Letters
Well-Roundedness
I have read May's "critique of the reigning campus dilettantism" by Karen, Avenoso '88, as well as Newsweek's spotlight on Dartmouth and its new goal to "squash the smart jock image." After contemplating the implications of both articles I felt frustrated, insulted and sad.
I happen to be one of those "athletic, out going, bright and involved" students whom Ms. Avenoso would like to see replaced. During my four years at Dartmouth I completed my premed requirements while majoring in biology, earned a varsity letter in cross-country, set a record in track, and belonged to a sorority. I value immensely the education I received as a result of a demanding and often exhausting schedule.
When I look around my medical school class and see how narrow-minded, unsocial, and overly serious some of my fellow students are, I wonder how they will deal with their patients in their respective practices.
I will never forget how excited I was on my freshman trip when Dean Margaret Bonz told 'me that the next four years could be referred to as the "Dartmouth Experience." Now, I only hope that in striving for its new image Dartmouth won't change so completely that those of us who weren't Merit Scholars and didn't write poetry in our spare time will no longer have a place at the College. To me, that would disregard a valuable, and integral character of Dartmouth which I believe is one of its special traits. The College should exist for both our education and our enjoyment.
Boston, Massachusetts
In his open letter to President Freedman in the May issue, Tom Bloomer '53 states that "the achievement of intellectualism may be at the expense of leadership." That view may be correct (I found his "evidence" to be less than persuasive) but it is not the point. President Freedman is the first Dartmouth official to correctly identify the primary shortcoming of the College: a lack of intellectualism within the student body. This has nothing to do with leadership; it has everything to do with what a college or university is about, the kinds of students it seeks to attract, and the environment in which learning in and out of the classroom takes place.
I for one do not accept the notion that leadership is sacrificed by intellectualism. The greatest contribution Dartmouth can make to society is to prepare intelligent leaders. There are many ways of measuring this quality, but by virtually any standard my impression is that Dartmouth has trailed the Harvards and Yales of this world.
South Glastonbury, Connecticut
I read in Newsweek that one of the Review editors got himself all lathered tip about President Freedman's radical new program to lure the brightest of this year's high school graduates to Hanover. "You can't just go for a quick fix by letting some geeks into Dartmouth College," the panicky fellow warned.
What are these people really afraid of? Seems like anyone radically different from them. And now they're going after smart people. Makes sense when you think about it.
Gloucester, Massachussetts
Tom Bloomer appears to consider leadership as a good quality in itself. I wonder if he has thought about this idea very much.
America has never lacked leaders. In the early days some of them even qualified as intellectuals. Since the days of Andy Jackson, however, leadership has come to mean drama and personality and derring do, political, military, or financial. We have had Winfield Scott, Zack Taylor, Robert E. Lee, Dartmouth's own Dan'1 Webster, Andy Carnegie, the Rockefellers, Teddy Roosevelt, Henry Ford, some Hollywood characters, and a whole excrementload more. Remember Doug MacArthur?
What our country has lacked, in every age, is men and women in public life who make the right choices even when they are the hard choices. Why was it that during World War II so few Americans condemned internment of Japanese-Americans or suggested that our country relax its immigration policy in order to save potential victims of concentration camps? We have leadership but little moral or intellectual courage.
If Socrates and Voltaire and John Sloan Dickey were right, higher education has something to do with learning to make distinctions between right and wrong. If a certain moral and intellectual honesty have not been achieved, what will be the purpose of leadership?
Consider this year's presidential elections and the leadership questions raised so far. The only candidate who addresses the problems of workers, of homelessness, of economic injustice in all its forms, is a black preacher who would not have been allowed to scrounge for scraps beneath Dartmouth's table in the good old days. His only fraternity ties are to the human race, and he learned about leadership the hard way, by being denied fellowship.
I say unto thee, doubtful Thomas, you and I ought to be dancing in the streets, for great will be the students' rewards in the classroom when the news gets out that brains are worth more than porkbellies, yea, even more than old school ties. Let's be brave enough to be glad.
Brooklyn, New York
Tom Bloomer's concern, though well-intentioned, contains the implicit assumption that most college students are arrayed in two mutually exclusive camps. In one camp are the academically average students who enter law or business and become "leaders." In the other camp are the academically superior students who get Ph.D.'s and become "intellectual" professors.
