Filligar's New Album: The Nerve

Have you heard it?

Begin the Revolution

Well, that sure didn't take long. Looks like concern that the Administration would delay their decision over what to do about the River turned out to be unfounded. Instead, they rendered it less than 48 hours later.

From Blitz:

Dear Dartmouth Students:

We are writing to update you on this summer's swimming options. As you may already be aware, students and the Administration have been working together to develop and review proposals for the safe use of the waterfront. The Administration has reviewed the recommendations received to date and has concluded that we do not have viable alternatives that can be implemented this summer.

As such, the College will continue to provide free shuttles to Storrs Pond on weekends. We are also working with the student leaders at Ledyard Canoe Club to continue to offer free use of canoes and kayaks through the end of the summer term.

None of us are happy with the current situation. We are committed to working together to find a safe and fun alternative for the summer. We will be working with Student Assembly to form a Task Force to explore longer term options for use of the College controlled areas of the waterfront. It will be very important that the Task Force members represent the breadth of the student community. In addition, College staff and faculty with particular areas of expertise will be asked to assist. While Student Assembly is developing its appointment process, please blitz Campus Life if you are interested in participating, or have ideas that should be considered.

Sincerely,

Sylvia C. Spears, Ph.D.
Acting Dean of the College

April Thompson
Associate Dean of the College for Campus Life

Aaron R. Limonthas '12 Summer Term Student Assembly President
John R. Rutan '12 Class Council President
Satoshi W. Harris-Koizumi '12 Class Council Vice-President

I hope Mr. Blalock is ready to rush his troops to action.

Regarding the River

So you may remember that the Connecticut River is closed. The Class Council has a solution.

"You're joking."


No, not really.


------------------------------------
Every Saturday and Sunday, noon-5pm,
Meet in the back of Collis to be shuttled to Storrs Pond ---for the remained of the term (last day: Sunday, August 22).
------------------------------------


Shout out to freshman year roomies, this song is dedicated to you toria.


Rebecca--can we please work on CS hw together? asdfhakdjhf


Sam Marshmallow. Give me your landrover.

They may not be joking about Storrs, but that doesn't prevent Storrs from being a joke in and of itself.

Unfortunately, it looks like the protest over the river has been postponed. Over at Dartblog, Joe Asch has the Blitz from Travis Blalock '12 posted. It appears the College has formed a committee on the matter and Blalock has decided to hold off--for now, at least. The instant the College "does not satisfy our demands we will resume our campaign of protest."

One hopes Mr. Blalock is correct in his assessment. If the College decides that a judgment on the matter is to be rendered in, say, December, Mr. Blalock can go right back to protesting. The College hasn't been all that stiff when people start showing up in Parkhurst.

Scientists More or Less Solve Timeless Conundrum

Researchers in London have recently published findings that claim an answer to the age-old question, "what came first, the chicken or the egg?"

Long story short, it's the chicken.

In a paper entitled "Structural Control of Crystal Nuclei by an Eggshell Protein," the scientists discussed the discovery of ovocledidin-17, a protein found only in chicken ovaries and eggs. This protein, they contend, must be present in the ovaries of the chicken in order for the egg to form.

As reported by the Daily Mail, Sheffield University's Dr. Colin Freeman stated that, "It had long been suspected that the egg came first but now we have the scientific proof that shows that in fact the chicken came first."

However, in an interview with CNN, the same Dr. Freeman said that the conclusions weren't as clear-cut as one might think. "I would argue that the concept of an eggshell came about way before the chicken, it's dinosaur or even pre-dinosaur thing. That's something to talk to an evolutionary biologist about probably," he said.

Apparently the research was meant to gain insight as to the formation of shells in order to apply the findings to other fields, namely medicine. As it turns out, the results re-sparked interest in the chicken-egg riddle, but failed to come to a satisfying conclusion. It seems that the debate rages on.

Protest Forthcoming at Bloomberg Lecture

No, it won't be a protest against Bloomberg. Our spies have informed us that there will be a student led protest against the river closure before Mayor Bloomberg's lecture, because that's "where the cameras are."

You heard it here first.

