1970

This column will be given largely to a review of some of the more stimulating offerings from reunion weekend. Where else to start, but at the top ...

President James Freedman was available for comments and questions at Spaulding Auditorium, and he used the opportunity to describe his vision of the shaping of future Dartmouth students. He believes that the ability to write effectively is at the heart of a liberal arts education. The college should also continue to encourage close student-faculty relationships and emphasize die tradition of computer literacy.

The study of language is receiving increased attention as part of an awareness of the need to prepare students to take their place in a world community. Some 65 percent of students spend a term abroad prior to graduation. Freedman is rather proud of the composition of next year's freshman class in that it contains the highest percentage of high-school valedictorians ever.

Nearly everyone seems to have attended a fascinating panel discussion entitled "Predictions for the 21st Century." Leading off was Theodore Mitchell, the chair of the College's education department, with a few more thoughts on the educational process. He concurs that computers will become the window through which students will access the world's resources. He also suggested that the future framework of education will tend towards collaboration (which some used to consider cheating) and away from individual effort. This will be important since industry is moving to embrace models of group effort and shared re- sponsibility for decision making and solution development.

John McKernan was on hand to offer a specific list of eight predictions for our brave new world, although some sounded a bit more like a politician's wish list! Since USA Today missed the scoop, you can say you read it here first:

1) Federal level politicians will turn over at an increased rate on account of escalating job pressure, so there will be no need for national term limits.

2) Campaign reform will move the process of fundraising toward the national parties and away from individual candidates.

3) More decision making will be relegated back to the states.

4) A national healthcare system will be instituted, but it will be employer-based, as opposed to styled after the Canadian government-run program.

5) The need to control costs will lead to significant privatization of the public sector, possibly even including school systems.

6) Bilateral economic agreements will proliferate with the fundamental line-up emerging to include the European community, the Pacific Rim, and the Americas (Canada, the U.S., and Mexico).

7) There will be increased emphasis on better utilization of human capital through pretraining of workers.

8) Educational models will evolve to include longer school years and year-round teachers, with the result that the status of the profession will be enhanced.

So save this column and reread it at the millennium.

In closing, Jack Pansegrau deserves one last opportunity to address the assembled masses. Jack did an incredible job as our head agent over the past five years. Ever modest, he gave credit for the record-setting fundraising efforts to the broad-based generosity which characterizes our class. To those with doubts about the direction of the college, he suggested a moment of reflection as to how excited the post WW II classes must have been with student activities in the late 1960s. If anything the gap between the generations was greater than today, and yet support for the College continued to pour forth.

Last of all, our hats are off to Wayne Osmond and the entire reunion committee for their stupendous effort in bringing us such a wonderful weekend. It could not have been more successful.

Thomas Lynn Avery, P.O. Box 3934, Modesto, CA 95352-3934