The Dartmouth community has suffered too long from these stereotypes, which posit a false dichotomy between intellectuals and leaders. Mr. Bloomer does not define his concept of "leadership," but if a "leader" is defined as "one who holds a position of civic prominence, influence, or power," and if an "intellectual" is defined as "one who has a well-developed intellect and a taste for advanced knowledge" (Oxford American Dictionary), it will readily be seen that there is no inherent contradiction, between the two concepts. To cite a few examples, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Henry Kissinger have shown that both sets of characteristics can be combined effectively.
Avidly intellectual students thus should not be regarded as freaks (or "geeks"), or as a threat to the development of leaders. They should enjoy, if not the lionizing given to football stars, at least the acceptance and respect given to future Rotarians. I applaud President Freedman's efforts to correct the imbalance.
(Lest it be thought that I have any personal ax to grind, let me mention that I am not a professor; I have an MBA and work at a bank.)
Concord, Massachussetts
There are thousands of public and private universities eager to embrace the intellectual mediocrities Mr. Bloomer, under the banner of "leadership," urges upon Dartmouth. Let them have them. It is far easier to be dragged down to the level of "hail fellow well met" than to rise to the level of Rhodes scholarships.
Dartmouth should be at the forefront of institutions that recognize the unique role of intellect in the leadership challenges facing the nation. Our Dartmouth heritage includes many virtues associated with the good life which may be distinguished from the life of the mind per se. By focusing our attention on the primacy of the life of the mind, we will lose nothing of value from our heritage; we will simply be getting our priorities straight.
Newton, New Jersey
Pondering the nature of future additions to the Dartmouth family, I cheer the foresight and prudent concern of Tom Bloomer. Though I share President Freedman's cogent interest in academic excellence and intellectual pursuits, this must not obscure the merits of applicants who are and will become future leaders in society though perhaps are not foremost intellectuals or brilliant academic achievers.
Karen Avenoso's column describing the intellectual or the student as "on the margin" is familiar to me for I, too, spent quiet Friday and Saturday evenings in Baker's stacks, in Kresge Science Library, and the Wheeler"pit." The "fear of revealing" such endeavors is an unfortunate paradox which should not prevail in the college or university environment. For this reason I have awaited introduction of this discussion and applaud the renewed emphasis on academic achievement which President Freedman proposes.
However, scrutiny and a tender hand must balance several goals which must be inherent to an excellent liberal arts institution such as Dartmouth.
Providence, Rhode Island
Blooming Debate
The Closing of the American Mind: "don't even ask what they read in Women's Studies, beyond the fig leaves, of how it is presented. Don't even ask." Jeffrey Hart, Alumni Magazine, March 1988.
New Haven, Connecticut
Is "Academia Failing"? Even after reading the articles in the March issue, I'm afraid I don't know the answer. But if it's any help to realize that it is not a new question, I refer you to the January 1924 Alumni Magazine, which discusses the purpose of the College. The discussion arose because of a faculty report which wasn't especially complimentary of graduates' intellectual and mental capacity, and because of an answering editoral in the Daily Dartmouth which asked what the purpose of the College really was.
There is little new under the sun.
Needham, Massachusetts
In the opinion of seven out of 11 textbook editors, Allan Bloom's position about higher education as argued by Professor Jeffrey Hart in the April issue won the debate over the counterarguments of Dean Gregory Prince. The majority thought that all college students aspiring to be "liberally educated" should be required to read the major plays of Shakespeare, the dialogues of Plato, and other classic texts.
As one of the 11 at the conference table, I found myself sympathizing with both the "ancients" (Bloom-Hart) and the "moderns" (Prince) but finally voted as an ancient. The hands that went up in dissent, I noticed, were younger than mine. We found the Hart-Prince debate to be much better focused than the murky discussion of that thesis featured in a cover story of the Saturday Review.
Before our discussion and vote, I had distributed copies of the Alumni Magazine's debate to fellow editors at Amsco School Publications, a textbook house in New York City. Our little group meets periodically during our lunch hour to discuss classics in literature and an occasional article. For one delightful hour, it is like sitting around a Dartmouth seminar table; perhaps even better, because there is no professor to impress, no paper to write, and no grades to worry about.
Does any reader of this letter wish to know more about starting book discussions in a business setting? I'd be happy to respond to inquiries. I suspect that many Dartmouth graduates would relish spending an occasional lunch hour with Shakespeare, Plato, and other heroes of the unclosed mind.
Short Hills, New Jersey
Courageous Stand
Congratulations to our new president for taking a courageous stand on the Dartmouth Review issue. I will double my Alumni Fund contribution. Not all Harvard men are wimps!
