Art Smarts
My dad, John Roberts ’73, Tu’74, asked if I had seen “Was It Worth It?” [March/April], referring to the choice of an art history major for members of the class of 2006. I graduated in 2008 with a degree in art history, so the circumstances of my own job search (in short: bleak) were similar. The headline is clearly meant to be provoking, but the article makes a case for the liberal arts and how the skills we gained as students of art history have stood us in good stead since graduation. The subtitle was “They chose a major with modest career prospects.” Majors don’t have career prospects—students do. The article shoots itself in the foot by not directly dispelling the myth that one’s major is or should somehow be indicative of one’s career. As someone who works in a college career center, I can unequivocally state that for the majority of jobs, no one gives a hoot what your undergraduate major was. A major does not lock you into a certain path, nor should it. A major allows you to explore a field you may find interesting; it does not dictate what comes after or the paycheck you’ll receive. At the end of the day, there are more careers out there than you can possibly imagine—and thank God for that. I would’ve made a terrible curator.
CAITLIN ROBERTS-DONOVAN ’08
Framingham, Massachusetts
I enjoyed the art history piece. I was an art history major, also the second Hood Museum intern. I then interned at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Italy for two years. Lacking funds for grad school, I pivoted. I “followed the money,” which is the source of art that makes it into history, as professor Barbara Lynes taught. Applying to banks, I grew along with the disruption from microcomputers, eventually to information technology (IT) services, these days mostly business consulting around IT. I use my art history skills every day. I go into an unknown environment, research the current state, help define a target abstraction, fill in the blank, and then guide execution. I draw pictures representing complex ideas and talk people through them. I write a lot about the pictures, ideas, proposed structure, and path to it. I think critics of liberal arts miss that they are inherently cross-disciplinary. Increasingly impactful work requires cross-disciplinary thinking—consulting surely does. In art history, cross-disciplinary thinking breeds success. To me, narrow focus is dangerous for business and wealth. Any investment advisor will preach diversification. Art history breeds broad thinkers and gap fillers. Sounds good for a startup or creating a corporate strategy and for consultants such as me. Art history, like most liberal arts degrees, is real intelligence. Our world needs it.
JIM BUONOCORE ’84
Wayne, New Jersey
The March/April issue offered a thoughtful and well-balanced exploration of art history as a major. As an art history graduate (Emory College ’74), I found the reflections from Dartmouth’s class of 2006 resonated deeply. Like some of those alumni, I chose not to pursue an art-related career. I went into medicine instead. Yet I find myself drawing on my art history education every single day in how I design research approaches, communicate with patients and colleagues, mentor students, and help shape the design and atmosphere of Dartmouth’s medical center to better support healing and the patient experience. As our educational landscape evolves in response to a changing world, the humanities are not becoming less relevant—they are becoming more so. The study of art history and the broader humanities offers something irreplaceable: a unique perspective on our universe. It also provides foundational tools for perceiving design, structure, and meaning in ways that transcend any single discipline. Those tools illuminate the elegance of expert computer code, logic of mathematical models, clarity of an effective website, and beauty embedded in theoretical physics, engineering, and emerging technologies. Thank you for reminding us that the most enduring educations are often the ones that seem, at first glance, the least practical.
MARC S. ERNSTOFF
Norwich, Vermont
A Child in Wartime
The article by Rianna Pauline Starheim ’14 about Ukraine during the current Russian invasion [“Life During Wartime,” March/April] brought back memories of my early childhood in Nazi-occupied Norway. It was the summer of 1944 when I was almost 3 years old. Before that summer, I was told to obey my parents and other adults, but the reason why was not explained. At night I asked my parents if I would see shooting stars—the euphemism my mother used for the tracer bullets flying through the sky as the Allies attacked German warships in the harbor. It was exciting. But I began to feel my parents’ tension whenever there was a man in the street who wasn’t dressed like my parents and relatives. These men had uniforms and carried things slung over their backs. Only parents were allowed to speak to these strangers. I didn’t know why I felt scared but the tension I picked up from my mother was real. When we huddled in the basement after the air raid sirens sounded, my young brain said, “danger, obey, don’t make waves.” The young Ukrainian children must feel the same way. No child should have to experience the transition from early childhood to a stage when you sense the world is full of danger but don’t understand why. No child should be forced to experience a world of war.
KJELL A. JOHANSEN ’64
Milwaukee
Still Kicking
Congratulations on reviving the alumni magazine in the March/April issue with great graphics and interesting articles about activities at the College. I had given DAM up for dead.
