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The Dartmouth
August 6, 2026
The Dartmouth
News
News

Class of 1994 stats

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The Class of 1994, like all classes, will be forever ensconced in the College's books, not only as names and faces, but as numbers and statistics. For instance, in the fall of 1990, 1,064 students enrolled, 596 men and 468 women according to Assistant to the Dean of Upperclass Students Alison Gorman.


News

Yaffe overcomes obstacles

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After recovering from a near-fatal accident, Lisa Yaffe '93 can proudly claim the distinguished honor of graduating twice from Dartmouth as an undergraduate. In August of 1991, Yaffe's sophomore summer, she was turning a corner on her bike when she was struck by a truck carrying a house and traveling at 55 miles per hour, she said. "It is ironic to say I was lucky because it is not lucky to get hit by a truck, but there was such a lucky string of circumstances working in my favor," Yaffe said. She was wearing a helmet when she was caught between the bike and the truck's grill, and two trauma physicians happened to be in a car behind the truck and helped sustain Yaffe when she suffered one cardiac arrest at the accident site and another in the ambulance. Yaffe awoke from a coma after five weeks, having incurred brain damage that doctors believed would prevent her from completely regaining her mental and physical faculties, she said. "I think my parents were so strong ... to have to hear such horrible things about their pride and joy," Yaffe said. She spent nearly a year in rehabilitation, regaining her speech and basic motor skills. "My balance is still not as stable as it was, and I have lost the hand-eye coordination required in team sports," said Yaffe, who was a lacrosse recruit.


News

Workers put in overtime

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It all starts with the polishing of Baker Library's brass numbers. That job, Linda Hathorn said, is the first step in the month-long preparations for the annual Commencement and Reunion events. Hathorn, the director of conferences and events, is in charge of much of the massive preparation that goes into the week. After the speakers are mounted on Baker, a crew of workers, from grounds crew to carpenters to electricians, begins constructing the stands and installing a sound system in front of the library. After Green Key weekend in mid-May, crews from Facilities Operations and Management go to work making the Green look really green -- laying sod, watering and roping off well-worn paths. College crews must set up 8,000 chairs for the graduation spectators and nearly 20 tents to shelter reunion festivities. Crews must prepare a second site in Thompson Arena in case of rain.


News

Ceremony takes strange turns over the years

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The College's 224th Commencement ceremony is part of a long tradition of graduation festivities that includes famous speakers, drunkards, jugglers and crazy alumni antics. The ceremony has evolved since the first one in 1771, in which there were four graduates, including Eleazar Wheelock's son, said Director of Public Programs Barbara Whipple. Those students spent only a year at the College after attending Yale University for three years. The August 28th ceremony, located where Reed Hall is now, included orations in Latin and English and began and concluded with a prayer, according to a Commencement history written by College Professor Lane Childs '06. In celebration of the event, John Wentworth, then-governor of New Hampshire, provided rum to be served on the Green with roasted ox, Whipple said.


News

Seniors pledge gifts

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More than half of this year's graduating class pledged money to the Senior Gifts Program, for a total of $95,326. The Program began in 1980 as a way to introduce recent graduates to the Alumni Fund, which raises money annually from alumni, Mitch Jacobs '94, an Alumni Fund intern said. Each year's senior gift is pooled with other alumni classes' contributions to the Alumni Fund, which pays close to 20 percent of the College's operating costs, including professors' salaries, facilities maintenance and financial aid. Although, fewer people, about 55 percent of the class, donated this year than in past years, individual donors gave more on the average. The Class of 1993 raised $93,684.


News

Seniors choose off-beat careers

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Seniors must for one year live the everyday nightmare of facing the benign question "What are you doing after graduation?" and having no answer. While some students have known the answer to this question since watching their first L.A.




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Time for reflection

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Newspaper stories about graduation ceremonies focus on the events that happen on stage. In The New York Times tomorrow, the story about Dartmouth's 1994 Commencement will report the number of graduating students.


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Scholars will study in Germany

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Seniors Russell Martin and Marion Shonn will be heading to Germany after graduation on Fulbright scholarships to do research in engineering and biology, respectively. Martin, an engineering major from Birmingham, Ala.


