1957

Ned Bixby, our Alumni Fund head agent, is following strongly in the leadership footsteps of Randy Aires and JackCramer. The end-of-February reports have 1957 doing well in both cash gifts and participation levels. It looks as if the two gutsy recent commitments by the College, first, to meeting the competition's scholarship offers, and second, to revamping the way students approach life outside the classroom, will call for even more support from us. Let's do it.

Bruce Sloane offered this perspective on the residential-life principles expressed by the Trustees: "One reason why the College administration is taking so much flak over this proposed change is that it is trying to come up with one solution (coed frats) for several complex and separate problems at once. The issues need to be separated and addressed separately. These problems, which are inter-related, include not enough on campus housing, drinking and alcohol problems, and what is perceived by some as not enough control by the College over some student activities."

Bruce continued: "In addition, one solution is not appropriate for everyone. Some prefer a coed frat; some want single sex dorms; some want off-campus housing; some want the structure [that] a live-in proctor provides, etc. The fear [many of us feel] is that the proposed changes will remove any choice, and everybody will live in a uniform, College-dictated, probably vanilla environment."

Bruce Bernstein, on a somewhat broader scale, wrote: "I have some notion of how my fellow '57s think, but I believe it is probably based more on 1957 then the present, and would like to check that out. For example, I have had negative reactions to some of the recent anti-political correctness comments that have appeared on the listserv. I believe our years at Dartmouth were characterized by insensitivity to minority concerns, and wonder how much, if at all, we as a group have moved in our thinking."

Dave Richardson's response: "Your comment about negative reaction to antipolitical correctness piqued my interest. I'm not sure where the negative comes out, but I deduce that you approve of the 'correctness movement,' if such it is, on campuses across the nation. My reaction is otherwise, not because I don't think we could usefully show more respect toward others (we could, we should, we must) but because the 'movement' is so shot through with intolerance. Indeed, most public discourse is, these days."

The class listserv, from which so much good correspondence comes to these notes, is not an exclusive club. It's just a third space for classmates to keep up with each other. There have been postings about residential life at Dartmouth, thwarting squirrels at bird feeders, and impeachment at high levels, along with jokes and travel reports and requests for information. Adam Block's other venture, the class website, is at .

Along with instructions about how to join the listserv, the site offers some photographs and reminiscences, a directory of e-mail addresses for 164 classmates, including all listserv members, and class president Dick Perkins's annual state-of-theclass report to the College.

U.S. mail and telephone are other ways to reach me with ideas and news to share.

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