TDR Interview: Thaddeus Seymour

By Thaddeus Olchowski | Friday, April 22, 2005

Editor's Note: Thaddeus Seymour '49 served as Dean of the College from 1959 to 1969, whereupon he became President of Wabash College and then Rollins College. The author's father named his son after the Dean.

Courtesy Dartmouth College Library

—Dean Thaddeus Seymour wrestles with protesters.—

The Dartmouth Review: What do you think your greatest accomplishment was during your tenure at Dartmouth?

Thaddeus Seymour: What a good question. Because right now Rollins is looking at the issue of an honor system or an honor whatever I must say as I look back on the period at Dartmouth the adoption in 1963 of an honor principle was something I was very proud to have been a part of.

TDR: That is very important today as well.

TS: Good—I am glad to hear that it is alive and well.

TDR: Would you say that would probably be the greatest change you saw during your time at Dartmouth, the adoption of the honor principle as well?

TS: I was dean for a decade from 1959 to 1969, and the changes in higher education and in America were so broad that I would have to say those were really the changes I observed: the context of campus life and student life and the role of students and their relationship to the institution and vice versa.

TDR: You mentioned that you aren't too involved with the College anymore, but do you still enjoy keeping up to date with the College?

TS: Of course. I have a lot of friends among the classes that I was Dean to. I also taught, I taught English for five years before going into my work as a dean. And indeed one of my first freshman English students lives here in Winter Park and so I have a chance to see someone I taught English to fifty years ago.

TDR: Concerning the ROTC incident. It was May 6, 1969, and students opposing presence of the ROTC took over Parkhurst Hall and removed all the employees. They pulled you down the stairs and Freshman Dean Albert Dickerson was carried out of the building in his chair. What are your reflections on this whole event?

TS: It was sort of a high-water mark on the one hand and hitting the bottom on the other. It was certainly the most challenging experience of my career and in a way the most wrenching. But as I look back on it, I am mindful that the students involved were committed to their cause and history. Even [Robert] McNamara agreed that they were right, and I respect that and I have always respected their commitment.

TDR: Could you recount any of the events that led up to this insurgence and your role in the whole ordeal?

TS: You are nice to ask the question but that's so complicated and has so many details to it. . . . Let me just say there is so many impressions and memories of that experience that they all sort of flow together, and it is very hard to sort them out.

TDR: That is understandable. Do you thinking the ROTC today deserves a place on college campuses?

TS: That was thirty-five years ago, and I just have no comment on that. I retired for college administration in 1990, and one of the liberations is not having opinions about or expressing opinions about college policies at Rollins, or at Wabash where I was President, or Dartmouth where I was Dean.

TDR: So maybe no more opinionated questions. Maybe something a little more humorous?

TS: Now you're talking.

TDR: I assume you are familiar with the 1978 film Animal House?

TS: Absolutely, I knew Chris Miller.

TDR: Some claim you are the inspiration for Faber College's Dean Wormer in the 1978 film. Is this true and have you discussed this with Chris Miller?

TS: Chris always told me it was Richard Nixon he had in mind.

TDR: From [how] my father described you, I found it hard to believe you were this man who really had it out for the Deltas and putting people on double secret probation.

TS: I was grateful when Chris told me that I was not Dean Wormer and my wife was very grateful when he assured both of us that she was not Mrs. Wormer.

TDR: Concerning the control of large groups of potentially rowdy students, as Dean of the College I assume you did you fair share of crowd control. One event in particular: my father, class of '68, once told me that you came out in the middle of winter in Bermuda shorts and a short-sleeved shirt to help break up a snowball fight that had close to a thousand participating in it. If you wouldn't mind, could you retell this tale?

TS: I remember it very well. I've got a photograph of it. It was true in fact.

WDCR was covering it from their studio and they were in effect inviting people not only to come out of the dorms but every tough kid from Lebanon came over in his jalopy to see what was going on. And they began running the gauntlet going down Rope Ferry Road where it is goes by Parkhurst and McNutt and students on either side would pelt them with snowballs. The biggest thing was to keep the crowd from going down Main Street. They got down to the Hanover Inn. I had to stand right there and in effect stop them. What I remember was a group went to the center of the campus and I encouraged the rest of the students to attack them. So that the crowd that was heading down Main Street towards the post office at the Inn corner turned and ran to the center of campus. And [they] were throwing snowballs at the other guys and sort of ran out of gas and ran out of snow.

TDR: You mentioned President Jim Wright was recently at Rollins.

TS: He spoke at the installation of our new president of Rollins, who was Dean of the Thayer School. It was very sentimental to have so much Dartmouth on the platform last Saturday.

TDR: It seems there is a great connection between Dartmouth and Rollins.

TS: The second president of Rollins was a Dartmouth graduate, so we go back over one hundred years. I have had wonderful years at Dartmouth. I feel very sentimental about the days I was teaching English there and Dean there.

TDR Interview: Thaddeus Seymour

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