Baker, Collis, Hopkins, Rockefeller, Thayer.
You hear the names every day, but few students know whose names Dartmouth's buildings bear.
Most of Dartmouth's edifices are named after the rich, like Charles Collis '37, who donated $1 million toward construction of the Collis Student Center, or the famous, like Nelson Rockefeller '30, the vice president under Gerald Ford.
"Many of the buildings are named in honor of distinguished people who have been important to the College," Director of Principal Gifts Lucretia Martin said. Others are named for the people who payed for them.
The price of immortality at Dartmouth is at least 50 percent of the cost of a new building, which includes construction costs and an endowment to maintain the facility.
Rockefeller: Heir to oil
Nelson Rockefeller '30 tried, with little success, to keep a low profile while he was an undergraduate. Now Dartmouth students read his name every day.
It was hard hiding as the grandson of oil magnate John D. Rockefeller. His name became a household word when he was U.S. Vice President, a four-term governor of New York and three-time presidential candidate.
Nelson Rockefeller's death in 1979 prompted his family to consider donating a monument to the College.
The Rockefeller family agreed that a building dedicated to economics, social science and public affairs would be a fitting memorial to a person dedicated to public service. The Rockefeller Center building was dedicated in 1983.
When Rockefeller was at the College, he was nicknamed "Rocky" his freshman year. He played varsity soccer, was an executive member of Cabin and Trial and was a member of the senior honor society Casque & Gauntlet.
Rockefeller majored in economics, graduated Phi Beta Kappa and was one of five participants in the very first Senior Fellow's program.
While at Dartmouth, Rockefeller tried to avoid the public eye. According to a biography, he had to duck out of sight when photographers started taking pictures at a Dartmouth-Army soccer game.
He told his coach Tom Dent, "If we get our picture in the paper, father cuts our allowance."
Once at a Hanover restaurant, Rockefeller tried cashing a $2 check signed by his father. The manager refused to accept it, saying, "I've had students try to cash checks signed by Christopher Columbus and Jesus Christ, but never one by John D. Rockefeller, Jr."
As a junior, Rockefeller spent three months in the Arctic conducting scientific research and helping to establish schools for Inuit children.
Rockefeller served as a Trustee from 1942 to 1952. As a member of the Board, he was instrumental in the construction of the Hopkins Center, which was named for another public servant.
Hopkins: a Dartmouth fixture
It is unclear what has been a more permanent fixture at Dartmouth: the Hopkins Center or the man whose name it bears.
Since his birth in 1877, Ernest Martin Hopkins '01 was almost always at Dartmouth. He was College president from 1916 to 1945.
Hopkins worked hard to get to Dartmouth. The son of a Harvard-educated Baptist minister, at the age of 12 he began work in a granite quarry during summer vacations in his home in Uxbridge, Mass.
His freshman year at Dartmouth, Hopkins was offered a scholarship. But there was a string attached. Hopkins told the dean he could not accept the scholarship, which required him to a sign a pledge not to swear, drink or smoke.
Hopkins found another scholarship with no oaths, but still ran out of money, requiring him to hold various jobs throughout his Dartmouth career.
Hopkins was class president, editor of The Dartmouth, editor of the Aegis and a member of the Athletic Council. During his senior year, Hopkins was offered the job of office assistant to College President William Tucker.
As the 11th president of the College, Hopkins lamented that alumni returned to Hanover with more interest in football coaches than intellectual attainments.
"If they would get over being drunk before they leave the boundaries of Hanover and would keep sober before they leave, their presence in Hanover would become a help to the interests of the College," Hopkins is quoted in a biography.
In an effort to produce men of brains and character as well as health, Hopkins created the current curriculum of majors and elective courses. He also initiated a new selective admissions process which evaluated applicants based on personality as well as academics.
In the 1930s Hopkins permitted the Mexican artist Jose Clemente Orozco to paint the Baker Library Reserve Corridor murals, which depict greedy capitalists and the revolutionaries who opposed them. Although the murals were controversial, Hopkins defended the artist's freedom of expression.
Hopkins lived to see the new center for the arts dedicated two days after his 85th birthday. Hopkins spoke at the ceremony Nov. 8, 1962. He said the new center "would, in the course of events, become the heart and soul of Dartmouth."
The Bakers: Soldiers and bankers
Dartmouth's most imposing edifice was built using the money of Fisher Baker, Class of 1859, a lieutenant colonel in the Union Army. Fisher Baker left his nephew all his property at his death, and it was the nephew who payed to build Baker Library.
The nephew, George Baker, was chairman of the Board of Directors of the First National Bank of the City of New York. He donated $1 million for construction of the library in 1923, and gave another $1 million a few years later so the building could be maintained.
George Baker was devoted to his uncle Fisher, who was only three years his senior. George Baker walked all the way from his home in Troy, New York, to watch his uncle's graduation from Dartmouth.
Baker graduated from Dartmouth a member of Phi Beta Kappa and went on to law school in Albany, New York. He practiced law until 1861, when he answered President Lincoln's call for three-year volunteers to serve the Union Army.
Baker rose through the ranks of the 18th Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers to be commissioned Lieutenant Colonel in 1864.
Baker chronicled his engagements in battles such as Antietam and Gettysburg in letters to his "dear Kate," the daughter of the family he boarded with while in New York. Kate Fisher married Baker in 1869, but they never had any children.
Baker's tomb is inscribed with "A Soldier of the Civil War."
The Thayers and AT&T
Thayer Dining Hall is named in honor of Henry Bates Thayer '79, former president of American Telephone and Telegraph. Just as AT&T was instrumental in developing America's infrastructure, Thayer was a key player in the modernization of Dartmouth's infrastructure.
A Trustee from 1917 to 1936, Thayer was chairman of the Committee on Physical Development and Maintenance of the Plant.
Under Thayer's direction, Baker Library, the Tuck School, Sanborn House, Carpenter and Silsby were added to the campus.
Thayer studied Greek and Latin in college. Upon graduation, he worked at a bank in his hometown of Northfield, Vermont before heading to Chicago to work for the telephone industry.
Thayer was Vice President of the Western Electric Company when war broke out between Russia and Japan in 1904. A shortage of Russian platinum needed for phones prompted Thayer to pour 10 years of research into alloys of gold and silver, saving telephone users millions of dollars.
Collis: A homes sales giant
Charles Collis '37 made a fortune in home sales by founding Princess House in the 1960s. Princess House is a nationwide business specializing in direct sales of giftware, tableware and decorator accessories.
In 1978 Collis and his wife Ellen footed the entire $1 million bill to create the Collis Center.
Collis felt the need to create a hub for student activities and social events, so he payed for the major renovations to old College Hall that occurred from 1992 to 1994.
"My husband loves the College and saw a way to do something in return," Ellen Collis said. "It is as simple as that."
It was not until after the final renovations that the center was renamed the Collis Center, Martin said. At the opening ceremony in 1994, Collis remarked, "would have loved to have the campus center when I was here."
As an undergraduate, Collis was active in the Dartmouth Outing Club and Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity. After graduation as an economics major, Collis started his own business, the College Athletic Shoe Co. and, later, Princess House.
