LETTERS

Campus Prognosis

Hugh Morrison's course on American architecture fostered in me a life-long interest in structural landmarks.

The forte of the Dartmouth campus has been its openness and its organized use of space, and I was quite disappointed in the proposed mill-town plan for the soon-to-be-available hospital property ["Future Looks," May]. I personally consider the mill plan ill-conceived, inappropriate in a country campus, and poorly sited.

First, why design a pseudomill away from the proverbial stream in a non-industrialized town unless the idea is to create a tongue-in-cheek impression of an educational or diploma mill which is not really the appropriate image?

In medicine these days almost every procedure demands a second opinion. Perhaps that is appropriate in this long-term endeavor. Maybe an architectural contest would be in order. Possibly the alumni might be allowed to vote and voice their opinion on which plan they would prefer to invest in.

Stratford, Connecticut

The schematic rendering of a possible "Quad" arrangement of new buildings north of Baker Library has logic, if not beauty.

But the most immediate problem must be what to do with the legacy of the existing hospital complex how to remodel or adapt it for what specific uses, how to relate it visually to the "Quad" plan.

Essex, Connecticut

As the planners would put it, the plan isthe cart, while the hospital is the horse. Decisions about what to do with the old complex haven't been finalized. Ed.

It's true that sidewalk superintendents haven't had much chance to gawk at the new Medical Center construction because of its location in the woods ["Dr. Wheelock's Journal," May].

On the other hand, regular tours are advertised and available monthly, and many alumni and campus groups have been ushered around. For further information, call 646-63 01.

William D. Fissinger Vice President for Development & Public Affairs Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center

Another "Grand Moment"

Regarding "grand moments" of teaching ["Letters," May], I was reminded of one of the last class meetings of a Chaucer course taught by Peter Travis. In a fascinating hour-long lecture, Professor Travis wove a rich tapestry of meaning around one of the Canterbury Tales, encompassing theology, literary allusion, and medieval cosmology. At the end of the hour, one of the more skeptical students, slouching back in his chair, raised his hand and asked, "Do you really think all that stuff is in there?" Professor Travis calmly folded his notes and replied evenly, "Yes, all that and much, much more."

What a surgical put-down! To those of us who had struggled to unravel the barest thread of Chaucer's tales, and found it part of a complex and interwoven fabric of the time, Professor Travis's comment validated the genius of Chaucer's art and the depth of scholarship required for real understanding. After that I never thought anything was really simple.

Oakland, California

Liberal Arts' Purpose

At the outset of his interesting discussion on "The Purpose Gap" [March], Jay Heinrichs makes the statement: "Before we decide what students should learn, we must ask what they should become." The goal of a college education is obviously to prepare for a full and active life what Ernest Boyer calls "a complete human being." This must necessarily mean that the goal is not the amount of money he can amass during a business or professional career, but how much of a contribution he makes to the society around him either by his own actions and conduct or by what he contributes in constructive financial terms to others or a combination of these factors. I would hope that these thoughts would be transmitted not only to the alumni but also to the student body at Dartmouth.

New York, New York

As one who has spent years in a technical area working with colleagues largely lacking the liberal-arts background, and as one who faces huge tuition bills for his sons, I have long wondered about the purpose embodied in Dartmouth's liberal-arts curriculum. I found an answer in Digby Baltzell's Puritan Boston: Quaker Philadelphia. Dartmouth was founded to turn out Congregational ministers. The product was to be preachers.

As I follow the activities of my classmates, even those in technical-scientific matters, I believe that the product is the same, preachers. Mike Gazzaniga '61, Dartmouth's Andrew W. Thomson Jr. Professor of Psychiatry, illustrates the point. Although deeply involved in split-brain preparations and neurophysiology, he felt compelled to write general-in-terest books about the meaning of his work. This is, in my opinion, the liberal arts graduate's mission, talent, and duty, to report back to the others via the arts the meaning we have found in our segment of William James's "blooming buzzing confusion." The curriculum should prepare our sons and daughters for that.

Walla Walla, Washington

As a classicist, my preferences for the curriculum are obvious. Still it appears from your article that only Hygiene has remained constant, even in its present mechanical form.

