At convocation exercises in Leede Arena yesterday, Chair of the Board of Trustees Susan Dentzer '77 greeted Dartmouth's Class of 2007 with an emotional speech that earned a standing ovation from the crowd.
Dentzer, an English major at Dartmouth, tearfully shared how her appreciation for poetry has sustained her during the most difficult times in her life, including the time she spent covering the victims of September 11 in an effort to advise students of the importance of studying the humanities.
"It is sometimes difficult to get the latest research or the latest news about the human condition from humanities courses," she said. "Yet these are precisely the places in which to conduct one's search for the lasting truths. And people do die spiritually every day for lack of what can be found there."
College President James Wright's speech exhorted new students to embrace the lifelong commitment to learning that the College hopes to engender in its students.
"A liberal arts education is about process more than it is about product," Wright said, urging the audience, composed mostly of members of the class of 2007, not to view their courses as a path to a job or to use them to substantiate their resumes, but rather to develop a love of learning to sustain them in the future.
Wright focused specifically on the humanities in his speech, noting the limitations of what he called "the binary world of hypothesis tests, of experiments and empiricism, of correct and incorrect."
"Ours is not a world we can model or predict," said Wright after reminding the class of 2007 that they were born into a very different time when those in Eastern Europe lived under the Soviet Union and those in South Africa lived under apartheid.
By studying the humanities, Wright said, students come to "understand who we are and what we value."
Student body president Janos Marton '04 used the high profile event as a forum to announce his candidacy for the New Hampshire House of Representatives in 2004.
Marton welcomed incoming students by assuring them that they had chosen an institution uniquely qualified to educate them academically and socially.
"Class of 2007, I want you to know that you have come to the right party," he declared.
In discussing how his interests have evolved at Dartmouth, Marton spoke of the enforcement of drug laws that he said unfairly targets poorer communities while sparing the middle and upper classes. He used this issue as a springboard for the declaration of his candidacy.
"I will not forget the war on drugs and the war on poverty," Marton said. "I can promise to fight for these causes when I run for the New Hampshire State House in 2004." Marton acknowledged, however, that the outcome of a pending state redistricting plan may still affect his decision to run.
The annual ceremony serves not only as the formal start of the academic year but as a welcome to the incoming first year class, which was drawn from the largest applicant pool in the College's history. One third of the diverse class are students of color and an additional six percent are international students.
The class of 2007 is also strong academically, with median SAT scores of 710 for verbal and 720 for math. 24 percent were high school valedictorians, ten percent were salutatorians and 84 percent were ranked in the top ten percent of their classes. A majority of the class, 62 percent, attended public high schools. 32 percent are from private schools, and 5 percent are from parochial schools.
Wright also used the occasion to make a formal announcement on the construction of new residence halls for 500 students and a new dining and social center to serve the entire College community.
Other upcoming projects, Wright said, will include Kemeny Hall for the mathematics department, the Academic Centers Building, which will house the Dickey Center for International Understanding, the Ethics Institute and the Leslie Humanities Center, an addition to Sudikoff Laboratory for computer science and a new facility for the Engineering Sciences Center at the Thayer School.
Convocation was followed by a community cookout held by President and Mrs. Wright, which was moved to Thayer Dining Hall because of the rain.
