Letters

Reality 101

Hooray for Richard Lamm and his fine article in the May issue! If he is not running for something, let us hope that he can be persuaded to do so.

As someone who has enjoyed success in my chosen career, I have occasionally looked back at the Dartmouth Experience of the mid-70s as inadequate preparation for the "real world." Hopefully, Lamm's year as a Montgomery Fellow has sparked somemovement within Dartmouth itself to understand that America is indeed creating too damn many lawyers, and is well on its way to creating too many doctors as well.

Like it or not, the world in which we have chosen to live is a capitalistic one. Playing by those rules, the nations that produce the most goods and services, and then support them with better sales, marketing and service, win the rights to the highest standards of living. If what we as a people are creating does not play in Tokyo, Montreal or Mexico, we Americans move to the back of the bus. This exact scenario has been played out with chilling clarity in the decline and fall of the British Empire.

There is certainly an ongoing need for The Liberal Arts Education, but it would seem debatable just how "liberal arts" an institution that is de facto pre-law, premed, pre-B-school really is. There must be a balance between form and substance. Doesn't it seem time that Dartmouth had a course called Sales 101, Capitalism 101, Japanese 101, Reality 101? In an institution with hundreds of ivory-tower faculty and administrators, Richard D. Lamm seems a vox clamantis in deserto.

Hyannisport, Massachusetts

Indian Redux

Wow, I thought, there was the Dartmouth hockey team, miraculously attired once again in their traditional green and white with the traditional Indian on the front of their jerseys, playing in an NCAA championship game. There they were, right on the pages of the April 6 issue of SportsIllustrated, in full color.

Unfortunately, at my advanced age, my eyes deceived me, and upon closer examination the team in the pictures turned out to be the University of North Dakota Fighing Sioux.

Now obviously, something must be wrong. How can a university in our enlightened age still use an Indian as a symbol?

Let's face it, North Dakota is kind of out in the boonies and most of its students and faculty are probably from small towns and even farms, so it's not unlikely that they just don't have the sophistication and knowledge that our liberal community has about what is good for everyone and what traditions should be kept and which ones should be eliminated. Once we have brought this enlightenment to these misguided people, maybe they will immediately eliminate all evidence of Indian symbols and Fighting Sioux and adopt a new, more appropriate symbol, such as Prairie Dogs, which they say there are a lot of in North Dakota. I wouldn't bet on it.

Dana Point, California

Uranium Deflector?

Did you by chance see the scurrilous, libelous reference to Dartmouth in the April Harper's? The monthly "Harper's Index" bore the following lines:

Percentage of Dartmouth seniors who know what SDI stands for: 58

Percentage who know what IUD stands for: 76

What nonsense! Every Dartmouth senior certainly knows that SDI stands for "SpermDislodging Insert" while lUD is an abbreviation of "Intercontinental Uranium Deflector."

Bethesda, Maryland

Contra Killing

On April 28 of this year, American Ben Linder was slain in El Cua, Nicaragua, by soldiers of the U.S.-backed contra forces. Linder was assisting townspeople in building a small hydroelectric plant when his group was struck by hand grenades thrown at close range. According to witnesses, the injured Lender was then shot in the head.

The event received widespread notice, as Under was one of the first U.S. citizens killed in fighting that has taken the lives of more than 35,000 Nicaraguan civilians and soldiers. For several years, Linder had been involved in the Nicaraguan Appropriate Technology Project, an organization dedicated to supporting Nicaraguan efforts to promote energy conservation, local electrification and self-sufficiency, organic farming, and technical education.

There is a Dartmouth connection. Linder's co-director of NICAT is Mira Brown, who was a Dartmouth student from 1977 to '79. She returned to Hanover in 1985 to discuss projects such as biogas production, solar grain drying, wind-generated power plants and water pumps, and small-scale hydroelectric dams with students and faculty at the Thayer School.

Because the contras have been unable to generate significant political or strategic support within the country, they have specifically targeted development projects for sabotage. Ben Linder and Mira Brown were aware that they were in danger, yet they chose to remain in Nicaragua, along with several hundred other U.S. healthcarprofessionals, economic advisors, agronomists, and teachers. Brown has returned to El Cua to complete the dam project on which Linder had been working. Classmates and friends can write to her at Apart ado 3894, Managua, Nicaragua.

At a time when many people in the United States are feeling embarrassed and shamed by the Iran-contra scandal, Mira Brown and her colleagues offer us an example of how we might participate in thirdworld development in practical but dramatic ways. Meanwhile, the Reagan administration continues to submit contra aid requests. If you've never written a letter to Congress calling for an end to U.S. military intervention and demanding genuine support for the regional Contadora peace negotiations (which the United States has repeatedly blocked), now is the time to write.

As U.S. citizens, we face a choice of being a part, like Ben Linder and Mira Brown, of the reconstruction of Nicaragua after 60 years of war—or part of an endless round of carnage.

Glover, Vermont

Fond Farewell

My dear friends, I would like to express my appreciation to all of you for allowing me to have had such a happy, satisfying, and productive life in your midst. What a great time we all had watching the wonderful Dartmouth community grow and prosper in its contributions to the arts and to academic tradition. It has been such a privilege to be part of the creating force behind the Hopkins Center and to see it take its rightful place as a mature and honored institution in the life of Dartmouth College.

Due to failing health, I have decided to return to my family in California. As your time permits, I would love to hear from you. Please address all correspondence to me in care of my nephew, William Bentley, P.O. Box 575, Claremont, California 91711.

You are forever in my thoughts.

Reforming Frat Man

Regarding Lee Michaelides' Special Report on fraternities in the Summer issue: the trustees have said, "We have not yet succeeded in reducing the fraternity system's dominance of social life on campus."

The situation would be alleviated, of course, by the proposed student center discussed in the Special Report. But as long as Dartmouth or any other small college is located in a small community, composed by definition of a population of still-maturing young people who reflect the society of their upbringing, so will the fraternity social system persist. People not only will discriminate —that is, choose their companions, but they have the inherent right to do so in our form of democracy.

If you would change things, only the admonition of one of Dartmouth's most illustrious alumni, R. Buckminster Fuller, L.H.D. '68, will work. He recommends: "Reform the environment, don't try to reform man." In other words, substitute dorms for the frat houses, build a student union, make dorms coed as per demand.

Providence, Rhode Island

Just Punishment?

I noticed on page 17 of the May issue that Alpha Delta Fraternity received a Humanitarian Award from the American Legion Post of Hartford, Vermont. I also read on the front page of The Dartmouth that the College has derecognized AD until 1988. I do not doubt that AD violated College rules, but I wonder if positive elements and actions of a fraternity are considered before sanctions are handed down from the administration.

Hanover, New Hampshire

Dartmouth Girls

During the first May weekend I visited Hanover as is my habit each year. On Saturday around noon time I was walking down Main Street about to pass the Dartmouth Savings Bank. A cluster of five or six comely Dartmouth girls were wildly talking, laughing, gesturing—and blocking the sidewalk so I could not pass. I stopped and waited patiently for a few moments. Finally I caught their attention saying, "Awright, ladies."

One voice in the group sensed the situation and commanded, "Break it up." As I smiled and passed through I heard another voice say to the back of my head: "That's what you get when you let 'em in."

As I moved on I glanced back but could not determine the speaker. Whoever it was, I love her quickness, her wit, her precise wording, her feeling for the larger situation —all wrapped up in a single moment. She is one of us. I am certain that this Dartmouth girl has no intention of seeking to change the words of "Men of Dartmouth."

Nantucket Island, Massachusetts