Letters

Unworried

The image of concerned students filling Webster Hall during the climax of the shantytown chapter in Dartmouth's history brings me back to a similar episode in the College's recent past. Though not covered as widely by the national news media, the days of unrest late in the winter term of 1979 became known as the "Winter of Discontent" and were vital to my own development during my subsequent terms in Hanover.

Although I failed to make the long journey from the River Cluster (past the plane wreck) to Webster Hall on the day of cancelled classes, I remember sitting in front of the stereo with my Southern roommate and a black neighbor on our hall listening intently to radio coverage of the proceedings. My own involvement in group discussion came later, in Professor Bill Cole's Music 67 course. As a prototypical white male Dartmouth freshman (at least outwardly so) I represented a minority in that classroom a fact which made me a bit self-conscious. However, I was bonded to my Dartmouth classmates as a student with an interest in African-American music and John Coltrane in particular. What we received, of course, was much more than a jazz education, for our discussions ranged well beyond the scope of music, especially during that turbulent week. We experienced the truth of Professor Cole's guiding principle: "Education is confrontation."

Parallels are strong between the days of confrontation in 1979 and those more recently. The same groups of people wound up at odds each time. My experience has made me a better person in these ensuing years, having learned through observation, participation, and self examination. Basically, I reconfirmed confidence in my own objectivist ethic. I hope this year's participants gain as much.

The photo of, the Webster Hall crowd cut through the media hoopla and alumni response to reveal the bottom line: the involvement of Dartmouth students. The young faces in that picture show the concern and self-assessment that arise during such a confrontational form of education and, at the same time, assure me that pursuit of truth and knowledge will continue and wrongs will be righted.

Regardless of the "shame" (of which I feel none) I am secure in the belief that the College will continue to stand for what is right, even if it takes mild revolution to motivate the usually silent majority. With this confidence, I can still wear my battered Dartmouth shirt on the Penn campus as a banner of pride and without embarrassment discuss the events in Hanover with my graduate Ivy League classmates. I'm not worried, knowing that Dartmouth remains in the hands of those who love her.

Philadelphia, Penn.

A far greater source of shame

I got as far as page 4 in my usual firstnight-received, cover-to-cover reading of the March 'B6 issue. And there I stopped in anger.

Your third-paragraph description of what the 12 conservatives did in removing the campus-defacing shanties as "an inexcusable act of violence which has shamed the College" (emphasis added) is utterly uncalled for. Indeed, I think I am justified in calling your resort to that distortion of editorial privilege a far greater shame to our college. In making such a statement you join the others who seem to have condemned these kids to suspension, if not expulsion, and other disciplinary action through a controlled process which hardly seems impartial since it merely slapped the wrists of those students and faculty members who defiled the president's office. That is a far greater source of shame for Dartmouth.

It could also be argued, rather persuasively I think, that the administration which first ordered the shanties removed and then recanted in the face of protest by the other side also brought shame to the College in exposing their unwillingness to stand up to a more privileged minority. The action in that situation is only equalled in shame by the shilly-shallying over the Indian symbol issue, ROTC, the Cole case, the banning of "Eleazar Wheelock," a failure to face down a faculty which has confused its role with that of governance and on and on.

No, Mr. Greenwood, the conservative 12, also a minority but on the "wrong" side, did not shame the College. It was too late for that.

Gloucester, Mass.

A lesson to be learned

Thank you for your coverage of the shantytown incidents at Dartmouth. As you may be aware, undergraduates here at the University of North Carolina also raised a small symbolic shantytown again to the chagrin of the campus Young Republicans and their cronies. But the opposition's response here showed more class than that of Dartmouth's midnight bushwackers: student conservatives erected a mock Berlin Wall adjacent to the shanties. In fact, a few protesters from each side even found the time to talk to each other. (It's been quite a scandal.) Both groups were given equal time before the UNC Endowment Board (a trustee subcommittee). The shanties are down now, and the issue is far from settled, but the restraint demonstrated by all concerned was in striking contrast to the events at Dartmouth. There's a lesson to be learned here, somewhere.

Chapel Hill, N.C.

Selective outrage

I would like to make a short comment on the anti-apartheid goings-on at the College.

I can certainly understand students and others being upset with the situation in South Africa. However, I do not understand the selectivity in their outrage.

Genocide is being committed in Afghanistan. This is a nation that is being savagely and barbarically destroyed by the Russian Army. What's going on in that poor country makes the sad happenings in South Africa look almost like child's play by comparison. Yet there are no protests of any significance staged by the students and faculty of Dartmouth. I wonder why.

Marcellus, N.Y.

Not a stock certificate

For years I have read the letters published in your magazine from my fellow alumni. It is with growing discomfort that I realize that many alumni feel they have an actual proprietary ownership in Dartmouth. Recently, a letter talked about building shanties on "our Green." It is not "our" Green, nor in that sense is it "our" college.

I cannot help but believe that the "character" of Dartmouth is in large measure shaped by the belief that this is an undergraduate institution run not for the benefit of the alumni or the faculty, but rather of the education of today's students. I thank Edgar Pitkin '31 in quoting Mr. Hopkins from Widmayer's Hopkins of Dartmouth: "The alumnus has little to contribute to his college if his relationship is merely a nostalgic and sentimental one."

I have disagreed with many of the individual decisions made by the administration, faculty, and students during the past 25 years. Yet as I have returned for visits or Alumni College, I have found often the problem was my frame of reference rather than the fact the school is going to hell. And to those who threaten to withhold their financial support, I would only suggest that our contributions are given to Dartmouth not because we expect the College to be run as when we were in school, but because of our gratitude for the education we received.

Like most alumni, I am embarrassed and dismayed by the coverage the national press has given Dartmouth. Perhaps changes should be made. I hope that our Trustees will give this their priority. Yet viewed from afar - with information filtered by the media, I am hesitant to rush to judgment. I also try to remember that I received a diploma from Dartmouth not a stock certificate.