Needham, Massachusetts
President James O. Freedman's recent speech to the faculty on the subject of the Dartmouth Review was magnificent. I'd like to thank him for representing Dartmouth as I've known it, a college that is stronger for its rich array of students and faculty, a place where ongoing, spirited, intellectual conversations are conducted with mutual respect.
Cornish, New Hampshire
In my senior year I had the privilege to interview President Emeritus Ernest Martin Hopkins, and though it was 25 years ago, I still vividly recall his strength of conviction and clear sense of duty.
President Freedman, you are cut from the same cloth. Dartmouth is once again in safe hands!
Suffern, New York
With the text of James Freedman's words to a faculty gathering printed in the April 3 (Easter) Sunday Boston Globe, Dartmouth's tattered public image began to resurrect from the dead.
Warren, Vermont
I urge all alumni(ae) to study the President's address carefully and note that Mr. Freedman opines not against the freedom to express political or intellectual views, be they conservative, liberal, or even harshly critical. What the President condemns is bad manners, malicious behavior, and intolerance of diversity.
DEAN EMERITUS, DARTMOUTH MEDICAL SCHOOL Hanover, New Hampshire
To President Freedman, for the longneeded light and fresh air on the William Buckley-begotten Review infection, much thanks. By all means, may he keep the windows open and let the hill winds blow.
Green Farms, Connecticut
As a former advisor for many years of a university student newspaper in Delaware I have always supported, and still do, an absolutely free student press. But I find President Freedman's criticism entirely in order. One old tradition that must not fail is elementary human decency.
Wilmington, Delaiware
Although the entire episode relating to the Dartmouth Review brings to mind the familiar expression, truth is stranger than fiction, the obverse maxim fallacy can be as pervasive as fact may equally applyHence, if nothing more I trust we shall have learned from the Review that the safeguarding of Dartmouth's future must chiefly depend upon eternal vigilance, a vigilance we now can recognize as one that President Freedman is strongly committed to maintain.
New Haven, Connecticut
A psychologist once related an incident that is appropriate to this issue. A man had been referred to her after being incarcerated for wife beating. They had had an argument and he had lost. His explanation was very simple. "She was so right that I just had to hit her!"
Freedom of speech may be assailed in a number of ways. One is to intimidate the speaker. President Freedman has chosen to say "enough is enough." His speech to the faculty was like a breath of clean ocean air.
Newport News, Virginia
President Freedman's plea for tolerance and community responsibility had best be heeded, or Dartmouth will continue its slide to the mediocrity toward which some of us have the feeling it has been heading.
Jamestown, New York
Now perhaps the years of correspondence with the magazine (on both sides) about such inanities as the Dartmouth logo, the football coach, and the lyrics of the Alma Mater may also come to an end. For an institution that aspires to the highest repute, these years have been, to this alumus, an embarrassment.
Congratulations, President Freedman
Alexandria, Virginia
Return Freedman
In view of recent events, I urge all fellow alumni to:
• Run, don't walk, to the nearest bookstore to purchase Allan Bloom's "The Closing of the American Mind." It is difficult reading, but well worth the effort. Bloom discredits everything our new president is attempting to accomplish. James Freedman has made it clear that Dartmouth is unworthy of his talents, so perhaps we can return him to lowa (or Harvard) and draft Bloom.
• Get a copy of the transcript of the Cole "Music" course, and decide for yourself if this represents academic distinction. If it does, perhaps the campus should be moved to an urban location where students can hear this type of language outside of class as well as in it.
• Give no money to the College until we have a new administration and more competent faculty. It is interesting to note that the two most radical faculties in the Ivy League (Brown and Dartmouth) are also its least distinguished. President Freedman seems to miss the point that Dartmouth's existing student body is at least in the top ten nationally in terms of intellectual ability, and is being taught by a second-rate faculty (apologies to John Kemeny and a handful of others). What's going on in Hanover now happened 20 years ago at places like Cornell (read Bloom).
Amherst, New Hampshire
President Freedman has committed the worst crime that today's college administrators can: he has encouraged the so-called liberal minority to decide arbitrarily what the so-called conservatives are permitted to say.
New Canaan, Connecticut
I have some questions for President Freedman:
1) Why do you pander to the faculty?
2) Why are you prohibiting the First Amendment?
3) Why do you preside over Kangaroo Courts and punish unfairly?
4) Why do you not preserve Dartmouth traditions?
5) Why do you persist in turning Dartmouth College into an elitist intellectual, international University?
