Class Note 1957
Issue
September-October 2022
Remember Pollard’s smut class? Of course you do. Part of it was our age and immaturity, but mostly it was a unique experience we shared together our freshman year.
Think now of our “Great Issues” course. We were not freshmen any longer, but seniors having pursued our separate courses of study and preparing to enter the wide, wide world. Once again, we were all together as a class, meeting in 105 Dartmouth to experience a course developed by John Sloan Dickey “to relate undergraduate education to the responsibilities of adult living.” “Liberal Arts and the Great Issues,” he called it, “a search for values which will enable our culture to survive.” No wonder we continue to remember this man and this course with such reverence.
When we formalized our relationship with the Dickey Center in 2007, we invited director Ken Yalowitz tobecome an honorary member of our class; and with the establishment of the Great Issues Innovation Fund in 2013, we adopted director David Benjamin as well. Perhaps most significantly, our class presidents Bruce Bernstein and Tom Macy forged alliances with the classes of 1982 and 2007 to ensure the financial success of Dickey Center activities long after we’re gone.
A recent celebration at the Dickey Center in Hanover featured Gene Booth and Charles Tseckares discussing the legacy of John Sloan Dickey and the impact of the “Great Issues” course on our lives. I was struck by the timeliness of their presentations and how effectively they represented the feelings of all ’57s even today. Organized by Bruce Bernstein and attended by Tom Macy, Bob Rex, John Donnelly, Mike Smith, Al Rollins, Clarke Griffiths, Randy Aires, and Wendell Smith, the panel served as an effective centerpiece for the entire celebration.
President Dickey once said, “There is nothing wrong with the world that better human beings cannot fix.” We’ve got miles to go, of course, but we’re a long way from Pollard’s smut class. We’ve been out in the wide, wide world for 65 years, and we continue to work hard at being better. I think he would be proud.
—John W. Cusick, 105 Island Plantation Terrace, Vero Beach, FL 32963; (772) 231-1248; johnwcusick@aol.com
Think now of our “Great Issues” course. We were not freshmen any longer, but seniors having pursued our separate courses of study and preparing to enter the wide, wide world. Once again, we were all together as a class, meeting in 105 Dartmouth to experience a course developed by John Sloan Dickey “to relate undergraduate education to the responsibilities of adult living.” “Liberal Arts and the Great Issues,” he called it, “a search for values which will enable our culture to survive.” No wonder we continue to remember this man and this course with such reverence.
When we formalized our relationship with the Dickey Center in 2007, we invited director Ken Yalowitz tobecome an honorary member of our class; and with the establishment of the Great Issues Innovation Fund in 2013, we adopted director David Benjamin as well. Perhaps most significantly, our class presidents Bruce Bernstein and Tom Macy forged alliances with the classes of 1982 and 2007 to ensure the financial success of Dickey Center activities long after we’re gone.
A recent celebration at the Dickey Center in Hanover featured Gene Booth and Charles Tseckares discussing the legacy of John Sloan Dickey and the impact of the “Great Issues” course on our lives. I was struck by the timeliness of their presentations and how effectively they represented the feelings of all ’57s even today. Organized by Bruce Bernstein and attended by Tom Macy, Bob Rex, John Donnelly, Mike Smith, Al Rollins, Clarke Griffiths, Randy Aires, and Wendell Smith, the panel served as an effective centerpiece for the entire celebration.
President Dickey once said, “There is nothing wrong with the world that better human beings cannot fix.” We’ve got miles to go, of course, but we’re a long way from Pollard’s smut class. We’ve been out in the wide, wide world for 65 years, and we continue to work hard at being better. I think he would be proud.
—John W. Cusick, 105 Island Plantation Terrace, Vero Beach, FL 32963; (772) 231-1248; johnwcusick@aol.com