I treasure your magazine.

Vancouver, British Columbia

Counting Backwards

I have not been active in alumni affairs, and my exposure to the Dartmouth Mathematics Department was limited to two terms of calculus, so I'll probably be very embarrassed at the obviousness of the solution, but I'm quite confused and willing to risk it.

In the April "Class Notes," three classes ('79, '80, '81) made references to their upcoming tenth reunion. Seems unlikely to me that three different graduating classes can legitimately have a tenth reunion the same year, even with the confusion caused by the Dartmouth Plan.

Any explanation?

Lyme, New Hampshire

Alumni, especially those who never tookmath, like to see friends from neighboringclasses. Ed.

A Cuban's Ache

I was sad to learn of the death of Armando Chardiet '39, "the only Dartmouth graduate...to have served in Castro's government" ("Dr. Wheelock's Journal," March).

When I was assigned to Havana as my first post in the foreign service in 1959, a mutual friend introduced me to Armando. Although his position was much senior to mine, he was friendly and outgoing, and I was grateful to have a friend in the Foreign Ministry when relations were going sour and contacts were drying up.

Shortly before I left Havana for another assignment, Armando, disenchanted with Castro and the revolution, asked if I could help get him a visa. It was a dangerous act on his part, because if he had been discovered he could have been imprisoned or shot. I arranged for him to get a visa by bypassing some procedures, such as standing in the visa line. But the consular officer insisted that he come to the embassy for a personal interview. Armando was reluctant, fearing that someone in Castro's ubiquitous surveillance army would spot him. I reassured him that all would go well, with a minimum of exposure both within and outside the embassy. Armando nevertheless showed up well disguised, which may have saved his life.

The senior cultural advisor on our Cuban staff, an intelligent and well educated lady, was not only a Castro supporter, which we could understand in those fervent days, but we found out much later, reported regularly to Castro's police on what was going on inside the embassy, and especially on our Cuban visitors. Armando had walked right by her desk

Despite some extremely harrowing experiences, Armando and his family finally made it safely to the United States, where Dartmouth friends were instrumental in helping him get a fresh start. I saw him briefly some years later and he seemed as ebullient as ever, not-withstanding the permanent ache of having to live permanently in exile.

APO New York

Lobster and Lovecraft

As an undergraduate, it was too easy to remain insulated within the Hanover community, unaware of the greater social, historical, and economic forces at work in New England. I'm glad to hear that Jere Daniell is helping awaken today's students to this corner of the world ["Syllabus," April]. But how could anyone's reading list fail to include the New England tales of H.P. Lovecraft? Never again will I eat a lobster without thoughts of Innsmouth (on the shore road from Newburyport to Arkham). I'll always wonder what floated out of Townshend's hills after Vermont's catastrophic flood of November 1927. And never will I return to my grandparents' graves in Providence without wanting to seek out that old church on Federal Hill. I recommend Lovecraft to those who wish to share a special sense of "place" beyond Hanover Plain. And have a damn fine time while doing so.

Montpelier, Vermont

God's Words

Being a fundamentalist Christian, I was interested to see the article on fundamentalism in the April issue ["Taking God's Word For It"]. I was more interested to read that there is a Humanities Institute right here at Dartmouth studying fundamentalism. Maybe the professors think if they understand fundamentalism, they can control it.

I would describe the article as 25 percent accurate and 75 percent silly. It says, "It is doubtful that a Khomeini would recognize an Oral Roberts as a true brother," yet two pages back there are parallel photographs of the two men. Are they two peas in a pod, or are they diametrically opposed?

One way in which they may be different relates to another point made in the article: that ordinary men and women are not allowed to interpret the divine word, but only a properly ordained minister. Obviously this research group has not checked out any local fundamentalists, because the Upper Valley church I belong to always encourages people to read and study the Bible for themselves. If I think one of the elders has said something bogus, I'll definitely bring it to his attention. The elders are humble men, and are willing to hear another point of view. What is not allowed is to say, "Well, the Bible says this, but modern society says this, and I personally believe this, so I'll just ignore what the Bible has to say on this point."

