LETTERS

Market to the Stars

I had forgotten how much I love and miss the truly idyllic place that is Dartmouth. It was a pleasure to be back in Hanover for my fifth reunion classmates and I are already looking forward to and planning for our tenth in 1993!

Having been away from Hanover, I once again found the College's assets made manifest. A gentleman from the Class of '64, however, raised a nagging issue that is both embarrassing and disturbing: Why is Dartmouth, with its manifold advantages, continually receiving a disproportionate amount of negative national press? With the plethora of exciting and laudable achievements taking place within the student, faculty, and alumni bodies, why is it that Dartmouth alumni constantly find themselves having to defend Dartmouth to society at large?

If we hope to maintain the vitality of the Dartmouth community, then we must focus on nurturing the applicant pool that feeds it. Negative coverage serves to drive potential candidates into the arms of other Ivy League and top-tier institutions. In order for Dartmouth to attract its share of stellar candidates we must begin to actively merchandise and leverage the College's strengths to these consumers of education. It may be a small college ... and we may love it... but we may be spending too much time internally congratulating ourselves and not enough time ensuring the continued vigor of Dartmouth via positive image-building to the outside world.

main robust, then it is going to have to start practicing what it teaches.

Chicago, Illinois

Dartmouth has a News Service but notan Office of Public Relations. The Administration and Trustees are currentlylooking into the College's communications.Announcement of any changes doesn't looklikely until later in the fall. Ed.

Good Talk

What a wonderful, informative issue was that of May! The cover using a painting by Paul Sample was an inspiration. I can only hope that all alumni who are truly interested in Dartmouth have read really read, not merely scanned the articles in the section "Can We Talk?". Larry Martz's piece was superb: the best, objective summary of events and their effects I have seen. George Munroe's effort was right on the money, and I enjoyed Mahlon Apgar's offering immensely. Please, please, if you haven't sat down and read these items, dear reader, by all means do so.

On a related subject, don't do away with "Letters." It's one feature that distinguishes the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine from less worthy efforts. Sure, call a halt on a subject when repetition sets in, and put a limit of 200 words or less to be considered, but don't eliminate the "pulse."

Greensboro, North Carolina

Flaming Fiction

The reference to "flaming leftist" Ted Laskin '51, in Larry Martz's scholarly "When Dialogue Turns to Diatribe" (May), appears in equal measure to be amusing and apocryphal.

Although 38 years may well have dimmed the memory circuits, I very much doubt that such a visit or colloquy ever occurred as described in the article.

In the first place ,John Dickey surely had more presidential concerns than the occasional gadfly musings of a radical undergraduate. And, secondly, I was too busy "running the College" from my editorial bastion in Robinson Hall...

Angels Camp, California

Which Olin?

Larry Martz '54 is due the heartfelt appreciation of all members of the Dartmouth family for his insightful, comprehensive essay. But the reference to the Olin Foundation deserves a clarification.

There are four Olin foundations. The best known (and original) is officially The Olin Foundation. It was endowed more than 40 years ago by Franklin W. Olin, a midwestern entrepreneur extraordinaire. There are perhaps as many as two dozen libraries, classroom or science laboratory buildings on as many college and university campuses in the nation bearing this Mr. Olin's name. Not one penny of F. W. Olin's endowment has gone to any cause giving support to The Dartmouth Review. IF the Dartmouth College administration, faculty and student body could one day get its act together, I would like to hope there is a remote possibility that trustees of the F. W. Olin Foundation might be persuaded to be generous to Dartmouth College . . . but that will not come to pass unless and until all elements of the greater Dartmouth family absorb the lessons implicit in the last six paragraphs of Larry Martz's article.

Branford, Connecticut

Which Road?

Regarding the April "Dartmouth Undying" on Frost: most memories of my freshman year at Dartmouth have grown hazy with time but there still is one that remains clear to me.

All of us pea-green '59 ers were required to meet once a week on Monday nights (as I recall) to hear a guest lecturer. One was Robert Frost. After his presentation, I met him briefly backstage and asked him the meaning of his poem "The Road Not Taken." Perhaps rather predictably, he asked what meaning I had found in it.

Frost explained that, while an author or poet ight indeed have a special meaning in some of his works, it was perfectly acceptable for future readers to find their own individual meanings and values in literature.

Still I wondered . . . and the poem remained on my mind. My Dartmouth years passed. I barely passed chemistry with Scarlett, fought battles with Stilwell, settled the West with Foley, learned rebel thought with West, shagged basketballs and baseballs for Rolfe's DCAC, cheered with the Indian for the Indians, earned a "Distinction" in Great Issues, drank beer at Phi Delta Theta ... and graduated.

In the process my metamorphosis began from a shy and somewhat introverted adolescent to an acceptably social person, from a thoughtless 18-year-old to a hopefully thoughtful young adult, from a goalless youth to a goal-setting young man.

The process continues. It began at Dartmouth which, as Robert Frost said in "The Road Not Taken," "has made all the difference."

Grand Rapids, Michigan

Why Give?

Like many Dartmouth graduates, recently I received one or two calls reminding me that I had not made my annual contribution to the Alumni Fund. As had been the case in the past, I had simply not "gotten around to it" at the time of the calls. Not that Dartmouth will live or die by the receipt or non-receipt of what at best might be described as my symbolic contributions over the years, you understand; however, symbols are important, and in most years I have sent off a modest check to Dartmouth.

With that background, for the first time, the calls did prompt the question: "Why should I give this year?" More than once over the past year I have found myself angered by reports of events in Hanover. It is safe to say that no party to any of the events has escaped my ire, but I guess I expect more of the administration/faculty than I do of the students who have been involved. I speak from neither a "left" nor "right" perspective; in the abstract I can appreciate the legitimacy of most of the basic points of the various factions involved. What has bothered me is the apparent lack of leadership, management skills, and even ethics shown by the administration in dealing with the various issues.

If the administration cannot manage better in admittedly contentious situations, I will not support the College. In today's world we no longer have the luxury of supporting the type of frightened leadership, with attendant mismanagement of events, I detect in the current Dartmouth administration. First Dartmouth is a university then it is still a college. First Dartmouth supports free speechthen it cannot abide free speech that is vulgar or blatantly antagonistic because it creates tensions that might scare away professorial talent. (Query: Should students be taught by those unwilling or unable to compete in a world that can get dirty and tough?) First fraternities are an unhealthy anachronism to be replaced by other presumably more benign, social structures then they are still a positive piece of a diverse mosaic.

Napoleon said it best: "Get your principles right and the rest is a matter of detail." What exactly are Dartmouth's principles today? If they are set, they have not been articulated clearly by the current administration.

Newton Highlands, Massachusetts

In public relations, is the College blowing its own horn only to itself?