The inexplicable murder of two beloved professors on Jan. 27 and the sudden loss of six College alumni on Sept. 11 made 2001 a difficult year for Dartmouth, but at the College, spirits endured.
On April 23, the Senior Executive Committee selected faculty and students to serve as speakers and leaders during Class Day and Commencement. Biochemistry professor Lee Witters will serve as the faculty speaker, and Jeffrey Garrett '02 was selected as the class orator.
Dartmouth's Integrated Math and Physical Sciences program, initially envisioned by reviewers from the National Science Foundation as a potential paradigm for interdisciplinary studies throughout the nation, was not offered to this year's freshmen class and has now been officially discontinued. Although professors and students alike praised the unique program -- which consisted of courses integrating freshman math and science team-taught by professors of several departments -- budgetary constraints forced the involved academic departments to cut back their commitment to the program. Professors Mary Hudson and Miles Blencowe from the physics department explained that limited resources motivated the department's decision to no longer offer the physics component of IMPS. Because the physics department offered four introductory sequences of physics, including IMPS, it was difficult to maintain the program with only 16 faculty members, explained Blencowe. Also, the balance between students beginning the IMPS sequence in the fall and those beginning the Physics 13/14 sequence in the winter was highly uneven, Hudson said.
African orgs. say Dartmouth author is among best of 20th century
Sitting in her Education 20 class, Pam Cogut '02 listened as the day's guest speaker, Tucker Foundation Dean Stuart Lord, urged students to involve themselves in community service. Inspired, Cogut decided to take action. Soon, she found herself directing a pilot summer program bringing disadvantaged high school students to Dartmouth. The program, Summer Enrichment at Dartmouth, was the brainchild of Lord and was designed to assemble students of various racial and economic backgrounds in a supportive, structured environment at Dartmouth. Cogut -- with help from education professors and the Tucker Foundation -- included classes in English, mathematics and computer science, along with recreational trips to outdoor locales such as Moosilauke Ravine Lodge in the two-week program. And in her work, Cogut explained, she not only found great satisfaction in helping the 29 SEAD participants, but found the experience one of personal growth. "I am not always the most spontaneous person," she explained.
Cheers burst from enthusiastic Tuck School of Business students filling the center floor and the balconies of Whittemore Hall as a $4,000 bid was offered for a deep-fried Cajun turkey dinner at Thursday night's Tuck GIVES Auction, staged to fund non-profit summer internships for first-year Tuck students. The funds raised by the auction "allow students to not have to choose between financial imperatives and doing something they're really interested in," according to Tuck student David Lee, who received funding for a non-profit internship last summer in Chile. "The goal is to turn out socially responsible managers.
Professors Kang, Jack and Garand reflect on having received tenure and the passion that brought them there
The first Student Assembly meeting of the term opened with the appointment of James Joun '03 as chair of the new Diversity Affairs Committee. Issues that the committee intends to address include the creation of programs that will make Dartmouth a more inclusive place and the facilitation of interaction among present ethnic, religious and cultural groups on campus. "There is so much the committee can do to work with other organizations on campus," Student Body President Molly Stutzman '02 said.
Students enrolled in online courses performed significantly worse than their counterparts in traditional classroom-based courses, according to a Michigan State University study. The results come as no surprise to many Dartmouth professors, who are not yet willing to abandon the classroom. "There is no such thing as an online classroom that has the emotional component that a live classroom has," English Professor Thomas Luxon said.
A proposal to establish College-wide professorships -- part of President James Wright's strategic plan draft released last month -- could make Dartmouth the home to a greater number of distinguished scholars, if implemented. The purpose of the new professorships, according to Wright's report, would be to recruit and retain "faculty of the highest distinction." Such professors, instead of serving a single department, would serve the entire College, and as a result could take on broader, interdisciplinary assignments. Many other schools already have university-wide professorship positions, and discussions of adding the post to Dartmouth have taken place for years among faculty and administrators, according to Lewis Duncan, dean of the Thayer School of Engineering. The addition of such professorships would help "ensure that Dartmouth remain an institution at the forefront of ... teaching and research in the United States," according to Provost Barry Scherr. According to Duncan, College-wide professorships would foster greater study of interdisciplinary issues and raise the level of intellectual debate on campus. Provost Barry Scherr explained that those granted a College-wide professorship would be "people who have achieved recognition -- very high recognition -- within a particular area [yet] would be known in spheres extending beyond the area of their teaching and writing." With College-wide professorships, nondepartmental structures such as the Rockefeller and Dickey Centers would grow in prominence, and a greater number of cross-listed courses could be offered, Duncan said. Duncan also said that the establishment of a College professorship position would not compromise Dartmouth's focus on undergraduates. "As thought leaders, these scholars would not be particularly worried about being surrounded by graduate students ... They are past that point in their career in that way, and would almost want to go back to undergraduates," he said. Duncan speculated that donations solicited from benefactors of the College would endow the professorships.