The head of a College gay-rights coalition and the leaders of Dartmouth's homosexual students organization yesterday told Trustee Chair E.
At a meeting of the steering committee of the general faculty yesterday, College President James Freedman said he will announce the formation of a task force next week to investigate Dartmouth's library needs and to begin planning for the expansion of Baker Library at the end of the century. The announcement came as part of the steering committee's review of reports issued by four College councils. The Council on the Libraries has begun discussions about dimensions of the new library facility, but the task force will explore these issues in greater depth. Classics Professor William Scott, who will head the 16-member task force, said its principal objective "is to formulate for the architects what the community, including undergraduates, graduates, faculty and all of the community, wants for library services." The task force, comprised of faculty, undergraduates and graduate students, will meet for the first time on Oct.
Created out of the vision of Eleazar Wheelock to educate Native Americans as well as whites, Dartmouth College was founded in 1769 after Wheelock's first educational attempt, the Moor's Charity School, failed following 15 years of existence. A Congregationalist minister of the Great Awakening, Wheelock decided that his personal mission transcended that of preaching and extended to the realm of education. He thus linked his two pursuits in a vision of teaching and christianizing pagans.
The two-year-old, $9.4 million steam tunnel project, designed to update an antiquated steam pipe system, recently reached its northward conclusion at Elm Street, and is now in its final stages, Buildings and Grounds Assistant Director John Gratiot said. "The above work ground of the project is virtually done," Gratiot said, and only beneath ground pipe installation, insulation and wiring remain.