A DANGEROUS CHEW
Health Dip
I WANT TO COMPLIMENT BRETT Queener '92 on his poignant article on the effects of smokeless tobacco ["The Grip of a Vice," Summer], I am horrified to hear that dip is now "in" among undergraduates. Brett's battle with both oral cancer and his addiction should serve as a warning to his fellow undergraduates, and to anyone who uses smokeless tobacco.
I plan to keep the article to share with my patients, both abusers and potential abusers. Thank you Brett, you have done a great service by sharing your painful story.
GERMANTOWN, TENNESSEE
Perfect Stroke
MY WIFE AND I THOUGHT THAT one of the best articles in many a moon appeared in the September issue. Mark Lange's article "To An Athlete, Aging" is provocative and, from where we sit, true. Though we are avid and aged golfers, his description of a perfect sculling stroke holds true for a perfect golf shot as wellseldom hit but forever memorable. He has captured the true excellence of any sport and what it means to a person who pursues and loves it forever.
HINGHAM, MASSACHUSETTS
Alumni Front
DR. WHEELOCK WROTE IN THE summer issue that "the only slightly gray cloud" was that the 1992 alumni/ae participation in the 1992 Alumni Fund had dipped below 60 percent. In my opinion the phrase should be changed to "The deepening black cloud." The following anecdote supports this opinion.
Two or three decades back, one of my business colleagues, then chairman of the alumni fund of his alma mater, told me, "Our alumni/ae participation (then far less than 50 percent) is so low that many of our heavy hitters grumble—or, worse, give a pittance or nothing at all—because they claim that drey are the only ones dragging the canoe through the swamp, whereas you damn Dartmouths with that incredibly high participation give no such excuse to your heavy hitters."
With a target of over 45,000 adults whose household income averages approximately $70,000 (Madison Avenue estimate) why are not efforts being made to find out why more than two out of five of those adults do not give to the Fund?
It helps mightily to have a problem defined before one tries to solve it. Perhaps DAM could run a story on this matter.
SCHNECKSVILLE, PENNSYLVANIA
Sodomy and Community
THE PRINCIPLE OF COMMUNITY of Dartmouth College as described on page three of the September issue contains a serious contradiction. It is hard for this writer to say honestly that celebrating sodomy as a civil right—which is what a certain section of the Dartmouth College community does—will provide an opportunity for moral growth.
This sexual practice and perversion is hard on your physical and mental health. How we reached such a sorry state of affairs that we swallowed the myth of sodomy as a civil right is a riddle best left to the likes of Professor Hans H. Penner who can perhaps crack this conundrum through the use of structural, functional, cosmological, symbolical, repressive linguistics.
RIVERSIDE, ILLINOIS
Sununu and Principles
I READ WITH FASCINATION THAT one educated at Dartmouth could be so quick to forget and be so chosedminded as Roger Sweeny '71 and assume that John Sununu could in any way be characterized as the embodiment of conservative principles and policy ["Letters," September], That the man was self-aggrandizing and irresponsible with his public trust is a matter of public record and yet Roger seems astounded that a well-read and news-aware Dartmouth student would not revere such a man nor agree with his policies and persona.
Whether one is liberal or conservative politically is not the main issue, but rather the freedom to choose and to express an opinion at all. Under the heavy hand of people like John Sununu, those rights have been trampled for the "greater good" (which never actually seems to become real). A real conservative would be concerned about preserving and protecting the rights of individuals (of all sizes, shapes, and bank-account balances).
No, I am not a conservative in the John Sununu (or Roger Sweeny) mold, but I voted for Barry Goldwater in 1964 and wish America had had the opportunity to have a true conservatives as President then. How I will vote now is still open, but any candidate with John Sununu's attitude and record for ignoring the basic public trust will not get a nod from me this time around.
BRENTWOOD, TENNESSEE
Representative Illiterates
ONE LETTER IN THE SEPTEMBER DAM is truly inspiring for me as an India specialist. The assertion (p. 41) that the admissions office is trying to expand the pool "to people who have been denied opportunity yet have demonstrated excellence relative to their circumstances" suggests that all sorts of people are now eligible.