There are several other ridiculous statements in the article, but rather than delve into any of them, let me just make the suggestion that this prestigious institute become a little more informed about the fundamentalists in its own back yard. There are several churches within ten miles of Dartmouth that take the Bible and God's authoritative word.

Hanover, New Hampshire

As the article notes, the Humanities Institutes cover a different topic each spring;the professors who studied religions fundamentalism went their separate ways last,year. The latest Institute covered gender andwar; next year's is on medieval manuscripts. Ed.

I was sad to see a Dartmouth professor of religion even starting to justify the Muslim attack on Salman Rushdie ["Why Were Muslims So Offended?", April]. The comic parody of Islam in The Satanic Verses is no more "offensive" than the parody of Catholicism in Ulysses. Can you imagine the Pope making a death threat against James Joyce?

A. Kevin Reinhart seems to find no moral purpose in a book that has a profound one: to bring the Islamic community into the family of nations by showing the Koranic revelation to be a moment of ordinary human life. By giving the Muslim community a little comic distance on its own fanaticism it might stop destroying itself with internal warfare. Those with an interest in continuing that self-destruction would of course seek to ban the book and prevent any more like it by shortening the author's life.

The inability to accept its own best artists is the index of a desperate regimewitness the imprisonment of Vaclav Havel by the tottering Czech communists. Now the country has made him president. A great nation or religion eventually comes to value its own internal critics. I can't see Salman Rushdie being called to the presidency of Iran. But history is a genealogy of reversals. In time he may be seen as one of the contemporary prophets of Islam.

Stockton Springs, Maine

Kevin Reinhart Replier:

It was regrettable to see a Dartmouth alum so misunderstand my piece on Salman Rushdie.

To respond: Mr. Carpenter is simply unqualified to say how offensive the book is; it is only those offended who can tell us. It is true that the American flag is simply a piece of material, but many, including many Dartmouth graduates would find burning it or otherwise defiling it offensive. Mr. Carpenter chooses to see the Koranic revelation as "a moment of ordinary human life." I merely report that most Muslims do not. Mr. Carpenter is correct in this: I see no particular moral purpose to the book.

Ignoring Mr. Carpenter's usual stereotypes (fanaticism, etc., etc.), let me add that the article was written simply to point out that this disagreement between cultures is unresolvable except at the most fundamental level: one must choose either to see society as facilitating the individual "pursuit of happiness" or as a "collective instrument to facilitate the individual's moral development." Iran and the Rushdie flap may show us the limitations of the latter approach, but one need only read the crime reports from any large American city to see the limitations of the "individualist" approach.

Late Faculty

How poorly do we say farewell to friends and faculty! The obits detail the externals, the degrees, etc., the awards, etc., but almost nothing comes through of what lit the person up. It's like receiving a fancy Victorian picture frame enclosing a name and two now-irrelevant dates.

So it was with your write-up of John Wolfenden. You should simply have published his portrait. Photographic Archives in Baker has a dandy. There all his wonderful mix of qualities comes alive again: wry wit, humor, youthful eagerness, ancient gentleness. Did you know he was a mountain climber? Did you know that he read and remembered almost everything written? Did you know that his early love for America came from Uncle Remus and Artemus Ward? Or that almost his last act on this earth was puckishly spraying water on flustered angels in a nursing home? He was that kind of joyous man.

You do mention he wrote papers on "reaction rates and equilibria." What a meager part of the truth. John's own reaction time was approximately zero. What's more, more than anyone I know in this randomly convulsed world, he was in himself what good teachers should be: "equilibria."

Hanover, New Hampshire

David Bradley is a senior lecturer inPolicy Studies, which title is also a paltry setof words for one of Dartmouth's greatteachers. Ed.

I am well aware that space limitations restrict the length of obituaries. However, I was shocked to find that the March issue's faculty obituary on my mentor and friend John Vance Neale failed to mention that he coached debate at Dartmouth for more than 25 years, in the process nurturing hundreds of alumni with his humanity and integrity.

John started, but Depression finances precluded, his finishing law school. I am certain that that training affected his teaching, his debate coaching, and his civic involvement in the town of Hanover.

