The Tucker Foundation celebrated its 50th anniversary this weekend with a broad array of speeches and festivities with the theme "Leadership for Social Change and Responsibility."
It was 50 years ago that the College's trustees and then-President John Sloan Dickey established the Foundation to encourage and organize community service, religious life and students' decisions of conscience. The founders wanted to see Tucker become "the heart and soul of Dartmouth College."
One of the weekend's top attractions was the keynote address by poet and author Maya Angelou on Friday afternoon.
Greg Slayton '81, chairman of the successful e-marketing corporation ClickAction, facilitated a lively discussion on the question of federally-funded faith-based initiatives.
Though the majority of the lecture's attendants, which included campus ministers, alumni and students, supported the goals of faith-based initiatives, there was disagreement about the dangers of religious coercion that could accompany de-secularization.
School vouchers, the pro-life movement and the policies of the Bush administration were the most divisive issues, but the general consensus was that individual choice is a basic quality of religious freedom.
Another '81, Y. Marc Belton, explained how his personal ethics influence the business decisions that he makes everyday as the Senior Vice President of General Mills.
"Nothing comes out of my division if I haven't checked it out and made sure that I support it and I think it is safe for children and the community," he said, "because that's important to me. You can deliver great results and still have an ethical framework."
Belton traced the progress of ethical theory to the "tie that binds" principle, seeing in new multicultural developments a chance to reach foundational ideas that people of all cultures and religions could agree on.
Another event on Saturday was a documentary screening about the 50-year history of the Tucker Foundation.
The documentary highlighted both the continuing goal of the Foundation, to encourage students to "take responsibility for other human lives," and the different changes that the Foundation has experienced as Dartmouth becomes a more diverse institution.
Tucker Dean Stuart Lord noted that interfaith activities increasingly strive to achieve not just tolerance and diversity, but "a positive, enriching energy" that extends to the entire campus. "All of the projects that we do are really just beads on a string. This 50th anniversary celebration is just a way of shining a light on that."