A) Abolish fraternities/sororities?
B) Abolish ROTC?
C) Abolish AAS, NAD, DAGLO, WSD? I bet not.
Please prepare to resign the Presidency!
Montclair, New Jersey
Bad Reviews
I consider myself a "conservative" in economics, politics, human relations. But if I were to gauge conservatism solely by the Review, I would become a flaming liberal.
Virginia Beach, Virginia
In 1930, if any similar event had taken place, such as occurred recently and is the subject of President Freedman's address, there would have been no hearing or appeal or any need for a faculty meeting. President Hopkins in conjunction with Dean Laycock would have immediately joined forces in kicking the culprits out of Hanover, not for six months, not for one year, but forever, to correct the obvious error that such students were admitted in the first place.
San Diego, California
Whatever became of the old policy of EXPELLING undesirable students? Free inquiry and tolerance of others are essential to the learning process. Those out of tune with those fundamentals should go elsewhere.
Vero Beach, Florida
As a former Review supporter who now reads my complimentary issues with disgust, I am saddened that apparently bright, ambitious Dartmouth students can be so mean, small, malicious and seemingly oblivious to the fact that they are truly harming Dartmouth. Parents and prospective students throughout the country are looking askance at Dartmouth and its desirability as a place of study.
Tampa, Florida
The recent activities of certain members of the Dartmouth Review have reminded me of Senator Joseph McCarthy, and of Arthur Welch's wise and powerful condemnation of the senator's cruelty. I was fortunate in being one of the T.V. witnesses to that dramatic moment some 30 years ago.
It would seem that the Dartmouth Review young men have been following more in the footsteps of the unlamented senator than in those of Young Crusaders.
Hanover, New Hampshire
I regret that the perpetrators were afforded the dignity of academic due process; Professor Cole should merely have called the cops.
Chevy Chase, Maryland
I teach about the free press, and urge the students to be skeptical. Colleges and universities ought to be incubators of ideas and political passions.
But they are also vulnerable to the antics of self-appointed truth-tellers and bullies. These are, of course, just the people who don't understand, or care about, what's needed to preserve the atmosphere of open debate and academic freedom they bask in.
THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITYWashington, D.C.
Whenever I teach about McCarthyism, I will always be reminded of the fear and suspicion generated among the members of several campus groups when "that paper" under the guise of freedom of expression began to covertly record the meetings of campus organizations. It was in those meetings that I learned just how silencing fear can be. It was a valuable lesson, but one I wish I had not had to learn at Dartmouth.
Providence, Rhode Island
At long last we understand the real function and reason for being of the Dartmouth Review. It is obviously a primary training school for National Enquirer cub-reporters.
ALDIS P. BUTLER '36
Napa, California
The lack of tolerance, mutual respect and civility which the Review not just encourages but deliberately incites is a disgrace to the College. It corrupts the life of the student body and demeans the College to the outside world.
Gladwyne, Pennsylvania
Good Review
On page 16 of your May issue you report that I dissociate myself "from much of the paper's coverage" re the Dartmouth Review.
In my extemporaneous remarks at the faculty meeting, I endorsed President Freedman's call for civility. I said that in several particular cases the Review had violated what I consider the norms of good journalism several cases over an eight year period. All newspapers sometimes stray.
However, I do not want my overall position on these matters misunderstood. I consider the Dartmouth Review to be the best undergraduate journal in the country a professional judgement that is supported by the professional journalistic success of the Review's alumni.
The Review's investigative reporting, in my opinion, has been important and customarily right on target.
Hanover, New Hampshire
Cole's Reception
Thank you for your notes on Professor William Cole in the May issue. I think that the College would have been pleased with the reception Professor Cole received when he was the guest of the Dartmouth Club of Maine on April 23, in Portland. He covered the "Cole Affair" very nicely, of course presenting his side of the story, upon which an exeditor of the Dartmouth Review rose to ask a question. The question became a speech, and the speech, an attack. The ex, who just happened to be passing through Portland from her job in D.C., showed the gathered alumni and not a few members of the class of '92 the level at which the Review stands on the Cole issue.
I previously have felt I may have been missing something by not being a Review subscriber. I need not have worried.
Portland, Maine
Campus Injustice
Clearly, the College finds itself in a web of inconsistencies. For example, the College insists on treating the "offenders" as students And not journalists. Yet, from John Sutter's report, Mr. Freedman refuses Sutter the courtesy, access and dialogue entitled any student, treating him instead like a blacklisted reporter.