JOHN R. HORAN ’59
Washington, Connecticut
Cover Subjects
I am less concerned about the opinion of a misinformed alum in a recent DAM letter [“Cover up?” March/April] than I am about any so-called “journalistic integrity” in DAM’s decision to publish and perpetuate it. Would you have allowed the comment if it were about race? What about religion, disability, sexual orientation, caste, creed, age, veteran status? Why is it acceptable about gender? DAM, you owe us all an apology and should remove “good taste” from your masthead if you won’t honor that.
DANIEL DITTRICK ’08
Seattle
Realities of Marxism
Thank you for “As Ever Your Best Friend” [January/February], which interested me because my father, Lewis G. Harriman Jr. ’38, Tu’39, was on campus at the time. He was the most emphatic opponent of Marxism and communism. As I have lived into my 70s—having gone through various phases in my political leanings, including a stint in a commune—I can see why my father was so concerned with the appeal of communism to those in entertainment and the media and diplomatic corps. For an unconventional perspective on the congressional hearings of the ’50s often denigrated as a “witch-hunt,” I refer you to anarchist Michael Malice. Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia is also a great perspective from an ardent socialist on the realities of Marxism in the 20th century.
STIM HARRIMAN ’75
Vashon, Washington
Worth Quite a Lot
C.J. Hughes’ article questioning the “value” of an art history major [“Was It Worth It?” March/April] is reflective of the unfortunate, modern measure of the quality of the education offered by colleges and universities determined by the amount of the starting salaries of their graduates, not the quality of the education itself. Certainly, a college degree is of value in gaining employment upon graduation, but that was not the primary goal. In my era one pursued a liberal arts degree at colleges such as Dartmouth to get a broad education while specializing in one field of study via a major. The goal was to broaden understanding of the global society and the history and cultures that shaped it and so to develop a solid foundation for reasoning and thinking. The intangible value of that education was appreciated by potential employers.
Today, it is sad to hear many ask, “What are you going to do with a—fill in the blank—major?” It is also sad to realize that the officials of most commercial enterprises value an undergraduate business administration major more than a sound liberal arts major, which develops superior thinking, reasoning, and evaluative skills.
The art history majors were worth it, regardless of their financial reward. They were worth it because they offered a developed thought process for an historically meaningful and intellectually stimulating subject.
I was an English major who spent most of my adult career in finance and general management. I continue to appreciate and expand on the insights I gained via my major.
JOE McHUGH ’60, Tu’61
Dallas
As an undergraduate major in art history, the enticing cover and prejudicial article could not help but get my attention. But why was art history chosen to ask, “Was It Worth It?” Colleges today are all being challenged by the costs for an education and the rewards it may or may not provide. Yes, there are majors that might provide a good job directly after graduation. It is clear your author doesn’t think art history is one of them. Yes, the humanities are on the run in higher education today, but for those who major in and practice them professionally, they make lives bright and more enjoyable. It is difficult to imagine a world without art or music or poetry.
It is indeed a clever idea to focus on a definable group—2006 art history majors—as a way to discuss the challenges the humanities face in colleges today. The article, however, did not ask why they chose art history and whether they expected to find work directly out of school with this major.
It seems to me that the bigger question is how many students after four years find employment in their major fields directly on graduation. For lawyers, doctors, businessmen, and many of those in the sciences, graduate training is needed. The same is true for art historians.
Apropos of this is the discussion of Elisabeth Sherman ’06 in the article and the attached piece on Megan Fontanella ’04, both of whom have graduate credentials. Although the number of jobs in which art history is a requisite may be smaller, a graduate degree or two is essential. For those who spend a lifetime studying and working with the things they love, it is a joy. I consider myself fortunate that art history provided my profession and livelihood for more than 50 years, though it required more than an undergraduate degree.
ROBERT A. YASSIN ’62
Palm Desert, California
I read with great interest C. J. Hughes’ piece on the fate of the ’06 art history majors. While not an art history major at Dartmouth, I can attest to the importance of a single class to my life as an art writer. John Wilmerding’s and Frank Robinson’s Introduction to Art History is a touchstone. They turned off the lights in the Dartmouth Hall auditorium (someone called it “darkness at noon”) and introduced us to the wonders of art history, from Bernini’s Ecstasy of Saint Teresa to George O’Keefe’s bleached cow skulls. They performed their lectures.
To toot my horn, I went on to become an art critic and author of more than 30 art surveys and monographs, from Paintings of Maine (1991 to John Moore: Portals (2024), the latter featuring an essay by retiring Hood Museum director John Stomberg. The Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation presented me with a Lifetime Achievement Award for my art writing in 2021.
If I had it to do all over again, I’d take more art history classes. Wilmerding and Robinson taught me how to look at and appreciate art—and the world.
