1954

With the arrival of fall can a John Gillespie mini-reunion be far behind? Of course not! John has just written, and plans are complete for a 1985 fall mini reunion to be held in Hanover over Dartmouth Night Weekend. So block out November 1-3 on your calendars at once, and get ready for another great Gillespiemanaged weekend. Our mini-reunion begins at 6:00 p.m., Friday, November 1, with a class cocktail reception in the Drake Room at the Hanover Inn with an open bar and complimentary hors d'oeuvres. At 7:30 p.m. we join the rest of the College commmunity for the Dartmouth Night parade and bonfire, followed by a post-bonfire reception in Room 101 of the Hanover Inn, starting at 8:45 and continuing as long as you like.

Saturday starts with complimentary continental breakfast at Thayer Hall Lounge at 8:30 a.m., followed immediately by the class meeting, to which all class members are invited.

The pre-game reception and luncheon will be at Leverone Field House from 11:45 to 1:15, where the class of '54 will have a reserved table. After the Dartmouth-Yale football game, there will be a class cocktail party and reception at the Faculty Lounge at the Hopkins Center.

Sunday morning everyone is invited to Steve and Carol Mullins' in Norwich for coffee, homemade blueberry muffins, and the fixings. The Mullinses will expect you all between 9:00 and 10:00 a.m.

It should be an outstanding weekend. The more the merrier! Be there!

I recently received an impressive brochure from the Whitney Group in Santa Cruz, Calif., of which Ron Dunton is the director. Ron describes the program as one "developed to increase the power of managers, salespeople, and other key professionals and reduce the risks and costs of their maintenance. It is an enjoyable, individually tailored system for improving health-related habits: exercise, eating and drinking, handling stress, and eliminating dependency on tobacco and alcohol. It is a program designed to motivate you into more effective, healthy living people."

It looks like Ron is involved in an interesting behavior-modification program. For further information, contact him at the Whitney Group, Box 566, Santa Cruz, CA 95061.

It seems whenever I have a news shortage, I can always find a press release on Jonathan Moore. My news supply this week could not have been leaner, so I am especially grateful that The Boston Globe chose to describe a new program being established at, Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, where Jon Moore is the director of the Institute of Politics. In describing the establishment of the new center, Jon stressed that the intention is not just to teach politicians and officials how to handle the media but to educate media professionals about the effect of their work. In an interview with the Globe, Jon stated that "currently there is no major academic institution that systematically studies the two-way relationship between the media and public officials." Researchers and students of the center will examine situations such as the SALT II negotiations to see how government officials and journalists interact in the shaping of public policy. "Government and elected officials operate in the arena of the press. We need to know how these things work," said Jon.

After more than three years of planning and development, more than $4 million has been raised for the center, including an endowed professorship called the Frank Stanton First Amendment chair. In further describing the center, Jon said, "Our goals are to reach out to professionals in both government and the press and to the general public to increase understanding about the real, precise impacts of the media on government decision-making and vice versa." A key emphasis of the center will be on the development of "curriculum and teaching materials designed to educate present and future policy-makers about the impact of the media," he said. Jon, who worked as a key policy-maker in a half-dozen agencies in Washington before he came to Harvard more than a decade ago, said that Harvard is overdue in making this move. "How can we fulfill our educational mandate, given the importance of the media, unless we become more competent in understanding how it works?" Congratulations, Jon, for helping to bring about the establishment of another significant program to help better both the performance of our public officials and the understanding of that performance.

I am sure you all join me in congratulating Don Berlin, our head class agent, in the successful completion of his first year in that assignment. Don led our class to a '54 class record for a nonreunion year. The class of '54 Alumni Fund contributions equaled 103.9 percent of the goal assigned to it. This compares to the overall college performance of 94.8 percent of its goal. Leading the performance of the 19 regional agents and 70 class agents was George Haskins, who raised 122 percent of his regional goal, and Bob Woodberry, who accomplished 100 percent of his participation goal. All in all, the 1985 Alumni Furid campaign showed outstanding performance for an outstanding class agent and an outstanding class. Congratulations, Don, for continuing to make the class of '54 a winner.

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