Morris, Ill.

A trial balloon

Publishing letters from alumni who speak of a new president at Dartmouth may be a bit premature.

However, should those letters be trial balloons, cast my vote on the side of those who believe that the idea of a new president is not too wild.

Most alumni will settle for two new Trustees this year. The present Trustees are in need of new faces.

President McLaughlin needs a stronger Board of Trustees. It's possible that he might be less inclined to cater to a radical faculty group and be more inclined to be even-handed in his treatment of conservative students.

Longboat Key, Fla.

Who will prevail?

I'm sure the great majority of the Dartmouth community is upset over the shanty incident. I can't believe what a mess was made of that.

If there is any way that majority support can be regained for the College it would have to be by reinstating the Indian symbol. What a shout of approval would go up wherever Dartmouth people gathered.

All the correspondence I have read, in all the Dartmouth community publications, about the Indian symbol, has convinced me that the real issue has been submerged. Native Americans are not upset about it, if they ever were. There is no great movement by them against the use of terms like Redskins, Braves, Indians, Redmen, and the like, by countless organizations and colleges.

No, the question today is not whether the Indian symbol denigrates the Native Americans. Logic is out. The question is who is going to prevail, the majority of the Dartmouth community who want the Indian symbol, or the faculty who have taken a position against it and have staked their prestige on holding the administration to their position. The intimidating of the president by the faculty is particularly galling to me. I don't know why he stands for it!

Let the faculty go back to teaching, as others have said, and let us re-capture a tradition that gave the College "spirit" for which it used to be known.

Statesville, N.C.

What really galls

The thing that bothers me most about the shanty flap is the fact that the administration allowed them to remain in place as long as they provided "educational value."

Doesn't the administration realize that what these kids are being taught is the same "end justifies the means" philosophy that inspires Arabs to blow up airports and airplanes and northern Irish to throw bombs into bars?

Certainly these students have a right to speak their minds - that's what Dartmouth is all about. But they have the obligation to respect the legitimate rights of others in doing so. Building a group of shanties in the middle of the Green is a trespass, pure and simple, and should be treated as such.

What really galls is the sit-in in the president's office, where students were joined

by - God save the mark! faculty members. And to this day, not one faint suggestion has been heard that anyone involved should be subject to discipline.

On the other hand, those ten or so students from The Review who finally gave in to their frustration and took the shanties down, have been disciplined fairly severely. While I certainly don't recommend the sledgehammer as an element in problem-solving, fundamental fairness demands some elemental parity in either punishing or not punishing transgressors.

When will the administration learn that because a person pays his/her tuition at Dartmouth for four years, he/she is not entitled thereby to dictate the policy of the College during that time? When will the administration learn that besides economics, history, etc., it has the obligation to teach these students how to present their views in a civilized, restrained manner?

Hartford, Conn.

A recipe for disaster

Obviously things are not what they might be at our alma mater and that is unfortunate, but having spent some 30 years man and boy at various institutions of higher learning in the United States, exercised some modest administrative duties, read and reflected a good deal on the vagaries of American education from colonial times to the present, I can assure the eager combatants of the Alumni Committee for a Strong Dartmouth that their bizarre and illadvised efforts to "restore discipline" are a recipe for disaster. If they think Dartmouth is in hot water at the moment it will seem a tepid liquid indeed if they attempt to impose their archaic notions on the College.

Granted there are problems; they must be worked out by the students, faculty, and administration with cautious assistance from the Board of Trustees. I know of no instance in the history of American colleges and universities where the intervention of alumni in the affairs of their various alma maters has not been highly deleterious to the institutions they profess so fervently to love (and I am sure in fact do). Dear Alumni for a Stronger Dartmouth: In the name of Eleazar Wheelock, Daniel Webster, Ernest Martin Hopkins, and the Almighty, lay off! The only helpful intervention by alumni that I have ever heard of is the intervention of generous sums of money.

Santa Cruz, Calif.

Fair play

The administration's handling of the latest of many brouhahas at Dartmouth only further highlights the lack of courage and fair play one used to expect.

The "slap on the wrist" for one side and suspension for the other is not warranted or justifiable. Young graduates of other New England colleges attribute the inequity to the weakness of Dartmouth's president.

It is now easier to understand the condition Toro found itself in under the leadership of our current president.

Naugatuck, Conn.

I'm making my checkout to Baker

The Alumni Magazine has not yet told its readers that 30 of 31 departmental chairmen have rebuked President McLaughlin and the Trustees for their plan to deconstruct and reconstruct the Medical School, a scheme seen as a massive waste of scarce resources.

The Magazine, in its bowdlerized account of the governance report, endorsed by a unanimous faculty, omitted the single most important sentence: "The Faculty views the President's style of educational decisionmaking and of educational administration as so inimical to effective academic leadership as to pose grave risks to the quality of the institution."

Given this, it is not surprising that the editor withheld an earlier letter suggesting that Dartmouth's enduring crisis, a faculty that has rejected the president, can best be resolved by the departure of Mr. Mc Laughlin. Since the administration cites Alumni Fund contributions as a measure of its support, I shall make my gifts directly to Baker Library for the purchase of books.

New York, N.Y.

[The Dean of the Faculty's Office reports that onDecember 4, 30 out of the total 40 departmentaland program chairs met and passed by a voteof 29-1 an informal resolution expressingdeep concern over actions relating to the proposedMedical School move and rejecting a resolutionthe Trustees had recently adopted pertaining tothe move. Ed.]

Not just ski bums

If Edgar Pitkin and Whitney Cushing (April 'B6 letters) wonder what Ernest Martin Hopkins would have done about the anti-apartheid shanties, I think I have an idea (having spent my last three years working as student assistant in the President's Office).

