Funded Research Rises

The search for knowledge starts with a quest for cash.

A change in attitude among College administrators and faculty has resulted in a massive increase of funding for research, according to officials. The growth curve, already on an upswing, suddenly shot up 20 percent over the previous fiscal year. "I expected 12 or 13 percent growth—similar to recent years," says John F. Kavanagh, director of Grants and Contracts. The number of new awards tracked by Kavanagh's office, 424, was also up 20 percent over fiscal '87. Research, funding levels have risen from $6.8 million in 1977 to today's $36 million.

The Dartmouth Medical School received two-thirds of the total, or about $25 million in new awards. The Arts and Sciences faculty accounted for another $5.9 million, and the Thayer School of Engineering $4.2 million. Within the Arts and Sciences area three departments-biology, chemistry and physics- received the bulk of the funding, or about $3.8 million.

Funded research in Arts and Sciences extends beyond laboratory work. Donations helped allow the formation of a Humanities Institute, for example. Government Professor lan Lustick received $87,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities to compare Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip with occupation by the French in Algeria and the British in Ireland. The National Science Foundation gave $40,000 to Deborah L. Nichols, assistant professor of anthropology, to conduct an archaeological dig in Mexico and to study the economics of a pre-Columbian society.

The remaining eight percent of the total went to the Dickey Endowment for International Understanding, the Hood Museum, the Hopkins Center, the Kiewit Computation Center and the libraries. The Grants and Contracts office keeps track primarily of federal funds. Not on its ledger are private consulting agreements of Tuck faculty, some fellowships won by Arts and Sciences professors, and other awards that do not require a College sign-off.

Part of the reason for the increase in grant monies can be traced to increased administrative support. "When I first came here in 1979," John Kavanagh recalls, "there was some resistance to getting too deeply involved in externally funded research. There was a fear that we might become too dependent on outside research money and that it might take away from teaching." Now, with research costs escalating, the College supports faculty who seek outside funding, Kavanagh says.

Will the increase in research dollars tip the College's traditional balance away from teaching? Richard Sheldon, associate dean of the faculty for the humanities, denies this. "Teaching and research are not mutually exclusive at Dartmouth," he maintains.

Sheldon argues that without research support, of the prominent names on the faculty roster probably would not be at Dartmouth, and students would not have the opportunity to study under top people. Unlike Harvard, where some prominent faculty members are inaccessible to undergraduates, Dartmouth requires its faculty to teach. Dean of the Faculty Dwight Lahr reports that the College continues to hire professors as both teachers and scholars. "We don't want to recruit someone who isn't both," he says.

Dartmouth has been using research dollars to help in the increasing competition for good faculty. The College offers each new assistant professor in Arts and Sciences a research package that includes a threeyear grant of $15,000. The administration also helps professors secure additional funding. An assistant dean works virtually full-time on grantsmanship. According to Kavanagh's statistics, junior faculty have been particularly successful at winning grants.

Despite the rapid increase in funding, there are signs that Dartmouth continues to lag behind other Ivy schools. One point of comparison is the percentage of foundation and corporate support within an institution's total development effort, according to Ken Spritz, director of Foundations and Corporate Relations. By this standard, Dartmouth receives only half the Ivy League's average level of support. Spritz's office took in $9.5 million during the last fiscal year. He expects in five years to up the total to $20 million.

Frat Gap

The Dartmouth administration has refused to recognize a predominantly black social organization. According to Bud catty, assistant dean of residential life, there is "no chance" that the organization, Omega Psi Phi, will gain recognition in the future. The reason is that the College froze the number of Greek organizations to 30 in 1983. (An exception was made in 1987 when Kappa Alpha Psi was recognized, but the organization had been formed before the freeze.)

Beatty cited Trustee guidelines and administrative moves to reduce the influence of the Greek system. He said he has turned down a half dozen requests from other national Greek organizations interested in colonizing the campus.

Omega Psi Phi, which has five Dartmouth members, received recognition from its national organization during the summer. The fraternity's founders say they won't give up seeking the College's blessing. "I don't think recognition will happen before I graduate," says chapter founder Bill Wilson '90, "but we'll get it eventually."

