Dr. Wheelock's Journal
Divers Notes & Observations
WE HAVE NOT YET HEARD whether the Carnival Committee, as a result of a recent nine-inch snowfall, will cancel its disillusion-borne 1993 theme, "Sun, Surf, and Snow: Carnival in a Tropical Paradise," with a sunglassed penguin as its sculpture, and switch to something more wintry. The snow shortage of the past several seasons, however, has aggravated the administration's dilemma over "saving the Skiway." On one hand is the symbol of an enshrined Dartmouth outdoor tradition, which no one would want to see disappear. On the other hand, during these financially trying days, is a six figure annual squeeze plus seven figures of needed capital improvements.
Far be it for us regrettably a non-skier to suggest that the Skiway-salvage solution could be the same that saved Dartmouth crew (we were also a non-rower) from oblivion: namely, for Friends of Dartmouth Skiing to organize themselves and simply go for the money along with contributions to the Capital Campaign. Over the past few years Friends of Dartmouth Rowing has raised in excess of $1.3 million, for the new boathouse and other facilities. (Harvard, naturally, just did it the easy way alumnus Whipple V.N. Jones ponyed up a $10 million-plus gift of stock in the Aspen Highlands Ski Resort. Harvard "got a lift" out of that, according The Chronicle of Higher Education.)
TO THIS SIDEWALK SUPERintendent, the steam tunnel appears to have encountered Simplon-sized obstructions along College Street between Rollins and the library, and its progress, if any, is unobservable. Not so at 92-year-old College Hall and 14-year-old Collis, which by mid-'94 are to be redesigned, renovated, and linked to create a Student Center the dream of Dartmouth administrations since the thirties. We understand that much of the interior architectural charm of the old Freshman Commons will be retained, though beneath a four-story skylit atrium. And the balcony where at mealtimes musicians once performed (and served as sitting targets for stale rolls) will be removed. Meanwhile, present occupants of College Hall are being dispersed to the four winds, many to refurbished outbuildings on the Rope Ferry Road side of the old hospital, some to the second floor of the Norris Cotton Cancer Center. The Tucker Foundation goes to Fairbanks, which the movers may not have remembered was once (horrors) the Beta house.
Fingers crossed, the Green hockey team may finally have broken its two year lease on the ECAC's doormat. An ice-knowledgeable informant told us after he had witnessed a 6-4 loss to all-powerful Harvard that this was the best 1-and-6 Dartmouth team he had ever seen whereupon the stickers reeled off four consecutive wins, each by a single dramatic goal. More victories than all of last year, and the season is barely half over.
OUR DEEPEST BOW TO THE planners of the magnificent memorial service in Rollins for John Kemeny. By turns reminiscent, humorous, sentimental, familial, collegial, reverent in one all-too-short hour it diversely bespoke the all-too-brief years of Dartmouth's 13th president. To the Kemeny anecdotes, incidents, and writings that abounded, may this admirer add one unpublished paragraph that we recently uncovered, written upon Kemeny's return from the Three-Mile Island investigation, and when the Cold War still threatened world survival: "If one side ever gains a decisive advantage, it is likely to come through a creative leap of the human mind, to the nation with the strongest educational system, to the nation that nurtures the endeavors of its most talented to think thoughts that have never been thought before. The major breakthrough may come from a small university laboratory engaged in a project that had no apparent relevance to military applications. Or the ultimate weapon may be the product of the mind of a peace-loving man, with long hair and a rumpled sweater, who sits in an armchair smoking his pipe and contemplating the beauty of the Universe."
The campus gainssome long-awaitedweather and a long-awaited student union.