Ivy Grad Publishes 2nd Book

Travis Rowley's first book, Out of Ivy, revealed how a liberal Ivy, Brown University, turned him into a committed conservative. Providence Journal editor Robert Whitcomb wrote, "Mr. Rowley's description of incidents on Brown's politically correct campus are by turns hilarious, infuriating, and intriguing as he provides one of the sharpest and most detailed inside looks at elite higher education seen in a long time, Tom Wolfe's 'I am Charlotte Simmons' included."

Mr. Rowley's new book released last week does not attack Brown University, but the last 70 years of Rhode Island's left-wing activists, unions, and Democrats who have propelled RI into bankruptcy and achieved the 10th highest total state and local tax burden in the country. When asked what he hopes to accomplish, Mr. Rowley says, "Nothing short of a wholesale power shift will satisfy me... My political experience, coming out of Brown University, has been with the far left. And I think that has put me in a unique position to be able to point out the radical elements that have infiltrated Rhode Island government." Mr. Rowley is currently the chairman of the "oldest political youth organization in the United States" RI Young Republicans.

Bloomberg Takes to Hanover; Boloco for All!

In the continued spirit of President John Sloan Dickey's "Great Issues" concept, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg will take a break from the sweltering heat of the Big Apple on July 16 to speak in Moore Theater at the Hop. Bloomberg, who successfully amended New York City's term limit laws in order to run and serve for a third term in 2008, will discuss his experiences as a politician, businessman, and philanthropist.

In a blitz to both undergrads and graduate students, President Kim explained that the lecture is intended to "provide the entire sophomore class with a shared experience that sparks campus-wide conversation and debate about important issues of the day." The President elaborated that the talk is the first in a Dartmouth Presidential Lecture Series.

Although space is limited, and it is assumed that a seat at the talk is a hot commodity, President Kim is nonetheless sweetening the deal with free Boloco burrito vouchers for those in attendance. Additionally, students at the lecture will be asked for feedback "as part of our strategic planning process...as we examine ways to incorporate a shared intellectual experience into the Dartmouth summer schedule in future years."

What better to spur Dartmouth students into a continuation of intellectual discourse than free Boloco?

Not to be outshone, President Kim will deliver his own lecture on July 29th in which he will discuss "the importance of developing 'habits of the mind' that are key to success in life. "

Bloomberg's lecture will take place at 11:15 a.m. on July 16th, with Kim's at 4 p.m. on the 29th.

Can't Stand the Heat?

Head to Novack. From Blitz:

Due to the prolonged heat and humidity, the college has identified the air conditioned Novak Cafe as a student "heat relief" and "cooling station."

The cafe has been equipped with 50 cots for sleeping (20 have been set up in Novak room 60). Additional cots can be set up in the main area of Novak as needed. Novak is open and available to students 24 hours a day and will be staffed from 11PM to 8AM each night this weekend by Safety and Security personnel. Students who are in need of a cool place to sleep or who are looking for a comfortable space to study or just cool off should use this space during this heat wave.

"The Talk"

Occasionally, an organization on campus will descend into self-parody. For the Sexperts, a group that has near Adam West era levels of camp in more or less all that they do, this is difficult to pull off, but they've finally done it.

Want to Scare '14s?

If the answer to that question is yes, you can sign up for "The First Time."

B@B Offline

It appears that Bored at Baker has been taken down, at least for the time being.

If you're unfamiliar with the site, it allows users to post anonymously about more or less any subject they choose without any moderation of their comments. At Dartmouth discussion has ranged from discussion of which a cappella groups are "A-side" to much less savory material. It might help if you think of the site as a sort of virtual bathroom wall.

Jonathan Pappas, the owner of the Boredat sites (as I understand it, there's one for every Ivy, named for the respective library on campus) has shut them down while he figures out a way to correct the situation, issuing an open call for coders. Why, exactly? Well, to quote the page that B@B's address redirects to:

i have temporarilty suspended boredatbutler and other similar boredat sites. recently it has come to my attention that a small group of people have begun using the sites to target and attack specific individuals. the attacks are not on the community as a whole, rather, they are targeted at specific individuals in a repeated, persistent manner. the attackers post personal information (phone numbers, email addresses, etc) and defamatory statements. i do not condone this kind of activity and never have. since i dont have a solution for this problem right now, like i've done in the past, i've decided to take down the sites for the time being.

on another note, it seems that the community has shifted over time to be about homosexuals looking for anonymous hookups. don't get me wrong: i dont have anything against homosexuality. however, its not what i intended the site to be all about.

i will not allow boredat to exist if these conditions are present:

1. specific individuals can be targeted or defamed repeatly without a proactive way to deal with such incidents.
2. a majority of the "center stage dialog" centers around anonymous homosexual activity.