Trustee Nomination

The Alumni Council's nominating committee announced that the first term of Alumni Trustee Robert A. Danziger '56 expires in June 1989 and that he is eligible for a second and final five-year term. In anticipation of making a recommendation to the Council at its December meeting, the nominating committee requested an evaluation of Danziger's performance from the Board of Trustees and the Board responded with a positive evaluation. The committee says it welcomes comments concerning his nomination from alumni. Comments should be sent by November 1 to: Nancy Kepes Jeton '76, 75 Pine St., Andover, MA 01810.

Bar Coded Books

In yet another move toward automation, the libraries have launched a computerized check-out system based on bar codes. "Our manual system, with colored clips, cards, stamps and signatures, is clumsy considering we have 30,000 books checked out at any one time," says John Crane '69, library circulation services manager.

The new computerized inventory system will do more than keep track of what items are checked out, Crane says. The system generates overdue notices and can analyze circulation. The librarians eventually plan to connect the automated inventory system with the on-line catalog of the library's holdings. Someday, according to Crane, a person with a personal computer should be able to find out if a particular book is available without setting foot in the library.

Signing Study

An assistant professor of Russian at Dartmouth is investigating sign language as a means of understanding the way various cultures speak.

"There's a popular misconception that there is one international sign language," says Lenore Grenoble, a linguist and assistant professor of Russian at the College. Grenoble maintains that sign languages are as individual as oral languages. "British sign is very different from American Sign Language (ASL)," says Grenoble, "and even in ASL, there are different dialects in different parts of the country."

Grenoble is spending this term in the Soviet Union studying Russian Sign Language. The professor, whose research focus is verb structure, became interested in sign language when a student noticed that the structure of Russian verbs reminded her of the ASL verb structure. "A study of RSL could increase our understanding of universal verb structure and possibly of spoken Russian," says Grenoble. "Moreover, it may add to our knowledge of gestural languages at a time when their importance is gaining ever-greater recognition in the linguistic community."

In Brief:

• A College-owned house on the corner of Summer and Park streets is the new home for Hillel, a Jewish student organization. Friday evening services and other programs were previously held in Rollins Chapel or in Collis, where they sometimes had to compete with rock bands. "On Friday nights, we want quietly social, intellectual, religious experiences, while other students may want a battle of the bands," says College Rabbi Daniel Siegel.

• The Hanover Inn's east wing will close November 1, and when it reopens in mid-May its 48 small rooms will have been converted into 32 large rooms. The $1 million renovation project will include the installation of computer network ports for people who travel with computers and want to connect to the College's system or to a commercial network.

• Shelton Stanfill has resigned as director of the Hopkins Center to become president and chief executive officer of the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

• A 40-minute documentary film about Native Americans at Dartmouth is scheduled for release this month. Bruce Duthu '80, director of Dartmouth's Native American Program, said he would like to see the film screened on all reservations in the United States.

• Executives from the largest corporations in Japan and North America spent two days last month at the Thayer School discussing new program management techniques. The two-day workshop emphasized "concept-to-market" techniques and marked the beginning of a new Thayer graduate program that includes management courses.

• Two men who staged a sit-in in Parkhurst Hall last June to protest the College's South African investment policy were found guilty of criminal trespass and given suspended $100 fines. "We were criminalized, but we're proud to have that record," said Ivan Suzman '71, fined along with fellow protestor Harvey Fields.

• Two dozen Native American high school counselors. spent a week on campus to conceive ways to overcome tribal biases against higher education. The group discussed methods to encourage Native Americans to attend liberal arts colleges. Dartmouth also hosted a similar workshop for counselors from predominantly black and Hispanic schools.

• The late Eugen RosenstockHuessy, a professor of philosophy at Dartmouth from 1935-57, was honored at an August conference at the College which, among other things, served as a reunion for veterans of Camp William James. RosenstockHuessy and Dartmouth students helped start the camp, a forerunner of the Peace Corps.

Prof. James Ho rnig (above) and Prof. James Walsh received $400,000 to measure electro-magnetic effects of power lines.