Hoppin’ As a newly arrived freshman in September 1962, I was getting settled in my dorm room (405 Middle Mass) with my two roommates, Bill Heckman ’66 and Dave Dewan ’66, and it came time to select courses for my first term. After geology and math, I was looking for a third. A senior who lived across the hall had a player piano in his room and talked me into taking Music 1, which was being taught by professor Milton Gill. Ironically, this was the first class taught in the new Hopkins Center. When I arrived in the classroom I realized it was an upperclassmen course and a “listening” course. Gill was wonderful, and I spent many hours in the new audio rooms of the center listening to music from Gregorian chants to classical symphonies. The final exam was to describe four selections he had chosen. Unfortunately I overslept a bit and missed the first selection. However, I was enthralled with the other three. Gill was kind and played the first selection again for me. Anyway, to make a long story short, my “ear” was a bit off that morning, and my downfall was thinking a quiet Stravinsky rondeau was written by Beethoven. Gill was again kind and gave me a D, and I was proud that I had passed. A few years later I read that Gill had died in a plane crash returning to Dartmouth from a speaking engagement. He was a wonderful gentleman and I remember him fondly. I enjoy telling this story again and again of a young college freshman who was fortunate enough to have a master of his time.

Bob Wilson ’66 Marco Island, Florida

 Your article on the Hopkins Center reminded me of the old days in Robinson Hall with its theater upstairs and workshop, etc., in the basement. I spent many hours in the workshop building sets and special furniture and watching rehearsals every evening to be sure sets and props worked out satisfactorily. On one occasion we were doing The Royal Family, which required a circular staircase that I somehow managed to build. It had to sustain a sword fight that was of great importance in the play. The star of the show was an accomplished actress whose name I don’t recall. Warner Bentley was the director. There was a scene in which the female character became intensely angry with a student actor. She was rehearsing this scene, in which the poor student was truly frightened by the intensity of her performance, when Warner clapped his hands for action to stop. The actress ceased her tirade immediately, turned to look at Warner, smiled and said very calmly, “What is it Warner?” Those of us who were watching were awestruck at how she could stop being so angry so quickly. All of us really believed she was intensely angry with the student playing opposite her. We all learned a lesson about talented actors. I have forgotten what Warner wanted to change, but I’m sure he wasn’t criticizing her performance. Most likely he was coaching the student actor to not look as though he might melt under the attack.

Howard Van Valzah ’52 Roscoe, Illinois

 Golden memories indeed! The shops and student studios provided a venue for hands-on creativity and a sharing of expertise. My literal golden memory is, with the tutelage of John Pilling ’68, making my wedding rings in the lapidary shop during spring term 1966. I finished them in time for the wedding (three days before graduation) and am still happily married to Pam after nearly 46 years.

Hank Art ’66 Williamstown, Massachusetts

  Banking on Kim If you were Jim Kim [“Campus,” May/June] how would you prefer to spend the rest of your life? Funding treatment programs worldwide, formulating drug resistant tuberculosis treatments, developing poverty reduction strategies, stopping government corruption, taking on the challenge of climate change, investing in financial backing for the eradication of HIV/AIDS with anti-retroviral treatments beyond the 3 million people for which you’ve already received the MacArthur Foundation Genius Award? Or would you rather spend your time responding to accusations that you are trying to eliminate fraternities because you believe the brothers in the Sigma Alpha Epsilon house should be disciplined for having their pledges swim in feces and vomit? As one alumnus, I was honored to have for one shining moment this brightly burning meteor stream across my path.

John F. Murphy ’58 Hartford, Connecticut

 I reacted to Kim’s announcement with sadness, as though I had lost someone close to me. Kim has been a creative and inspiring leader, seeing Dartmouth’s resources in a new light and reconfiguring them for more productive and innovative use. I’ve come to realize this new opportunity is exactly the kind of global service his administration has committed the College to preparing its students to embrace. If we believe in his vision, then we must let him go. In a way Kim’s tenure would parallel that of a successful undergraduate student at Dartmouth who arrives, engages, grows and changes and then moves on to greater challenges. And few challenges are more urgent than those his new post carries. The College will have sent one more person out into the world to attempt to do “real and permanent good.” During his short tenure I have appreciated the way Kim has detailed the value of the arts and of sports like a scientist while embracing them like a fan. He has brought a scientific intelligence,  passion and, most of all, an ability to convey to others persuasively his creative vision, then implement it successfully. The innovative health delivery program is a model of how a university can be transformed yet retain its core character and values. The World Bank hardly has as supportive or as captive an audience as Dartmouth, but I suspect Kim’s character and the depth of his knowledge and skills will continue to win people over to pursue what is best for the global community.

