a high price that even if the College purchased them, new faculty members could not possibly afford them. Hanover has become such a popular place for second homes and for retirees that we are fighting a losing battle to retain enough residences for faculty near the campus. It is sad that the very same factors that make this town so attractive for faculty and students, including the enormous attraction of the cultural ac- tivities of Hopkins Center, have attracted such a large number of individuals (both alumni and non-alumni) to settle in Hanover that the faculty is being squeezed out. We continue to do our best to open up new opportunities for faculty, but today a large number of faculty members, particularly young faculty members, have to commute to the campus from a significant distance, thus making it harder to maintain the traditional, informal contact with students.

Any report on students at Dartmouth would be incomplete without mentioning athletics, yet I am aware of the fact that this is probably one area where alumni tend to be particularly well- informed. Besides maintaining our long-time record of being at or near the top in football, Dartmouth now has many teams that for a decade or longer were rather weak and have made spec- tacular comebacks. Today, Dartmouth wins its share in many sports much more than its share of Ivy victories. Inter- collegiate participation continues at a very high level, and par- ticipation in intramural sports continues to be spectacular. The happy addition has been the success of many of our women's teams. As one who tries to take in a cross-section of athletic events, I am sorry that women's sports do not attract a much more significant audience. I have seen women's basketball and field hockey matches at Dartmouth that were as exciting as any sport events that I have witnessed. I hope that this is one area in which traditional prejudices will die quickly so that the hundreds of outstanding women athletes at the College can receive the same support from fans that male athletes receive.

At the same time I must ex- press a concern about Ivy ath- letics. I have fought for ten years within the group of Ivy presi- dents to maintain the spirit that makes Ivy athletics unique. Our philosophy is built on the convic- tion that one can have competi- tion of the very highest quality without professionalizing the sport. As long as competition is against other schools who share this philosophy and as long as winning the Ivy championship is the highest possible goal, we can maintain the important role that physical activities deserve on a college campus without hiring professional gladiators.

Frankly, the league has had its ups and downs in the past decade. It is terribly hard to resist pressures from the outside world where many educational institutions seem to have gone mad on the subject of sports. I have been encouraged, however, by a recent trend among the Ivy presidents that seems to repre- sent a significant commitment to a reaffirmation of our traditional principles. We do not give athletic scholarships. We place strict limits on what is acceptable recruiting. We insist that an athlete can only be admitted to one of our institutions if he or she is the kind of person we would have wanted even if they happened not to be outstanding athletes. Part of the difficulty has been that Ivy presidents became so overburdened with the enor- mous complexity of universities in the 1970s that many of them did not have the time or energy necessary to supervise Ivy athletics. A major step forward was the creation of an Ivy Group Policy Committee consisting of officers directly responsible to the presidents officers who had both the expertise and the time to make the necessary improvements. I am very pleased that as chairman of this committee for the initial three-year term, the Ivy presidents picked Dean Ralph Manuel. He is likely to leave behind a legacy in which we may all take just pride. (The Ivy Group is discussed later in the section on institutional af- filiations.)

I have commented elsewhere in detail on year-round operation. I must say once more, though, that hundreds of students have talked to me about how much their Dartmouth experience was enriched by the combination of the Dartmouth Plan and our off- campus opportunities. I find again and again in talking to parents of today's Dartmouth students that in trying to tell me what a wonderful experience their son or daughter is having, they will single out something that the Dartmouth Plan has made possible, or one of our foreign study programs, or a Dartmouth internship that has turned around their child's life. The evidence is overwhelming that these opportunities play a major role in how attractive Dartmouth looks to future applicants. We are dealing with a generation of students that resists vigorously any attempt to force them into a lock step. The flexibility of the Dartmouth Plan is one of our weapons in attracting outstanding students.

When year-round operation was first implemented, there were a number of individuals who made dire predictions that the movement on and off campus would destroy the Dartmouth spirit among our students. Fortunately, the cumulative evidence to the contrary is now overwhelming. The coeducational classes have had a truly remarkable record of alumni participation in service and an annual giving record that is almost unbelievable for students who are still going through graduate school and are repaying loans to the College. I have been pleased to see in my travels how often graduates of the seventies appear among the list of alumni club officers, but I was truly startled by a recent ex- perience, at a big banquet in New York. The banquet was remarkable and drew an incredible turnout in the midst of the transportation strike. The unforgettable moment came when the chairman suggested that as part of the celebration of my tenth anniversary as president, all those students who graduated during the "Kemeny decade" should rise. About a third of the audience stood up!

Equally unforgettable have been Dartmouth Nights in recent years. A crowd of 10,000 gathering on the Green around an un- believable bonfire, celebrating the glory of Dartmouth, is a night to be remembered. Anyone who has attended such an event in re- cent years or who has participated in one of our recent com- mencements cannot have any doubt that the devotion of the students to the College has never been greater, that the Spirit of Dartmouth is very much alive.

T M he single question that I have received most often K in the last ten years is how can anyone afford to send children to Dartmouth College. It is clear that many people, including alumni, are greatly concerned about the escalating cost of a college education. They worry that Dart- mouth will price itself out of the market. They worry that Dart- mouth will become a school exclusively for the children of the very rich.

I have consistently given the same answer. We try very hard not to let college costs rise faster than disposable family income. As long as the trustees maintain their commitment to sufficient financial aid, highly qualified applicants should be able to attend Dartmouth College at a sacrifice, but at one that they and their families can afford.

