Lamm begins term as Montgomery Fellow

"Controversy has always been my friend; it has never been my enemy. But I've always been on the thin edge of disaster," said former governor of Colorado Richard Lamm during his first press conference after arriving in Hanover to begin six months in residence as a Montgomery Fellow. In his 12 years as governor, his pronouncements on controversial subjects— "Motherhood, the Olympics, death, I've touched them all" —have earned him national recognition and the nickname "Governor Gloom." When questioned about that nickname, he replied, "People call me gloomy, but I just point our that all of history is on my sideno great nation remains great forever, that this country comes with the same guarantee that came with Egypt, Greece, Rome, Spain, Portugal, France, England. My reading of history is that societies start to disintegrate when they refuse to come to grips with their problems. And I think that's what I define as going on in Washington right now."

During his stay, Lamm will co-teach a public policy course entitled "Hard Choices: Current Dilemmas in Public Policy" with political science professor Douglas Yates. He will also give some public lectures and will moderate a program of debates for the class of 1987's senior symposium, entitled "The Media: A New Superp ower?"

Lamm said he was offered many opportunities after the governorship but chose Dartmouth because of its emphasis on undergraduate teaching, something he hopes to get better at. "I am not a scholar," he said. "What I have to add is some realworld experience."

There seems to be a reluctance among one or two announcing in song that their brains contained granite." —From a letter to the editor of the Alumni Magazine in March 1927, written by Henry M. Haserot '10, explaining why some members of his local alumni luncheon group opposed adopting "Men of Dartmouth" as the alma mater.