Off-campus institute seeks on-campus role

The Ernest Martin Hopkins Institute, a New York-based, non-profit corporation interested in balancing what its board members see as a pro-liberal bias towards speakers brought to Dartmouth, has formally begun a fund-raising effort. The Hopkins Institute is the creation of George Champion '26, who is chairman of the Institute's board. Champion told The Dartmouth the Institute was established because "the minority at Dartmouth has become too outspoken."

Avery Raube '30, a member of the Committee for a Strong Dartmouth, the group that supported conservative candidates in the last Trustee election, is also a Hopkins Institute board officer. He charges that more than 80 percent of the speakers brought to campus in the past year have held liberal views. An aim of the Institute, according to Raube, is to "reach for balance." He quipped, "I don't mind having kooky people to the left (come to campus), as long as we have kooky people to the right." Another Institute board member is Dartmouth professor Jeff Hart '5l, and he concurs with Raube. Citing the recent yearlong symposium on the nuclear freeze as an example, Hart labeled 22 of the participants pro-freeze and two as "fence sitters."

The Hopkins Institute is not universally supported by the conservative community. One of the Institute's detracters is Hal Ripley '29, the administrator of the John Brown Cook Foundation. Cook Foundation money supports the Committee on Intellectual Alternatives (CIA), a group that brings conservative speakers to the campus. Ripley concedes that the CIA has not brought the balance to campus that he would like, but said the ClA's shortcomings are internal and not the result of any liberal bias on the College's part. For example, the CIA has limited funding, and conflicts often occur between speaker's schedules and the academic calendar. In Ripley's opinion, the Hopkins Institute is "an extremely bad thing for the College." Ripley, a self-styled "friend of the administration," believes that the proper path to balanced viewpoints on campus comes by "working from the inside." Ripley also pointed out that other academic institutions would question the propriety of having an outside organization establish professorships in academic departments as the Hopkins Institute has proposed in their literature.

Dwight Lahr, dean of the faculty, said the Hopkins Institute has not yet approached the College in regard to endowing professorships. He explained that the College often solicits funds for endowed chairs, but the final decision as to who is hired or appointed rests with the faculty, not the donor. Lahr stated that the "ultimate responsibility for all academic matters rests with the faculty, subject to approval of the Trustees."

In response to the Institute's proposal to fund outside speakers, to be known as Hopkins Fellows, College provost Agnar Pytte told the Valley News that the College would treat the Institute the same way it treats any outside group that wants to bring a speaker to campus. If an outside group wishes to have a speaker on campus, it must first have to find a program, department, or group willing to cosponsor the speaker in order to qualify for free use of a room. Otherwise the outside group must rent space at the going market rate. Hart says working within those College guidelines will not be a problem. He predicts that academic departments would gladly co-sponsor Hopkins Fellows. Hart envisions Hopkins Fellows spending about three weeks in Hanover, delivering two major addresses and meeting with individual classes. He estimates that the Institute has $50,000 to spend on outside speakers during the current academic year. To date, no formal plans have been made regarding Hopkins Fellows, but Hart expects that the they will begin coming to Hanover during the winter term. Hart mentioned economist Walter Williams might be the first Hopkins Fellow.

Colin Campbell, another member of the CIA and a campus conservative, is less enthusiastic than Hart over the plan to bring in more outside speakers. He, too, finds a bias toward liberal speakers brought to campus, but he attributes this to factors beyond the control of the College. He speculates that the campus may have already reached the saturation level in terms of outside speakers. Several prominent speakers in the recent past drew small crowds; some say this was because of scheduling conflicts. "The last thing we need is to spend more money on speakers; this is one area where we are pretty well taken care of," said Campbell.

In terms of structure, Hopkins Institute officials point to Stanford's Hoover Institute as a model they'd like to emulate. In one sense the Hoover Institute is independent because it enjoys the same degree of autonomy that any school has within a university system. However, the Hoover Institute is part of Stanford University while the Hopkin's Institute, as College officials repeatedly stress, is not affiliated with Dartmouth in any way.