College for the '50s -- a very different place
It was a very different Dartmouth back then. But it was an even more different group of students at Dartmouth. Half a century after graduating, the Class of 1950 -- the only one of its kind -- returns to Hanover this weekend to meet their friends and reminisce their golorious days at the College. Joel Leavitt '50, reunion chair for the class, told The Dartmouth that he and his fellow classmates were excited to come back to Dartmouth and meet his fellow peers. The first class to enroll at Dartmouth after the end of World War II, the Class of 1950 had an large numbers of war heroes -- coming to attend college after years of treacherous fighting. "There was a great [number] of people who had been involved in the war one way or another," Robert Shnayerson '50 said, adding the class had a wide mix of people ranging from an ordinary rifleman to a fighter pilot. Following the government's passing of the GI bill -- aimed at helping war verterans receive an education -- many members of the class were people who ordinarily would not have been able to afford a Dartmouth education. "The GI bill made a huge difference to ... democratize the idea of going to college," Shnayerson said. The Class of 1950 was the largest Dartmouth class to date, and members, on average, were older than usual.