Dr. Wheelock's Journal
Divers Notes & Observations
WITH CARNIVAL ONLY TWO weeks away, the campus lacks the traditional buzz of anticipation. But perhaps all that's necessary to galvanize the College into a Carnival mode is a fresh snowfall—to take the place of last week's hip-deep powder, which was dissolved into two inches of slush by a weekend rain.
One event that required none of winter's trappings was last month's four-day International Conference for Arctic Research, co-hosted by the College and the Army's Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL). See this issue's cover story on the con-erence—which one day may become as significant to the world of polar research as Bretton Woods is to that of international finance.
Coincidentally, Paavo Lipponen, prime minister of Finland, one of the participant Arctic-rim countries, was a visitor in Hanover earlier in the month. As a student here in 1960-61, he created such pleasant memories of his friends, his membership on the swimming team, his kitchen job at Thayer, and the fall foliage that he just wanted to see Dartmouth again. He visited his old dorm, Cohen Hall, had a swim in the pool, and recalled movies at the Nugget. He admitted that after a vacation in Wyoming with one of his roommates, he was tempted to stay in America forever.
IF WE CAN DEDICATE A POSTAGE stamp to a rock star or a comicstrip character, why not to a leading scientist? Why not, indeed, answered the U.S. Post Office, and on February 2, at Howard University, a stamp was issued to honor biologist Ernest Everett Just '07, one of the nation's most important African American scientists. Just taught at Howard for 34 years after graduating Phi Beta Kappa and the only magna cum laude in his class at Dartmouth. In addition to his unique contributions in cell biology, and in the face of numerous obstacles, Just left an outstanding legacy not alone for blacks but for all scientists and humanity generally. A professorship at Dartmouth was established in 1981 in his memory. Its current occupant is Professor George M. Langford, whose career has largely paralleled that of E.E. Just.
One of the more dramatic celebrations of Martin Luther King Day took place the weekend of January 12-15: the presentation of a play by Clayborne Carson, of the history faculty at Stanford, and editor of Dr. King's papers. The play depicts scenes from King's life, mostly in his own words, and the parts were read by members of the faculty and administration: President Freedman as John F. Kennedy; Professor Bill Cook as MLK Senior; Sandra Spiegel, of Counseling and Human Dev elopement as Coretta Scott King; and Dean Lee Pelton as Malcolm X. Alumni Relations Director Nelson Armstrong '7O was slated to play King himself, but because of illness had to be replaced. For drama professor Victor Walker, the director, Providence intervened. The Gospel Choir was to be onstage for the full performance, and its leader, Simeon Anderson '97, so impressed Walker with his voice and presence that he was given the part, with 48 hours to rehearse. Bill Cook can charm a Dartmouth audience by just reading the phone book; but Anderson, an economics major from Kalamazoo and son of a Pentecostal minister, was the principal reason for a standing and roaring ovation. From the boyish reading of his letters-home from college to the thundering accents of King's last great public appearances, there was no doubt that he knew whose life he was re-creating.
There was a run on the bookstore for copies of Maus 1 and Maus 2 when it was learned that Pulitzer Prizewinner Art Spiegelman was to appear later that week. The cartoonist, whose father was a survivor of Auschwitz, and who admitted that in his boyhood "he studied MAD magazine as though it were a late entry in the Talmud," fascinated the audience with his cat-and-mouse comic-strip slides of the horrors of the Holocaust. And for a third exposition of man's inhumanity to man in the space of two weeks, Montgomery Fellow Wilma Mankiller, former chief of the Cherokee nation, told how her tenacious tribe, despite broken treaties, the "Trail of Tears," and two centuries of federal neglect, was not only a survivor but looked forward to a twentyfirst century "on their own terms." Mankiller's unemotional, plain-spoken manner impressed a large and sympathetic crowd at Cook Auditorium.
It was almost a relief to return to politics as usual, and the visits of senators Phil Gramm and Bob Dole last weekend. To the camera-jammed and student-overflowing Alpha Delt parlor, Dole said he had watched AnimalHouse the night before, and it reminded him of Congress. He was surprised that so many Alpha Delts could be awake so early on a Saturday morning. He spoke with a heartiness that belied his 70-plus summers—an "enduring" leader, one introduction called him. Linda Fowler, director of the Dartmouth/WMUR New Hampshire poll, will be on CNN live on February 20, Primary Day, when we Live Free or Die voters inform the nation which GOP candidates' TV commercials have swayed our judgments the least.
A SINGLE BULLDOZER MUST have obliterated the old Dragon tomb in one magic puff. One morning it was there, the next it was gone. The brothers have already dedicated their new quarters, on the rocky heights overlooking the old hospital grounds, which are now getting leveler and leveler. Men's hockey, looking as if might emerge from the last few years' doldrums, beat Harvard, Yale, and Princeton in a row, a skating feat not performed since the days of Hans Brinker—er, Hobey Baker. The men's swim team won its first home dual meet since 1991—and so far, both men and women basketeers, with a few narrow escapes from lastsecond ignominy, have been giving a robust account of themselves.
SADLY, THE GREEN FLAG ON THE sunset side of the campus has been spending overtime at half-staff. Much-honored professor of economics Daniel Marx '29 died on December 23 at his home in Menlo Park, California, at age 87. An overflow crowd at Kendal attended the memorial service for Lois Paddock Hicks, wife of Ort Hicks '21. (On their 70th wedding anniversary, the Hickses were told to listen to a newscast by the veteran Paul Harvey, who had surprise congratulations for them—and Lois protested, "Orton, don't let him do that again.") One of Dartmouth's most generous benefactors, Kenneth Montgomery '25, who in 1977, with his wife Harle, established the fellowship that bears their name, passed away just last week, at 91. And emeritus professor of art history Churchill "Jerry" Lathrop, who with Professor Packard was responsible for bringing Jose Clemente Orozco to the basement walls of Baker Library in 1933, died on December 21 at 95. When the great Mexican muralist was painting the cadaverish faculty heads at the east end of the corridor, Lathrop was reputed to have asked him why so macabre. In his smiling, halting English, Orozco's response was: "Al-ma Ma-ter."
A student becomes King, and a, scientist is crowned with a stamp.
