OUR PASSIONATE PREFERENCE

Increased competition should compel Dartmouth to hold fast all the more to its traditions.

Grant me intention, purpose, and design— That's near enough for me to the Divine.

Robert Frost '98

"Accidentally on Purpose"

DIVINE OR NOT, THE COLLEGE'S TRUSTEES, aided by a raft of reports, recommendations, and opinions from the administration, faculty, students, and alumni, have spent much of the past two years examining Dartmouth's "intention, purpose, and design" with an eye to its future.

We trustees take this work seriously. We are well aware that "The Trustees of Dartmouth College" are the corporation formed by our famous charter, that we are carrying on the important work started by Eleazar Wheelock and his first small board of trustees in 1769.

The trustees are still small in numberonly 14 elected, half based on recommendatdons by the alumni body, plus two ex-officio members, the president of the College, and the governor of New Hampshire. No other Ivy League board of trustees is nearly so small. This comfortable size breeds a high degree of congeniality but, more importandy, full, open, and easy discussion of the business before the board.

Given this proclivity for talking things over, it's no surprise that the trustees frequendy have delved into the College's current planning process. In August 1989 they discussed a "Concept Plan" for the use of the Mary Hitchcock Hospital properties, and addressing the immediate space needs of the library, math and computer sciences, and psychology. More a study than a plan, the document, prepared by the Philadelphia architecture and planning firm of Venturi Scott Brown and Associates, suggested various future possibilities, including a number of new buildings if the College should someday increase in size. But the report emphasized that options should be left open for future boards and administrations over the next 25 or 50 years.

Should the College grow? The Planning Steering Committee, chaired by Provost John Strohbehn and drawing on the work of no less than 12 other planning committees and task forces, told die trustees in 1989 and again in 1990 that the College should remain at its present size. While holding the door open for some modest and selective increases in graduate education over the years, the Planning Steering Committee emphasized quality over quantity. It recognized that limited resources will require "hard choices" in years to come, and stated that Dartmouth should emphasize its traditional role and strengths rather than try to strike out in new directions.

Without formal voting or specific decisions, the trustees have discussed these broad outlines of the future enough to know that we are very comfortable with them. Without a doubt, Dartmouth will continue to emphasize undergraduate education, provide selective graduate and professional training, and expect teachers to teach well. In the foreseeable future Dartmouth will strive to improve the quality of its existing programs. One way recommended by the PSC would be to increase the number of faculty positions, particularly endowed chairs. Another PSC proposal would create a teaching center for the faculty.

President of the Mid-America National Bank ofChicago, Joe Mathew.wn is an Alumni Trusteeof Dartmouth and a member of this magazine'sEditorial Board. He is a former reporter for bothCBS News and The Wall Street Journal.

Where will the alumni stand? This oudine of the future conforms to the view of the alumni mainstream. So far, so good. But the "hard choices" are still ahead. They will be reflected in year-to-year budget decisions and in the identification of priorities for the College's forthcoming capital campaign. These choices are made even harder by the trustees' determination to hold down increases in tuition, the College's principal source of income. So, undoubtedly, at least some future decisions will engender alumni protest, as we saw last year in the response to the trimming of intercollegiate junior-varsity athletic teams.

Two broad trends suggest that even if the future Dartmouth retains the support of most of the alumni most of the time, the trustees will absorb a few jabs along the way. Journalism, a trade I once practiced, has changed so greatly in the past two decades both in Hanover and across the nation that stellar institutions, like politicians and other public personalities, must endure the curse of stardom that generates more criticism than straightforward coverage in the news media.

Also, it's likely that as the Dartmouth alumni body follows the student body in becoming more heterogeneous than in generations past, there will be more alumni criticism of at least some decisions of the trustees and the administration.

However, even if the trustees can't satisfy all of the alumni all the time, they can ensure that Dartmouth lives up to its tradition. Small classes, teachers who not only must teach but in fact love to teach, close student-teacher interaction, and development of a camaraderie that lasts a lifetime seem certain to remain the cornerstones of the Dartmouth experience.

It goes without saying that the Dartmouth tradition also includes graduate training in medicine (started in 1797), engineering (1871), and business administration (1901). Given such a long-standing commitment to graduate education, it won't be inconsistent with the Dartmouth tradition if over a period of years the College allows a modest, gradual increase in the number of graduate students in the liberal arts. (The current total is only 165.) This could be appropriate if we enhance the quality of the programs and also augment advanced learning opportunities for undergraduatesas well as stimulating faculty scholarship, which in turn sparks better teaching.

The possibility of even a slight increase in liberal arts graduate education is viewed dimly by some alumni. However, the appropriate question is not whether Dartmouth should have 165 graduate students or 265 or none. The question is whether Dartmouth will continue to emphasize undergraduate education.

"One of the points about which President Hopkins was most insistent," reports Charles Widmayer '30 in his book, Hopkins ofDartmouth, "was that the liberal college must be independent and have full freedom to carry out its educational purposes in ways of its own choosing." Widmayer quotes Hopkins in a major speech at Amherst in 1925: "I wish to emphasize my belief in the value of the existence of the self-contained, separate unit college, such as Amherst or Dartmouth. Herein the needs of American youth of undergraduate age are a primary consideration." There is no thought in the Dartmouth administration or board of trustees of backing away from this proposition.

If this is the shape of Dartmouth's future, we must ask, will it work?

I believe the answer is a qualified yes. However, mere continuity is not enough. While the number of college-age students has declined, the competition for the best ones, as well as for the best teachers, has risen sharply. As President Freedman has pointed out, Dartmouth now competes not only with the rest of the Ivy League, MIT, and Stanford, but also such fine private schools as Duke and Rice, and such public powerhouses as the University of Michigan, the University of Texas, and the University of California. Money Magazine, in "The Money Guide to the Best Colleges in America," maintains that fine undergraduate education is available at such public schools as the University of Virginia, the University of Florida, several branches of the State University of New York and others, for annual tuitions of less than $5,000 compared with Dartmouth's $15,372.

This heightened competition, plus the inevitable, incessant quest for quality, probably will drive the future of Dartmouth as much as its tradition does. But these pressures don't subvert the tradition. Rather, they ensure that Dartmouth will concentrate its future resources on maintaining its tradition rather than trying to become something else.

The "hard choices" constantly referred to in the report of the Planning Steering Committee will compel the College's trustees to ask constantly, What is Dartmouth? What makes her important? Alumni, students, and faculty will help the trustees find the answers.

The present board has the enormous help of major planning efforts in striving to define "intention, purpose, and design." And yet, in the midst of all this rationality, Dartmouth remains for its trustees and most of its alumni a love affair that permits emotion, even passion in our striving. As Frost put it in the lines immediately following the two quoted at the beginning of this essay:

And yet for all this help of head and brainHow happily instinctive we remain,Our best guide upward further to the light,Passionate preference such as love at sight.

"Small classes, teacherswho love to teach,and a cameraderiethat lasts a lifetimeseem certain to remainthe cornerstones of theCollege experience."

"We're comfortable"with the report's planfor the future, saysTrustee Mathewson.

"Theappropriatequestion isnot whetherDartmouthshould have165 graduatestudents or265 or none.The questionis whetherDartmouth willcontinue toemphasizeundergraduateeducation."