Hard to see if there's anything surprising about this. It's more or less a proven law at this point that internet+anonymity=jerks and that sites like this tend to quickly deteriorate to the lowest common denominator.

Still, I doubt this is the end for B@B. It's been taken offline before and it seems unlikely that it will be gone for long. Until then, the less savory amongst us will just have to content themselves with scratching obscenities into tables in the stacks.

Dartmouth a Good Investment, Says WSJ

The Wall Street Journal's Real Time Economics blog has ranked the top institutions in terms of return on one's investment. We landed in the number five slot, two slots behind Harvard but ahead of the rest of the Ivies. All in all, not a bad showing.

It's interesting that the research was conducted by Payscale, a company that placed us #1 on starting and mid-career median salary not too far back. It should be noted that both rankings are based on self-reporters (albeit it quite a few of them) rather than scientific samples.

Happy 4th of July!

Well, hopefully everyone has had a full plate of barbecue and spent time with friends and family by now. Allow the Review to lighten the mood and entertain you for a few minutes with this patriotic little ditty from the musical 1776.







Remember to be careful with any fireworks you may set off tonight, and God bless America.

Hood Director Brian Kennedy steps down

So Provost Carol Folt announced in an email this morning. Mr. Kennedy will begin as the director at the Toledo Museum of Art this fall; read more about it here.

During his tenure at Dartmouth, Mr. Kennedy's artistic choices tended to disappoint. Surely the most infamous (and likely most expensive) example would be united nations: the green house, Gu Wenda's strings of hair strewn throughout Baker-Berry Library. While Gu Wenda produced some fine art in the earlier part of his career (that is, before he became famous, and even these better works sometimes seemed derivative of the more talented Xu Bing), his latest work tends toward a seamless dovetail of aesthetic ugliness and intellectual shallowness. In short, Gu creates maximal hype with minimal artistic merit: this is, of course, exactly what he brought to Dartmouth. (A New York Times article about the installation can be found here.) The combination of the elegant Baker Library, already painfully dated Berry Library, and garishly colored strings of human hair hanging throughout could not have been less appealing. Needless to say, I studied in Sanborn.

Other pieces for which we have Mr. Kennedy to thank include Peter Iniq's Inukshuk, a pile of rocks sitting outside McNutt Hall—a fine way to gloss over Dartmouth's troubled historic relationship with Native Americans and make anyone who loves great art, or anyone who can see through higher education's mania for multiculturalism, roll their eyes.

I do, however, appreciate Mr. Kennedy's acquisition of the Hood's sole Jackson Pollock painting. In addition, Mr. Kennedy's exhibitions at the Hood were as a rule coherent and well-done. 2008's "Ruscha and Pop: Icons of the 1960s" was the finest exploration of Pop Art (not that there's that much to explore in that movement, but still) that I have yet seen.

I wish Mr. Kennedy all the best in Toledo. I have an unpleasant feeling that his replacement, which Carol Folt said would be announced "shortly", will be a distinct downgrade. But here's to hoping Ms. Folt will prove me wrong.

Pirates!

Dartmouth Government professor Bridget Coggins has an excellent piece in the latest issue of Foreign Policy magazine about the perils of modern piracy, replete with some excellent graphs that breakdown pirate methods and objectives. Her conclusion? The world hasn't yet devoted the necessary resources to stopping sea banditry: "With just a handful of vessels matched against a pirate playground larger than the Mediterranean, the plunder goes on."

Students Rally to Save Fun

On June 23, Associate Dean of the College for Campus Life April Thompson announced the closing of the Connecticut River swim docks, garnering a new coalition of students fighting the seemingly perpetual onslaught against the Dartmouth experience. A Facebook group fittingly named "Save The River Dock" founded by Travis Blalock '12 has already grown to nearly 200 members.

Furthermore, Blalock drafted a letter to Dean Thompson on June 28 requesting that the safety review which led to the closing of the docks be made public. Blalock encourages all concerned parties to take action against the closing of the swim docks.