The collecting of clothing by the Dartmouth Union for the striking Vermont quarry workers when it might have jeopardized a significant contribution to the College brought no opposition from Mr. Hopkins not even a sotto voce suggestion that we desist.

And further, I think that, far from being unfortunate, the present activity has publicized the fact that Dartmouth students and faculty are willing to give a hard look at current problems, that they are not just ski bums.

Arkville, N.Y.

Incredible

It is with heavy heart that I write this letter. How an institution that has earned the respect, the loyalty, and the love of its alumni to the degree that Dartmouth College has can jeopardize it through increasing ineptitude in the management of its affairs is incredible.

How students who "stage sit-ins in the President's Office and Parkhurst and who resist the police can escape any punishment, while those who attempt to remove the eyesores that never should have been erected are suspended, is even more incredible.

The shanties purported to be a protest against the lack of justice in South Africa. Who is protesting the lack of justice in the suspension of the ten students who tried to remove the shanties?

It appears that the left-wing activists in the Dartmouth community can get away with any kind of outrageous behavior, while the conservatives risk suspension if they protest against the activists.

I have no interest in supporting, financially or otherwise, this type of discrimination. I greatly regret that the College has created a situation that necessitates my bringing to an end 55 years of support.

Short Hills, N.J.

Shaping experiences

I am sorry to find myself in disagreement with the ideas contained in a recent mailing from the Alumni Committee for a Strong Dartmouth. The committee argues that the Board of Trustees should take strong measures to shape up the faculty, discipline unruly students, throw out Women's Studies, Native American Studies, and other "frivolous" courses, reinstate Navy ROTC, and restore the Indian symbol.

As one who has devoted 37 years to university teaching and served as a department chairman, I believe this kind of intervention by the Trustees would be most unwise. The committee calls upon the Board to "educate the faculty" to the fact that the Board and not the faculty is "the supreme authority." I hope the Trustees will do no such thing. At strong universities and colleges the faculty exerts a major voice on many matters, particularly in the recruitment of new faculty, in making recommendations for promotion and tenure, in approving or disapproving courses, and in fixing curriculum requirements. Except in rare cases, deans and college presidents ought to ratify these faculty decisions. And the Board of Trustees should almost never veto them. A practice of overriding the faculty on such matters might deprive the college of its most conscientious professors and scare off the best candidates for openings.

As for recent incidents that have upset the committee, I am too far from the scene to judge whether the College officers have acted wisely. But during the student unrest of the 1960s it seems to me that the least effective policy was the hard line of using force to clear occupied buildings and handing down stiff penalties. More was accomplished by sitting down with the leaders, negotiating a peaceful withdrawal from the buildings, and providing opportunities for serious consideration of student demands. From this point of view, the cancellation of

classes for a day's discussion of the apartheid issue seems to have been a wise step. And the decision of the Trustees not to intervene also seems prudent.

Loyal alumni are certainly entitled to express their opinion on these matters, but I hope their influence will not always be in the direction of conservatism. Each alumnus has his own reasons for loving the College. For me, perhaps the strongest is the memory of sitting in Dartmouth Hall and hearing people like Norman Thomas, Scott Nearing, Bertrand Russell, Dora Russell, Margaret Sanger, and W. E. B. DuBois all great protesters against injustice during a period of false prosperity and complacency, a period much like our own. These were the shaping experiences that made me think. It may be that the shanties have served a similar function in today's Dartmouth.

Deerfield Beach, Fla.

Sad state of affairs

Like many alumni, I have just received the plea from the Alumni Committee for a Strong Dartmouth, urging me to support their candidates for the Board of Trustees. Having read the candidates' statements, there is no way I can or would support their election, but my opposition is tempered with some sadness since on many of the issues they are on the right track.

The College has badly bungled a number of important decisions in recent months, from the Yukica "firing" to the absurdity of the permanent shanties and their shameful destruction. There is a leadership vacuum or a reasonable facsimile of one, and firm decisions are needed. Creative tension between the faculty and the administration is inevitable and healthy, but we are now faced with open rebellion on one side and no plan or strategy on the other. For all of this the Board must bear some responsibility.

The committee says that Dartmouth alumni are saddened by this state of affairs. Certainly true, but what is really sad is that the only organized opposition to this mismanagement comes from individuals who are promoting their ideological agenda. Despite thin attempts to appear neutral, the code phrases were all there: "better balanced faculty"; "lower standards" (for minorities); "active advocate front for the nuclear freeze, . . . homosexuality, abortion and other questionable and divisive issues." The Board is not the forum for promoting political viewpoints, but these candidates would like to use it in that way.

To prevent open and unproductive ideological confrontation, it is essential that the Board take the lead now in reopening reasoned discussion on many of the difficult issues which divide the Dartmouth community today. The middle ground between anarchy and restriction of free speech, should be defined and defended. Dartmouth made a statement by removing the Indian symbol, but there is overwhelming support for its return and that is probably a good idea if for no other reason than to give us some peace and quiet. National defense is a necessity and there is nothing shameful in offering ROTC to train military leaders.

On the other hand, the Trustees should not muck about in curriculum, tenure, or other matters which affect the basic issues of freedom of inquiry and independence of the faculty. They should be sensitive to the College's social responsibility to racial justice and women's rights. They should be particularly wary of any pressure on them to "balance" the Dartmouth experience ideologically, spiritually, or intellectually that is not their role.

Concerned alumni should reject the attempt to promote a political philosophy through the Board of Trustees, but we should hold the Trustees' feet to the fire and get the College back on track.

West Topsham, Vt.

Lizzie Borden gone askew

What have you done, Dartmouth Review, Destroying those symbolic shacks? Like Lizzie Borden gone askew, You let loose one and forty whacks.

Instead of acting like some jerks, You rather silly guys and gals, You should have limited your works, To pointed editorials.

When I was young and in my prime, The Dartmouth spirit thrived in me. I did not waste my precious time, On such inane stupidity.

