Letters

Quote/Unquote "Granted, Dartmouth probably needs more campus housing, but making the rooms more genteel may be a mistake." JOHN MILLS '62

The Access Gap

Bob Reich's Important Essay on poor peoples access to our best colleges and universities ["The Opportunity Divide," Mar/Apr] packed an extra wallop for me. For several years I have been helping students in a south Bronx middle school prepare for the entrance examination for New York City's four special high schools. I have no doubt that if my students, almost all of whom are from the lowest socio-economic strata, were at a typical suburban middle school—or the village grade school in Vermont where my son went—many would be headed for college, and one or two would be looked at by the very best. Unless my students develop into the "stars" Reich mentions, the chance to go to a good college will come to them only from one of the diminishing number of need-blind institutions.

Director, Hopkins Center, 1969-81ps22@columbia.edu

REICH IMPLIES THAT THE POOR ARE too stupid to know that college is useful. Clearly Mr. Reich has not been around the block. I doubt if he's ever served in the armed forces or held a job in the real world where he had to deal with working poor. If he had, he'd know that smart people always know they're smart, no matter if they're rich or poor. Their intelligence shines early in life. And they learn very quickly how to mobilize sponsors, especially among what Reich calls their "overwhelmed" teachers, for whom a bright kid is a beacon of pride in a poor neighborhood.

Mr. Reich typifies the leftover New Deal liberal who wants to save us from ourselves, especially if we're poor and so stupid we don't even know we need his help.

Thousand Oaks, California

I CAN'T HELP BUT THINK HOW OUT of touch with working-class people Mr. Reich is. I suggest he read a seminal work on the reality of human work by Pope John Paul II (Laborem Exercens, 1981) to gain some perspective on issues of dignity and justice for all people. That may be a more relevant discussion than the popular cause of throwing some bones to "those less fortunate" by admitting their sons and daughters into the hallowed halls of prestigious institutions.

Warren, Michiganpkortebein@yahoo.com

ROBERT REICH BRINGS FORWARD an important problem facing the country today: the accelerating accumulation of wealth and income in the top 20 or 5 or 1 percent of the distribution. My concern is this: What can elite colleges do about this? And how will these efforts impact upon them if they try?

I have taught at City University of New York (CUNY) since 1973. In this period, I have learned that it is very difficult to build an excellent college, but it is a simple matter to destroy one. CUNY's open admissions program, embarked on shortly before I arrived, and of which I was a staunch supporter, had these results: enormous failure rates, anxiety over which led to drastically reduced standards, which then cascaded to a vastly degraded societal perception of the value of the CUNY degree.

I wish Mr. Reich's article took cognizance of the apparent risks to the College. I suggest that many of the prospective students he imagines coming to colleges such as Dartmouth are not in a position to benefit from the experience.

New York, New Yorkmarksh@alum.dartmouth.org

Heavy Metal

ACCORDING TO "THE CHEMISTRY of Crime" [Mar/Apr], Roger Masters compared "levels of lead and manganese emissions in communities to alcoholism rates and crime statistics" and concluded that "heavy metals are one of the factors involved in crime."

With two causal elements cited alcoholism and high levels of lead and manganese—it is impossible to reach the stated conclusion.

Mystic, Connecticut

ROGER MASTERS REPLIES: Our studies include multiple correlations to control foralcohol and other variables associated withcrime. Other studies of brain chemistry alsoconfirm linkages between lead and manganeseneurotoxicity and crime.

To clarify another point: My research withMyron J. Coplan concerns the use of silicofluorides (fluosilicic acid or sodium silicoflouride) in water fluoridation, notfluoridation in general. We have not found evidence of enhanced lead uptake or higher ratesof learning disabilities and crime in communities using sodium fluoride, whereas all these effects are found where silicofluorides are used.

Views of a Room

GRANTED, DARTMOUTH PROBABLY needs more campus housing, but making the rooms more genteel may be a mistake ["At Home on Campus," Nov/Dec].

My father, a '34, prepared me for my spartan room in Topliff by taking pride in its minimal features while admiring the sturdy, good-looking building. (By spartan I mean four walls, tile floor, fivedrawer bureau and iron bed with wire mesh and no mattress. A coil of rope was tied to the radiator leg as a fire escape, which reached only halfway to the ground from the fourth-floor window. It wasn't shabby, just minimal.) My father felt, as I do, that living for a time without many of the superfluous material accessories offers students a fresh perspective of the relative non-necessity of such things, possibly providing some balance in their future lives. Of course students who are used to the amenities will clamor to have them. But how can one realize the unimportance of such amenities except by feeling life without them?

Nashville, Indiana

Health Cares

DR. KOOP'S ABILITY TO SEPARATE personal views from professional obligations mark him as a uniquely principled public figure ["Koop," Jan/Feb]. But while he sees much that is going on, he ultimately fails to examine the full picture.

Eisenhower identified the military industrial complex. A similar establishment has industrialized American medicine. The result is the worlds highest per capita cost, with no guarantee of health care for all people.

A prophetic mistake in the 1890s captures our plight: the U.S. Government Printing Office substituted the sword and intertwined snakes of the caduceus, symbol of Hermes, messenger god and god of commerce, for the staff and snake of Aesculapius, god of healing. This duplicate usage continues, some choosing one, some the other. We must reclaim the proper symbol for medicine and then go beyond symbolism to establish a rational and humane medical system. Dr. Koop's courage could find no better use.

Berkeley, Californiahhibou@earthlink.net

YOUR ARTICLE PIGEONHOLES THE Web site Americas Doctor.com as being one of many medical sites offering diagnosis and treatment without their doctors ever seeing patients in the flesh. Yes, the site does have a feature where consumers can talk to a doctor free of charge, but at no time is diagnosis or treatment offered.

Public Relations, Americas Doctor.comkremshak@americasdoctor.com

Keeping Cyber-pace

I COMMEND MARK PRUNER FOR raising concerns that Dartmouth hasn't seized the challenges of distance education or e-learning with the vigor of our peer institutions ["Lost in Cyberspace?" Jan/Feb], issues he and I recently discussed.

Having spent the last year working on this issue for the College, I believe we may be guilty of modesty and of refusing to announce programs until they actually exist, but we are neither falling behind our peers nor in danger of becoming a "second-tier university in as little as five years," as Mark suggests.

Many press releases have touted partnerships, collaborations and joint ventures involving our Ivy-plus peers (the Ivies, Stanford, Duke, MIT and the University of Chicago). But with two minor exceptions, none of the Ivy-plus schools offer distance education courses for credit to their undergraduates.

The thing to keep in mind about the activity that appears to be taking place at peer institutions is that, to date, it is just press release activity. A few months ago, for example, an announcement was made that Cambridge was joining the Stanford/Yale/Princeton consortium for alumni distance education, yet representatives from the institutions still hadn't even met to work on anything concrete. While we frequently hear reference to Internet time, the only thing that really seems to move at that speed is the press releases.

Mark mentions the Tuck Online Bridge program that was developed with the Internet learning company Quisic as one of the Colleges bright spots. Since Tuck hadn't put out any anticipatory press releases, he had no way of knowing that Tuck will also be working with the e-learning company Pensare on a series of executive continuing education programs. He also had no way of knowing that Dartmouth's Ad-Hoc Faculty Committee on Distance Education has been meeting weekly for several months to consider the legal, financial, social and pedagogical implications of distance education for the undergraduate College.

The College takes Mark's concerns seriously. We won't be left behind in the measured adoption of educational technology. And we won't announce programs that don't actually exist.

Director of Distance EducationDartmouth College

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