The College claims its decision centered on the issue of conduct and not free speech. What action did the College take in response to the infamous tampon throwing incident? What are the names of the women who were expelled for their conduct?
Apparently, student support and identification with the Review is accompanied by increasing risk. Even at the beginning when my classmates founded the Review, the message from College officials was clear. Antagonistic comments against the paper from a dean and several faculty members made to me privately as a student left an unmistakable impression. An affiliation with the Review was frowned upon. At the time, I was unwilling to take the risk that my grades would be impacted. Looking back, I am sorry I felt dissuaded. My experience increases my respect for Review staffers. I am ashamed that my College is making them heroes.
Tulsa, Oklahoma
The standing ovation following President Freedman's address to the March 28 Special Faculty meeting says it all: finally the administration baldly admits that "diversity," "differences and otherness," Dartmouth's great step forward to the future, does not apply to the Dartmouth Review or its student editors.
One hopes this was an oversight and not a blueprint for the future.
Daytona Beach, Florida
Mr. Freedman has resorted to "malicious bullying tactics" by presiding over heinous punishments to those who disagree with the administration. This point is proved by the severe suspensions of Review staffers who asked a professor tough questions. That same professor had, some time earlier, raced into a dormitory screaming obscenities, and violently tried to break down the door of a female student who had written an article about his class. His punishment? A slap on the wrist.
Devon, Pennsylvania
There is no doubt in my mind that if a white professor used his podium to call his black students niggers, and behaved toward blacks as Cole has behaved toward whites, he would be run out of Hanover by sundown. And rightly so. But a black professor commits parallel offenses, and it is the white students who are run out of town. The pattern of College complicity in politically biased racist behavior is unmistakable.
Falls Church, Virginia
Having read the Review students' taped encounter with Music Professor William Cole, I am completely disgusted with the so-called professor's reaction and language.
Whatever one's persuasion regarding the controversy, to think that the president of our College could overlook, rationalize, or allow such loutish action to be a professor's example for students learning to be responsible adults, leads me to the conclusion that President Freedman's sense of values are no better than Cole's. They will make cheap music together, I guess.
But alumni and students who condone such disharmonic manners and bad taste will have wasted their years at Dartmouth. Let birds of a feather flock together. They deserve one another. To think that they frown on Indian language!
Boston, Massachusetts
My reaction to the disposition made by Dean Shanahan arising out of the unfortunate incident with the Dartmouth Review students is that the determination may have infringed upon the students' First Amendment rights. In addition, the punishment was grossly excessive.
Dartmouth should have sufficient confidence in itself to reduce the suspension periods.
New York, New York
As the distinguished faculty of Dartmouth College gather together in the robes of a false priesthood, let us hope that they are somehow able to see how intellectually corrupt the tenet, my comrade right or wrong, appears to an outside observer with any common sense.
Los Angeles, California
Absurdist Theater
I have just read your report on the episode involving Professor Cole and members of the Dartmouth Review. I want to congratulate all concerned for this brilliantly conceived, conceptually daring piece of improvisational performance art.
This collaborative, student-faculty production had both whimsical parody and biting social commentary. The witty blankverse dialogue especially Professor Cole's inspired line about how a student "invaded my space with his cigarette bad breath" was worthy of Luigi Pirandello or Bertold Brecht.
It would be an injustice not to recognize the contributions of the entire ensemble, including the College administration, whose costumes, sets and stage design for the "student disciplinary hearing" created a quasi-judicial mood eerily evocative of the Scopes monkey trial in "Inherit the Wind." Applause, as well, is due that promising newcomer, President Freedman, whose deliberately low-key portrayal expressed mostly through a series of dense bureau cratic statements provided a bland yet effective counterpoint to the bizarre enactments of Professor Cole et a1.
This untitled theatrical work demonstrates the remarkable growth and artistic maturity that have taken place at the College since the sensational yet ultimately shallow "shanty bashing" drama of two years ago.
San Francisco, California
Regarding the imbroglio between the Dartmouth Review and Music Professor Bill Cole, I am thrilled as a once Dartmouth music student to find this little academic department in the spotlight for a change. I get so tired of people saying to me, "You majored in music at Dartmouth? I didn't even know Dartmouth had a music department!"
Hearty congratulations, therefore, to both sides, to the administration, the College house organs, and legions of right and lef-twing students and alumni for according the basement of the Hopkins Center some much deserved publicity.
