A Dull End to Fall, a Brilliant End to the Campaign
Divers Notes and Observations
If you go for a lot of russet, with overtones of burnt orange and an occasional flash of lurid yellow, you would have appreciated the dun fall foliage—dulled, say the experts, by the absence of a major frost. It was definitely a subdued season on the hillsides. Hardly so on the campus, as the Will to Excel campaign wound up bursting its original bounds by better than $143 million; Dartmouth Night was a blaze of jubilation as the '00s dizzily spun around the bonfire; the Green footballers swarmed over Yale, 40-6 and stood undefeated in late October; and it's almost impossible to mention a news item unless it has something to do with an anniversary or a record.
The story in this issue on the Will to Excel's triumphal conclusion (page 11) doesn't mention two last-minute gifts, each remarkable in its own way. One is the largest bequest in Dartmouth's history, and it will help to fill what is now the largest hole in this hallowed ground with Moore Hall. The building will serve as a headquarters that for at least a generation has been awaited by the psychology department. The gift was from the estate of the late Florence B. Moore, who with her late husband Lansing Porter Moore '37 had already shown their generosity to the College in so many ways. The second gift relates to the scholarship (mentioned in our last issue) that was established by members of the faculty for the benefit of an outstanding student. Well, an outstanding student of 30 years ago, Russell Carson '66, thought that turnabout was fair play, and set up a $1 million fund for the benefit of the faculty, in these expensive times, to upgrade their personalcomputer equipment. Not easy to chronicle the Campaign without a round of applause for Special Assistant to the President Lucretia Martin, who stepped in at a critical juncture as both acting director of development and director of principal gifts. Besides her singular achievements in this arcane area, she has been instrumental in recruiting her successor, Carolyn A. Pelzel for the past ten years a senior development officer at Harvard who will become director of development in early January. Our sources tell us that Pelzel is the Lu Martin of Harvard. Lu of Dartmouth will return to her former position, in which she has served and counseled the College's last three presidents.
The new dormitory supercluster couldn't have had a more relevant kickoff speaker for its inaugural Issues and Ideas series than the campus's Dr. C. Everett Koop '37. He outlined for his Brace Commons audience the history of health care and its reform. The good doctor is concerned that business and legal forces are taking over the doctor-patient relationship which he called "the veryheart and soul of medicine." A few days later, at Cook Auditorium, Koop introduced fellow ex-pediatrician FDA Commissioner David Kessler, who spoke on the progress being made on the government's anti-smoking efforts, which Koop himself initiated during his earlier eight years as U.S. Surgeon General. And in the same life-and-death area, a recent visiting fellow of Rock Center's Ethics Institute was Geoffrey Fieger, for the past six years the attorney for Dr. Jack Kevorkian. Fieger pointedly said that Kevorkian would never treat or endorse suicide as "an irrational act of desperation," but as a case of agreedupon, end-able suffering. The messages of two recent female speakers were both forceful and timely. U.S. Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick inveighed against much of the dehumanizing rhetoric that characterizes so much of politics today; and NOW vice president Rosemary Dempsey urged students to see through the rhetorical buzzwords and cynicism and become involved in issues critical to women's interests.
As predictable as the seven-year locust come renewed murmurs over the lack of a Dartmouth mascot. One group of four determined varsity athletes last year bemoaned their embarrassment when derided by animalian totem-sporting opponents. "What's a Big Green?" they asked rhetorically in a convincing presentation to the Alumni Council. Their fervor has since spread to other areas of the campus, notably the Student Assembly, and even to the pages of this magazine witness recent letters to the editor. We can't refrain from offering our personal opinion on what seems to be leading in the polls so far, the Dartmouth Dragons. For reasons we can't explain, it has a sort of distasteful pinball ring to it. However, if you will permit us another observation: Since a mascot largely concerns the fate of sports teams, it requires approval and almost mystical adoption by sportswriters. It must be usable in a snappy headline—that's why "the Indians" was such a natural.
Dr. Wheelock's own choice, the Hill Winds, has a most commendable, if unconventional, source: the Alma Mater. Can't you see it? "Winds Blow Out Big Red, 38-21."