Madison, New Jersey

The "authorized" obituary for Emeritus Professor Arthur Dewing plainly came off the professor's own aging portable typewriter. It was the machine on which he wrote to me regularly while I was in service, and later but less frequently through the four decades following my graduation-departure from Hanover.

Sadly, despite its great economy of words, that obituary reflects a little of his embittered attitudes about the College and colleagues whom he felt had discarded him when retirement became obligatory in 1968.

Professor Dewing summed up his career in five words: "he devoted himself to teaching." DEVOTED is perhaps the only word in the language appropriate here, but it tells only the half of it. Art Dewing was in my view one shared by many classmates and contemporaries who knew him as I did one of the last of the College's faculty who understood and accepted and fulfilled the role as parentus in locus.

More than a mentor and friend, Art Dewing dealt with us as though we were sons. He gave of himself in his teaching more than we bargained for, more than we deserved. For which this son and others loved him dearly. In due time we'll apologize to Professor Dewing for this "unauthorized" supplement to his obituary.

Branford, Connecticut

Unbalanced Budgeting

The word is that the College needs to tighten its belt as a preventive measure, to prevent a major deficit three years from now. If that is truly the case, then I applaud the administration for its foresight and prudence. One of the greatest duties the president holds to the entire community is that of financial responsibility. I am afraid, however, that when the dust has settled and the community has adjusted to the changes, something will be lost. In the long run, a necessary financial decision could have a negative effect on the community at large.

There are many in the Dartmouth community who will suffer from this decision. First, there are those employees who flat-out lost their jobs.

The student body will feel the cutback, too. Most of the programs and services that are doomed to extinction appear to be those that affect the non-academic life of the students: Health Services and the Athletic Council. The vast majority of faculty positions and academic programs, however, will not be affected, in order to preserve the academic integrity of the school. I see in this move a clear message from the College to the students: "We are solely interested in the development of your mind. We hope that you will develop into balanced individuals, but we are no longer making it our responsibility to facilitate this growth."

Hanover, New Hampshire

Foul Shot

It was very surprising to learn that the women's basketball team was not selected for the NCAA tournament. With their outstanding record for the year of only three losses, one by only one point, they certainly deserved a place.

Two teams with less impressive records in the East regionals, Manhattan and Appalachian State, lost by very large margins in the first game. I'm certain our team could have done better.

I trust the Athletic Council has protested the selection committee's decision and has taken any other action possible to get better consideration of Dartmouth teams in the future.

Augusta, Michigan

Artist Omission

The April "Dartmouth Undying" listed a variety of art occurrences at Dartmouth. The.piece concluded with a description of my installation, "The Lair," which was installed at Dartmouth for winter term 1990. I found the omission of my name inexcusable.

Woodstock, Vermont

We apologize nonetheless. Ed.

Word wise

How ironic that you wrote about how Art Buchwald came to town to "lecture on competent student writing" when you began the paragraph with "Food-wise" ["Dr. Wheelock's Journal," May].

Attendancewise, should you have gone to it?

Montpelier, Vermont

Finders Keepers

When I read in the May "Dr. Wheelock's Journal" about the alumnus who claimed that the alumni own Dartmouth, I almost laughed. Then I realized with astonishment that he was serious!

Perhaps this is symbolic of the deeply proprietary feeling about the College on the part of many of its alumni. In a way, this is a tremendous compliment to Dartmouth. Imagine being in a place for only four years out of its 220-odd years of existence and coming away feeling that it is yours!

Scituate, Massachusetts

The proprietary air is breathed also dare we say it? at Harvard. See DeanHeriry Rosovsky's witty book, "The University: An Owner's Manual" (W.W.Norton). Ed.

Harry's Loves

I would like to thank the editors of the Magazine and my father's Dartmouth friends for all the nice articles and pictures that have appeared throughout many years.

Harry would have loved to have been a Dartmouth graduate. He loved Dartmouth and he loved Hanover. His loyalty to both were his two favorite topics of conversation.

My favorite picture of him was in your November 1988 issue. I saved the whole issue. Thank you so much for adding to his pleasure of life.

East Hartford, Connecticut

The architect's sketch of the future Collegeleft some readers thinking that the placewon't always look this good.