Continuing education has taken on a greater meaning for 215 alumni, parents of students and friends of the College participating in this year's Alumni College entitled "Paradise Lost? Promise and Peril in the New World Order."
The 30th annual program, which began on Sunday and will span 12 days, includes 28 lectures examining the spread of ethno-nationalism and conflicts around the globe, in areas such as China and the Middle East, and closer to home, as in Los Angeles.
Since its inception in 1963, the Alumni College has addressed topics ranging from law and order to the most popular and well-attended session in 1990 on Perestroika and Glasnost in the former Soviet Union.
"A lot of people have been coming for many years," Martha High, director of Alumni Continuing Education, said. "They're amazing because they have had the equivalent of three or four Dartmouth degrees."
Stetson Whitcher '40 first came at the suggestion of a classmate in 1965 and has attended all but one of the programs since then. A retired vice president of First National Bank of Boston, Whitcher said this has always been the perfect vacation for him.
After 27 alumni colleges, Whitcher has become a regular part of the program. He comes back year after year because of what he calls the three P's -- program, place and people. "It is a wonderful program," he said. "You expand your mind and meet all sorts of people."
Classmate Sherwood Burnett '40 first came in 1982 after much coaxing from Whitcher. "I finally broke down and went," Burnett said. He has attended every year since then.
Sociology Professor Raymond Hall presides over this year's program. He heads the Research Program for the Comparative Study of Intergroup Conflict in Multinational States at the Rockefeller Center for the Social Sciences. Yesterday morning he gave the opening lecture of the program entitled, "The Scope of Intergroup Conflict."
In addition to attracting College alumni, the program also brings in people who have no ties to the College prior to participation in the program. Ed and Shirley Tennyson are attending the program for the 23rd year, after a friend in the Class of '53 invited them to attend. "They didn't have enough people that year, so they told alumni to bring their friends," Mr. Tennyson said.
The Tennysons graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 1944 and have worked primarily in the sciences all their lives. "It's my dose of culture for the year," Mrs. Tennyson said.
While enjoying the broad range of topics, the Tennysons do not expect any solutions to come out of these programs. "No one here wants to solve the problem," Mr. Tennyson said. "They want to speculate."
Of the 215 participants this year, approximately 100 are alumni, 70 are parents of students and 45 are like the Tennysons and are referred to as friends of the College.
Sherrie Murphy, a graduate of the University of Toronto who heard of the program through a Bridge partner, finds the topics interesting and relevant to the day.
"It makes it easier to read The New York Times for the rest of the year," said Murphy, who is here for the third year.
The 12 day program comes at a cost of $1,140 per couple or $595 per individual. Room and board are extra, but most participants choose to live in dormitories.
In order to attract more recent alumni who may not be able to get away for 12 days, the program has become available in sections of five and seven days since 1989.
High, who organized Alumni College for the past six years, said this is the best form of alumni relations. "It acquaints them with today's wonderful alumni and satisfies their desire to keep learning," High said.
