As parents, we beam with pride when our children gain admittance to a fine university. But regardless of financial status, it’s difficult to not grit one’s teeth when scratching checks approaching $60,000 to cover annual expenses at a private college. Many would say it’s worth it. This investment in higher education is one that most of us eagerly make for our children and would make again for ourselves. In hindsight, we clearly paid bargain-basement prices for our elite educations. Remarkably, our four years at Dartmouth cost less than 60 percent of what a single year costs today!


Given these stiff prices, what should the rational consumer do? Shop for value by sending your kids to schools that have great teachers. More than 40 of our classmates teach at colleges and universities. Look for that “Dartmouth class of 1980 inside” label!


Two classmates have landed close to the tree—or Lone Pine, if you will. Both chair departments at Dartmouth. At reunion many of us listened to Bruce Duthu speak. It’s a pleasure that many current Dartmouth students can also attest to: The College has twice selected Bruce to deliver the Convocation address since he returned in 2008. As an internationally recognized scholar of Native American law and policy, Bruce has since been named the Samson Occom Professor of Native American Studies and chair of the Native American studies program. The Council of Editors of Learned Journals recently honored Bruce’s work as co-editor of an issue of South Atlantic Quarterly by naming it “Best Special Issue.” Susan Ackerman has been a member of the Dartmouth faculty since 1990—when I still had hair!—and is now the Preston H. Kelsey Professor of Religion and chair of the religion department. She is a renowned specialist in the religion of ancient Israel and the religions of Israel’s neighbors, an interest she first developed as an undergraduate religion major. Next March you can join Susan on a Dartmouth alumni trip to Israel. Her work with leading alumni trips to Israel and Europe helped earn Susan the Faculty Award for Service to Alumni Continuing Education.


I recently touched base with Tom Pearson, who is living a life that is “full of aloha” as a business professor at the University of Hawaii. Tom suspects he may be more memorable to classmates as the daddy of the cute toddler at the 30th reunion than by name. Tom parlayed an expertise in accounting and tax policy gained in both the classroom (J.D./M.B.A., master’s in taxation) and the private sector into a teaching career that began at the University of Wyoming before reaching its current address: paradise. Exit question: Which punchbowl is more appealing, the volcanic one in Honolulu or the sludgy one in Beta on pledge night? Tom’s third book on professional accounting is coming out this fall.


William Penn founded Philadelphia’s Penn Charter School in 1689 and Charlie Brown started teaching there shortly afterward. Underappreciated as a Renaissance man during his undergraduate days, Charlie has taught math, English and Latin (a subject never previously studied) and coached baseball, swimming and lacrosse. What Charlie failed to mention but I discovered myself: He was honored last year with the school’s Distinguished Teacher Award, given to a faculty member who has “demonstrated outstanding scholarship, teaching and character; and has been an especially constructive influence upon others in all phases of Penn Charter life.” You should be very proud, Charlie.


Quick reminder: the Dartmouth College Fund closes on June 30. Don’t punt; make your commitment today.


—Frank Fesnak, 111 Arbor Place, Bryn Mawr, PA 19010; (610) 581-8889; ffesnak@yahoo.com; Rob Daisley, 3201 W. Knights Ave., Tampa, FL 33611; (813) 300-7954; robdaisley@mc.com