FACULTY

Thawsome!

Thayer professor Victor Petrenko has one cool car, and not just because it’s an Audi A-6. The vehicle’s ice-encrusted windshield clears in seconds (compared to 7.5 minutes for a regular car) thanks to Petrenko’s innovative deicing system. The director of Thayer’s Ice Physics and Technology Lab, who is shopping the technology around to auto and airplane makers, notes that manufacturing costs are “next to nothing” because the device is actually a system of transparent, electrically conductive parts that send a pulse of electricity through the windshield. This electrolysis breaks the ice down into hydrogen and oxygen gas.

Petrenko’s earlier ice research brought forth a machine that makes ice in less than a second and technologies that prevent snow and ice accumulation from damaging roofs and power lines. Small wonder, then, that Petrenko has his own company, Ice Engineering LLC. The firm’s Web site provides all the frozen facts.

CLASS OF 2009

Eager to Teach

Among the more than 35,000 college seniors applying for positions with Teach for America (TFA) this spring were 91 Dartmouth seniors representing 8.5 percent of their class. Across the Ivy League more than 11 percent of seniors applied to TFA.

THE PRESIDENT

Down the Middle

Donning a Dartmouth cap, Jim Wright threw out the first pitch at a Boston Red Sox game on June 6 against the Texas Rangers. “Of course I want to throw a strike,” he said beforehand. So, in the weeks leading up to his toss, Wright spent a little practice time with wife Susan on their Webster Avenue front lawn. “I’ll have him ready,” she promised.

ATHLETICS

Sports Roundup

<GOLF> Peter Williamson ’12 became the first Dartmouth golfer in 14 years to win the Ivy League Men’s Golf Championship. He defeated Eric Salazar of Princeton on the third hole of a sudden-death playoff in Atlantic City the last weekend of April. The team finished third overall. <TRack> Emily Daly ’10 set a new College record in the women’s hammer throw at the Sam Howell Invitational at Princeton in April. Her record of 193 feet, 8 inches beat the old mark by six feet. <Softball> Softball players found their way to the Ivy title series against Cornell in early May but fell short, losing two games to one. The team finished 22-20 overall, 13-7 in league play. <Baseball> The baseball team had better luck against Cornell, winning a best-of-three series against the Big Red for the Ivy championship, its first since 1987.

ENDOWMENT

The Big Green, Per Student

As the economy goes, so goes the endowment—and endowment-per-student figures. Dartmouth in recent history falls generally within the top 15 schools nationally, trailing only Princeton, Harvard and Yale among the Ivies. Here’s a look at Dartmouth’s endowment per student during the past decade.