DR. WHEELOCK'S JOURNAL

In case you were down in a bathysphere, up in a balloon, or for your own good reasons failed to catch the last issue of this magazine, you may have missed some news that many alumni have not only been awaiting but, in some cases, demanding.

In our last Journal, we briefly listed a number of Alumni Council decisions designed to give the alumni body a wider choice in the election of Alumni Trustees; on a continuing basis to identify likely candidates for both Alumni and Charter Trustee service; and to facilitate communication among alumni, the Council, and the College's various decision-making agencies.

These and other resolutions, and the rationale behind them, have been elaborated at some length in a mailing you have received or will shortly, with a note from Mike Choukas Jr. '51, director of Alumni Affairs. We urge, yea, implore you to read this document thoroughly, or henceforth run the risk of losing your right to gripe that as a member of the alumni body in good standing you are disenfranchised, underrepresented, or inadequately informed.

These dog days, campus news must be hard to come by for even the good gray (as Time used to call it) New York Times. Two weeks in a row, the Times's college news editor delved into the case of the suspension of a fellow-editor, Kevin Acker '92, of The Dartmouth, on not one but two sexual-abuse charges. A couple of incongruities emerge, to our undevious mind. In the first case, Acker was accused of forcibly kissing (in 1988) a woman who was a prospective student at the time (and has since transferred to Brown). The dean of freshmen adjudged him not guilty in this incident. But then a second woman (urged by the first who said, according to the Times, "I wanted revenge") came forward with more serious charges, and this time the case came before the Committee on Standards, which found him guilty. Needless to say, the College stands by its fairness in each case and that of its disciplinary system.

Predictably, Acker has hired a lawyer and is appealing the decision and his suspension. And SASH, the standing committee on Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment, will of course be pondering certain issues raised by the case in a continuing review of the College's rules and procedures.

Our own observation we borrow from a forthcoming book about Dartmouth scenes and lore by Bob Graham '40, who mentions advice given by outgoing President Hopkins to incoming President Dickey: "Some of the most disruptive disputes in academe arise unexpectedly from issues peripheral to the primary concerns of the College."

Not exactly peripheral is the latest word, in its not-always-serene history at Dartmouth, that Army ROTC will be deactivated at the end of June 1991. It will be one of 50 units nationwide to be decommissioned, a "peace dividend" that hits close to home. It is expected, though at this writing uncertain, that students now enrolled will be able to continue or complete their requirements 36 miles northeast of Hanover, at Norwich University's ROTC unit.

Nor is the College's meritorious needblind financial-aid policy exempt from governmental intrusion. As you may have read elsewhere, the Justice Department has accused Dartmouth, along with more than 50 institutions nationwide, of alleged collusive price-fixing, for its practice of coordinating information on the ability of certain families of admitted students who have applied for financial aid. The anti-trust division has had the College produce more than 20,000 pages of documents, at a cost exceeding $300,000, to help it with its investigation—not just into financial-aid practices but also into tuition and student fees, and into faculty and administrative salaries as well. That $300,000 could have saved Dick Jaeger's Athletic Department a lot of anguish.

Moving quickly to athletic anguish, we quote from the Boston Globe: "This just in from Dartmouth College: Ben Smith is still the Big Green hockey coach." After the entrances and quick exits of two other candidates, the Globe's writer avers that "with a wealth of international coaching experience and an Ivy League background (Harvard '68), Smith may have been the best candidate for the job from the beginning."

Despite the hand-wringing in Hanover over our loss of 11 coaches during the year (is it now ten with the all-is-forgiven return of the prodigal Vin Lananna?), Harvard nearly matched the Green with nine departures. Anew face at Dartmouth will be that of Sally Boillotat as instructor of riding at the Morton Farm equestrian center. Sally is also a leader in the sport of polocrosse, "lacrosse on horseback." Polocrosse? We can just see the quizzical look on the face of the late Ail-American Bill Morton '32, donor of the farm and its fine facilities northeast of campus.

Plenty of mass, height, and speed are among the more than 60 freshmen who will turn out for practice on Chase Field with freshman coach Don Farnham for the 1990 season—though not all qualities abound in all candidates. Varsity coach Buddy Teevens '79 has the enviable (?) task of choosing among eight, count 'em eight, quarterbacks.

We assume you save your National Geographies, so dig out your June 1965 issue for the Geo's 46-page account of the Ledyard Canoe Club's trip down the Danube. In a completely different political and environmental climate, six '90s, including a son of one of that original team, are again canoeing the 1,685 miles through what was once largely the Iron Curtain, to end next month at the Black Sea. This may or may not have any bearing on the fact that in the class of '94 will be three students from Romania, one from Bulgaria, one from Yugoslavia, and one from the Soviet Union.

And in the area of motor sports and the 32-car Solar Derby, 1,700 miles from Disney World to Detroit, the Thayer School's Sunvox III finished about the middle of the pack.

From Hanover to Halifax, however, will shortly be the route of Henry Ezra Eberhardt HI '61, director of the Alumni Fund. After 20 years of fundraising at Dartmouth, Hank will become director of development as well as of external relations, and probably everything else that is not nailed down, at Dalhousie University. You will be reading more about him shortly in the Alumni Magazine, but perhaps this is a good opportunity to report his achievement and yours with the 1990 Fund. The official final total, $11,836,466, missed our $l2 million goal by two percent. Participation: 60.033 percent. Though 30 classes fell short of their dollar goals, 40 exceeded the 100-percent mark The total was the third highest in Fund history not bad, during an economy that was not exactly burgeoning, some big Wall Street salaries that were teetering, and in the face of tough comparisons with several classes that scored record highs in the 1989 campaign.

In the interest of preserving the best of academic doublespeak, we leave you with this inspirational close from Princeton's President Shapiro, at its commencement: "Let our vision and hope be constantly refreshed by each successful step toward our ultimate objective."

The Dartmouth's editor succumbs to a charge of sexual abuse, and a penurious Pentagon pulls ROTG.