We came to Hanover after the war in the fall of 1946, to that point the second largest Dartmouth class and the most diverse, thanks to the GI Bill of Rights.
We were equally divided between war veterans and those of us too young to have been in service. But the interesting and unifying reality was that that distinction was only statistical. There was hardly any awareness of the difference and no actual divide. We quickly came together as the Class of 1950, happy, relieved and appreciative to be here and to seize the Dartmouth experience whatever that would turn out to be.
There was an exciting atmosphere of post-war new beginnings at the College, stimulating a class spirit of being a contributing part of growth and change. We have nurtured that spirit and challenge as a class ever since, to this 50th Reunion.
Without question, the element of the College that most influenced us and defined us as a class was the new presidency of John Sloan Dickey '29. In the full flower of a distinguished State Department and United Nations international law career, he had been chosen by the Trustees the year before to succeed the legendary Ernest Martin Hopkins, president for 29 years since 1916. He came to the job with no direction or advice from Hopkins other than the warning, "Don't ever get involved with murals!" referring to the 1930's highly controversial Orozco political frescoes in Baker Library.
So we were John Dickey's first class of his illustrious 25 year term. That created a special relationship between our class and the President of the College. From the very start he put his mark on each of us. He met at the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge with those of us on the pre-college Freshman Trip. In his woodsman's plaid shirt he spoke of the outdoor heritage of the College and its special spirit of "place loyalty." He was an angler and outdoorsman himself and was a personal testament to that core element of Dartmouth. He was delighted to receive from us a matched set of Orvis fly rods on his retirement in 1970.
On opening day he met with each of us individually, chatting, welcoming and signing our matriculation document. He was large of stature and bearing, balanced by a warm and cordial manner and a ready laugh. He had a graceful, somewhat convoluted way of expressing himself, including his own savoring way of drawing out the first syllable of "Dartmouth," making it his word for the College. His personal impact was powerful and compelling. He seemed ageless. It never occurred to most of us that he was only 38 years old at the time!
At Convocation that first October 54 years ago in a very few words he told us where he would be leading us and the roles we would be expected to play in the process. We paid attention and remembered.
He expressed the hope that when we left college we would understand two things about the world -- that its troubles were our troubles and that its worst troubles, coming from within men, could be fixed by better human beings.
Whatever courses, majors and areas of study we each then pursued, it was John Dickey's genius to conceive the Great Issues course, bringing the whole class together every Monday evening and Tuesday morning of our senior year to hear and then discuss with him the views of national, international and academic figures on the compelling issues of the time. It was education as none of us had experienced before, and few of us would disagree that it was the pinnacle of our academic program.
Our visitors included Ralph Bunche, George Kennan, Owen Lattimore and Robert Frost. The tapes of the Great Issues sessions are all stored and available at Baker -- except one that is missing -- Richard Nixon's.
Not only can we properly feel that we have fulfilled John Dickey's hope for our Class of international awareness and involvement, but we have tangibly advanced that priority at the College through our classmate Sandy McCulloch's 1982 founding activities of the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth and his chairmanship of its Board of Visitors ever since in expanding the international dimension of liberal arts education at Dartmouth.
Over the years in further support of John Dickey's international vision, and reflecting our regard, the Class has accumulated a fund of $233,000 in his name which will be transferred during our Reunion to the Dickey Center as an endowment fund to be used to bring to the College distinguished foreign leaders, scholars and specialists to interface with students on the important issues of the day, in keeping with John Dickey's original Great Issues initiative.
As for our roles as members of the College, President Dickey charged us, at that Convocation, that as citizens of a community we were expected to act as such. We understood those straightforward words and by-and-large observed them. Somewhere along the way they lost their resonance on the campus, but Jim Wright and the current Trustees are clearly committed through their Student Life Initiative and student cooperation to revive them and improve the quality of college life for all students.
In closing his Convocation address, John Dickey bonded us personally to Dartmouth College and threw away the key. "You are the organic stuff of an institution and what you are it will be." He was telling us that the College doesn't wholly create its own life, standing and reputation. We would have a part in doing that, each of us, in what we did and became, as students and thereafter in life.
As our affection, appreciation, admiration and esteem for this place, this College, this community has developed and matured as we ourselves have, we relish in greater and greater measure our relationship to it and to each other, for each of us being some part of what it is " as John Dickey told us we would be.
At the funeral service for Al Dickerson, the long time senior administrative officer of the College and dean of freshmen, beloved by decades of Dartmouth parents for his helpful and caring letters to them during Freshman year, John Dickey said of his friend and colleague: "Where Al Dickerson stood there stood Dartmouth College." The ultimate tribute and as close as possible, perhaps, an expression of the Dartmouth Spirit.