News

At last, a graduation ceremony

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Cincinnati, OH -- The Class of 1944 returned to Hanover this weekend for its "Commencement That Never Was." Back in June of 1944 there was no Commencement at Dartmouth. And for good reason. Most of the intended honorees were not there.They were in Normandy, Saipan, Italy or Burma; on the high seas, in the wild blue yonder or and in fox holes far, far away from Hanover. The class had been together for less than 16 months when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, shortly after which the class was completely broken up because so many members went off to serve in World War II. But this weekend, as they celebrate their 50th class reunion and lead the Class of 1994 in its Commencement procession, surviving members of the Class of 1944 will hold their own Commencement. During a class banquet on Saturday, Richard Morse '44 who gave the valedictory address at the 1946 Dartmouth Commencement, reviewed his remarks in light of events since. Then, at the conclusion of the evening, Leonard Rieser -- a member of the Class of 1944 and provost of the College from 1967-82 -- donned his academic robes and presented to outgoing Class President William Hale a certificate signed by Dartmouth President James Freedman.


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Boyer remembered

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Friends and family of Daniel Boyer '94 took time to remember him this week. Boyer, who died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound on October 26, 1993, was awarded a posthumous degree.



News

Chionuma voted down

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After more than eight hours of meetings, the Student Assembly's nominations committee remains unable to agree whether it will grant membership to Grace Chionuma' 96, who was appointed summer Assembly president two days ago. Chionum, appointed by President-elect Danielle Moore '95 and Vice President-elect Rukmini Sichitiu '95, must be a member of the Assembly to become its summer leader. The nominations committee, which approves Assembly membership and is chaired by Sichitiu, narrowed a field of nine applicants for the position of at-large member to two, one being Chionuma. The vacancy was created when Sichitiu was elected both vice president and at-large member of next year's Assembly. Sichitiu said the nominations committee decided not to release the name of the second candidate. There are four voting members on the committee: Brooke Brightly '95, Meredith Epstein '97, Nina Nho '97 and Sichitiu.


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'98 class complete

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The 15 additional students who have enrolled in the Class of 1998 since the May 1 response deadline increased the percentage of minorities but did not affect the class's gender ratio. Next year's freshman class will include 48.4 percent women, the highest ever in Dartmouth history. The class will consist of 24.3 percent minority students, which represents nearly a 1 percent increase since the Admissions Office's reply deadline.


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Dowding '94 receives $5,000 Luce fellowship

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Christina Dowding '94 recently received a $5,000 fellowship awarded by the Thayer School of Engineering to encourage women to pursue engineering careers by helping to fund their graduate education. Dowding plans to work with several other students this summer to design a bridge leading to Stoddard Cabin on Dartmouth's 27,000-acre Second College Grant.


News

Rape image in the media

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Columbia School of Journalism Professor Helen Benedict said in a speech last night that covering rape crimes is an essential duty of the press. Benedict delivered a speech titled "Virgin or Vamp: How the Press Covers Sex Crimes" to more than 50 people in Carpenter Hall.


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Funds for gay studies approved

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After five years of planning and waiting, the first gay and lesbian studies course will be offered Winter term 1996. The course, titled "Introduction to Gay and Lesbian Studies," will introduce students to the contemporary debates and historical conceptions about homosexuality in western culture and the struggles of gay and lesbians to achieve recognition and rights. The course will also examine the formation of gay and lesbian communities as well as the impact of the AIDS crisis on gay and lesbian political activism. "The course will have both an overarching historical structure as well as a humanities effort to document homosexuality and its evolution through film, literature and religion," Religion Professor Susan Ackerman said.


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Murray speaks of new white underclass

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Welfare expert and author Charles Murray warned about how widespread illegitimacy has led to an emerging white underclass which will have dire social implications. Murray, who is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank, spoke to about 50 people in 105 Dartmouth Hall last night in a speech postponed from Winter Term. Citing statistics from 1991, Murray said 22 percent of all white births are out of wedlock.


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Earle leaves College to get PhD

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After five years counselling sexual assault victims and educating the College community about sexual assault, Heather Earle will leave Dartmouth to pursue her doctorate in counselling psychology at the University of Wisconsin. "They've been great years.