To the Editor: The story on Dartmouth TV and Dartmouth Broadcasting was fascinating ("Armed with $400, DTV battles to find audience, April 28). The juxtaposition between community programming and commercial media enterprise is interesting for two reasons.
Reacting to news that national college graduation rates have plunged below 42 percent, College officials expressed confidence that Dartmouth is isolated from the forces -- notably the lack of money and student motivation reported in a national study -- that appear to be causing the nationwide decline. While he called the national statistic "frightening," Larry Litten, director of Dartmouth's Office of Institutional Research, said Dartmouth and similarly selective colleges are "holding strong" at 90-95 percent graduation rates after five years. In fact, although he said that graduation statistics on the national scale are very important, Litten said that raising Dartmouth's graduation statistics further "would not [necessarily] be a good sign," since a proportion of students may in fact benefit from leaving the College to pursue other options. The national survey, conducted by ACT (formerly the American College Testing Service), reported financial constraints as a key factor in leaving college before graduation.
Undergraduates, graduate students and faculty of the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences report that their department is currently thriving on a large bounty of research dollars -- the most in its history and in an amount greater than any other Dartmouth academic department. While exact figures were unavailable from the Department yesterday, the main sources of this funding are reportedly U.S.
With prices for laptop computers falling and a new campus-wide wireless network being finished at Dartmouth, the prospects for student computing have never looked better -- especially outside in the Hanover sunshine. "It's great.
The third woman to sit on the Board of Trustees in the College's 232 years, Susan Dentzer '77 moved up in rank this year to become the first female Chair of the Board.
Professor of History Vern Takeshita described the untold bravery and loyalty of Asian Americans who fought for the United States in World War II in a presentation to a group of Dartmouth students, faculty and locals last night in Rockefeller Center. Takeshita said his lecture, entitled "Hidden But Not Forgotten: East Asian American Soldiers During WWII," was spurred by the recent release of "Pearl Harbor," a movie panned by many critics for its lack of character depth and diversity. All of the main characters in the movie are Caucasian except one -- an African American cook played by Cuba Gooding, Jr. Takeshita emphasized that Asian Americans, too, made valuable contributions to America's war effort as decorated soldiers, officers, spies, translators and others -- contributions that have been slighted by historians and mainstream storytelling about the war. While historical accuracy may not have been Walt Disney Pictures' top priority in the making of "Pearl Harbor," Takeshita said that a more balanced depiction of the war would have been more inclusive of the many ethnic groups in America. "World War II, because it's a popular war, has not been subject to that kind of scrutiny," he said. In fact, a number of U.S.
In a continuing dialogue between the Greek Leaders Council and the Office of Residential Life concerning the new College policy allowing unannounced security checks of all coed, fraternity, sorority houses and undergraduate societies, the GLC plans to propose today that Safety and Security "walk-throughs" are scheduled and occur only once a week. Greek leaders hope that their proposal will build on previous proposals and talks with administrators and lead to the forging of a compromise agreeable to all parties. According to Panhellenic Council President Allison Sydlaske, since ORL announced the new policy unexpectedly at the beginning of the summer, members of the GLC have been encouraged by administrators to voice their opinions, and such encouragement and conversations take shape in the proposal. Without asking for a total reprieve of the new policy, the GLC's most recent proposal asks to "formulate a system of scheduled walk throughs," according to Patrick Granfield '03, summer president of Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity. This is the second proposal the GLC has presented to ORL.
The third women ever appointed to the Board of Trustees, Susan Dentzer '77 moved up in rank at the Board's last meeting to become the first female Chair.
The excessive use of Napster by students has considerably strained the Dartmouth College network, forcing Computing Services to limit the popular program's traffic. According to Computing Services spokesman Bill Brawley, Napster related traffic on the Dartmouth network typically consumes two-thirds of the College's total bandwidth -- causing excessive network congestion and crowding out other College Internet services like email and web browsing. And while Computing Services does not plan to totally block the use of Napster on campus, it has decided to curtail the bandwidth available to Napster users.
In the wake of two recent intrusions into women's' bathrooms in College residences, a College administrator and some students say they continue their support for locked exterior doors on campus. Martin Redman, dean of residential life at the College, said he has always advocated the use of locks on exterior doors at Dartmouth. "The best thing we can do to protect the students' safety and security would be to lock all the exterior doors," he said.