Folt’s plan for Dartmouth
By T. A. Berry, Middleton, Wis.
Published on Monday, October 16, 2006
To the Editor:
As a Dartmouth parent who recalls the oversubscription and large freshmen classes of several years ago, I salute Dean of the College Carol Folt for her continued efforts to address these problems and for her appreciation of the explosion of interdisciplinary study ("Folt looks to expand College faculty," Oct. 12).
One recent comment by Folt on these pages caught my eye, however: "I don't think Dartmouth has any big holes in its curriculum . . ."
The Classes of 2009 and 2010 are not aware of this, but the College's only speech instructor was highly critical of Dartmouth's lack of commitment to his program when he left several years ago. Since then, his immensely popular classes have not been offered.
It is ironic that Dartmouth, a college commendably committed to the liberal arts, has neglected speech for some time now. Along with grammar and logic, rhetoric was part of the original trivium that inspired the liberal arts curriculum that followed.
One would think speech and rhetoric would be one "hole" in the Dartmouth curriculum that those committed to the liberal arts would want to fill.