NYT Highlights Pilobolus at the Hop

The New York Times gave Dartmouth's own Hopkins Center some much-deserved attention on the front page of Monday's online edition. Alastair Macaulay's write-up of the Pilobolus weekend dance show is a paean not only to Pilobolus (founded by Dartmouth alums), but also to the College itself and to the Hop, "one of the leaders in commissioning modern-dance works." A priceless piece of promotion for the Hop and the College's public affairs office.

Also priceless? Joe Mehling's photo credit in the Times. His ubiquity knows no bounds.

For those who don't closely track the world of modern dance, Pilobolus is perhaps the best-known group in the country. They performed at the 2007 Academy Awards, and the group got its own feature story on 60 Minutes in 2004. Pilobolus has its origins in a 1971 dance class at the College taught by instructor Alison Chase. Here they are on Conan last summer:

USMNT Falls to Ghana 2-1

Hard fought game by the US, but in extra time we saw more Ghanaians flop on the ground than Dartmouth students will into the Connecticut River this summer. Since I'm not really a huge soccer fan, someone enlighten me: is this the point at which we riot and cause an international incident?

On the Role of Trustees

Over at the John William Pope Center, William Leonard has a piece on Trustees and financial management that our Board would be wise to read.

McNutt Murders Bear

I ran into this in McNutt, just outside the Registrar's office on the first floor. This is one of the College's animated polar bears. These things are spread throughout campus, primarily in dorms in the McLaughlin cluster and New Hampshire. Depending on the energy use in the building, the animation will change from the bear sitting serenely on a glacier to him fleeing, Wile E. Coyote style, from a crack in the ice. The worst possible result is displayed below, where the College's energy use is somehow enough to melt what I'm assuming to be the north pole. As you can see from the picture (I apologize for the low quality; I took it with my phone), that makes the bear sad, presumably because he can't shoot Coca-Cola commercials anymore. Awwww.

The humor, however, comes from the note on top of the display which reads, "Please don't worry about the Polar Bear! He and a bunch of new staff members have just moved in. We're getting used to life in McNutt together." I find it funny that the College assumes we care less about the energy use than about that bear. What's next, screens above paper recycling pins showing a squirrel escaping loggers?

Dartblog back?

Dartblog has begun posting again, featuring the musings of old standby Joe Asch.

Here's hoping he sticks around this time.

The Dartmouth Atlas Shrugged?

Over at National Review Online, Avik Roy has an excellent piece on the Dartmouth Atlas of Healthcare, which came under fire recently for its methodology (incorrectly in that case, Avik believes, although he does see some issues with other parts of the Atlas's methodology). The College, for its part, was quick to defend the Atlas.

It makes for an interesting article, especially since the Atlas has been used by the Obama administration to argue that much of health care cost is waste.

NYT Quotes Tuck Professor, Refers to "Dartmouth University"

You just don't like to see this: in an article about the faltering leadership of BP chief executive Tony Hayward, the New York Times quotes distinguished professor Sydney Finkelstein at "Dartmouth University's Tuck School of Business:"

"People want to know someone is in charge, that the right person is there, but someone who says the stuff Hayward has said doesn't engender confidence," said Sydney Finkelstein, a professor of strategy and business at Dartmouth University's Tuck School of Business. "We understand he is overwhelmed, but that also might suggest he's not the right man for the job."

The quality of writing and editing at the NYT continues to demonstrate why the Old Gray Lady has been obliged to sell herself to Carlos Slim.

Who Reads The Dartmouth Review?

Karl Rove, for one.

The Young Cons At It Again

It's always a pleasure when Josh Riddle '12 and David Rufful '12, both Review editors release a new song. Their newest effort remixes Mistman's "Airplane." Enjoy.

Morgan Stanley Real Estate Funds V and VI Go Belly Up; and What's the Nexus Between Dartmouth and North Carolina?

Morgan Stanley Real Estate Funds (MSREF) V and VI, which were the beneficiaries of Dartmouth's conflicted investment policy (Dartmouth Charter Trustee R. Bradford Evans is a Managing Director at Morgan Stanley), are apparently tanking - fast.

As indicated in the last post (see below), Dartmouth invested $20 million in MSREF V in March 2005. It also invested an undisclosed amount in MSREF VI in March 2007. The investment committee that manages Dartmouth's endowment investments (Dartmouth has been operating without a Chief Investment Officer since David Russ left Hanover to head Credit Suisse's Investment Strategies group last June) is overseen and directed by the Board of Trustees.