Toronto, Ontario
Hopkins Ads
I have read the lesson on management directed to the trustees and administrative officers of the College in the April advertisement by the Ernest Martin Hopkins Institute.
There is irony in the Institute's call for "strong, incisive leadership." Felicitously, its primer-like exposition had no sooner been published than we were treated to a stunningly impressive instance of strong, incisive leadership: the manner and substance of President Freedman's dealing with the thorny problem of the Dartmouth (sic) Review's presence and influence in our Dartmouth community.
It may well be that the Institute has put the shoe on the wrong (its own) foot. If its members would only share with President Freedman the opposite ends of a log, I daresay they would receive cogently, civilly, without condescension a more advanced discourse on the art of managing than that which they had offered him.
Norwalk, Connecticut
In an ad in your magazine my classmate, George Champion, has misunderstood the role of the college president and trustee. While it is true that the president may be chosen by the Trustees, no worthy candidate would accept the job were he to take orders from them.
Dartmouth's prestige has sunk so low among the intelligentsia since the Review editors besmirched our name that we are very lucky to catch a man of Freedman's stature willing to patiently rebuild what they have so wantonly destroyed.
In a previous felony, the people of George Champion's ilk stole the good name of Dartmouth for their Review. It is sad to see them now steal the name of Ernest Martin Hopkins for their group. He was quite a guy.
Westport, Connecticut
The Hopkins Institute's officers seem seriously mired in the past. Psychologists speak of "letting go." I wish these adult men would do a little letting go so that the young men and women of Dartmouth could thrive in an atmosphere of ecumenism and enlightenment.
New York, New York
For the information of those readers who found the Hopkins Institute ad on "Women's Issues at Dartmouth College" to be "sexist propagandizing," "misleading" and "inaccurate," the copy was drafted by a well-informed female Dartmouth undergraduate. It was edited and approved by members of the Hopkins Institute Board of Directors. It seems to have stepped on some sensitive toes.
VICE PRESIDENT ERNEST MARTIN HOPKINS INSTITUTE
Mecklin Speaks
Professor John Mecklin was the most profound person I've ever known. His "Most of us live our way into thinking instead of thinking our way into living" has stuck with me and I've found it 100-percent true. Also from that class on Social Ethics: the test of an honest man is that we will recognize the truth 'though it slay him.
Los Angeles, California
I have all my course notes from Sociology 15 and 16, taken in the fall of 1939 and the spring of 1940, along with the syllabi and the final exams. This amounts to more than a hundred pages of material, all John Mecklin. Could some aspiring graduate student be persuaded to see what Meckliana could be reconstructed out of these and other such notes?
"My Quest for Freedom," Mecklin's autobiography, was published by Charles Scribner's Sons, in New York in 1945. It never hurts to recall one of Dartmouth's alltime great teachers, especially in these trying times. I can still hear him upstairs in Wentworth Hall: "Freedom... (long pause)... freedom is not enough."
Claremont, California
Women's Resources
The question of men's involvement in the new Dartmouth Women's Resource Center is "moot," says its new director, Judith White, "because the center will be not only a resource for women but a resource from women. And men have always used resources from women's experience."
If Director White intends the accurate meaning of "moot," let's by all means examine the logic of her answer. Is the justification for a center its affording resources "from" any particular group that have always been used by men? If this is to be the test for the establishment of centers in a scheme of education made the vassal of partitive politics, new construction on the Hanover Plain will be unceasing.
Schenectady, New York
Naval Battle
The article in the April issue about Bob Baumrucker on the U.S.S. West Virginia brought back memories of that battle 44 years ago. I was a lieutenant on the WestVirginia in charge of topside damage control and watched those shells from our guns as they made their way to the Fuso. It was a remarkable bit of gunnery!
Center Harbor, New Hampshire
Symbolism
Now that we are back to suggesting new symbols for the College, here are a few more thoughts:
The "Dartmouth Crocodiles" would contain a ready-made tradition. Crocs are green and people have been advertising them on sport shirts for years.
The "Intellex" has a nice hightech ring to it and faces the Freedman future. "Zebras" with no added comment.
With all the mail we receive from Hanover and the new Postmaster General a Dartmouth grad, maybe the "Zip Coders" would work.
How about the "Celts" (pronounced 'Kelts')? The Irish would not be offended.
Of course, the dogs of Hanover seem obvious but what breed? A lot of dogs are already taken.
One last thought: "The Stumps." A throwback to the Lone Pine and a description of where we are.
