Class Note 1988
Issue
November-December 2020
Greetings, ’88s! From my home office in Connecticut as I write this column, the sun is bright, and the air carries just a touch of cool autumn—ah, my favorite season.
I caught up recently with F. Eric Freeman, who has been living in Wilmington, North Carolina, for about the last 10 years and teaches math at Cape Fear Community College. Eric also operates a firm that provides consulting services to businesses on infrastructure, especially tax issues, and is pursuing an advanced tax degree at the University of Denver. As you may have seen on the Dartmouth ’88 Facebook page, Eric posted this summer about an experience he had in 1984 as an incoming member of our class, and he and I talked more about that when we spoke. It seems timely to relate some of Eric’s experiences here as a way of embracing the diversity of our class and seeking to move forward even all these years later. Eric was an accomplished math student in high school, but recalls being assigned to Math 1 (Pre-calculus) in our first-year fall. When he asked why, he was told that all African-American students in our class were placed in Math 1, but he could take a placement exam if he sought a different math class. He did take the exam once on campus, placed into Math 13 (Calculus III), and ended up as a mathematician. Eric also told me that, for much of his time at Dartmouth, he lived in Cutter Hall, which at that time housed the Afro-American Society, and which Eric described to me as his “safe space.” The building is now the site of the Shabazz Center for Intellectual Inquiry, the mission of which the College describes as “to enhance the intellectual and cultural milieu of the Dartmouth College campus with particular regard to those issues which pertain to the historical and contemporary experiences of people of African descent.”
This summer our class formed a steering committee on social justice, and the committee has already started meeting and planning. The committee aims to make recommendations on the development of programs and initiatives to address ways to curtail racism and intolerance of all marginalized groups at Dartmouth and among alumni. The committee is mindful of the joint statement from College trustees and senior leadership dated July 1, which expresses strong support for the movement to end systemic and systematic racism and makes numerous commitments related to that issue. Please contact committee members if you have ideas to share. They are Jonathan Altman, Sandy Broadus Chontos (chair), Daron Fitch, F. Eric Freeman, Margie Wallace Gibson, Sarah Hoit, Cari (Lynel) Jackson Lewis, Moira RedCorn, and Tom Ward. Richard Cloobeck serves as an advisor, and Lisa Ellis, who is our class’ vice president of community, has been instrumental in creating the committee.
I wish all of you the very best, and I look forward to hearing from you with news, updates, and your stories to share.
—Tory Woodin Chavey, 128 Steele Road, West Hartford, CT 06119; dartmouth88classnotes@gmail.com
I caught up recently with F. Eric Freeman, who has been living in Wilmington, North Carolina, for about the last 10 years and teaches math at Cape Fear Community College. Eric also operates a firm that provides consulting services to businesses on infrastructure, especially tax issues, and is pursuing an advanced tax degree at the University of Denver. As you may have seen on the Dartmouth ’88 Facebook page, Eric posted this summer about an experience he had in 1984 as an incoming member of our class, and he and I talked more about that when we spoke. It seems timely to relate some of Eric’s experiences here as a way of embracing the diversity of our class and seeking to move forward even all these years later. Eric was an accomplished math student in high school, but recalls being assigned to Math 1 (Pre-calculus) in our first-year fall. When he asked why, he was told that all African-American students in our class were placed in Math 1, but he could take a placement exam if he sought a different math class. He did take the exam once on campus, placed into Math 13 (Calculus III), and ended up as a mathematician. Eric also told me that, for much of his time at Dartmouth, he lived in Cutter Hall, which at that time housed the Afro-American Society, and which Eric described to me as his “safe space.” The building is now the site of the Shabazz Center for Intellectual Inquiry, the mission of which the College describes as “to enhance the intellectual and cultural milieu of the Dartmouth College campus with particular regard to those issues which pertain to the historical and contemporary experiences of people of African descent.”
This summer our class formed a steering committee on social justice, and the committee has already started meeting and planning. The committee aims to make recommendations on the development of programs and initiatives to address ways to curtail racism and intolerance of all marginalized groups at Dartmouth and among alumni. The committee is mindful of the joint statement from College trustees and senior leadership dated July 1, which expresses strong support for the movement to end systemic and systematic racism and makes numerous commitments related to that issue. Please contact committee members if you have ideas to share. They are Jonathan Altman, Sandy Broadus Chontos (chair), Daron Fitch, F. Eric Freeman, Margie Wallace Gibson, Sarah Hoit, Cari (Lynel) Jackson Lewis, Moira RedCorn, and Tom Ward. Richard Cloobeck serves as an advisor, and Lisa Ellis, who is our class’ vice president of community, has been instrumental in creating the committee.
I wish all of you the very best, and I look forward to hearing from you with news, updates, and your stories to share.
—Tory Woodin Chavey, 128 Steele Road, West Hartford, CT 06119; dartmouth88classnotes@gmail.com