1956

Bill Behrens is enthusiastically representing our class on the Alumni Council, and he provides detailed and fascinating reports of that body's deliberations. This column will summarize a few items from his most recent 11 -page report that should interest you all.

Bill says that the scope of the plans for the new buildings at the north end of campus is astonishing. Webster will become part of the Baker Library expansion, which will also include the new Berry Library to be added to the north across Elm St. Mary Hitchcock is scheduled for demolition. Under the 50-year concept plan, which is not a firm architectural plan but more a set of guidelines for how campus expansion may be handled in the future, there may be a quadrangle north of Baker, flanked east and west by buildings, with underground parking under the entire quadrangle. Choices are still being made between alternate layouts and land uses. A complete traffic and street plan is being formulated to serve the entire area.

The impetus to all this, at least partly, is demand for bigger and better facilites to keep the College competitive with other schools angling for top students. The College still operates under a need-blind admission policy; 40 to 45 percent of the students are receiving some kind of financial aid. Early-decision candidates are up ten percent, as are regular-admission admission applications. About one in five candidates are accepted, numbering about 2,000 in order to net 1,100 for the freshman class. The mean SAT score is 13 50, and it costs about $25,000 per year to be a Dartmouth person now. (WOW!)

A student referendum showed that 80 percent of the students are in favor of keeping the single-sex Greek houses. (I think this means that Dartmouth will probably not have more sorternities or frarorities for a while at least.) At present there are six sororities with 110 to 130 members each, and the feeling on campus is that a seventh is needed. Bill goes on to talk about the Alumni Fund, multicultural concerns, bequests, Hillary's visit, reunions, the curriculum, diversity, gender equity, and the Medical School. I'd be happy to send a copy of his report to anyone who calls or writes.

Dartmouth '56 socks to whomever guesses which of us wrote as follows on his application in 1951, "One of the main reasons that led me to choose Dartmouth was that I would be able to receive the broad and general advantages a Liberal-Arts course offers and at the same time prepare myself for either medicine or engineering. The five-year plans afforded in the Thayer School and the Medical School fit my program perfectly. I was particularly impressed with the purpose of the college as expressed by President Emeritus Hopkins, that 'The primary concern of the College is not with what men shall do but with what men shall be.'" (HINT: Showing an early inclination to cover all his bets, this guy became a successful investment counselor after a short but meaningful naval experience.)

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