I did not choose to play the clown, That nonsense gets my back up. I did not try to knock shacks down, I much preferred the shack up.

Scotch Plains, N.J.

A devoted defender

Many alumni have seen, in their local newspapers, the column by the editor of the American Spectator. In Cleveland it appeared in The Plain Dealer, which ran my article in reply a few days later. I'd like to share a few paragraphs from my piece with alumni elsewhere:

"In a recent article on this newspaper's Forum page, the editor of the American Spectator stated, under the heading 'Liberal Cultists Seize Dartmouth,' that the place is dominated by liberal reactionaries alive to the threat of diverse ideas that might challenge their devoutly held poppycock." Probably with tongue only partly in cheek, he accused these faculty "cultists" of wanting to make the College's library off limits to students to prevent access to the American Bill of Rights and the Constitution.

"Not since Daniel Webster persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court that the state of New Hampshire could not seize the chartered college as a state institution has Dartmouth been more in need of a devoted defender.

"As a graduate of Dartmouth, I'd hardly recognize my alma mater from the editor's description. And that's not because I haven't been back to Hanover frequently.

"No cult dominates the scene on the Hanover Plain. It is, in fact, like many other colleges, possessed of a wide diversity of students: a few on the far right or left in views, with the vast majority smack in the middle. This preponderant group deplores radicalism of either right or left. So does most of the faculty. But they don't, like the radicals, shout their views from the rooftops.

"The recent nationwide publicity about events on the Dartmouth campus is therefore the result of the shrieks and shouts of a small percentage of the student body and faculty.

"But so what? Life at Dartmouth goes on pretty much as it always has. The famed Dartmouth Winter Carnival was run off as usual, right in the middle of this so-called imbroglio.

"Recently President McLaughlin summarized the College's attitude: 'ln order to avoid the excesses we recently experienced on campus, this college will need to be less generous in how much latitude it will give to protesters who exceed the limits of the policy of freedom of expression and dissent.'

"What he seems to be saying is that he'd strike at the small core groups on left and right who are responsible for stirring up hatreds and animosities on a campus almost wholeheartedly committed to a moderate middle course, unaccompanied by spectacular, publicity-seeking displays focusing worldwide attention."

Shaker Heights, Ohio

Prime-time coverage

"Stay tuned" (see "Shantytown: What's the story?" in the March 'B6 issue) is more easily said than done when the program being offered by the Trustees and President McLaughlin can't even measure up to a mediocre soap although, the College does receive "prime-time" coverage.

Perhaps if Bart Giamatti would pinch-hit the ratings would increase.

Springfield, Mass.

Blowin' in the wind

I just received the latest communication from the Alumni Committee for a Strong Dartmouth, in which an unspecified cadre of faculty members is described as "fanatically opposed to our way of life" and "serious troublemakers" to boot. Where is Joe McCarthy when you really need him? The committee, in its "Update #2," entitled "Can Sanity Be Restored?" alludes pejoratively to the "progressive" orientation of the Dartmouth administration, saying, "In the phrase from the well-known song, the College has made it unmistakably clear which way 'the wind is blowing.' " I would agree that you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows, but all this reactionary claptrap filling my mailbox of late kind of gives me the subterranean homesick blues; you know what I mean?

New York, N.Y.

A sad story

As I read the sad shantytown story in the March '86 Alumni Magazine, I felt more and more that the student body is not racist. The faculty is racist and doing its utmost to influence the student body accordingly.

Yarmouth Port, Mass.

Hands off!

Yesterday I received a mailing from the Alumni Committee for a Strong Dartmouth, proposing to place two conservative alumni on the Board of Trustees. As a Dartmouth alumnus and parent, I am deeply concerned about this attempt to politicize the Board. In the swirl of passions and events involving faculty, administration, and students, it is important that the Board of Trustees maintain an ideological neutrality. I hope the alumni and the administration will act to prevent this kind of takeover from happening. The only real way to a "strong Dartmouth" will involve a strong Board of Trustees, and that means a Board free from political polarization.

Bar Harbor, Maine

Bad lessons

An attempt is being made to legitimatize the unfortunate events of the past several weeks by categorizing them as "serving a useful educational purpose." While diverse expression of opinion has always been an integral part of Dartmouth as a great liberal arts institution, I believe a' number of badlessons have been learned.

The disciplinary action taken or being taken against several of the factions in the shanty episode has been discussed by President McLaughlin both by letter and at a recent Dartmouth Alumni Association of

Long Island dinner. Yet it seems that one faction was completely free of any judicial proceedings - the faction who originally built the shanties, who were initially told by the administration to remove them or be subject to discipline. Rallying more support for their "statement" they were able to pressure the administration into allowing the shanties to stay. This was (or should have been) as completely in violation of the College's regulations and code of behavior as was the destruction of the shanties by a group of students or the sit-ins at Parkhurst Hall by other groups of students.

The learning experience here appears to be that enough pressure brought to bear on the president and the administration can result in their accepting behavior or a situation that was otherwise unacceptable to them. The "in general, satisfactory to both sides" resolve of the football coach episode was another example of this learning experience.

The second learning experience from the shanty incidents is that not everyone is subject to the same code of discipline at Dartmouth. For some reason I have yet to hear of any judicial proceedings against the group of students who first built the shanties, were ordered to remove them, and refused which refusal and the permissiveness of the administration may just have been the cause that incited the ensuing events out of frustration.

I wouldn't want to return to Hanover to see shanties on the Green where so many wonderful and happy College-sponsored happenings took place. I also fail to see how these two learning experiences can be classified as either "useful" or "healthy."

Woodmere, N.Y.

Who's running the ship?

I was appalled at the temerity of some faculty members displayed, unfortunately, in the nationally-circulated Time magazine issue of February 17, 1986, making public some of their meetings criticizing the top management of the university.

