These days, earning a Dartmouth diploma does not necessarily signal the end of a Dartmouth education.
Thanks to the Alumni Continuing Education program, some graduates of the College take classes from Dartmouth professors in classrooms in Kenya, Montana or Switzerland.
The program pairs alumni and College professors for travel and classes on subjects ranging from Mozart to the book "A River Runs Through It."
"Just because you're out of school doesn't mean you want to stop being educated," Program Manager Joyce Greene said.
The trips vary from year to year, but tours in Tuscany and Alaska are often repeated due to their popularity, Green said. The College profits very little from the excursions and offers them only to offer further education to alumni.
Most alumni who go on the trips are in their late 50s or early 60s, since younger graduates often cannot finance the vacations, which can cost more than $2,000.
Director of Alumni Continuing Education Martha High said the trips allow alumni to revisit their Big Green roots. "Our mission is to have members experience today's professors," High said. "How else will they know how wonderful they are?"
The College has organized travel for alumni since the 1960s, High said.
Dartmouth's program "is a model and is envied by many other schools," she said, and alumni who have gone on the trips echoed her sentiments.
Chester Fairbanks Cotter '51 said his tour in Salzburg was a "howling success." He said music professor Karen Painter's lectures on Mozart added to his enjoyment of the city, but it was the trip's low price that convinced him to participate.
"When you get in for $1,000, who cares?" Cotter said.
Cotter called The Sound of Music Tour one of the trip's highlights.
"Who could get mad at Julie Andrews?" he asked.
Cotter said he would consider going on another tour "if it were as well packaged," as his Salzburg trip, but added the tours he has been seeing lately are not as economical.
Painter said other alumni who attended the trip to Salzburg included a journalist in her 40s and a woman in her 90s.
Ninety-two year-old Bill Ballard '28, who has gone on six tours, said age is no barrier to education.
"I want to find out about the world we live in," he said. "It's exciting to find out about these things. These trips are highly educational."
Ballard told The Dartmouth he could "talk your arm off" about his trips to such exotic locations as Tibet, Turkey and China and, despite his age, said he thought going on another tour would be "a great idea."
Ballard said he has gone on tours with Dartmouth professors because he enjoys "being with people who know the area" and who can point out things and ordinary traveler would miss.
Bob Encherman '42 and his wife have also seen the world through Dartmouth's alumni tours program.
Encherman said he chose to go on Dartmouth tours because of the company of other Dartmouth alumni.
"It's a comfortable feeling," he said.
Encherman said highlights of his trips to Tuscany, York, Switzerland, China and the Danube have included "seeing the Alps without having to climb them," and visiting the Bronte sisters' home.
The Enchermans said they plan to go on a Rhine and Moselle Rivers cruise led by history professor Richard Kremer and art professor Jane Carroll this June.
But not all alumni who have gone on tours were as enthusiastic.
Ann Coons, a participant in Painter's "Winter Escapade" in Salzburg trip, said although she enjoyed Painter's lectures, she was frustrated by the tour's organization.
Coons said she wished she had received tickets to more events ahead of time. "It would have been good to have that taken care of," she said.
Italian and Comparative Literature Professor Walter Stephens said participants' life experiences added to discussions of the "Tuscan character" on his trip to Italy three years ago.
Alumni "enthusiasm drifts back 20 or 30 years," he said. "It's like a ghostly 1930s or 1940s classroom."
Geography Professor George Demko said "schlepping" through China with older people did not slow things down.
"They were excited," he said. "Everybody had a great time."
Demko said Dartmouth alumni were better company than members of the Yale community he has lectured. "There's a great sense of camaraderie," he said. "It's a Dartmouth kind of mentality."
