To the Editor:
I found little agreement with the views expressed in Jacob Baron's column ("The Rural University Paradox," Jan. 16). He concluded, "In the arts, Hanover is hopelessly deficient. The Hood Museum is all right, but next to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it is thoroughly underwhelming." For a town of 10,000 people, Hanover has a remarkable profusion of activity in the arts. Baron's absurd analogy compares two art institutions with very different purposes. The Hood is highly regarded as a model college museum. It is, first and foremost, a teaching museum that seeks to inspire, educate and collaborate with our college and broader community. This involves engagement with Dartmouth's students and faculty by supporting the academic curriculum and by providing teaching opportunities for the Upper Valley through direct engagement with works of art. Large civic museums, like the Metropolitan, are wonderful showpieces with encyclopedic collections and have many stakeholders and responsibilities.
I would be delighted to show Baron around the Hood, both in the galleries and behind the scenes where so much of our activity occurs. In the past year, the Hood received 34,033 visitors. We had 7,406 visits by Dartmouth students.
Incidentally, the Hood's exhibition "Coaxing the Spirits to Dance: Art and Society in the Papuan Gulf of New Guinea" is currently on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It is a small exhibition from a small rural New England college and the New York Times reviewed it most favorably last October. Hanover is not New York but it does have treasures awaiting those willing to explore them.
