Divers Notes & Observations

ONCE AGAIN, UNLESS YOU have recently taken up speleology as a profession, you must have seen the news of the magnificent gifts to the College by John W. Berry '44, by his son George '66, by the Loren M.

Berry Foundation, established by his father—and by his financial counselor, George F. Baker III, great-grandson of him whose generosity in 1926 made possible Dartmouth's Baker Library. The new gifts, totaling $30 million, will provide a companion for the 64-year-old library. The new structure is to be completed in time to take the College into the twenty-first century boasting a facility which, in President Freedman's words, "will be the College's core resource for intellectual growth," and one "that permits unparalleled accessibility to information by students, faculty, and others involved in scholarship."

The following story sounds apocryphal, though you may have a more authentic version. Ours is that a visiting Oxford debater in the early twenties observed that Dartmouth had the biggest gym and the smallest library of any U.S. college. If you assume the Oxfordian's disparaging implication that library/athletics roughly equals brains/brawn, John Berry has smartly come down on both sides of the equation, with his gift of the Berry Sports Center in 1987 and now the John W. Berry Library.

Providentially, most of the proposed space for the new building, adjacent to Baker on what is now Elm Street, had just been made available to the College by the town of Hanover, in exchange for a large playing field on College-owned land opposite the golf course, some utility buildings on that area, plus $225,000 in cash (and for all we know, a first-round draft choice to be named later). One of the two architectural firms for the project will be Venturi Scott Brown of Philadelphia, who had submitted a design for the new Staten Island Ferry Terminal on the Manhattan side of the harbor, the most visible feature of which was an enormous clock. If Baker Tower's four clocks continue their discrepancies, perhaps architect Venturi's very timely notion could be carried over into his plans for the new library.

A sumptuous dinner to celebrate the gift took place, you'd never believe, in the long, high front hall of Baker which, with the card files temporarily removed, and beautifully decorated for its entire length with tiny-lighted birch trees, could have been the main dining room of a luxury hotel. Cocktails were served—another first—in the Tower Room, and a guest told us that a major topic among the distinguished alumni present was which of the lower's famous leather chairs they spent most of their time sleeping in.

WE'RE IMPRESSED, AS you should be, at the presence of Trustee Bob Reich '68 on President Clinton's transition team, with responsibility for economic policy. Reich richly deserves his "Professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government" designation. He was also a Mr. Everything during his undergraduate years in Hanover, however, and we wish the press might occasionally give Dartmouth a mite of credit for his collegiate upbringing. It sounded somewhat unfamiliar the other day to hear such grizzled veterans as those on "This Week With David Brinkley" address him as "Professor"—and it was refreshing as well, so soon after all the tortured and oblique rhetoric of the campaign, to hear Reich's forthright answers to their questions. However, when Sam Donaldson ventured a little too close, Reich did parry with, "I'm speaking from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and that's about as far out of the Little Rock loop as you can get."

From that very same Little Rock loop is Madeline Kunin, former member of the Rockefeller Center Board of Visitors, first Nelson A. Rockefeller Distinguished Fellow, and current Montgomery Fellow. The personable former three-term Vermont governor, herself an eloquent example of women as "agents of change" (her words), spoke here last week on gender in politics, and on the political vacuum left by men of both parties who for too long had simply assumed that responsibility for government was up to them alone, and had neglected that responsibility.

IN THE CASE OF THE GREEN soccer teams, however, both men and women have given excellent accounts of themselves this season. The distaff booters made it to the ECAC semifinals for the first time ever; and Coach Bobby Clark's lads, having won the Ivy title and amassed a plethora of all-Ivy honors, met nationally ranked St. John's in the opening Division 1 round of the NCAA s, to mow down the Redmen in a thriller, 1-0. Regarding football, we refer you to the rundown of the 1992 Dartmouth season by Bob Sullivan '75 elsewhere in this issue—except to observe, in passing, that last week Columbia outlasted the Green, 22-20, in the last freshman football game ever to be played in Hanover. Next year, as in the rest of the country, freshmen will be eligible in Ivy varsity competition (except for Harvard and Yale), a development about which we have our reservations.

Things are already looking up for second-year coach Roger Demment and die men's hockey team following a few years of competitive thin ice. Early in the 1992-93 season, the Green has split a pair with the perennial powerhouses St. Lawrence and Clarkson.

BEING WELL OUT OF ANOTHER loop which we imagine is limited to two or three people at most, we can't bring you a single word about the Alumni Trustee candidates you will be asked to consider early next year, one of them to succeed retiring Mike Heyman '51. However, we can remind you to look for the nominees' pictures and bios in your January issue of Dartmouth Life, and, when it comes time, be sure to vote-a key reponsibility of everyone toward the College. Meanwhile, happy holidays!

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