Now those Morgan Stanley funds are hitting the skids: according to a December article in the Wall Street Journal, MSREF V lost quite a bit of money. The California State Teachers' Retirement System had a $137 million investment in MSREF V. By last summer, the value of that investment was $300,000.

WSJ also reported that MSREF V bought eight luxury properties at the top of the market in 2007, taking out a $1 billion mortgage to finance the deal. That mortgage was subsequently carved up into mortgage-backed securities and sold to investors.

The Wall Street Journal reported on May 11, 2010 that SEC investigators are currently looking into bringing criminal charges against Morgan Stanley for misleading investors about collateralized-debt obligations (CDOs) tied to mortgage-backed securities. But Morgan Stanley's real estate division came in for investigation well before that: according to a March 2009 article in the New York Times, Morgan Stanley reported to the SEC that its star real estate investor in China had violated US law by bribing Chinese officials in Shanghai to smooth out a few multimillion dollar investments.

MSREF V wasn't the only Morgan Stanley real estate investment to flop. MSREF VI also lost 61% of its value between 2007 and today. It might lose $5.4 billion on its original $8.8 billion, making it "the worst loss in the history of private real estate equity." That report comes from the Carolina Journal, which documents the decline of North Carolina's state pension fund, also invested heavily in MSREF V and VI.

In an interesting coincidence (?) Carolina Journal reported in October 2009 - in a story headlined "New Questions Surround Ousted Treasury Official and Fund Managers" - that Pamela Joyner '79, a Dartmouth Charter Trustee, acted as the "placement agent" for a 2005 deal that invested $150 million from the North Carolina state pension endowment into a fund run by Apollo Investment Management, founded by Dartmouth Charter Trustee Leon Black '73.

The same article also raised questions about the relationship Joyner and her husband, whose firm Horsley Bridge Partners managed $225 million of the NC state pension, had with a state treasury official who was recently fired. A law professor at Duke, James Cox, commented that "it is certainly something that raises eyebrows and needs explaining."

More on the Troubling Conflicts of the Board of Trustees

From the Tellus Institution's report (p. 33), more accounts of serious conflicts of interest among the trustees, just in the last 5 years. Listed below are the trustees, their firms, and the funds in which the College invested its endowment money:

P. Andrews McLane, T.A. Associates, T.A. Associates Fund XI - undisclosed sum

R. Bradford Evans, Morgan Stanley, Real Estate Fund VI International TE, L.P. - undisclosed

R. Bradford Evans, Morgan Stanley, Global Best Ideas Fund, L.P. - undisclosed

Russell Carson, Welsh Carson Anderson and Stowe, WCAS L.P. - $20 million

Russell Carson, Welsh Carson Anderson and Stowe, WCAS IV, L.P. - $10 million

Russell Carson, Welsh Carson Anderson and Stowe, WCAS X, L.P. - $15 million

Jonathan Newcomb, Leeds Weld & Co., Leeds Weld IV - $10 million

Information from the New Hampshire Department of Justice, previously obtained by The Dartmouth Review, indicates that Brad Evans' Morgan Stanley received at least $65 million in Dartmouth investments: $20 million for its Real Estate Fund V International in March 2005, and $45 million for its Global Best Ideas Fund in November 2006.

All told, Dartmouth put $110 million of endowment money into funds managed by the trustees.

The report notes very appropriately, "When such a concentration of trustees is involved in managing endowment assets, conflict-of-interest policies of disclosure and recusal from decisions related to one's own firm may provide inadequate assurances of independent oversight."

Yep.

"Egregious" Conflict of Interest

Dartmouth's investment policies are questionable at best, and now BusinessWeek has picked up on it with a story on elite colleges' role in fomenting the speculation excesses of the Naughty Aughties (the 2000's).

The key quote:

“Dartmouth provides the most egregious example of conflicts,” said Joshua Humphreys, lead author of the report and founding director of the Center for Social Philanthropy at Tellus, on a conference call. He lectures at Harvard. “Can you imagine the investment committee meetings at Dartmouth? Basically half the room has to leave including the chairman of the investment committee.”

