The Freshman Orientation schedule will include this year Professor Emeritus Jeffrey Hart's speech on the meaning of a liberal arts education.
Accompanying his speech will be a newly published, nationally distributed pamphlet that recommends the reading of great works of literature to freshmen at all colleges and universities.
It is the fourth year Hart has given his orientation week speech, but the first year it has appeared on the College's official schedule of events, where it is listed as an optional event.
His speech will be similar to those he gave in previous years and will reflect the content of his new pamphlet.
With outside financial support, Hart's pamphlet, entitled "What Is a College Education (And How to Get One)," will be distributed free to freshmen this fall on the campuses of about ten colleges and universities.
In the pamphlet, Hart states that study of a traditional body of great works of literature is vital to the liberal arts education and to a well-rounded student. This body of literature, what some call a "canon," includes the work of authors like Plato, Dante and Shakespeare.
He states that courses covering these works are offered in the catalogues of most "respectable" academic institutions, but that colleges today offer little guidance to freshmen on what material should be important to them.
According to Dean of Faculty James Wright, Hart wrote him a letter inquiring how he could get on the schedule for freshman orientation.
Wright told Hart he must gain that permission through the Dean of Freshmen Office.
"I suggested that it was fine for them to list the lecture on their program," Wright said he told Dean of Freshmen Tony Tillman.
Hart publishes a weekly syndicated conservative column, often controversial, that runs in The Dartmouth Review. He is a senior editor of The National Review, a conservative magazine.
But he said the content of his pamphlet and his speech is non-controversial and should be seen as such.
"It's not controversial, unless people feel that Shakespeare should be precluded from a liberal arts education," Hart said.
"I've found Dartmouth freshmen extremely receptive," Hart said. "They want to know, in this huge array of courses presented to them, what they should take and why."
Hart said he hopes to continue his orientation week speech in the future. He said if his pamphlet is well-received, it could be made available at cost through College bookstores.
He said guidance similar to his on literature should be made available in the fields of science and social science.
Tillman said that faculty members had requested an audience with new freshmen in the past, but not in recent years.
Wright, Tillman and Dean of Students Lee Pelton each said that any faculty member who requests to speak before the new freshman class should have the opportunity to do so.
"In giving the talk, he's exercising his right," Pelton said. "The College is doing what it would do for any professor."
The Orientation schedule includes a meeting for freshmen with their individual faculty advisers. The schedule also includes an advising forum delivered by two faculty members to each of ten groups of freshmen.
"It covers a strategy for success, the value of a liberal arts education, developing good faculty-student interaction and how to contribute to the intellectual life of the College," Tillman said.
Hart taught in the English department for 30 years before teaching his final class last Spring term. Controversy surrounded his class when allegations of cheating on a mid-term exam became widespread.
Hart said he had guesses but no proof as to who cheated and refused to bring the matter before the Committee on Standards. The college honor code requires a professor who has reason to believe cheating occurred in his class to bring the allegations to the COS.
Tillman said Hart's actions were "a concern but not an over-riding concern."
"If a professor wishes to speak during orientation, I don't think in good conscience that we can be in the position where we tell that professor no."
Tillman said that other professors could take advantage of the opportunity to give their own opinions on the meaning of a liberal arts education, and that such interaction would foster better student-faculty relationships.
