Class Note 1974
Issue
July-August 2023
Hello, ’74 classmates!
Bruce Miller checked in with a personal update: “Have been busy teaching, mostly via Zoom, a free financial literacy class I developed called ‘Understanding Money.’ I have taught it nationwide, including multiple classes at Dartmouth and Stanford, as well as for companies and nonprofits—more than 1,000 students so far. In just two 90-minute sessions folks learn how to get out and stay out of debt, save, and invest for their financial freedom. While the class is open to anyone, I’m particularly interested in helping underserved communities and first-generation, low-income college students. If any of our classmates know of organizations that could benefit from this course, they can contact me on my website, understandingmoney.net. I would be happy to schedule a private class for their group. Thanks and see you next June for our (ugh) 50th!”
Fundraising for our two class projects is going well. We’ve received pledges and gifts of $300,000 for the Health Equity Project just launched in December and have accumulated $600,000 for our class scholarship (including money raised since our 45th reunion). Our Dartmouth College Fund target is at least $1 million, so we hope to reach a total of $2 to $2.5 million altogether by the time of our June reunion.
Last weekend I attended the 10th Annual Wheelock Weekend held in the new Class of 1982 Engineering and Computer Science Center. Named after the College’s founder, the Rev. Eleazer Wheelock, and sponsored by the eponymous Wheelock Society, this conference attempts to build bridges between reason and faith within the College for students, faculty, and alumni.
The “Veritas Forum” was held on Friday night. This year’s theme focused on how our values inform our work. On Saturday I participated in three roundtable discussions among the nine offered. These were “What makes a ‘good’ doctor?” “What makes a ‘good’ investment?” and “What puts ‘human’ in human centered design?” Other offerings included “What are athletics for?” “What is an adventurous life?” “What is the future of creativity?” “What does it mean to be educated?” and “What do we owe to strangers?”
After the afternoon sessions, tours were given of the partially renovated home of Eleazer Wheelock, which is now home to 24 undergraduates and will soon offer a large common area for campus events. They need another $300,000 in donations to complete the work this summer. Afterward alumni participants hosted students for dinner at Molly’s Restaurant for wide-ranging discussions on any number of topics of interest.
To finish off the weekend, on Sunday morning we gathered in the basement of Aquinas House for a brief ecumenical service before we all headed home. It was a fun and intellectually stimulating weekend. If you have the chance, I encourage you to attend in 2024.
Please be thinking about our 50th reunion in less than one year. The best place to get information about our reunion is 1974.Dartmouth.org. We also are hoping to have a gathering this fall with the class of 2024. Keep your calendar open for that.
See you soon!
—Philip Stebbins, 17 Hardy Road, Londonderry, NH 03053; p.stebs@gmail.com
Bruce Miller checked in with a personal update: “Have been busy teaching, mostly via Zoom, a free financial literacy class I developed called ‘Understanding Money.’ I have taught it nationwide, including multiple classes at Dartmouth and Stanford, as well as for companies and nonprofits—more than 1,000 students so far. In just two 90-minute sessions folks learn how to get out and stay out of debt, save, and invest for their financial freedom. While the class is open to anyone, I’m particularly interested in helping underserved communities and first-generation, low-income college students. If any of our classmates know of organizations that could benefit from this course, they can contact me on my website, understandingmoney.net. I would be happy to schedule a private class for their group. Thanks and see you next June for our (ugh) 50th!”
Fundraising for our two class projects is going well. We’ve received pledges and gifts of $300,000 for the Health Equity Project just launched in December and have accumulated $600,000 for our class scholarship (including money raised since our 45th reunion). Our Dartmouth College Fund target is at least $1 million, so we hope to reach a total of $2 to $2.5 million altogether by the time of our June reunion.
Last weekend I attended the 10th Annual Wheelock Weekend held in the new Class of 1982 Engineering and Computer Science Center. Named after the College’s founder, the Rev. Eleazer Wheelock, and sponsored by the eponymous Wheelock Society, this conference attempts to build bridges between reason and faith within the College for students, faculty, and alumni.
The “Veritas Forum” was held on Friday night. This year’s theme focused on how our values inform our work. On Saturday I participated in three roundtable discussions among the nine offered. These were “What makes a ‘good’ doctor?” “What makes a ‘good’ investment?” and “What puts ‘human’ in human centered design?” Other offerings included “What are athletics for?” “What is an adventurous life?” “What is the future of creativity?” “What does it mean to be educated?” and “What do we owe to strangers?”
After the afternoon sessions, tours were given of the partially renovated home of Eleazer Wheelock, which is now home to 24 undergraduates and will soon offer a large common area for campus events. They need another $300,000 in donations to complete the work this summer. Afterward alumni participants hosted students for dinner at Molly’s Restaurant for wide-ranging discussions on any number of topics of interest.
To finish off the weekend, on Sunday morning we gathered in the basement of Aquinas House for a brief ecumenical service before we all headed home. It was a fun and intellectually stimulating weekend. If you have the chance, I encourage you to attend in 2024.
Please be thinking about our 50th reunion in less than one year. The best place to get information about our reunion is 1974.Dartmouth.org. We also are hoping to have a gathering this fall with the class of 2024. Keep your calendar open for that.
See you soon!
—Philip Stebbins, 17 Hardy Road, Londonderry, NH 03053; p.stebs@gmail.com