Humphreys is referring to the Trustees' practice of investing the College's endowment money in funds that are managed by Board members themselves - not a bad helping hand to those funds! Examples cited by the article included:

$40 million to Leon Black's Apollo Global Mangagement

$10 million to Steve Mandel's Lone Pine Capital

$10 million to William Helman's Greylock Partners

Thursday News Update

• Professor Tse has created one of those visual tricks that will undoubtedly end up in your e-mail inbox at some point down the road. Nifty. (Amusingly, NewScientist lists Dartmouth as being located in New Jersey.)
• Professor Pease should be pleased to know his new autobiography of Dr. Seuss got a favorable review from New Statesman columnist Amanda Craig.
• The men's crew teams should be congratulated; USRowing's Men's varsity eight poll has ranked Dartmouth #8, leapfrogging them seven slots forward from the #15 slot and the lightweight team has pierced the top five to come in at the #4 spot.

Wednesday News Update

• Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics Charlie Wheelan wants his $25 back from United Airlines for losing his baggage. Good luck with that, Professor, but your first mistake was flying on United with their legendary baggage handling skills.
• Professor Blanchflower's as busy as ever. His crystal ball predicts that another European bailout package to ward off the Acropolis Apocalypse is "inevitable." In addition, the new governing coalition in Britain will "Snap by the End of the Year."
• Tuck recently did a study that found that peer-to-peer networking is a "treasure trove" of leaked health care information.
  
• Ms. Vanessa Seivers '10 will get around to that job she was elected to. Eventually.
• There's "gutsy" and then there's "faking your way into Harvard." The last is best illustrated by one Adam Wheeler, who came this close to graduating from that lesser institution of higher education. He faked his SAT, transferred into Harvard claiming to be a transfer with a straight A average from MIT (in actuality having just been dismissed from Bowdoin for academic dishonesty) and was only caught because he applied for Rhodes and Fulbright scholarships and a professor noticed some pretty blatant plagiarizing. This guy is the Aleksey Vayner of Cambridge.
  

Health Care Delivery

You can't say that it is completely unexpected, given Kim's consistent advocacy on this issue. If any initiative is right up his alley, then it's this one. Altogether, in addition to the policy improvements it will hopefully yield, this new Center for Health Care Delivery Science could make Dartmouth more of a national and global name in education and research. That's a great thing.

Kim's announcement is certainly very exciting, and it suggests that Kim does have a style that is big and bold. He coordinated the announcement with an op-ed in today's Washington Post. He badly wants Dartmouth at the head of the national discourse on health care. In a lot of ways, this flows nicely with an advantage that Dartmouth already has: the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care has been making news throughout the health care debate, and between the Med School's solid reputation and the resources of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, "health care delivery science" is a niche that Dartmouth can rapidly fill.

The College's press release contained a quote from Ed Haldeman that suggested this won't be the first big initiative we see coming out of the Kim administration:

The Trustees and I fully expect that this is the first of a number of initiatives Dartmouth will launch in the coming years. This spring President Kim and Provost Folt are launching a strategic planning process that will identify other initiatives that build upon Dartmouth's many strengths.

I hope so, because as exciting as this new initiative is, and as big an issue as health care delivery is, it's still a niche issue not tailored to an undergraduate institution. Undergrads in the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities will appreciate the massive public policy ramifications, but our education won't be defined by Kim's new center.

In addition to the master's degree in health care delivery science that is planned to start enrolling students in July 2011, Kim said in the press release and on the new Center's website that the College is also going to put forward undergraduate offerings in the field. As long as it's a few courses, that sounds great. But there have been rumors floating among faculty members for months now that Kim might be interested in introducing a "Health Care Delivery" major, a move that would seriously compromise the College's core liberal arts mission by focusing undergraduates on a very narrow field of public policy/medicine.

So for now, optimism. As pertains to undergrads, it will be extremely interesting to wait and see what moves the College makes to integrate this new center with undergraduate education.

Pres. Kim, Saving World Again

I'll say this about President Kim: he doesn't slow down. This landed in Blitz inboxes this morning.

May 17, 2010

Dear Members of the Dartmouth Community,

Today we are announcing the creation of The Dartmouth Center for Health Care Delivery Science, supported by a spectacular commitment of $35 million from an anonymous donor. The donor believes that Dartmouth is uniquely positioned to lead the advancement of this critical field. More about this new enterprise is included in the following press release (http://www.dartmouth.edu/~news/releases/2010/05/17.html) and at TDC.dartmouth.edu.

