A spirited debate among some classmates has arisen surrounding the apparently exponential growth in the College’s administrative staff vs. the arithmetic growth in the student population. ’Tis a Malthusian conundrum. Peter Crumbine referees the discussion. One segment of the dialogue dwells on diversity. I bring this up in connection with the sad news that David Chevrier died in August.


Jim Burns wrote Dave’s widow, in part, the following: “Eloise: Thank you for letting us know about David. In our senior year most of our group’s ‘bonding’ occurred. Lots of us lived in the Tri Kap House and got to know each other. But Dave wasn’t with us as he was also a member of Casque & Gauntlet and lived at their house across the street from the Hanover Inn. So I really never knew Dave well. Dave probably never talked with you much about Tri Kap: It was founded at Dartmouth in 1842 and is ‘all Dartmouth’ in the sense we are and have always been just about Dartmouth. The name Kappa Kappa Kappa (KKK) has caused problems from time to time since the post-Civil War days and the founding of the Klu Klux Klan. In the 1970s there were marches and protests—notwithstanding the 1842 inscribed over our front door—of such severity that the then brothers changed the name. The alumni got after them, convincing them of the error of their ways. Being ‘local’ can be pejorative at many schools, but not for Tri Kap at Dartmouth. Back in the 1950s we were a mixed group. In 1957 we had two black brothers, some Jewish guys and a Thailand and Hong Kong pair, as well as sons of the rich and sons of the poor. This diversity—not a word heard often in the 1950s—was what I think attracted David to our group in the first instance.”


As I recall, we students did not care about your skin color, what God you worshipped (if any) or who your old man was. We cared a lot about the content of your character before it was cool to do so.


Appointments in Samarra, alas, continue. Cliff Anderson died on March 15, as reported by his widow, Nancy. “Cliff so enjoyed the great 50th. I doubt I could go to a Dartmouth event without Cliff, but I do love staying in touch with the College (small, but there are those who love it).”


Reports John Richardson:I retired this August. Now my principle ties are with a new institution, the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore (NUS), where I am leading an initiative to make NUS a leader in system dynamics (computer simulation) modeling. Lots of other news too, including an exciting Sri Lankan project translating my most recent book into Sinhala and Tamil.


And so to bed.


—John M. Mitchell, 300 Grove St., Unit 14, Rutland, VT 05701; (802) 775-3716; jmm00033@comcast.net