To the Editor:
I read with amusement your article on Dartmouth's creation of a "sustainability director" ("Merkel appointed first sustainability director," April 27). Is this a joke? As all who read will wonder what that title and position might mean and what it might cost the parents paying tuition, also consider the recent announcement that the only professor in the speech department will be leaving Dartmouth. His departure was precipitated by years of frustration from over-subscribed classes combined with repeated refusal by the College to hire any additional faculty. Keep in mind that undersubscribed classes in numerous over-staffed "fill-in-the-blank studies" departments mysteriously continue.
As these college "enhancements" unfold, please understand that parents of Dartmouth students are bombarded weekly by college solicitors asking for donations to "elevate the Dartmouth experience" of their child. This, in addition of course to the exhorbitant tuition paid to this place of "higher learning -- except speech, and econ and government only if you can get in". Now that is funny. Unfortunately, I think in every case, the joke is on the Dartmouth students. I can only hope the Dartmouth alumni can rescue this college from its current self.
