Alison Crocker '06 was selected to ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America Women's At-Large first team last Thursday. The skier received the honor after finishing fifth at the 2006 NCAA championship in the women's 15-kilometer free technique cross country ski race. This is her third selection to the All-America Women's At-Large first team; Crocker also placed 13th this year at the NCAA championship in the women's five-kilometer classical cross country ski race. Now a Rhodes scholar who plans to study for a doctorate in astrophysics at Oxford University in England, Crocker was a mathematics and physics major as an undergraduate and chaired the Cabin and Trail club, part of the Dartmouth Outing Club. Crocker hopes to go on to research and teach in the field of astrophysics.
The Boston Globe reported on Sunday that Dartmouth was a strong contributor to the recent flood of applicants for Teach for America, a nonprofit organization that trains young graduates for two-year teaching stints in underprivileged schools across the country. Some 11 percent of the Class of 2006 applied for the program, joining the 19,000 other college seniors who applied for the program's 2,400 spots, a significant increase from the program's initial 500 graduates 17 years ago. Due to the increase in the program's popularity, TFA has made plans to expand the regions where it places teachers from 22 to 33 as well as double its membership by 2010. "I told them right up front that I was going to go to med school," TFA participant Kristen Wong '06 told The Globe. "They liked that even better. They pick people who become leaders in the community, who make policy, who vote."
In a world of rising energy costs, David Brown '73 of Old Saybrook, Conn. was recently featured in The Hartford Courant because of his choice to live without running water, electricity or central heating. Brown, 53, heats his home with a wood stove and stores his food in his cellar. He works as an artist and also makes a living selling organic flowers and eggs from his flock of 80 chickens, which are fed by local restaurants. Judi Friedman, chairwoman of People's Action for Clean Energy, a conservation advocacy group, called Brown "a very moral person in the deepest sense because the footprint he leaves on this Earth will be so small, and that is such a wonderful legacy."
