Divers Notes & Observations

NOWHERE IS IT WRITTEN that one autumn in the Upper Valley should be more scenic than another, but in no year was this less true than in the color-laden season just past. It stems unfair to pick out one particular tree anywhere in the Hanover vicinity, though we had our favorites, among them the two maples in front of Robinson Hall. The display of Nature's bounty was no secret to the leaf-watchers of the world, either. The cavalcade of tour buses occasionally resembled that of Madison Avenue, and if you got to the Hanover Inn for lunch merely at noon, you remained hungry for the better part of the next hour.

The same comment might be made about Convocations, last one's being one of the more inspiring in our memory. President Freedman impressively added the examples of 1950 Nobel winner Ralph Bunche and former president Harry Truman to his panoply of heroes. And multitalented documentary-maker Ken Burns, looking and sounding for all the world like any one of the sea of students he faced in Leede arena, spoke engagingly and persuasively about the study of history, the dangers of forgetting its lessons, and the challenge to each student to make his or her own history at Dartmouth.

In receiving an honorary degree of humane letters from the College, Burns, a resident of nearby Walpole, New Hampshire, and a graduate of Hampshire College, remarked that this was his first opportunity to address a convocation, although he had heard that he was a third choice at another institution, behind Woody Allen and Roger Clemens. "I did have the former's fastball and the latter's existential angst, however."

It has been a season of other important names as well. No stranger to the campus, Deputy Secretary of Education Madeleine Kunin discussed various aspects of the Clinton administration's "Goals 2000" in education, as the lead-off speaker in Rockefeller Center's tenth anniversary series, "Critical Issues in America." She was followed by former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop '37, who, in endorsing the government's health-care reform, stressed that caring be emphasized over curing. Former Senator and Reagan chief of staff Howard Baker (to our mind, one of the few remaining politicians to merit the term "statesman") decried the strain of nastiness and pettiness in Congress today. Baker thought if, as in the old days, we could give Congress shorter sessions, they might be more responsive both to our problems and their own. As do so many speakers at the Hinman Forum, he told a Nelson Rockefeller anecdote. When the former vice president appeared in Nashville, a lady said, "Mr. Rockefeller, we're afraid you're not conservative enough for us." Rocky replied, "Madam, I have more to conserve than anybody." Former Senators Warren Rudman and Paul Tsongas '62 are scheduled for future appearances in "Critical Issues."

Issue-wise, some dust was brushed off the College's late and celebrated Great Issues course last weekend, as the capital campaign's traveling show arrived in Hanover. Among the many offerings to the large gathering of head class agents and campaign solicitors were eight seminars, each on a topic of national concern. The major evening of entertainment was hosted, as was the New York City event two years ago, by Paul Binder '63, impresario of The Big Apple Circus. A special feature was the grotesque grace and supple awkwardness of Pilobolus, the innovative dance group founded at the College 20 years ago.

A CAMPUS ISSUE THAT NOT TOO long ago was vigorously esAroused and just as violently opposed received little student enthusiasm either way when it recently emerged from the out-basket of history. In answer to Nobel co-winner Nelson Mandela's recent plea for nationwide financial aid, the College's disinvestment in companies that do business in South Africa has become re-investment. Colby and Wesleyan have already changed their policy, and Duke's trustees vote on it in December. Though the Student Assembly has urged a lifting of the ban, there have been no demonstrations, no posters, no shanties, no sledgehammers. The erstwhile tempest seems to have faded into the teapot.

Not faded yet, however, has been the anti-trust case implicating die socalled Overlap Group. The Justice Department accused these 23 colleges and universities, including the Ivies and MIT, of "price-fixing," of sharing information about their applicants' financial needs in order to fulfill their policies of need-blind admissions. The Ivies, including Dartmouth, agreed to abandon the practice, but MlT's refusal to go along was just last month upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals. Two lawyers wrote in the Chronicle of Higher Education that "the only two problems with the Justice Department's approach are that it misstates the law and ignores the facts." Keep tuned.

THE ALUMNI COUNCIL WILL at its December session take up the issue of "de-clustering" the 10th, 15th, and 20th reunions by 1996. Aproposal would have pre-25th reunion classes meet by themselves on their five-year anniversaries instead of with their adjacent classes. Some of us have welcomed the chance to reune with friends from other classes; some have objected to the overcrowding and limited facilities unavoidably caused by the present reunion calendar (invented in 1948 by math professor Robin Robinson '24 and in use since then). If you feel strongly about it either way, your Council representative or your class secretary would welcome your opinion.

LAST WEEK AT THE BOWL IN New Haven, Yale's opening kickoff went over the goal line, and as is the custom in such cases, Dartmouth was awarded the ball on its 20. The team then proceeded to cover the remaining 80 yards in eight plays, sparked by the running of Pete Oberle '96, the hitherto-injured transfer from Colorado, and the quarterbacking of Jay Fiedler '94, back in mid-'92 season form. Thereafter, 31-14; lapses in the otherwise granite Dartmouth defense led to Yale's two scores. With the departure of All-American Dennis Durkin '93 the Green can no longer depend on a pretty sure three points when it's fourth down within the opponents' 30 or 35. So Coach Lyons has developed a simple remedy: give Fiedler the ball. Three times, at fourth and seven, fourth and three, and fourth and five, the young man either ran or found a receiver for a first down.

IN ADDITION TO PLLOBOLUS'S performance at the Will to Excel ceremonies, the troupe also appeared earlier in the week for an entire evening at Spaulding. During one unbelievably acrobatic series of their famous lifts, a man behind us was heard to mutter, to no one in particular, "Do not try this at home."

A last look at leaves,and a look backat Great Issues.

"It's amazing, Bill! Seventy percent of everything left in our retirement accountswhen we're gone goes to the Government—not to our kids!That's not for us; Marj and I have directed that it will go to Dartmouth—tax-free."