James Ruxin ’70 Los Angeles

 Dartmouth alumni can only rejoice for President Kim’s having found an escape from the Hanover nuthatch created by youth who insist upon their rites of hazing, binge drinking and tumbling off fraternity roofs. God knows this supremely accomplished gentleman did his best to persuade Dartmouth’s undergraduates to exercise moderation in seizing their youthful rights and privileges. The failure is not his alone, but falls upon parents, grandparents, the College’s faculty and the alumni body of Reverend Wheelock’s attempt to bring Christianity, civilization and culture to savages in the New England colonies. The savages still hold the upper hand.

Harry Hampton ’45 Exeter, New Hampshire

  Call to Action I was interested to read haz-ing expert Hank Nuwer’s comments on the College’s recently formed Committee on Student Safety and Accountability [“Campus,” May/June]. He advises that improving a culture of hazing requires “a vocal, reform-minded president or top dean who speaks up unequivocally about change, even if it makes him unpopular.” For the last two years my colleagues, students and I have been researching the campus social scene in preparation for the Dartmouth Dance/Theater Ensemble’s production of Undue Influence, which explores the culture surrounding sexual assault on college campuses—a project to which I am deeply committed as a theater professor and Avalon professor of the humanities. I agree completely with Nuwer’s assessment of what is needed. However, while arguing that change in campus culture can come only from the students, the administration continues to form committees to study the problem. They insist they do not have the authority to intervene in these issues, and regularly accuse the media of distorting the truth about the problems at the College. This is hardly the “bulldog approach” that Nuwer insists is necessary for real reform. It is disingenuous to claim that students alone must transform the campus social dynamics. The increasingly dire situation demands that this administration finally embrace its moral obligation and take decisive action.

Peter Hackett ’75 Hanover

Regarding the Dartmouth fraternity exposé article in April’s Rolling Stone magazine, I offer a couple of comments as a former member of Heorot. If the allegations of such ubiquitous acts of depravity are not merely the vitriolic hyperbole of the disenfranchised, but are indeed true, then those responsible should be expelled and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.  In addition, however, the dean of admissions and all those involved in the admissions process must be summarily fired for the undeniable gross incompetence of attracting, recruiting and admitting a student body so replete with moronic perverts who perpetrate such heinous acts on the one hand, and spineless sheep who so readily subjugate and surrender their wills, morals and egos to their fraternal brothers on the other.

Gary Simonds ’79 Roanoke, Virginia

  Naked Truth When I read the article about Sandi Caalim ’13 and her streaking exploits [“Campus,” May/June], I have to admit I was essentially speechless. What left me so shocked was that the administration and faculty would tolerate this behavior and that DAM would actually promote it via the article in question—even to the point of announcing Caalim has an e-mail list to coordinate her activities. It may make her “happy to make them realize that they can love their bodies and have fun with it,” but this seems out of place on a campus concerned about sexual assault and draconian speech codes. She has streaked more than 50 exams: Unbelievable! Has she considered the effects on the test takers?

Henry Gerfen ’61, Tu’62 Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin

  Religious Experience James Panero ’98 did an excel-lent job doing almost the impossible: describing, in his profile of Father George Rutler ’65, a priest and mentor capable of causing life-changing spiritual encounters for people of all ages [“Father Figure,” Apr/Mar]. I was a 45-year-old married, part-time working woman and whole-time parent when he arrived in our town for his first assignment as a Catholic priest. The local newspaper announced his arrival as the youngest Episcopal vicar in the United States and a just-ordained Catholic priest. As an Episcopalian married to a Catholic—and vowing never to become one—I became one in less than a year after his arrival and found my cup running over with John Henry Newman, C.S. Lewis, T.S. Eliot, Chesterton and many others.

Ann English Bronxville, New York

  Dull Design Recently I received a thank-you note from the College showing the Class of 1978 Life Sciences building referenced in your “Campus” section [Jan/Feb]. I was a little taken aback by the rather uncreative architecture the photo depicts. I hope that future buildings will be erected with more imagination and creativity so future generations of undergraduates and graduates can be as proud as I was when I was in or visited Hanover.

Steve Levine ’59 Palm City, Florida