Seen & Heard

The phrase "contiguous wilderness" recently lost all its idyllic connotations for Rosi Kerr '97. Weighed down by 6,500 pounds of food and gear, she and seven other explorers pushed off from Repulse Bay, Canada, on an Arctic river in spring 1999 and set their sights northward across the Arctic Barrenlands. During the next 70 days they portaged 79 times, pulled their four canoes upstream through icy, chestdeep water and dragged them over innumerable ice dams. They paddled close to 1,000 miles, caught fish for dinner when they could afford the fuel to cook them, and collected berries in a vain attempt to satisfy omnipresent hunger. But they appreciated the isolation: Wolves were far more frequent companions than humans—the group encountered other people only once. They also achieved some unique milestones. "I learned to pee standing up," Kerr says....Backin the land of the civilized, Benjamin Moynihan '87 sat down—with other alums, undergrads and College professors—to discuss how Dartmouth balances teaching and research during a Real Deal luncheon. The lunch in Hanover was one of the first sponsored by the Black Alumniof Dartmouth Association (BADA) and the Dartmouth Asian-American Pacific Alumni Association (DAPAA). "There was a lot of interest in how Dartmouth professors sors perceive Dartmouth's role as a college in which professors personally teach undergraduates, versus a 'university model' in which graduate teaching fellows teach undergraduate courses," says Moynihan, who has a master's in education from Harvard and develops curriculum for the national Algebra Project. "In fact, it seems that Dartmouth has been something of a hybrid environment for some time, with a combination of these attributes. This presents some difficulty for professors who are trying to remain current with their field and their own researchthere's not a lot of time to do this, given their teaching load." The Real Deal lunches begin with a specific topicrace relations, for example—but head off in whichever directions the students wish. "The purpose is not just to give advice but to present an opportunity for students of color to gather information about professions that might interest them," says David Reese '77, who organized the discussions with Belinda Chiu'98. (Contact Chiu at Belinda.h.y.chiu. 98@alum.dartmouth.org or Reese at bahia2000@aol.com.) Members of BAD A, the oldest black alumni club in the Ivy League, also gathered in Hanover in May to celebrate its 28th anniversary with a conference honoring founding member and first president Fritz Alexander '47, who died in April....On the other side of the world, Rob Brown '38 and Dave Cook '57 took a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain, last September as part of a group that hiked more than 12 miles a day for eight days between Leon and Santiago. "Imagine hiking Mt. Moosilauke twice a day, eight days in a row," says Cook. "Rob admitted that his feet were sore at the end but he never missed a step. Not bad for an 80-year-old."...Friends make pilgrimages to the hay house David Brown '76 built in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. They find the one-room house built of blocks of hay inviting, with family portraits on the walls and a window that frames a lush, Monet-style garden. Its popularity gave Brown, an artist, an idea: to make a replica of the house for the New Britain (Conn.) Museum of Art. He spent three years recreating his one-room, 7.5-foot tall house for an exhibit that debuted in the fall of 1999. It is no overgrown diorama; on the inside walls of the hay structure he painted every detail of his home's interior in a bright, trompe l'oeil. Outside, he depicted each side of the house in a different season and time of day. The exhibit moves to the Discovery Museum in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on October 15.

Rosi Kerr '97, center, with her paddling partners.

David Brown '76

Contributors: Heather Killebrew '89, LiamKuhn '02, Casey Noga '00, Kevin Whitcher'99 and Courtney Cook Williamson '93

quote unouotc Dartmouth ranks as the nation's ninth most prestigious college based on the percentage of alumni listed in Who's Who. THE JOURNAL OF BLACKS IN HIGHER EDUCATION

about the artist Yaz Krehbiel '91 TH'92, was all set to become an engineer. The he took an art class his senior year, and that changed everything. Now he's a painter, using the medium as a way to embark on a journey of self-discovery. "I want to represent that journey in the most beautiful and sublime way possibel," he says. His paintings have been exhibited in florence, Italy, at the 1999 International Biennial of contemporary art. He lives in Chicago.