Baseball Weather Brings Bulldozers
Divers Notes and Observations
Two brilliant spring days brought the student body back to the campus after spring break, "all in their places with sunshiny faces," as we recall from kindergarten days. (Robert Frost '96 had it differently. In "Good-bye and Keep Cool," he advised us to "Dread fifty above more than fifty below.") Still plenty of snow on the slopes, however, and two Dartmouth skiers are burning them up-Jen Collins '99 and Chris Puckett '94, both recent winners of U.S. National Alpine Championships in Carrabassett, Maine. Collins, from Allegany, New York, was admitted to Dartmouth two years ago but put off her college education until this year while she trained with the U.S. Ski Tearn. This season she has won the downhill in every eastern carnival but one, plus the NCAA giant slalom in Montana. Puckett, the 1993 U.S. combined champion, is again leading in points for the title, with two more meets to go—and a couple more courses to complete before he earns his Dartmouth degree.
Court, ice, track, and pool saw plenty of achievement in the indoor sports season, the most outstanding being that of women's hockey. A couple of thrillers took them to the ECAC semifinals, only to be edged by U.N.H. in overtime. The men, after a dismal start, fought their way into the playoffs but lost in the first round to R.P.I, after a questionable call on what might have been the winning Dartmouth goal. Both men's and women's basketball teams finished third in the Ivies (we humbly admit that our prediction of a couple of months ago must have jinxed them). Sea Lonergan '97, next year's men's captain, was first-team all-Ivy; women's hockey coach George Crowe was named ECAC coach of the year; and many personal best times were racked up in both swimming and indoor track. The word from spring training trips is that tennis and lacrosse look promising. Two more starting pitchers would certainly help Bob Whalen's baseballers beat last year's strong 16-10 finish; hitting should not be their problem.
With the arrival of baseball weather, the bulldozers and the backhoes take center stage almost everywhere you look. The steam tunnel is continuing its odyssey, snaking 20 feet below the White Church parking lot on its way to the basement of the new psychology building on Maynard Street, for which excavation is scheduled this September. (The route is where 70 years ago the town used to dump leaves every fall, an oldtimer told us.) The tunnel carries phone and computer lines, high-voltage electricity, and everything else not nailed down.
Of course the Berry Library will be the big project in these closing years of the decade. Confronting the library is a daunting problem that faces our entire civilization in the next century—how to allocate space and functions between print and electronics. A 17-member library building committee and an 11-member group on "information technologies" report to classics professor Bill Scott, head of the Task Force on the Library of the Twenty-First Century. He in turn reports to Provost Lee Bollinger, who has announced that the initial plan should be ready for discussion just after this issue goes to press.
Old Baker Library will again be the backdrop for Commencement, by an overwhelming vote of the seniors, whose occasion it unarguably is. Making it a bit more comfortable, viewable, and listenable for the increasing number of spectators, the podium will be on the north side of the Green. Students and some alumni will sit in several thousand seats on the Green, flanked east and west by grandstands. The plans look as if you could request a third-floor Green-side room at the Inn and enjoy the whole event from your easy chair.
Just a few weeks later, on June 30, the Will to Excel fund is expected to reach its increased $500 million goal, perhaps with a few bucks to spare. The campaign's five-year deadline is not until October 7, but as of this writing the total already stands at about $476 million. February pledges and gifts exceeded $6 million, and four more $6 million months could wrap it up. Solicitation will continue until October notwithstanding.
Rockefeller Center's Linda Fowler reports (in VOX, the Dartmouth News Service's on-campus paper) that the student pollsters developed considerable aplomb on the telephone while they were working on the Dartmouth/WMUR political poll during the New Hampshire primary. One student caller, a woman, was informed by the respondent that he was naked and excited to be talking to her. She calmly responded with the next question: "Generally speaking, do you consider yourself a Republican, a Democrat, or an Independent?"
