Wearing A Green Jacket
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The other day I was wearing my green jacket and a friend said to me, “It is wonderful that you support Baylor like that, particularly since you come from back East.” Of course, I have lived in Waco for fifteen years but to many I still ‘come from back east’. I did not tell this friend that I was wearing my Dartmouth College jacket since I am an unpaid-alumni, Central Texas recruiter/interviewer for my alma mater. That is the system all over the world for this ninth oldest college in America. Going around this region for an Ivy League college, sitting in the living rooms of the brightest that Texas education has to offer, is my way of paying back an outstanding education. Locally, I have watched with interest the conflict between the faculty and the administration at Baylor University. There is none of that I have to deal with when talking to students with SAT scores between 1300 and 1600. I ask them always, “Why do you wish to go to Dartmouth College? There are many other first tier colleges like Rice, MIT, University of Michigan, Harvard, Yale, Standard, Princeton, Brown, etc. Why Dartmouth?” The answers are varied but they all come down to one point: “It is one of the best, if not the best.” As the 16th president of the college, James Wright, Class of 1964, previous member and head of the history department at the college since 1969, states: “Dartmouth attracts and retains the very best faculty and students in the world and together they make magical things happen. Some of my most gratifying moments as president have included listening to my faculty colleagues talk about their passion for teaching, for a particular area of research, and the relationship between the two; attending student recitals, presentations, and athletic events; meeting informally with students to hear about their experiences and aspirations; participating in recruitment activities and tenure deliberations; meeting with alumni to renew their bonds with the College; and working with my colleagues in the faculty and administration to steward this wonderful institution. Dartmouth did not become Dartmouth over the last two and one-third centuries by timidity, by complacency, by an absence of ambition. The College is a place vitalized and continually revitalized by a sense of energy and of ambition.” Therefore when I interview a prospective addition to the Dartmouth family, one thing I do is relate some of the graduates of the college over the years: Daniel Webster (1801); poet Robert Frost (1896); Kanichi Asakawa, the found of Asian Studies in the United States (19899); pioneering biologist E.E. Just (1907); Theodor “Dr. Seuss” Geisel (1925); Vice President Nelson Rockefeller (1930); former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop M.D. (1937); US Labor Secretary Robert Reich (1968); writer Louise Erdich (1976); and many, many more. Every student on campus owns a computer, and the network extends to every dorm room, classroom, administration office and the libraries. There are over 12,000 computers on campus for an undergraduate enrollment of 4,079 and graduate of 1,514. When I attended in 1951, the total undergraduate enrollment was a little over 3500. Today, 46% of the students are on need-based scholarships (need-based and merit are the only kind that Dartmouth gives). Dartmouth has the highest percentage in America of alumni giving back to the college (an average of $100.8 million each year in gifts and bequests): 86 percent. The endowment as of June 30, 2002 was 2.2 billion dollars. The vision of the college is to have its graduates make a difference in the world. Therefore each year, under the undergraduate flexible academic schedule, called the Dartmouth Plan, 62 percent of the student body is studying outside the US in 16 countries. To learn about the world, one must be out in the world, rubbing minds with other people. The national average for most universities is 2 percent of foreign study. While at Dartmouth College, I played varsity football and studied with Robert Frost and Paul Sample in the arts. The campus has two exceptional facilites designed to make the arts a vital part of Dartmouth’s educational life: the Hood Museum and Hopkins Center for the Creative and Performing Arts. Best of all now, since 1972, it is co-educational. When I was there, we had to go off campus for our dates. Dartmouth grows with the times. The young women have also up the entrance competition which is now fierce. Recruiting for Dartmouth College is still a joy. Today, on the college logo is the Cat in the Hat’s red and white headwear, propped ashew over the “O” in Dartmouth, since this is “Happy Seussday, or the Seussentennial”, celebrating the 100 year birthday of a 1925 graduate. |
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