1943

Ever since last November, events at Dartmouth have made headline news almost constantly. First it was the attempted firing of football coach Joe Yukica. Then it was the report of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Committee on Governance, critical of President David T. McLaughlin. And finally there was the protest by some students and faculty members seeking to have the College divest its investment portfolio of holdings in companies doing business with South Africa.

As part of this protest, a student group built four shanties on the College green. The student group agreed to dismantle the shacks before Winter Carnival. But before that deadline, another student group, mostly from the conservative student newspaper The Review, wrecked three of the shanties with sledgehammers. That touched off another round of turmoil.

At the vortex of these events were two '43s who are trustees of the College, George Munroe and Bob Field. Bob still is acting vice president and treasurer of the College, pending the appointment of a replacement for Paul Paganucci '53, who resigned last year. Bob said he regarded the furor over divestment as a challenging issue for the Trustees to handle. Both Bob and George voted in February to support the McLaughlin administration's handling of the anti-apartheid protests. Bob said he thought press coverage of the protest activities lacked balance, concentrating on sensational developments, such as the shanties episodes, but failing to cite the salutary accomplishments of the Mc-Laughlin administration, such as the openings of Rockefeller Center and the Hood Museum.

Bob said he had not been harassed personally by alumni or others commenting on Dartmouth's difficulties, but that on one hand he had heard a lot of people taking "cheap shots" at the College, while on the other hand he and other Trustees had received "thoughtful" suggestions, particularly from the Boston area.

He said the issue of divestment had reached a "new level" of effort involving many educational institutions, and that Dartmouth surely would cooperate in this effort. So far, only Columbia in the Ivy League has divested itself of investments in companies doing business in South Africa.

Bob said the campus protests were not on the same scale with those in the 1960s when large numbers of students participated. He said some faculty members urging divestment were contributors to a teachers' pension fund that had $39 billion in assets, including $7 billion invested in South Africa. "The College ain't falling apart," Bob quipped.

Newsletter editor Eddie O'Brien confirms a groundswell of interest among classmates in the College's recent round of difficulties. He has received more than 20 green cards and letters from throughout the nation from '43s with opinions on the latest developments. The viewpoints range from contempt to praise.

Eddie reports that Conrad Young has come up with a group picture of naval cadets at Notre Dame, taken in 1943, which includes about 10 Dartmouth '43s. It's not the same one Howie Leavitt sent to Eddie several months ago. The photo accompanies this column. Con Young, incidentally, has just finished a new home in Sunriver, Ore.

John Reps, a much heralded professor of urban planning at Cornell, has just presented Dartmouth with a collection of maps from the 16th to the mid-18th centuries. The collection includes several early New England maps and one that shows California as an island. A photo of Duncan Fitchet '46 and Robert Huke '48 examining the collection appears on page 51 of the March issue of the DartmouthAlumni Magazine.

Ed Ingraham, who spent a career in the Foreign Service bouncing around the world, has just completed a tour of the upper Amazon River between northern Peru and the southern panhandle of Colombia. Though the trip was only five-degrees latitude below the equator, piranhas, crocodiles, stingrays, electric eels and 300-pound catfish discouraged swimming to cool off.

The Wall Street Journal reports that BobBowman has stepped down as president of the C. K. Gibson Company, of Norwalk, Conn., but will continue as chairman and chief executive officer. The company publishes stationery and gift books.

Finally, electra and I suspended all activities the first week in February to spend eight days in Jamaica.

This picture of a company of midshipmen at Notre Dame University, taken on May 14, 1943, includes 11 members of the Dartmouthclass of 1943. Circled and numbered, consecutively, are (1)RalPh Trovillion, (2)Fred Wallis, (3)John Walton, (4)Smed Ward, (5)RoyWatson, (6)Jim Wells, (7)Bob Wight, (8)Warner Willcox, (9)Bob A. Williams, (10) John Wynne, and (11)Con Young Four other classmembers were in the same Midshipmen's School battalion, but not in Ms company: Stan Sandberg, John Shaw, Leo Silverstein, and KenSomen. Willcox, Williams, Sandberg, and Silverstein are deceased. The picture is courtesy of Con Young, via Eddie O'Brien.

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