I have used a variety of comparisons of college costs to the es- calation of other expenses, but the most effective comparison was given to me by a member of the class of 1932. He remembers clearly that in his freshman year Dartmouth's tuition happened to be exactly equal to the cost of a new Chevrolet. Fifty years later, Dartmouth's tuition was exactly equal to the cost of a new Chevrolet except it would now buy only the stripped-down model. In other words, college costs have risen just a little bit more slowly than the cost of a new car. Yet, most of the families who send children to Dartmouth have no doubt that they can af- ford a new car; indeed, in this 50-year period we have seen two- car and three-car families become fairly common.

The only answer I have been able to find is that there has been a shift in our national scale of values. In 1928, families would clearly sacrifice getting a new car in order to send a child to college. Fifty years later many families would not give up a sec- ond car or an expensive vacation to pay for a college education. 1 have the greatest sympathy for individuals who sacrifice greatly to send their children to college. We, too, paid for the education of our two children at a very expensive college (Dartmouth). While my income is higher than that of the average Dartmouth parent, sending two children to Dartmouth was a significant sacrifice. It would never have occurred to Jean and me to ques- tion whether the sacrifice was worthwhile. Fortunately, there are still a very large number of families left who feel that way, and that is why Dartmouth College has vastly more applicants than it can possibly accommodate.

A few years ago there was a large amount of national publicity that gave the impression that only students with parents in the low-income brackets could obtain scholarship aid at colleges. That publicity failed to point out that the notable exceptions were some of the best colleges in the nation, ones that may be the most expensive but also have the most extensive financial-aid programs. One of the things that I am proudest of is that no matter how tight our financial situation became, throughout the ten years we maintained a policy of admitting students irrespec- tive of financial need and then providing the financial help that they required. In a sense we do not have a "scholarship budget." All we have is an estimate of how much will be needed in finan- cial aid next year. The director of financial aid must give out the help that a student needs, even if he goes over his budget. As once more the College faces major cuts, we will once more have to wrestle with the question of whether the College can afford to continue this policy. My two highest priorities remain the maintenance of the quality of a Dartmouth education and the ability to admit students of the highest caliber, irrespective of their families' financial situations.

How extensive is our financial aid program? The simple answer to this is that all Dartmouth students receive financial aid. Tuition charges, though very high, do not cover the full cost of a Dartmouth education. We continue the long tradition that the students of the past, through their current annual con- tributions and gifts to endowment, enable the next generation of students to go through Dartmouth at a reduced rate. When we speak of "scholarship students," we speak of those who receive financial support in addition to this support for all students. Roughly half of our students receive some form of aid. This is a combination of scholarship and "self-help" (loans and jobs) through which we make up the difference between what parents can afford to contribute and total college charges. We long ago abandoned the policy that would limit scholarship awards to funds obtained from endowments earmarked for this purpose or from specific gifts. More than half of the total scholarship funds come out of the free funds of the institution. They are scholarship funds only because the trustees have determined that this was the highest priority for their use.

As we were increasingly dipping into free funds, we made a conscious decision in the early seventies (as did most of our sister institutions) that we would have to rely more heavily on the student's ability to support himself/herself. There has been con- siderable concern as to whether we expect too much from our students in the form of self-help. We reached what I thought was a healthy balance in the middle of the decade and have tried since then to keep the major components (scholarship, self-help, and parental contributions) in roughly fixed proportions. I did not know how well we had succeeded in this policy until I reviewed an updated comparison from Harland W. Hoisington Jr. '4B, our director of financial aid. The table shows how total expenses are financed for a "typical" scholarship student this is the famous "average student" who may not exist. The totals shown are for all College charges, plus all other expenses including books, trips home, and spending money. We see that these charges have risen roughly 8 per cent per year over the last four years. Nevertheless, we find that the three major components occur in almost iden- tical percentages this year as compared with four years ago.

Typical Scholarship Student 1975-76 1979-80 Dartmouth Scholarship $2300 34.6% $2630 28.9% Federal Scholarship 285 4.3 920 10.1 Total Scholarship 38.9% 39-0% Loan $llOO 16.5% $1430 15.7% Term-time employment 475 7.1 700 7.7 Vacation employment 800 12.0 1100 12.1 Total self-help 35.6% 35.5% Parental contribution $1550 23.3% $2195 24.1% Misc. 140 2.1 115 1.3 TOTAL $6650 100.0% $9090 100.0%

First of all I note that parental contributions are slightly higher percentage-wise today. As these are contributed strictly on the basis of parents' ability to contribute, it shows that our total ex- penses have risen no faster than family income. In the self-help component I jiote a slight shift from loans to jobs, reflecting im- proved job opportunities on campus. While the total scholarship component has remained roughly the same, I note that scholarships obtained from the federal government are now play- ing a much greater role. This is the one area in which federal policies have been of significant benefit to the College. Unfor- tunately, this favorable news is somewhat overstated in the table since a major increase due to the Middle Income Assistance Act showed up in 1979-80. For the next few years we will be lucky if the total federal money does not decrease. We do not have an ex- pectation that it will keep up with inflationary increases, and thus once more scholarship funds taken from the free funds of the College will have to bear an increasingly heavy part of the burden.

Due to ever-escalating oil costs and double-digit inflation, the College has had to announce a record increase in tuition, room, and board charges. So did our sister institutions. I see no alter- native to a significant increase in free funds going to scholarships if we are going to continue to admit students on the basis of merit. We must somehow accomplish this goal in a year when the College faces extremely painful cuts in the overall budget. When one thinks of the far-reaching achievements of past scholarship students who have graduated from Dartmouth, however, the price of not increasing the scholarship budget would be much higher.

Various springtime pursuits viewed from the top of the stadium

President Kemeny with administrative intern Mark Brown 'Bl.

Victoria Redel 'BO inspects another art student's print.