Death's Aftermath

Within the past six months, three members of the class of 1989 have died, and campus counselors say their deaths have had a major psychological effect on their classmates. The deaths were all unrelated. One student succumbed to illness, another was killed in an auto accident. Most recently, the climbing director of the Mountaineering Club, Brian Dunleavy, fell while ice-climbing.

"Not a day has gone by when a student has not mentioned to me some issue about life or emotion because of the deaths of their classmates," says Dr. Bruce Baker, chief of Outpatient Services at Dick's House. Baker adds, "Death has been brought into Dartmouth's reality and the '89s' adolescent perception of omnipotence has ended. The '89s have had to come to terms with tragedy and loss and the injustices of life."

Following each death the dean's office was flooded with students seeking counsel, according to Marlene Vergara, dean of the class of 1989. Vergara reports that the students didn't want to discuss the losses but preferred to reassess their specific career and academic goals in light of more transcendent issues.

Campaign 88: Jesse Jackson, left, Albert Gore, center, and Pierre du Pont, right, were among the candidates who appeared on campus as part of Dartmouth's William H. Spoor Dialogues on Leadership program. Presidential candidates were asked to respond to one of eight scholarly papers commissioned by the Rockefeller Center for the Social Sciences.