The Dean Of Spin

Dartmouth's mouthpiece turns his office into a bullish pulpit.

IF I COULD CHANGE MY TITLE, I'D change it to the Oracle of Dartmouth," says News Service Director Alex Huppe. "I speak the truth and nobody listens."

The problem, of course, is that at schools like Dartmouth, the "one voice" often sounds like a cacophony. To compensate, the Col lego recently formed committee of top adminis trators, comprising College Counsel Cary Clark '62, Provost John Strohbehn, Dean of the College Edward Shanahan, Tuck School Communications Director Paul Argenti, and Vice President for Development and Alumni Affairs Warren "Skip" Hance '55 as well as Huppe. Called the Public Affairs Group, the committee coordinates responses to news events and plots communications strategies.

Huppe's background suits him for the nuanced life of the academy. His last job was as assistant dean of the journalism school at Boston University. Before that, he taught English at various colleges. In dealing with the press, he spices his deft translations of academese with an ingredient that occasionally backfires: a droll (and sometimes sharpedged) sense of humor. Huppe once responded to a statement by the Review students' lawyer by saying, "Harvey Myerson is as believable as his hairpiece. " Myerson, who in fact boasts a natural thatch, later invited an embarrassed Huppe to take a tug in the middle of a Grafton County, New Hampshire, courtroom. "Any time you can inject your personality or humor into a situation, " Huppe explains, pausing for effect, "you live to regret it."

So what "situations" does Dartmouth have to look forward to? Huppe says not to expect calm in the future. "If I had a motto for Dartmouth, it would be, 'Dartmouth: The World's most Contentious College.' Look at the great lawyers we produce," he says, spinning out his best silver lining. "Look at the great debaters. The great journalists. There hasn't been a decade in Dartmouth's history when we haven't had a major national news event." He claims that many students thrive in this climate. On the other hand, the College's graduates are not so sanguine. "Some alumni have the same attitude toward the College as they do toward their children," he says. "They only want to see them in the paper when they're born and when they marry. Anything that isn't completely good news is bad news."

To get more completely good news, Huppe dreams of an endowment that would bring journalists to Hanover, the way Harvard does with the Nieman Fellowships and Duke and Stanford do with similar programs. "I wish we had the resources to get more people to spend time at Dartmouth," he sighs. "They fall in love with the place the way we all do."