When the sun goes down in Hanover and the light in Baker Tower seems to be the only glow in the night sky, students accustomed to bright lights and big cities may begin to feel a little ... isolated. With the nearest metropolis more than two hours away, Dartmouth's social life has its own, unique charm.
Leslie Jennings '96 realizes there's not much white space in her daily planner book. "I'm not even going to show you my 'Day by Day,' " she said smiling.
John Sirois '91, former assistant director of admissions, was named acting director of the Native American Program last week. On Monday, Sirois took over the position left vacant by the resignation of the former director Leisha Connors at the end of May. Connors resigned after only eight months on the job, citing "personal reasons" as the cause for her departure. Sirois will serve as acting director during the search for a permanent director for the Program.
The Summerphonics, a singing group made up of the sophomore members of the Dartmouth Dodecaphonics and other campus singers will begin rehearsals this week. They will soon be adding harmony to barbecues and other summer events. The group, directed by Leslie Jennings '96, held auditions Sunday and chose seven new members to add to the seven Dodecs on campus this summer. The seven Dodecs are sophomores Jeneen DiBenedetto, Nina Fallon, Jorge Motoshige, Jennings, Kelii Opulauoho, Brad Parks and Dave Kaiser '93. Some of the new members sing in other campus groups like the Aires or the Glee Club, but that "had no real impact on the decision," said Parks, who is the group's business manager. The Summerphonics have been on campus the past six Summer terms, Jennings said.
Concern about grade inflation and discrepancies between the grading levels in different academic departments has prompted the Committee on Instruction to consider a new method of reporting students' grades on College transcripts. The proposed transcript format would include not only the grade a student earned in a course, but also the average grade given in that course and the number of students enrolled. "The spirit is just to allow a more interpretable transcript so a student, a prospective employer, or a faculty member writing a recommendation for graduate school ... can evaluate what a student has actually done," Chair of the COI Gary Johnson said of the proposal. Johnson sent a letter to the Dean and Associate Deans of the Faculty, the departmental chairs, the Student Assembly and The Dartmouth, outlining the proposal and requesting comments and suggestions from the College community. If the proposed transcript format is approved, "students would be able to see how they stand relative to their classmates, and they will more clearly perceive that, for example, a B+ earned in one class may be above the class average while in another it may represent below-average work," the letter stated. The recommendations the COI receives in response to the preliminary proposal may be incorporated into a formal proposal to the Faculty during Spring term, Johnson said. "The whole intent is that we wanted to toss the thing out and get some feedback," Johnson said.
James Newman '78, an astronaut for National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said he didn't always want to travel past the clouds at mach 25 or orbit the earth in zero gravity. "As a kid growing up I wanted to be regular sorts of things - a farmer, a banker, a fireman," Newman said. "I watched the gliders off the coast of San Diego, and became interested in flying.
James Newman '78, who flew his first mission as a National Aeronautics and Space Administration astronaut on the space shuttle Discovery last September, gave a film and slide presentation of his space experience to an audience of about 50 in Rockefeller Center yesterday. Newman opened his talk, titled "Dartmouth in Orbit: An Alumnus' Report from the Space Shuttle Discovery," with a presentation to College President James Freedman of a green silk "'D" flag which he carried into space and a plaque commemorating the mission. Newman flew on the 10-day mission as part of a five-member crew which deployed an advanced communication technology satellite and an ultraviolet telescope. Along with another crew member, Newman completed a seven-hour spacewalk in preparation for the recent Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission. "We had a relatively inexperienced crew compared to recent shuttle missions, but they gave us a full plate," Newman, one of three rookie crew members on his mission, said. Newman is an adjunct professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University.
David Stack '96, artist of this year's Winter Carnival poster and t-shirt, said he was inspired to study at the College by the words of another Dartmouth cartoonist, Theodore Geisel '25. "I decided to apply here because of the Dr. Seuss quote.
Lucretia "Lu" Martin's history at the College spans four decades. During that time, she has been a special assistant to three College presidents, a witness to the effects of co-education, and coordinator of capital campaigns and alumni donations that have raised hundreds of millions of dollars. She has also made many friends along the way. Martin, newly appointed director of development, has worked on capital campaigns since 1977, traveling extensively to solicit alumni contributions and coordinating fundraising for campus buildings, faculty professorships and student scholarships. In her office on the second floor of Blunt Alumni Center, Martin gave a glimpse of how much she values the human contacts she has made in her years at the College. "This is what I'm most proud of," she said, pointing to an old-fashioned collage of painted flowers on the wall, spelling her name, "Martin." A few years ago, studio art professor Varujan Boghosian bought the picture at an old estate in Fairlee, Vermont, framed it and gave it to Martin as a gift. "Can you believe that?" she asked, her bright blue eyes wide.
Hanover Police Chief Kurt Schimke suffered a heart attack at approximately 8:50 p.m. last night while playing basketball at Marion Cross Elementary School in Norwich, Vt.