Original Article: http://dartreview.com/archives/2000/04/10/letters_to_the_editor.php
Monday, April 10, 2000
Dwyer and his Discontents
To the Editor:
It is never pleasant to read harsh criticism from students, but I still found your article on the CS 4 episode to be well written ("Research and its Discontents," TDR, 3/13/00). One point, however, requires clarification.
Although support for my teaching may have been an "afterthought" for the Computer Science Department, I certainly did not accept my teaching assignment as an afterthought, nor did I come to Dartmouth primarily to do research. I came somewhat disenchanted by teaching a class of 200 at North Carolina State University with what then seemed like a huge number of cheating cases"10. I came to have my faith restored by Dartmouth's bright students, interested in learning for its own sake and undistracted by near-full-time employment. I came to experience life in your "academical village."
Doing research with its permanent residents was one of my goals, but I had many other more convenient opportunities for research.
Sincerely,
Rex Dwyer
Associate Professor of Computer Science
North Carolina State University
Raleigh, North Carolina
Let Me in the Smoke-Filled Room
To the Editor:
The refusal of the Board of Trustees to permit alumni to attend board meetings constitutes an anomaly which does no credit to the nature of governance at the College. While we are enjoined and often belabored to contribute to the cost of operating the College and educating students, we're barred from even attending Board meetings (much less participating by oral statements).
Taxpayers support public entities. Most states and cities require open meetings of governing boards which decide expenditures of taxpayer money. The Board of Trustees decides the expenditure of money contributed by thousands of alumni; yet, those same contributors are unable by Board order even to observe the consummation of those decisions.
One classmate asks whose college is it, just the Trustees' and administration's or all of the alumni's?
Clearly, the concept of open meetings, available to the College's "shareholders," constitutes an idea whose time has come. I urge the Board to alter its allegedly long-standing practice of preventing alumni from attending Board meetings, just as it has altered other long-standing traditions in the face of adverse reaction from some alumni.
Sincerely,
Quentin Kopp '49
Judge of the Superior Court
Redwood City, California
You Forgot One
To the Editor:
You incorrectly stated in your March 13th issue that, after Phi Delt's derecognition, the College had "1 down, 15 to go..." in its war against fraternities and sororities at Dartmouth ("The Week in Review," TDR, 3/13/00).
The statement should have read "2 down, 15 to go..." My beloved Beta Theta Pi was run off campus just a few short years ago.
Sincerely,
Michael O'Flynn '91
New York, New York