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(10/17/14 12:46am)
When then-College President John Dickey established the Tucker Foundation in 1951, he believed that liberal arts colleges like Dartmouth had a dual mission, to nurture both competence and conscience. He did not worry about the first half of that mission: “the appetite of self-interest,” he said, would ensure that students would pursue a path to competence. Conscience was another matter. Dickey believed that a good education required explicit attention to ethical and moral values. “To create the power of competence,” he wrote, “without creating a corresponding sense of moral direction to guide the use of that power is bad education.” Or as an early Dartmouth trustee, John Phillips, observed, “Goodness without knowledge ... is weak and feeble, yet knowledge without goodness is dangerous.” In July, Dartmouth announced that it would dismantle the Tucker Foundation, a change that makes the search for conscience, meaning and purpose more difficult at Dartmouth.
(01/31/07 11:00am)
To the Editor:
(05/22/01 9:00am)
To the Editor:
(05/24/99 9:00am)
The mission of Dartmouth College has evolved through the years, as it should. The needs of our country and society have changed, and the College has sought to meet those needs. This year, the College has new leadership and new focus. It may be time to take another look, to think about where we have been, and where we want to go.
(05/21/99 9:00am)
To the Editor:
(05/05/99 9:00am)
College students throughout the country indicate increasing disaffection and separation from social concerns. Every year, the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA surveys nearly 350,000 first year students at more than 650 colleges and universities. Their most recent findings reveal a lower level of political and social interest than at any time in the past 32 years. Just 26.7 percent of freshmen surveyed believe that "keeping up to date with political affairs" is an important life goal, compared with a high of 57.8 percent in 1966. Freshmen expressed similar disinterest in specific social issues. For example, only 19.4 percent of students said that "becoming involved in programs to clean up the environment" is an important life goal, down from a high of 33.6 percent in 1992. Only 31.8 percent believe that "helping to promote racial understanding" is an important goal, down from 42 percent in 1992. Likewise, the number of students expressing interest in community action programs and influencing social values has declined over the past decade.
(04/16/99 9:00am)
War is rarely, if ever, a moral method for resolving a conflict, but the situation in Kosovo troubles even the most peaceable among us. Recent polls indicate that 60 percent of the American public support the air strikes against Serbia, up from 46 percent just before the bombing began. Nearly 50 percent favor sending ground troops, up from 31 percent at the beginning of the conflict. Support for U.S. action in the conflict is now driven, say the poll analysts, by those who believe we have a moral and humanitarian responsibility to intervene. What are the arguments and what are our moral obligations?
(04/07/99 9:00am)
To the Editor:
(03/30/99 10:00am)
The conviction for murder of Jack Kevorkian brings into stark relief a major moral issue of our time. Do we value more strongly a reverence for life, regardless how painful? Or, do we hold more dearly our right to control our own bodies, our right to death as a fundamental element of our right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?" Like all troubling moral questions, this one provokes differing responses from reasonable and moral people.
(10/02/98 9:00am)
The results of recent polls reflect a remarkable American ability to separate our personal values from our expectations of leadership. According to a Wall Street Journal poll conducted on Sept. 15, 73 percent of Americans disapprove of Clinton's moral and ethical values and believe he is a poor role model for our children. On the other hand, 66 percent of the public approve of Clinton's job as President. It seems impossible to escape the conclusion that most Americans believe that moral and ethical values are irrelevant to civic leadership.
(07/20/98 9:00am)
Two weeks ago, the Clinton Administration unveiled a plan to re-establish limited affirmative action preferences for minority owned businesses. The plan responds to a Supreme Court decision that struck down an earlier system of preferences designed to direct substantial government business to minority contractors. The Court required the government to limit the scope of preferences to situations in which the government could demonstrate clear effects of racial discrimination.
(06/24/98 9:00am)
To the Editor:
(04/14/98 9:00am)
To the Editor:
(04/01/98 10:00am)
Human nature takes comfort in justifying the unjustifiable. When the snake in the Garden of Eden lured Adam and Eve to the knowledge of good and evil, God gave back the ability to rationalize. How else would we stay sane?
(02/23/98 11:00am)
To the Editor:
(02/20/98 11:00am)
As observers point to the increasing disparity between rich and poor, between the lives of the hopeful and of the hopeless, those of us in higher education should wonder whether we contribute to the problem. A good education has always been the most widely acceptable answer to the problem of social class. Education, it is thought, enables citizens of all backgrounds to enjoy the fruits of an open society.
(01/30/98 11:00am)
The American public is strikingly divided on whether the allegations against President Clinton should make any difference in his role as our country's leader. Some believe that if the allegations are true he is not qualified to be our leader and should resign. Others believe that the president's personal life and whether he lied about it should not matter as long as he is doing a good job managing the policy and operations of our government.
(01/08/98 11:00am)
Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the tempest-tossed, to me:I lift my lamp beside the golden door."-Emma Lazarus
(11/03/97 11:00am)
I appreciate Abiola Lapite's response ["In equality of Wealth is a Force for Good," Oct. 22, The Dartmouth] to my Oct. 20th column, "The Growing Economic Divide." Someone asked me whether I had paid him to help me spark a discussion. I did not, but I am grateful for his courage. On the other hand, I hoped to stimulate a dialogue, not a debate. When we debate, we tend to waste valuable intellectual energy proving the other person wrong, rather than promoting our point of view. One of the most valuable lessons we can learn before we become too set in our ways is how to disagree without being disagreeable. If we really want a dialogue, rather than a debate, our internal critic should always be asking a few questions before we write or speak: Am I going to get a response or a reaction? Will I open someone's mind or close it? Am I likely to persuade or provoke? Those who learn to persuade rather than provoke are likely to be more successful leaders. (Provoking can be fun, of course, but it's a bad habit that some can't seem to control.)
(10/20/97 9:00am)
While Wall Street continues its unprec-edented run, the bull market is leaving most Americans behind. Although news of the market's success contributes to a general perception that our economic health is strong, the vast majority of Americans own little or no stock and increasingly watch the American dream only on television.