LIVING THE LIFE OF THE MIND

The once-scornedPresidentialScholarsProgram hasbeen givennew life inthe formof researchassistantships.

two YEARS AGO, IN AN EFFORT TO COMPETE with Other elite schools, Dartmouth invited 200 top high school students from around the country to visit the campus. The students were told they would become "Presidential Scholars" if they matriculated at the College, and were promised tailored programs, including seminars and special access to faculty. Fifty-five of the students accepted. But before the program could even get off the ground, there was an uproar among students. Elite school and all, Dartmouth students have long prided themselves on their egalitarianism. Why should some be picked out for achievement before they even got to college? The comments ignored the fact that the top four percent of sophomores, juniors, and seniors were also named Presidential Scholars. In fact, many of the scholars themselves studiously ignored the fact, refusing to reveal their honored status out of scorn for the program or fear of ridicule from other students.

But the faculty and administration listened to complaints; within a year they turned what had begun as a recruitment tactic into one of the nation's most innovative undergraduate research programs. Starting in the fall of 1989, any student with a grade-point average of 3.0 or higher and a letter from a faculty member could apply to work with a professor five to ten hours a week over the term. They were promised $300 stipends and designation as Presidential Scholars.

The response among the 60 students accepted in the program was enthusiastic. "Before this program came about, the term 'Presidential Scholar' was elitist and exclusive," says participant Sabine Clark '91. "Now that the program is accessible to a broader base of students, it has a much more positive force."

This year, Presidential Scholars are serving two terms as research assistants ("Students and faculty wanted more time," explains Assistant Dean Susan Wright, who has administered the program). During the second term, the student has the option of receiving independent-study credit. The goal is to encourage more students to write honors theses or become senior fellows; this year the number of juniors doing research assistantships increased from 60 to 75. Any sophomore in the top 40 percent of the class was eligible to apply last spring. Seventy-five were chosen. What follows is a gallery of some of the first students who earned designation as Presidential Scholars.

THE BLACK IMAGE

Part of Mark's plan is to graduate this year with a triple major in government, sociology, and Afro-American studies. He took courses at Georgetown University while working in a Washington, D.C., law firm and working on two senior honors theses.

While still a junior, Mark studied images of black Americans in the popular press as a Presidential Scholar assistant. Working alongside English Professor Horace Porter, he compared and contrasted images of black and white Americans in newspapers, television shows, advertisements, and sports. While a large number of blacks play rapists, pimps, and muggers, Mark says, they are almost entirely overlooked in popular magazine articles that feature "What Every Man or Woman Wants" in the opposite sex. Blond hair and blue eyes is a racially exclusive category. His conclusion: "Communications are the keystone for identity construction. The press can define someone's goals and aspirations."

The theme can be seen in Mark's novel, a partly autobiographical portrayal of a black man from the South. The work is an extension of the essay Mark wrote for his application to Dartmouth. He kept working on it after he arrived his freshman year, and last spring he submitted a 320page manuscript to publishers.

And the business? Called "Le Noir Style," it distributes health and beauty supplies for blacks in Thayer Hall and in some stores off campus.

GRAIN OF TERROR

THE REIGN OF terror stirs up images of the guillotine and blood-thirsty mobs, for Suzy King '91 and History Professor Margaret Darrow the period provides an opportunity to examine home-scale economics in particular, government price controls on commodities such as bread, meat, and wine.

Last winter, Suzy enlisted the aid of the reference librarians in tracking down articles, papers, books, and paintings that described the 19th-century French working class. Looking beyond the blood and gore in the artists' depictions, she examined the bakers, the butchers, and the wineshop keepers in the scenes. Occasionally, an editorial cartoon or a diary provided clues concerning the unaveling social weave of society during this period.

GROUND TRUTHING

how REMOTE IS Remote sensing?

That is what Christian Kull '91 and Earth Sciences Professor Richard Birnie '66 set out to find last fall. Obtaining Landsat satellite pictures of Maine's Mount Katahdin, they used Macintosh software to map the surface. By filtering and clarifying these images a process known as digital enhancement they were able to construct a panoramic view of the mountain. They hoped to refine the pictures enough to distinguish rock, grass, shrubs, and trees, and to see the vegetation patterns. In the long run, such pictures could be used to monitor the greenhouse effect on vegetation. But could the Landsat details be discerned from pictures taken from some thousands of miles away?

Here, Christian's Outing Club experience came in handy. He hiked up the mountain with a friend and camped out for four days, taking two rolls of pictures and familiarizing himself with the vegetation. When he returned, he assembled his photographs to compare them with the satellite images. "They came out pretty close," he reports.

JOINT EFFORT

LAST FALL, BETH HORWICH '91 HAD SOME HANDS-ON EXPERIENCE in mechanical engineering literally. Under the guidance of Engineering Professor Sunil Singh she designed and built a computer-controlled mechanical hand.

Starting in the library, she researched designs of mechanical joints and limbs. She decided on a two-finger-and-thumb model that would be driven by a series of shafts and pulleys. Then the real work began.