For example, a director of admissions once inquired of me how representative of the total population of India our students from India were. I replied that about 80 percent of the population of India is rural, about 55 percent illiterate, about 40 percent below the poverty line and many more not much better off than these. Thus, one might define a representative Indian as an illiterate, malnourished villager. But I was doubtful that Dartmouth would be interested. Now, however, whole new vistas open up. Surely, many of these "typical" Indians "have demonstrated excellence relative to their circumstances." I am therefore hopeful that we shall see such people in some numbers in future Dartmouth classes. Perhaps Mr. Frey '89, and Ms. Bohn '86, the authors of the letter, can take a lengthy trip to India to help identify potential applicants.
PROFESSOR OF GOVERNMENT
Outrageous Appointment
I WAS ALARMED TO READ OF Recent remarks made by former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop '37 at Dartmouth condemning abortion as contrary to the Hippocratic Oath. Were Dr. Koop merely a speaker passing through campus, it would be easy to dismiss his remarks. But the Dartmouth Medical School has created the Koop Institute. Apparently the institute's purpose is to influence values and ethics in the medical field. It's disturbing indeed that Dr. Koop will now have an institutional platform at my alma mater from which he can peddle such an unenlightened and retrograde philosophy.
Having endured the trials and tribulations of being a female at Dartmouth in the early days of coeducation I'm a member of the Class of '78, which was Dartmouth's third class of women—I've been relieved in recent years to note Dartmouth's much-increased acceptance of women on campus. In fact, it seems that gender is no longer an issue at all, as it was when I arrived as a freshmen in the fall of 1974. Then, coeds were called "cohogs," and the pros and cons of coeducation were debated daily from one end of the campus to the other. Avery vocal cadre, composed of students, alumni, and members of the administration, was deeply resistant to having women enrolled at Dartmouth, and the debate was intense to say the least.
Supposedly, all of that has changed. Or has it? It looks to me like we're back to square one, or worse, with the appointment of a well-known opponent of women's fundamental reproductive rights to an influential Dartmouth post.
This news only prompts me to revisit the slights, not to say the wounds, visited upon my female classmates and me at Dartmouth many years ago. Theoretically, we were paving the way for the young women who would come after us, those who would not be humiliated and denigrated as we were for having the temerity to invade the male sanctum sanctorum that Dartmouth was. I assure you that we did not intend to pave the way for Dr. Koop—nor for his well-known view that a woman's most personal and most important reproductive decisions are not her own. I am outraged.
MONTCLAIR, NEW JERSEY
The Shop
WORD HAS REACHED ME THAT the student metal shop in Hopkins Center has closed. Before any more of the workshops unceremoniously disappear, I would like to plead on their behalf.
As a freshman at Dartmouth, I had the great good fortune to come under the advisorship of Walker Weed '40, designer, furniture maker, and instructor in the student wood shop. His work cast a quiet spell on me; I loved its simple beauty, its friendliness, its warmth and charm. His house was full of such furniture, all of which Walker had designed and built. I longed to be able to say, one day, that I had made all of the furni tore in my own house. Unfortunately, I was up to my ears in academics at Dartmouth and found little time for working wood. One humble bookcase, hurriedly cobbled up, was all I could manage in four years. I left Hanover in 1972 with no more (in the way of woodworking, that is) than a deep appreciation for fine design and craftsmanship and a desire someday to do similar work as practiced by Walker Weed.
Within a few years of graduation, I was working wood fulltime, had gained admittance through the jury system into the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen, and was showing work in galleries around New England. I spent five years working wood professionally before financially realities and the loneliness of a oneman shop returned me to the highschool classroom. Although the wood shop gave me few measurable skills, it did provide me with inspiration and a desire to learn more.
Inspiration. A desire to learn. Motivation to do one's best. A college could do worse than provide such for its students.
WEARE, NEW HAMPSHIRE
PLEASE DON'T LET THEM CLOSE any of the design workshops!!! They were invaluable to me and countless others as part of the process of learning and personal growth at Dartmouth. I didn't ever spend all that much time in them, and yet I found them invaluable, mentioning them to most anybody when asked what makes Dartmouth so special and unique.
Please encourage the Trustees not to act rashly, to seek out other funding sources, and to be open to alternative solutions.
Los ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