Has no one informed the faculty members that they are employed by the Dartmouth College administration to teach to students their particular subjects for which, presumably, they are qualified? Apparently, some of them are under the impression that they also should have the authority to decide who their governing and policy-setting administrative officials should be. This is the height of impertinence. Rather than considering the demand of some professors that the president resign, I would suggest that the Trustees show some authoritative responsibility and consider whether or not some faculty members should be terminated.

I believe it is very good policy to accept for consideration by the Trustees and officers the suggestions of faculty members and student organizations, but the time has come to establish the fact that the responsibility for the operation of the College and determination of policies to be followed is the sole responsibility of the Trustees, to be implemented by the officers. I believe it is also time these officers and arrogant faculty members are made to realize they are salaried employees hired to teach their sub- jects to students and not to make the business decisions necessary in operating the College.

I, personally, also believe the administration should exercise its authority to establish rules advising students what conduct is acceptable in their numerous protests. Permitting the College campus to become a junkyard full of shanties put up by a few students is shameful. It is beyond me to understand why disciplinary action was taken against those removing these eyesores, while apparently those placing them there received no criticism.

I believe it is necessary for the Trustees to establish definite rules and regulations and for the officers to implement them, and let everyone know they are running the ship and not the professors and students.

Niantic, Conn.

"The story"?

I was disappointed with the lame narrative you published as "the story" behind the recent controversy surrounding Dartmouth's shantytown. The accounts I read in the national press provided more depth and feeling than yours from Hanover.

Who are the student organizers of the DCD and its opposition on campus? Which members of the faculty are the most outspoken on this topic? Do all of Dartmouth's Trustees and administrators share President McLaughlin's views? If the various participants in the controversy have been as impassioned as you suggested in your article, it would have been more convincing to have quoted them directly.

Seattle, Wash.

Not just a question of image

I think the cover and the story on the antiapartheid shanties were excellent.

My own sympathies are entirely with the students who erected the shanties because I feel apartheid is a vicious system that kills people not only people shot by the police but the many infants who die at an early age of malnutrition and the diseases of poverty.

American economic involvement in South Africa is not just a question of image. Our country is supporting this system with financial involvement of over $l4 billion in direct investment and loans. United States investors have found South Africa to be a rewarding country. Its access to cheap labor has made possible very high rates of return in comparison with other areas of U.S. foreign investments. Six thousand U.S. companies do business there and provide the computers and other tools for police repression of the majority of the population. The United States can help this situation by disinvestment and sanctions.

Bronx, N.Y.

Both sides: Limit expressionsto verbal ones

It was good to., read the article in the March Alumni Magazine detailing the controversy over the building of the shanties on the campus. I think the College administration did the right thing in rescinding the punishments of the students who built the shanties, as they were expressing their and our heartfelt revulsion over apartheid.

I hope you will shortly be able to notify us that the suspensions and other punishments of the students who tore down the shanties also have been rescinded. These students obviously understand that harm to South Africa's stability will harm the security of the United States. South Africa and the Soviet Russian state are the only known places in the world with sufficient supplies of strategic minerals and materials. The long-term commitment of Soviet Russia to eventual world domination is easy to percieve from their actions. Even Deng, the top Chinese Communist, refers to the Russian ruling cirles as "hegemonists." It's the bad luck of the U.S. that the materials are not in Argentina, for example, where 10,000 white people disappeared under a white despotism with no demands at Dartmouth for divestiture or sanctions; or found in any of the despotisms, browns over browns, blacks over blacks, Orientals over Orientals, Arabs over Arabs, etc. ad infinitum. All the human races have known despotism, and despotic regimes greatly outnumber the true democracies, where those in office step down peacefully after losing an election.

Both sides of the students in this controversy behaved with some immaturity. Let us hope that the administration, with its greater maturity, can convince the students to limit their expressions to verbal ones based on logic, and to avoid overt action in the future. An even-handed approach by the administration to both sides would en- hance a peaceful settlement and assure the mature alumni that the administration is worthy of our continued support.

New Braunfels, Tex.

A suggestion

Your April issue contained a letter from Michael Zarin '53 relaying a comment of freshman Sarah Lewis to President McLaughlin that "I cannot convey to you the shame I feel about attending this institution now." I don't know what his response was, but properly it should have been to the effect that in the interest of preserving a good conscience and sound psyche, she should depart forthwith to face whatever future with a confident smugness.

McLean, Va.

Doublespeak

I'm angry and disappointed. And I know I'm not alone.

I just spent a good portion of last evening listening to a Trustee's version of "The State of the College Today," courtesy of the Dartmouth Club of Chicago. And after enduring two hours of facile, evasive, and unconvincing doubletalk, I left convinced that it is time for the Board to take the "rust" out of Trustees. Time for the faculty to remember that they are only temporary paid employees and not the College itself. Time for the president to remember that being left does not necessarily mean being right, and that bowing to pressure does not merit taking a bow.

Despite - or perhaps because of - last night's meeting, the appearance out here in the hinterlands has been that of, on the one hand, an insulated faculty with a double standard and a single point of view, and a vacillating administration and Board with neither backbone nor judgment; on the other, a small but vocal band of Neanderthals, young and old. Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right or so it seems, 15 years and 1,000 miles away from Dartmouth.

Last night, I did not sense that the Trustees and administration had any authentic desire to be responsive to concerned alumni. Instead, I felt the reception was merely a charade staged to quell the rumblings in the provinces.

The College simply cannot afford to continue egregiously mishandling events on campus and to generate such truly stunning amounts of negative publicity. The faculty and president cannot continue to speak two different languages. And, perhaps most significantly for alumni (and alumnae), the Board of Trustees simply cannot continue operating as a closed, elitist club. Why couldn't the seven Alumni Trustees be elected not on an at-large basis, but, for example, on a geographic or class basis, to help make the Board more responsive, responsible, and accountable and not just a small self-perpetuating clique of old boys? It is a sad commentary on the Trustees' recent performance that I would even halfconsider voting for the appallingly reactionary candidates advanced by the socalled Alumni Committee for a Strong Dartmouth.