Providence, Rhode Island
Whoops
In the Reunion flyer, I learned that on June 16 we would have an opportunity to join Tom Rush where we would be "singing along lustfully."
We had been planning to come as a family. But, now...
Lewisburg, Pennsylvania
Revived Degree
Being a graduate of the combined Thayer Tuck major in 1935, it was with a modicum of amusement that I read about the"New Engineering Degree" being made available to Thayer School students at Dartmouth this fall.
In the early 1930s we had a great Thayer Tuck program going, which I in my innocence thought still existed.
It was great for me personally, for when I graduated from Thayer in 1935 in the depths of the Depression, I was able to get a job surveying at $4 per day for the New Hampshire Highway Department. After conditions improved in a couple of years, I was able to get into manufacturing. There I made use of both my business and engineering education. And because of my liberal arts exposure in the College, I was welcome in any drawing room anywhere.
I wound up my career with 25 years of management consulting which brought into play all facets of my Dartmouth Thayer-Tuck educational experience.
Delray Beach, Florida
Market Crash
It appears that, in utilizing a dynamic hedging technique known as portfolio insurance to "protect" Dartmouth's endowment assets, Treasurer Robert E. Field ignored all of the fundamental management principles. Rather than adhering to more proven, long-term investment disciplines, Mr. Field opted to implement a hedging tactic that was untested in bear markets, highly susceptible to unusual market volatility, and remarkably short-sighted in its outlook.
Portfolio insurance, by its very nature, lowers the long-term expected return of a portfolio. What does this mean for Dartmouth's endowment? It means that Mr. Field magically became a market timer sometime last year and suddenly adopted a short-term strategy. This philosophy runs counter to the endowment's objective, which is to maximize long-term return.
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Notes with Class
Generally one who skims the Alumni Magazine, I recently stumbled across what is now my favorite section: the class notes from our oldest brethren.
Occasionally written by devoted widows of alumni, these plainly reported accounts are often full of quaint humor, insight, and a positiveness that is inspiring. The younger readers may find the matured acumen a pleasant supplement to their own class notes.
Salem, Massachusetts
Macho Cowboys
I was surprised and delighted with Ambassador Bosworth's analysis of what's needed in our foreign policy (April). A big wow! for a clear, incisive mind, working in an adminstration full of macho cowboys engendering international ill-will with almost every pronouncement or action. Thank you, Mr. Bosworth, for a reasoned treatise on pragmatism within our democratic ideals.
Tiburon, California
Funding Meetings
I hope Professor Dunne ("Making Ambitious Ends Meet," April) might explain why education faculty require department funding "to meet regularly with teachers in the local schools." Are parents paid to attend PTA meetings?
Bogota, Columbia
FAITH DUNNE REPLIES
First, Mr. Samson misunderstands the facts. The funding we would like would not pay the education faculty, but would enable the local teachers to leave their classrooms to attend the meetings.
Second, his analogy is befuddling. Parents join the PTA to protect the interests of their children. What is the parallel?
ROTC Loss
My oldest son has just gone through the college admission process and one of the schools at which he was accepted is Dartmouth. He was an attractive enough candidate to be offered "Presidential Scholar" status. But my son will not be attending Dartmouth. Because Dartmouth has denied him the opportunity to use his NROTC scholarship, my son will attend Cornell.
Thus a decision I protested 20 years ago has deprived Dartmouth of what I feel would have been a truly outstanding student and has deprived me of the pleasure of having my son at Dartmouth. How many other fine students is Dartmouth denying itself because it does not have the same active ROTC programs that benefitted it so many years ago and more? If possible, this decision should be reversed so that future students can take advantage of this opportunity. Not incidentally, I feel that our country will be better for it.
Bainbridge Island, Washington
Tokenism
For some time Dartmouth College officials have denied that the College practices tokenism and uses quotas in its recruitment of students. In fact,, the College has been seeking token students of various race, gender, and nationality and has had quota goals to increase percentages of selected groups.
A "token" is defined as "something that serves as a symbol," also, "in partial fulfillment of an obligation or engagement; hence having mere semblance or serving as a mere sign or sample of the real thing."
Dartmouth has recruited token black and native American students, for example. It does not seek all its students from these groups, but has felt obliged to matriculate some (token) quantities, not because they are superior or excellent candidates but because they contribute to the dubious goal of diversity.
"Quota" is defined as a "certain proportional part of share. The share assigned to each in a division or to each member of a body."
In fact, Dartmouth College personnel policies have been utilizing both tokenism and quotas regardless of what the official definition is. In general, the policy is shaped by theories of diversity rather than standards of excellence and equal opportunity.
