Divers Notes & Observations
OUR FELLOW PUBLICATION, Harvard Magazine, harbors an inimitable column, “The College Pump.” In the latest edition its author, “Primus IV,” writes archly: “At hand is the ninetieth anniversary of the world’s first massive reinforced concrete structure, Harvard Stadium, inaugurated November 14, 1903. Dartmouth was the opponent, and the Green prevaded, 11-0.”
Fourscore-and-ten years later, on Homecoming Weekend, the Green achieved three touchdowns in the last quarter to prevail over the Crimson, 3 9-34. And then, in three of the next four heart-stopping weeks: be- hind 6-21 to Cornell, Dartmouth edged it out, 28-27; down 21 -25 to Columbia, again the team scored thrice in the final minutes to win 42-25. And miraculously, trailing Princeton 8-22 until halfway through die fourth quarter, quarterback Jay Fiedler ’94 unleashed two touch- down passes and between them, scram- bled and fought 15 yards all by himself for a third score, to top the Tigers 28- 22. Unbeaten Penn, unhappily, came from behind to beat Cornell, 17-14 to end Dartmouth’s hopes for a fourth straight Ivy tide. But what a season!
Women’s soccer has closed a perfect Ivy season unbeaten, and for the first time in any seven-game Ivy season, un- scored upon. You can’t do any better than that—except that the Green hoot- ers went to the NCAAs, where they lost to nationally ranked U-Conn, 3-1.
The Dartmouth sports item of the year, however, may be the feat of Bob Kempainen ’BB in the New York Marathon. Taking time off from his medical studies at Minnesota, Dartmouth’s All-American distance standout, in only his fourth marathon ever, was up there with the winner, Mexico’s Andres Espinosa, at 21 miles, to finish a strong second in 2:11. (And $45,000 richer.) Watch this magazine for a more complete account.
WANDERERS INTO THE Bedford Courtyard of the Hood Museum may think they have suddenly been transported to Stonehenge. Joel Shapiro’s 21-foot bronze Untided (Hood Museum of Art) suddenly appears to be pointing at sculp- tress Magdalena Abakanowicz’s Hand- Like Trees, now on extended loan; five equally massive one-and-a-half-ton bronzes. Seen against a skyline, they would be a menacing band of stark, headless Druidic giants; huddled in die courtyard, the passerby sees “a forest of myth, wonder, and danger,” as the cat- alogue puts it. And still another gift from the Hood family was announced last month—$8 million, part of which will now help launch the new curriculum. . 1 i r it t 1
Across the campus from the Hood, the Concord Coalition of former Senators Warren Rudman and Paul Tsongas ’62 brought a packed Webster Hall to its feet several times with their message that if Congress does not face the challenge of fiscal respon- sibility, the present generation— “the first in our country’s history to have lower living standards than its parents”—is likely to do it for them, and it will not be a pleasant time for our country. Rudman, who in an aside noted how many people thought his first name was “Gramm,” warned that the 50 per- cent of our taxes spent for entitle- ments of all kinds goes to far too many of us who do not need them. Tsongas, who allowed that the tax-and-spend im- age of one political party is not that much worse than the spend-and-bor- row reality of the other, decried the Washington careerists who have taken over Congress from the citizen legisla- tors envisioned by the Founding Fathers. They were all for a balanced- budget amendment, he said, but were ignorant of the difference between that and a balanced budget.
Earlier in the week, the campus was treated to a rare performance by one of the former Soviet Union’s outstanding figures. Yevgeny Yevtushenko, in dra- matic voice, read his poems both in Russian and in English, showed a film he had produced, “Stalin’s Funeral,” in- terrupting it from time to time with his own observations. He was accompa- nied by Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., Vladimir Lukin, and both made en- couraging remarks about relations be- tween emerging Russia and the United States. The occasion was a conference, “The Future of Democracy in Russia,” sponsored by the Dickey Endowment.
It has been said, somewhat disparag- ingly, that a student can earn a Dartmouth degree without having read a single play by Shakespeare. It can also be said, indisputably, that for a while you can now enjoy an entire Shakespeare evening without a degree from any College at all. To die first statement, the answer is that, like calculus, die nation’s pedagogues have made Shakespeare die province of our high schools’ curricu- lum. To the second, a lively, colorful, au- thentic, and utterly unflawed student production of the Bard’s “Measure for Measure” graced the Center Theatre’s stage, to the delight of Upper Valley res- idents of all kinds.
W'E KNEW WE HAD SEEN the name of the newly an- nounced charter trustee, David Shipler ’64, before—and sure enough, it was the by-line of the for- mer New York Times correspondent whose dispatches we had often read and admired. Shipler is the third Dartmouth journalist to join the Trustees within a year.
The College’s new vice president for Development and Alumni Affairs, Stan Colla ’72, was Alumni Fund di- rector in the last two record-breaking years. He has just succeeded the re- tired Skip Hance ’5l. In addition to having had a father in ’3 3 and a brother in ’5B, Stan has personally ex- perienced the last three decades of transition at Dartmouth. He was orig- inally a member of ’66; went to Vietnam and returned to graduate with ’72, the last all-male class; got an education degree from Harvard and taught in several prep schools; then came back in 1984 to earn his M.B.A. at Tuck before he joined the development staff in 1986. He has no qualms about the Will to Excel cam- paign, still ahead of its time line, and which he says will pass the $3OO mil- lion mark by the time you are reading this issue. He feels that the real chal- lenges remaining are to complete its individual goals, such as those in the arts and sciences, which after all are the College’s basic mission.
Gridders overcomefour deficits;Tsongas and Rudmar,k battle only one.