Especially with today's soaring college costs, if significant shifts are not made Dartmouth could well revert to what it once was: a small sanctuary for wealthy Easterners not quite good enough for Harvard or Yale or Princeton. The only difference would be that the ranks of the privileged few would include women as well as men, approved minorities as well as WASPs. True, Dartmouth would survive that way - but Dartmouth deserves to thrive.

At times like this, Bob Geldof, or even my law school, seem very tempting alternatives to the Alumni Fund.

Chicago, Ill.

The DAM:

Journalistic integrity?

The dismissal/resignation of Dennis Dinan as editor of the Dartmouth AlumniMagazine created considerable controversy and raised the issue of the journalistic integrity of the Magazine.

After reading the blatantly one-sided version of the shantytown events on the Dartmouth campus (and I was not offended by the cover), I am compelled to observe that the Magazine indeed has abandoned any semblance of journalistic fairness and has become a pure mouthpiece of the administration.

Whether or not this is healthy remains a subject for debate. I, for one, think it very unhealthy.

Glen Rock, N.J.

ROTC: Mutual distrust

A great deal of visceral invective has been exchanged within these columns in considering the compatibility of an ROTC program on campus with the goals and objectives of a liberal arts college. The profound intensity of conviction of both positions suggests that the traditional air of enmity and suspicion between the American military and academic communities is alive and well. This mutual distrust is founded in both recent historical experience and ideology, reflecting the radically divergent "Weltanschauung" of these professions. It remains unlikely that these two vital yet often antithetical communities will find much common ground at Dartmouth and other liberal arts institutions, so long as dissention revolves around theoretical posturing and abstract idelogical differences. From a position of academic abstraction it is difficult to reconcile the paramount liberal arts values of individualism, free expression, and reason, with the authoritarianism, discipline, and uniformity of a military organization. Amidst the harmonious strife of open expression and dissent at Dartmouth, the trumpet's clarion call rings strangely harsh and discordant.

Yet for Dartmouth, its summons bears heeding, not because the means by which the military must conduct its affairs are good values for Dartmouth, but because the ends and the ideals which the military serves are the basis and the starting point for the fundamental political, social, and, by extension, academic freedoms to which Dartmouth is committed. If we are prepared to assume the responsibility for training future leaders in all disciplines and professions, then I suggest that in deliberately excluding ROTC from campus the College would poorly serve the role of institutional mentor. By permitting the presence of ROTC on campus the College does not so much condone the military as illuminate the primacy of the collective responsibility to protect the rights of the individual against foes foreign and domestic. Those who justly abhor the authoritarianism of the military might do well to consider that at least in this country these means are subordinate to, and defend, the more admirable goals of national autonomy and individual freedom. If we are to insure that this necessary entity continues to serve the true interests of the nation, is it wise to disenfranchise it from the leadership of the ablest elements of society?

Goeppingen, West Germany

A symbol forthe"New Dartmouth"

With all the litigation surrounding football coaching, governance, shantytown, alternative publishing, fraternities, drinking, etc., an appropriate symbol to represent the "New Dartmouth" seems obvious a lawyer.

Worcester, Mass.

Maintaining the status quo

My heartfelt thanks to Dorothy Foley '86 for writing about the events of late at the College. Her article in the April 'B6 issue of the Alumni Magazine explains clearly the confusion surrounding the sit-ins, the shanties, the destruction, and the political extremism surrounding the divestment issue.

While I have received a vast supply of letters from the current Dartmouth administration concerning the problem, all of it has been extremely ambiguous. President McLaughlin's correspondence is necessary but falls far short of reasonable explanations. Nor does it offer any possible solutions. Perhaps the intent is to confuse and mollify the alumni.

No one is happy with the current activities at the College. I am not my father is not - and my godfather is certainly not. The current administration seems only interested in maintaining the status quo. It is obvious some changes are needed.

The administration needs to come up with some alternative ideas, plans, and candidates of their own. Why are we forced to vote with the extreme conservatives just to show our discontent?

It is very sad that during all this silliness the academic careers of some students are being hindered by disciplinary action. I find the entire matter unfortunate, ludicrous, and oddly perverse.

Beverly Hills, Calif.

Pertinent questions

I had supposed that the erection of structures (ugly or otherwise) upon the campus without the permission of College or town officials constitutes a trespass and is illegal. Is it pertinent to ask the president and Trustees: if another group of students had also erected structures opposite the administration building to protest U.S. aid to the Contras, and another student group had also done so to protest the use of the name Dartmouth by The Review, and the football squad had similarly sought to protest the firing of Yukica, would they all be allowed to remain for two months, and if not, which ones and why not?

Marblehead, Mass.

A different vision

When I first heard about the now-famous shantytown on the Green, I thought it was an encouraging sign that college education had not totally succumbed to the prevailing mood of self-serving apathy at all costs. But it was disheartening to watch events deteriorate into a series of control battles, threats, demands, punishments, and the like within the College's so-called community. When other problem-solving strategies are readily available (as they surely were and still are at Dartmouth), such confrontational strategies are sadly lacking in imagination. In a nuclear age, can't we have a different vision of conflict resolution from one of America's finest colleges?

May I suggest that a general amnesty be declared immediately by all parties, toward all parties who were considered to have broken a law or rule, or who were considered to have been guilty of bad judgement. Then devote an all-College "learn-in" to peaceful means of conflict resolution and social change.

I hope the College Trustees follow through with a full program of divestment. It may be one of the few more or less peaceful strategies available toward establishing justice in South Africa.

Lincoln, Neb.

