Sophomore Summer Program

The Sophomore Summer Program, for which Lewis Thomas delivered the keynote address, was initiated this year not only as a novel educational effort but also as a way to counteract the class fragmentation that has developed under the Dartmouth Plan. All undergraduates are now required to be in residence freshman year, senior year, and the summer term following sophomore year.

At the heart of the Summer Program academically was a unifying theme: "Issues and Ideas That Have Shaped 20th-century Life." Open for election by the '88s and all other students enrolled for the summer were six special interdisciplinary courses: America in the Nuclear Age, Equality, Religious Fundamentalism, Ritual Magic and the Theater, Modernism: The Making of the 20th-century Vision, and Perspectives on the Nature and Development of the Social Sciences. Each of the courses was taught by a team of two or three professors from different departments.

Greatly enriching the core program were such distinguished visiting speakers and discussion leaders as Dr. Thomas, novelist Toni Morrison, Latin American author and philosopher Carlos Fuentes, and documentary film director Marcel Ophuls. A related program of films, concerts, experimental theater performances, and art exhibitions was also part of the summer plan.

Professor Leo Spitzer of the history department is director of the Sophomore Summer Program, which is being supported for three years by a $500,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation. Support for the visiting speakers came from the Montgomery Foundation, the John Sloan Dickey Endowment, and the Class of 1930 Fellowship Endowment.