Dartmouth: An Oriental perspective

A number of the academic departments at Dartmouth put out periodic newsletters for their majors and former majors. The most recent issue of "The Orient Express," the Asian Studies department's bulletin, Contained an essay by Li Kai, a visiting professor from Beijing, China, that was worthy of sharing with the rest of the alumni body. With his permission ("I am enjoying my year here in Hanover," he wrote, "and am delighted to share my reflections with others who hold Dartmouth dear."), we reprint his thoughts on his time in Hanover:

Leave China and go to a completely strange country - would I be able to adjust to the living and working there?

This question occupied my mind from the day I learned that I would be spending an academic year at Dartmouth. I found immediately on arrival that the worry had been unnecessary. I was well received by all the people in the Asian Studies Program; everything had been arranged in advance, and I was treated as a member of a family from the first day. From the beginning, I was Struck at the fact that, in matters of hospitality, Americans and Chinese proceed in precisely opposite directions to reach the same goal - to make the visitor feel at home.

I come from Beijing, which, from the most distant moment of China's history, has been regarded as the country's principal melting pot. It assimilates people from all five directions. There we attempt to treat strangers in such a manner that they will feel as though they were home. Now I come to a country known world-wide as a melting pot. It assimilates people from nine directions, and it reflects the national backgrounds and traditions of its huge variety of immigrants. Perhaps because of that variety, Americans as a nation seem to lack the concept of alien-ness. They do not try to make strangers feel at home, rather they simply assume that the newcomers are at home. From the first day, I was treated like, and felt like, a regular member of the Dartmouth faculty.

At Beijing Normal University, I have taught foreign: students from many countries. The ones from Dartmouth have generally made a particular impression on me. They seem to work a bit harder and perhaps have a bit more discipline than some of their peers.

Of course only since coming to Dartmouth have I begun to form a more precise idea of the College, its students, and of the particular style of the place. Dartmouth has clearly striven seriously to to assemble excellent teachers and to construct a first-rate environment for learning. The teaching staff is devoted and innovative; I have been impressed by the Rassias method of teaching languages. Also, the books and audio-visual equipment available to language

students are very impressive. The new Asian Studies Center gives advanced students the great advantage of parttime immersion in the foreign language.

The number of Dartmouth students who have studied abroad is very remarkable. Many of our students of Chinese have, naturally, studied in the Dartmouth-at-Beijing Program. I think that some of them have already acquired language skills equal to those of old China hands.

Dartmouth students have much more academic freedom than their Chinese counterparts. They attend classes only five days a week. The choice of courses is much wider at Dartmouth.

Whatever their relative merits, their systems and students are certainly different. Chinese students are more receptive to formal classroom instruction and more diligent. The Americans are more flexible, able to take advantage of the freedom and variety which their college provides. Perhaps we could produce an ideal educational system by somehow combining Chinese diligence with American flexibility. Meantime, I am a member of the family for whom every day is exciting and has some meaningful experience.

Mapping out their strategy for running the Alumni bund s student telethon in mid April weretwo of the Blunt Alumni Center student interns seniors Debbie Kohl, left, and Kit O Brien,right. They and two other interns - Jenn Harris and Tracy Nelson, also 86s - are trying tobest last year's student telethon results, which involved 500 students in calling 5,000 alumniand raised $269,745 - more than two percent of the total Alumni Fund. This year, the Fundalso held alumni telethons in 13 cities nationwide - nearly double the number of last year.