Disenchanted

Dartmouth undergraduates know little about tradition. It was ever thus. With the nucleus of a good education and the development of many lasting relationships, one's love of college increases with the years. As proof of this we do not have to ask what college has the most loyal and active alumni body in America. This is one of the real strengths of Dartmouth and implies unity of purpose among students, faculty, administration, and alumni. We alumni do not like to witness the rupture of this relationship and that is why we are unhappy and disenchanted to see a few students and faculty striving to break down the authority of the administration. Change is proper and often necessary but only after research and rational discussion. Let's keep the metropolitan media off the campus except when positive advances are made in the field of education.

Portsmouth, N.H.

The real issue

My mail last week included a letter from a group of alumni addressing "the most important members of the Dartmouth family," by which they mean the alumni. Perhaps I am missing something, but I thought the College's purpose was education. Would that not make students the most important members of the family? For all their loyalty and generosity, it seems to me that a lot of my fellow alumni have their priorities confused.

This point is driven home by the usual tired litany of issues the letter recites, including the momentous debate over the symbol. Really, friends, is this the most important thing you have to think about?

Meanwhile, back at the campus, students are raising a real issue, an issue of incredible moral importance: the College's complicity in one of the great evils of our time, apartheid in South Africa. By dramatic, non-violent acts, students and others have forced this issue to the fore on campus. The Alumni Committee for a Strong Dartmouth ostensibly objects to the methods of these students, urging instead discussion "in a collegial atmosphere with all viewpoints allowed full expression." In fact, such a discussion is what finally ensued, but the letter-writers object to the College declaring a holiday for that purpose. I can only conclude that the letter-writers do not really desire to see such a discussion take place.

I am proud that Dartmouth attracts and seems to nurture at least some morally sensitive students. I am less proud of the indifferent student and the self-centered reactionary, but I am not sorry they are at Dartmouth: I have hope for them that in the right atmosphere they will come, not necessarily to the same point of view, but at least to a respect for and an understanding of other points of view. I am not troubled by all the seemingly negative publicity the College has been getting: it is a sign that there is life in Hanover, after all.

But I am troubled by alumni who can afford to spend thousands of dollars on printing and postage to continue a debate that is settled; to encourage what can only be interpreted as racism; to support the reinstatement of ROTC, with its demonstrably lower faculty standards; and to pretend to justify these and other concerns by calling for reason and excellence when in fact they want to impose their own point of view. The attention given by the letter-writers to the anti-apartheid demonstrations suggests that as at least one of their primary concerns. It is time, and past time, for people of conscience everywhere to come to the active support of blacks and other racial and ethnic groups in South Africa who are discriminated against by the white minority government. Dartmouth and every alumnus/a who holds investments or influences investment policy can help. We can make a concerted effort to get all companies we share in to cease doing business in South Africa. If they refuse we should divest. Adherence to the Sullivan Principles is insufficient as they fail to address the most critical issue of racially separate living areas. And it should be emphasized that shortterm economic difficulty is not going to affect blacks significantly as the vast majority already live in poverty.

Incidentally, for the selfish more concerned for their own profit than the wellbeing of others, the portfolio of the State University of New York has seen major gains since their trustees took the morally correct risk of divestment. How sad that Dartmouth has not had the courage to be a real leader.

Albany, N.Y.

Divestment: A new twist

The Dartmouth Committee for Divestment, DCD, appears to have achieved its stated goal. Divestment has finally come to Hanover; the alumni are divesting themselves from the College as a result of the DCD's efforts and the administration's response. Workers on the recent alumni telethon report that as many as 50 percent of the members of some classes are refusing to give this year due to the shanties, sit-ins, and related campus disturbances.

Why aren't the alumni giving? The divestment rhetoric is useful here. For some it is an effort to "overthrow the present inequitable administration." At the very least, donations are down because Dartmouth's alumni want to "disassociate themselves" from the College's "injustice" and hope to bring about beneficial change at Dartmouth through "economic sanctions" and "moral pressure."

Dartmouth's administration has failed to ensure that discipline is meted out fairly and the result has been near anarchy. In recent weeks, vandals spray-painted "Divest Now" across Dartmouth Hall, "Remember Attica" on the Rockefeller Center, and " the Alumni and Trustees" on the new Hood Museum. A male member of the College-funded Gay Students Association disrupted an all-female sorority rush party by entering the sorority house and shouting: "The only reason you won't admit me is because I have a - !" These cowardly and intolerant acts have occurred because the current administration has failed to maintain order and fairness in Hanover. President McLaughlin has permitted the existence of an atmosphere on campus in which no crime can be committed in the alleged furtherance of a so called "liberal" cause. Students have been disciplined according to their beliefs, not deeds.

To his credit, President McLaughlin took a stand in the recent sit-in of Baker Tower. The sit-in forced the temporary closure of the library. McLaughlin ordered the disrupters to leave or face suspension. Members of the DCD did so at 1:30 the following morning.

Dartmouth's Buildings and Grounds workers can remove the graffiti from Dartmouth Hall and restore its dignity can Dartmouth's administration remove the stain of injustice from the College's name and restore its honor?

Charlottesville, Va.

[The Alumni Fund reports that there is no classin which 50 percent of members overall are refusing to give. Ed.]

Enlightened action

In yesterday's edition of our local newspaper there was a brief note to the effect that AT&T had agreed to "sever virtually all business ties" to South Africa. Recalling the endless media coverage of Dartmouth's failure to reach some sort of reasonable and moral position towards South Africa's torment, it appears to me incongruous that a major corporation can take enlightened action while a major college waffles.

On a related matter, the same local newspaper reported that a former Treasury Secretary, William Simon, has taken Dartmouth's president to task for "acting like a wimp and a coward" in dealing with the anti-apartheid shanty affair. I thought at first that Simon was unhappy that President McLaughlin, in his handling of the situation, had chosen such ineffective means of getting rid of the Dartmouth Review. More careful reading showed that this was not the case. Simon apparently likes the Review and dislikes professors who don't. I also get the feeling that he doesn't think much of actions calculated to embarrass the South African government or to nudge it towards joining civilized society.

