1962

The graph on page 24 of the May/June Dartmouth Alumni Magazine shows that tuition at Dartmouth College for 2006-2007 will exceed $40,000. It shows that the 1984-85 tuition was about $14,000 a 280 percent increase in 22 years. The graph includes two other lines that might indicate that we shouldn't worry. One line shows that median household income has roughly the same slope as tuition in nominal dollars for the same period. One might conclude that the rise in tuition at Dartmouth fits nicely with the increase in U.S. household income.

The graph is disingenuous. Consider that tuition for one year at Dartmouth during our senior year, 1961-1962, was $1,500. The inflation calculator of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that $1,500 in 1962 dollars relates to less than $10,000 in 2006 dollars (www.bls.gov).

Is a Dartmouth education now worth four times what it was our senior year? That seems unlikely.

via e-mail recently and is timely. The special news is that President Wright (and the trustees of Dartmouth College) hired "McKinsey & Co., a management consulting firm, to review Dartmouth's non-academic administrative operations and to provide us with recommendations for how we might provide administrative support more effectively... .The McKinsey team has helped us to identify just such opportunities, and the process has been extremely valuable. I am excited to begin a broader set of conversations about how to implement some ideas that have been advanced through this study....The McKinsey team visited campus from November to January and met with approximately 50 faculty, students and staff. There were 55 interviews...."

The consultants then repaired to their home city with hundreds of thousands (millions?) of Dartmouth dollars and wrote a report. Some people might think that the trustees hired the president and his large administrative staff to look after such things in the first place. Dartmouth College, like so many large and famous institutions, is caught up in the mania of consultants, committees and endless reports replete with PowerPoint.

Happily, talking with Jim Blair was calming to your overwrought secretary. I wanted to talk with Jim after he posted some thoughtful reflec- tions on the "Great Issues" '62 listserv. Jim and his wife, Wendy, live in Manhattan and sometimes escape to their "estate-let" in upstate New York. Jim and Wendy met in New Zealand (her home country) many years ago. Wendy works with the New Zealand mission to the UN. Jim practices law in Manhattan and specializes in commercial litigation. He pursues his musical interests as a flutist in a trio with cello and piano. He also sings bass-baritone with his church choir. Ah, music to calm the savage beast.Thanks Jim. I feel better now.

John Pearse writes, "I currently live in Vero Beach, Florida, during the winter and still have a home in Avon, Connecticut (where the grandchildren are!), for the summer. Keep in touch guys!" Well said John.

11 Sunset Road, Salem, MA 01970;(978) 744-0655 (fax); rjhannah@massmed.org307 Sewickley Ridge Drive, Sewickley, PA 15143;(412) 741-9088; jbhaines@comcast.net