Atlanta, Georgia
Eleazar's Noggins
While trying to bring some order to the contents of my desk, I came across a bit of trivial intelligence that had been tucked away for years with no occasion for using it namely, that 16 noggins equal one pottle (one-half gallon), 18 pottles equal one firkin, two firkins equal one kilderkin, seven kilderkins equal one butt (also one pipe), and two butts equal one tun (252 gallons).
If all this be true, Eleazar Wheelock, according to Hovey, arrived in Hanover with 1,000 pottles of rum, or 55.5 firkins if you prefer. From there on down, his liquid luggage translates into 28 kilderkins, four butts, or two tuns, give or take a few gallons. In those days a barrel was about 31 gallons, so 500 gallons meant 17 barrels, no mean feat of transportation with everything else that had to be crammed into one oxcart. Could it be that Eleazar really brought only 31 gallons of rum, or maybe 62?
Hanover, New HampshireBeat Yale
I had the opportunity to read through the April 1988 issues of Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, Yale Alumni Magazine and the Princeton Alumni Weekly (April 6) and wish to share personal reactions.
The most interesting and stimulative reading of the three was the Yale magazine. A stunning, multi colored front cover shows the creation of a human life in a glass dish, illustrating "The Science of Making Babies." All the articles proved very interesting, rewarding and informative reading.
Princeton's Weekly covered those regular features found in every college magazine.
To me, at least, the best article in this issue was "Making Ambitious Ends Meet." Dartmouth is a University and sometime this fact will be recognized and acclaimed. Let us have an open debate on this issue!
All in all, the Dartmouth magazine was on a par with (and even better than) Princeton's but not quite as dazzling and noteworthy as Yale's!
Bay Harbor Islands, Florida
The Indian
I recently visited Miami University in Oxford, Ohio where the Art Department was attempting to recruit my high school senior daughter. We stayed at the new Miami Inn and I was struck by the engraved plaque at one end of the lobby. I'll share it with you:
"It is our counsel that the name 'Redskins' is a revered and honored name in the eyes and hearts of the people of Miami University, and that it signifies to them as to us the qualities of courage, self-discipline, respect, kindness, honesty and love exemplified by generations of young athletes. We, the Miami Redskins of Indian blood, and our namesake, the Miami University Redskins, have a mutual and cherished heritage. May it be blessed... as long as the wind shall blow." Council of the Chiefs of the Miami Tribes, 1972.
I stared at the plaque for a good five minutes, just in case some day the winds shifted and this moving sentiment was covered up.
Winnetka, Illinois
From this remove in time and space it seems: That whatever their intent, Kemeny was a wrecker and McLaughlin was a wimp, and Freedman rates a chance to measure up to the larger Hopkins mantle.
That the loonies have been running the asylum in some sort of 1960s time-warp with predictable but apparently uncalculated cost in athletic and academic achievement.
That considerable numbers of profitlessly provoked alums with golden eggs are going to need the alma mater in some recognizable form and the damned Indian as tangible proof that something remains of their youth, and the school theirs too, after all that they remember and love.
San Diego, California
The solution to the Dartmouth-Indian controversy is presently at hand. By this time everyone must agree that customs and traditions cannot be directed by presidential edict (especially when it is released by those having no knowledge or interest in either).
The prohibition of the use or utterance of the inspiring cheers, songs and symbols must be reversed before it is too late. The time to act is now.
On Saturday, February 20, 1988, we learned" why at a basketball contest in Hanover between Dartmouth and Cornell, which was the first winter event that I attended since 1935.
Dartmouth was favored or at least a "pick" but Cornell put it to us by ten to 15 points until late in the game when the margin was narrowed to a few points. A questionable back-court foul was called on Dartmouth and then we heard for the first time a new Dartmouth cheer.
"Bull s . . t, Bull s . . t," rang from the Dartmouth stands, loud and clear. After each point resulting from the foul was scored, the cheer "Bull s. . t" resounded louder and louder, rocking the new Leede Arena. President Freedman and his wife, who were sitting in the stands, were obviously embarrassed. Isn't that enough?
I suggest that we bring back all the old songs, cheers, traditions and symbols. Remove the yoke. Let everyone decide for himself or herself what is right and proper as long as it is decent.
Let me and the rest of the loyal Dartmouth men hear the songs and view the symbols every day without fear that the Bulls.. ters will someday take us over too.
Terryville, Connecticut