Provost Carol Folt and I expect we will identify other major initiatives that draw upon Dartmouth's unique strengths as the strategic planning process continues.

This is an exciting moment for Dartmouth. This gift recognizes the excellent work of our faculty and the collaborative strength of this academic community. The gift also expresses the will of a generous donor to help us tackle one of the most challenging issues of our time.

Sincerely,
Jim Yong Kim
President, Dartmouth College

Syracuse, Columbia Commies Carry Contempt for Capitalist Commencement Speakers

Over at NRO, Charlotte Allen has an amusing article on students at Columbia and Syracuse who dislike their commencement speakers. Why? Well, they committed the great crime of being bankers. The students should relax. At least they never have to worry about the specter of Timothy "TurboTax" Geithner in that role.

Swede Students Shut Down Free Speech

Occasionally, I'm reminded of how thankful I ought to be that I go to Dartmouth where folks of all stripes are level headed enough to hold a discussion or attend a talk without shouting down a speaker or, you know, assaulting them with confectionery like Cornellians do.

The same can't be said for Swedish students of an indeterminate religion at Uppsala University, who shut down a lecture by artist Lars Vilks on, you guessed it, free speech. In the past he drew an unnamed religious figure with the body of a dog. For this, he received death threats, which is a totally reasonable response.

Bizarre Blitzes, Godawful Grammar

I'm used to getting a cornucopia of unsolicited blitzes from activist organizations of which I was previously unaware, but the combination of gag-inducing imagery and ambiguous grammatical construction made this one special:

From: Standpoints
Date: 07 May 2010 01:25:41 -0400
Subject: May 12th- OSTRACIZED
To: (Recipient list suppressed)

May 12th- OSTRACIZED



9 out of 10 women develop fistula as result of complications in
childbirth


A WALK TO BEAUTIFUL

- Come see the powerful stories of a group of Ethiopian women who continue to

RISE
ABOVE

THE STIGMA OF FISTULA

Where: Brace Commons
When: May 12th 2010 @ 6pm with Prof. Sackeyfio

***** FOOD WILL BE PROVIDED BY THE ORIENT*********

Two comments:

9 out of 10 women develop fistula as a result of complications from childbirth, eh? Either there are a few words missing here or it's a veritable miracle that there are any women left walking among us.

There is literally no better way for upper middle class white students to talk about the debilitating illnesses of the Third World than over a steaming plate of Chinese food.

IvyGate Blog Adds Insult to Injury

It seems that the defamation of former trustee candidate Joe Asch has been revamped with one of the latest posts on IvyGate. Apparently an editor of the blog dug up some of the weeks-old campaign slander from the Daily D and regurgitated it into tonight's piping-hot Ivy League gossip. Too bad the post has garnered nothing but anger from the Dartmouth students and alums who've read it (check the post's responses).

And Now For Something Completely Different

You may have read Will Aubin's interview with Jonathon Recor MALS '10 in a recent issue of the Review, or read Aubin's brief blog post here about the Love March/Recor's B-day party.

Now you can witness it in all its strange glory on YouTube.

LAX on CBS College Sports

It appears that the Women's Lacrosse squad's Ivy League Championship game will be broadcast tomorrow on CBS College Sports at 12:30 P.M. and then re-broadcast at 5:30 P.M. Wah-hoo-wah!

Linguistic Nonsense

The Daily D’s opinion page is hit or miss. Some days I’ll read a well thought out, eloquent piece. The past two days do not fall into that category.

Amusing Line in Today's D

I stumbled across this line in an article about prospies deciding on college.

For some students, interest in Dartmouth came only after they had submitted their application. Leightling said he decided to apply to the College after examining the application, and chose to attend after he completed further research.

“To be completely honest, Dartmouth wasn’t on my radar at all,” he said. “[I applied because] their supplement looked relatively short, and also because my aunt told me it’s a great school.”

From my experience, that actually describes what happened to a lot of students I know.

Photoshop Friday: Moose on Mass Row

Dartmouth's more credulous students have been circulating the following picture with great excitement:



One thing about the picture is true, however: it is a beautiful day in Hanover.