Although I would yield to no one in my admiration for William Simon's knowledge of how to make lots of money, I think he is markedly less competent away from this, his field of expertise. Like Linus Pauling and William Shockley - brilliant in their specialties, but flaky on the subjects of vitamins and race, respectively Simon seems to be driven to making a fool of himself. Perhaps a liberal education could have done him some good.

West Bath, Maine

[Columbia is the only university in the IvyLeague to have completely divested of its holdingsin corporations that do business in South Africa. Ed.]

The role of The Review

I agree with Peter Gambaccini '72 (April letters) concerning the role of The Review in many of Dartmouth's current problems. Much of the poison of that group is now being spread by the Alumni Committee for a Strong Dartmouth.

The composition of the ACSD, which alleges to represent alumni, is quite interesting. According to their list of "early supporters," half are members of the classes of 1940 and before, while less than four percent are from classes after 1970. The median age of this group would thus appear to be around 66. Furthermore, the 244 individuals listed include less than one percent of all Dartmouth alumni. Thus, neither the number nor the composition of the ACSD would seem representative of the Dartmouth community. Even if alumni were the most important interest group in the picture, the ACSD can hardly claim a popular mandate. The entire Dartmouth community would benefit if the ACSD dropped. the pretense of representing alumni and honestly admitted its true na- ture yet another narrow interest advo- cacy group, not unlike a PAC.

The ACSD appears to advocate a position in which "all viewpoints would be encouraged and expressed." Yet their inflammatory literature rails against certain courses of study and the positions of their candidates revolve around rigid proposals to "eliminate frivolous and advocacy courses" and to abolish certain student groups. The commitment of the ACSD to encouraging the expression of all viewpoints seems to include only those of white, male, upperclass ideology. Indeed, their lip service to the liberal arts tradition seems limited to abolishing programs they don't approve of, repressing dissent, bringing back ROTC, and re-establishing the symbol. Hardly the basis for a constructive effort to solve Dartmouth's problems in the 1980s.

Perhaps the most perverted aspect of the ACSD campaign is the position taken by Mr. Provost. To say that "the students would not be sitting in if they were properly disciplined and educated by the faculty; and the faculty would not be sitting in if they were suitably directed, informed, and controlled by the administration . . ." is ludicrous in the extreme and more than faintly reminiscent of various totalitarian societies past and present. If this is their vision of a revitalized liberal arts tradition, I'll pass.

It is my sincere hope that the ACSD candidates are soundly defeated and that their members retreat to their rightful place in the Dartmouth community: whining about the symbol in the Alumni Magazine as they contemplate a dim and distorted version of, the College and the world - they remember from 40 years ago.

Burlington, Vt.

Never a more beautiful Green

Congratulations to Dartmouth and to the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine for giving apartheid the attention it deserves.

As an undergraduate 35 years ago, I remember sitting in the Dartmouth Christian Union office writing letters and telegrams to government heads protesting what Alan Paton's Cry the Beloved Country had just revealed to us, the atrocities of apartheid. Through the DCU office window we could see the beautiful and unobstructed College Green; but never have I seen a more beautiful Green than the one pictured on the cover of the March 'B6 Dartmouth AlumniMagazine, now the home of a shantytown so eloquently symbolizing the nature and fruits of apartheid.

Let an old grad salute the students and faculty of his college. You have always been a good school, but now I can say that I am proud of you.

San Francisco, Calif.

About-face?

Certain events which have recently occurred at Dartmouth and which have made national TV news, Time magazine, and many newspapers have bothered me and many of my Dartmouth alumni friends.

First of all, those professors who opposed reinstatement of ROTC because the participating students would not receive a "complete" Dartmouth education have woven themselves into a very tight cocoon. They are out of touch and don't seem to realize that there is a big world out there and Dartmouth should be a part of it. It also should include some commitment to the United States of America.

The shanty episode is a disgrace. It's one thing to object to Dartmouth owning stock in some companies doing business in South Africa; it's another to deface the Dartmouth campus. The shanties should have been torn down the day after they were built and those responsible disciplined. I cannot understand why the 30 and then 200 that occupied the president's office and the administration building weren't suspended while the ones who tore down the shanties were.

The Joe Yukica episode is another sad example of how Dartmouth is being run these days. In fact, the entire athletic situation, with one or two exceptions in women's sports, is a disaster. We haven't had a good football team since 1970, a respectable basketball team since 1958, and good hockey and baseball teams since I don't know when. I always felt that when any school participates in sports they should at least have a 50-50 chance to win. That has not been the case at Dartmouth for several years.

I only hope some group, whether it be the administration, faculty, students, or Trustees, will get Dartmouth turned in the opposite direction from which it's been heading.

Houston, Tex.

Philippine reminiscences?

I am researching and writing about the American schoolteachers who served in the Philippines during the period 1901-1935. I would welcome any information about these teachers, particularly unpublished material such as letters, photographs, diaries, and manuscripts.

Since some of the first group of teachers to go to the islands were graduates of your college, I would greatly appreciate your publishing this request for information in your next publication. Replies may be sent to V.M. Trumball at 113 Perry Drive, Salisbury, MD 21801.

Salisbury, Md.

Author's query

Gary May, professor of history at the University of Delaware, is writing a book on William Walter Remington, who entered Dartmouth with the Class of '38 and who graduated in 1939. He was a senior fellow and a campus activist. After a prominent career with the federal government, he was indicted for perjury and eventually convicted in 1953. A year later, Remington was murdered while serving a three-year sentence at Lewisburg Prison.

Any recollections, anecdotes, or insights into his life at Dartmouth or later would be greatly appreciated. These can be sent to Dr. Gary May, Department of History, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19711 or to John R. Scotford Jr. '38, c/o Dartmouth College Archives, Baker Library, Hanover NH 03755. Confidentiality is assured if requested.

East Thetford, Vt.