CARL LITTLE ’76
Mount Desert, Maine
Of course those students who were drawn to art history because they loved the subject matter went on to prosper in a variety of ways. As it had been said by wiser folk than I, real education is about learning to learn and sharpening the mind. This argument has some very auspicious support. “It is perhaps a more fortunate destiny to have a taste for collecting shells than to be born a millionaire,” said Robert Louis Stevenson. From Steve Jobs: “Oftentimes, the ones who are successful loved what they did so they could persevere when it got really tough.” “Fall in love with some activity, and do it! Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn’t matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough. Work as hard and as much as you want to on the things you like to do the best. Don’t think about what you want to be, but what you want to do,” according to Richard Feynman. And if these aren’t enough, Albert Einstein said: “The value of a college education is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think.”
DOUGLAS RAYBECK ’64
Amherst, Massachusetts
Hoping to Hear More
I found the story about Omar Rashid ’29 [“From Gaza to the Ivy League,” January/February] rousing in the true spirit of Dartmouth. His tenacity in the face of such difficulties is truly admirable and his presence on the campus in Hanover will be inspiring to his many classmates—but there was something missing.
The story focused on his difficult life and the incredible journey that brought him to the United States and omitted writing about why Omar chose to come to America, his views now on democracy and the rule of law, his hopes for Palestinians and Israelis in the future, and how he will use his college experience. I hope to read a future article in DAM, maybe written by Omar himself, that would answer some of these questions.
ART LIBERMAN ’62
Palo Alto, California
Points Well-Taken
While appreciating the article on Laura Stacey ’16 and the legacy of the once-proud Dartmouth women’s hockey program, I am dismayed by a factual error and a glaring omission [“Power Players,” January/February]. Gillian Apps ’06, Tu’19, did not serve 281 penalty minutes as a senior; rather, that figure is her career total. As the team’s website reveals, the single-season Dartmouth record for penalty minutes was 100 set by Kristin Romberg ’02 in the 1999-2000 season.
More irksome, the article mentions Stacey’s Team Canada teammate Marie-Philip Poulin in the third paragraph but neglects to note that Stacey and Poulin married one another in 2024. At a time when LGBTQ rights are under attack, ignoring the most important aspect of Stacey’s personal life is an extremely disappointing oversight. If she had married an NHL star, the author would have doubtless mentioned that relationship. Dartmouth alumni should celebrate Stacey’s performance on the ice, including but not limited to earning her third Olympic medal in 2026 and her pathfinding prominence outside the arena. DAM should do a better job to ensure that its readers get a fuller sense of those profiled in its pages.
MARK S. STERNMAN ’90
Somerville, Massachusetts
Missing Michaela
I would argue that there was a glaring omission in “Chasing Glory” [January/February]. The College conferred a doctor of humane letters to Mikaela Shiffrin at Commencement in 2025. I therefore believe it would have been right and proper to list her among the Dartmouth skiers competing in the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina.
KEVIN ROON ’90
New York City
A Storied Nordic Skier
I applaud the focus given to Dartmouth’s Nordic athletes [“Chasing Glory,” January/February], but wish to deepen the perspective as relates to the segment titled “A Storied History.” The late John Caldwell ’50 was a four-year, four-event Dartmouth skier and 1952 Olympian known as the father of U.S. cross-country skiing. He literally wrote the book: The Cross-Country Ski Book (1964).
Of the athletes mentioned in that section, John coached Bill Koch and Clint Thompson, the father of Leslie Thompson ’86 and coach Cami Thompson; Tim ’76 is his son and Sophie ’12 his granddaughter; and John’s son Sverre ’77 played a key role in the development of U.S. Nordic athletes as Nordic director at the Stratton Mountain School.
John spent his career coaching and advocating for the inclusion of Nordic teams in U.S. competitive skiing. He coached the U.S. Nordic team from 1966 to 1972 and dedicated himself to myriad committees and projects, from a major U.S. tour for the Swedish Nordic women’s team to promote women’s Nordic skiing to the founding of NENSA. There is simply not enough room here to do justice to his contribution to Nordic skiing in the United States.
A more recent, Big-Green-centric impact: John sent a zillion letters pressing the College to invest in snowmaking capacity at Oak Hill. In March 2025 John looked out his window in Hanover at the brown grass in his yard and observed that the College must be glad of its long-avoided investment as it prepared to host the NCAA Nordic championships.
Dartmouth should be proud of alum presence not just on the podiums but also in building the foundations upon which these impressive current achievements are built.
MEGAN CLARK
Topsham, Vermont
Editor’s Note: A remembrance for John Caldwell ’50 was published online in April: “The Late Bloomer Who Became a Legend.”