Painstakingly cutting metal tubes and testing joints in the Hopkins Center metal shop, she recalls, "I redefined the expression 'trial and error.' Hand measurements had to be taken to determine the appropriate angles of the fingers, and then pulleys and cables had to be ordered and reordered until the parts worked." After two terms she emerged with two three-jointed fingers and a two-jointed thumb, each controlled independently by a computer program. These handmade digits will be mounted onto a base and wired to a computer; Professor Singh plans to develop a program to control the whole hand.

One of the most important lessons learned was what she doesn't want to do: go into mechanical engineering. Instead, she plans to pursue naval architecture and ocean engineering.

THE ART OF HANGING

I'D ALWAYS THOUGHT Dartmouth was the kind of place where student and faculty contact would be commonplace. Like the other night at Sigma Delta, when my friends and I danced with Dean Shanahan," says art history major Carrie Heinonen '91 as she sits crosslegged on her chair. "This program promotes that kind of interaction."

Transplanted from Tucson, Arizona, Carrie has a strong interest in southwestern and native American art. Last fall, as a participant in the Presidential Scholars Research Assistantship Program, she worked alongside the recendy appointed director of the Artist-in-Residence program, Joel Elgin.

"I couldn't have asked for a more enthusiastic director," Carrie recalls. "He's a laid-back, cool kind of guy."

Her assistantship required frequent trips to Sherman Art Library in search of articles about contemporary artists. She also helped hang artist Dean Chamberlain's laser photography show in the Hopkins Center. She says she learned how to contact agencies and raise funds. All of which should come in handy if she carries out her dream of starting a gallery in the Southwest someday.

DON'T EAT THIS STUFF

SHE WORKS WITH THE DEANS IN THE STUDENT LIFE OFFICE, is on the governing board of the Collis Student Center, serves on the disciplinary Committee on Standards, is a member of the Green Key Society, officer of the Sigma Delta sorority, and co-founder of a literary magazine called Doug. But what's really impressive about Odette Harris '91 is her research. Last fall, the biology major became the first undergraduate at Dartmouth to win a $4,000 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Undergraduate Biological Sciences Initiative Award. She used the funds for her work in the Dartmouth Medical School's Physiology Department, where she worked with Professor Robert Maue. The subject: tachyphylaxis, or acute tolerance, to local anaesthetics.

You practically have to be a biology major to understand their method, but here goes: they measured sodium channel gene expression using genetically engineered subclones of PC 12 cells.

In the spring, she continued doing independent research through a Presidential Scholars Research Assistantship with Chemistry Professor Charles Braun. Odie compiled articles on the relationship between diet and cancer, applying her knowledge of protocols and results. Using these primary sources, she prepared a handout for the Chem 1 class titled "Pharmaceuticals and Nutrition."

STAGE STRUCK

After becoming familiar with various texts and considering literary reviews and criticisms of past "Antigone" productions, the professor-student team considered how they might incorporate the events happening in Eastern Europe with the theme of the play "Antigone's law versus man's law, the individual versus the state," as Joel puts it. The Nazi occupation of France formed the backdrop for the first modern interpretation of "Antigone" in 1942. Antigone represented the French resistance, pitted against King Creon and his Nazi forces.

The hard work paid off in the production: "Palpable oppression" and "strong finish," enthused the local Valley News after the debut.

FLAPPERIZING GERMANY

HISTORY MAJOR SABINE Clark grew up in a half-German family, attended a German school in Maryland, and participated in the Dartmouth foreign study program in Berlin. Having been properly Germanized herself, she seems a logical candidate to help History Professor Michael Ermarth research "Americanism" in early 20th-century Germany. During the 19205, journals, films, and theater images of the American flapper and the working woman across the Atlantic inspired the girlkultur movement that promoted greater independence for women. Women "bought into the image," Sabine says. "Suddenly there was an opportunity to climb the social ladder."

In between rowing on women's crew and newscasting for WDCR, Sabine is continuing her research as part of her honors program.

"I wouldn't have considered independent research except for this assistantship," she says. "I thoroughly enjoyed it particularly because the professor treated me as an intellectual equal."

Mark studied black imageswhile finishing up threemajors and a novel.

Mark studied black imageswhile finishing up threemajors and a novel.

Suzy looked beyond the FrenchRevolution's blood and gore tostudy prices of bread and meat.

Checking satellite images atground level, Christian gotto camp out on Katahdin.

Betb's mechanicalhand helped hergroup engineering.

Carrie acquired aCurating background.

Odie digestedstudies linkingfood and cancer.

Joel helped work easternEurope into a Nazi-eraadaptation of a Greek play.

Sabine says Germanfeminists liked flappers.

The radio doctorrebuts the critics'charge of "turnstylepsychotherapy."

LivingTheLifeOf TheMind

LivingTheLifeOf TheMind

LivingTheLifeOf TheMind

LivingTheLifeOf TheMind