To the Editor:
Contrary to a front page article in Monday's D (news, Oct. 17), the Russian Department has not moved off-campus. It has, to be sure, relocated, but to a new site still very much on campus.
Those of us who have worked for several years planning the College's use of the former hospital properties have become increasingly sensitive to the semantics used to describe the relationship of the campus to that region because a fundamental goal of the planning effort has been to integrate those properties as seamlessly as possible.
I remember being somewhat astonished upon realizing for the first time that the old hospital, which had always seemed so far away, is actually as close to the north face of Baker Library as The Hanover Inn is to the south face of Baker. A central goal of the planning process has been to preserve the sense of intimacy and wholeness that have characterized the Dartmouth campus throughout its history.
For that reason references to "the North campus," and your recent reference to the Russian Department being "off-campus" are mildly discouraging. Hopefully, future issues of The D will reinforce rather than diminish the awareness that the planning process is trying to raise.
