23/3/13 – Tour of Dartmouth

After taking a few photos of the white blanket of snow that had enveloped us overnight, we walked downtown for breakfast at Lou’s Diner. This restaurant is a classic old school diner (complete with booths and laminex table tops) and on the weekends is packed with Dartmouth students and staff. There we met Jeff, who has one arm and apparently plays soccer very well. Upon further enquiry we learned that he plays so well he has toured Australia and even played a game in Port Hedland!

Dirk and Hua then took us for a walking tour around the campus. It is both a massive and impressive place and takes up nearly the whole town. A bit like Cambridge, this is a university town. According to Wikipedia, Dartmouth College is a private Ivy League research university located on a rural 269 acres (1.09 km2) campus in Hanover, New Hampshire and although the campus is isolated, participation in athletics and the school's Greek system is strong and students are well known for preserving a variety of strong campus traditions.

Dartmouth's 34 varsity sports teams compete in the Ivy League conference of the NCAA Division I, but with an undergraduate enrolment of 4,194 and a total student enrolment of 6,144, it is the smallest university in the Ivy League. Incorporated as "the Trustees of Dartmouth College," it is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution.

Dartmouth was originally established in 1769 by a Congregational minister Eleazar Wheelock on a land grant from the Duke of Dartmouth to educate the local people including the local indigenous people. Today the institution consists of a liberal arts college, the Geisel School of Medicine ($40 million bequest from ‘Dr Seuss’), the Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences. 

 

Did you know that Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr Seuss) is from Dartmouth and the original manuscripts along with 'the finest colour plate book of ornithology ever produced', John James Audubon's 1827-1838 'Birds of America; from Original Drawings' are stored in a sealed environmentally controlled vault on campus? FYI - one of these bird books belonging to the Duke of Portland came up at auction at Christie's NYC in January and sold for $7,922,500.

In addition to a long list of business, political, legal, medical, military and sporting graduates Meryl Streep went here for a short time and J.D. Rockefeller III is also a graduate. Fictional graduates include Jed Bartlett from ‘West Wing’, Jack McCoy from ‘Law and Order’, ‘Meredith Grey’ from Grey’s Anatomy and ‘Trapper’ McIntyre from ‘M.A.S.H’. Only in America would this be included in the website!

After farewelling Hua, who went home to prepare a meal for us, we stopped for coffee at the ‘Dirt Cowboy’ and Dirk told us a little of the way the fees and funding at Dartmouth is structured. We were surprised yet pleased to learn that most of Dartmouth’s funding is provided by gifting and endowments and that their selection of students is done without any regard for the student’s capacity (or lack of capacity) to pay the $100,00 per annum it costs to provide education here.

Basically if the student is good enough, Dartmouth will find ways to admit them. This enlightened and equitable policy has, of course, the side benefit of virtually guaranteeing a positive response from such students when, years later and after they have become financially well established, they are asked to ‘dig deep for Dartmouth’. Currently this ‘deep digging’ produces gifts and endowments worth more than $400 million dollars annually.

Speaking of deep digging we walked past the holes that were dug in the ice for last weekend’s ice festival – for some reason the undergrads like to impress the girls by dining into the freezing cold lake! We also walked through the Hood Museum of Art and to our surprise there was an exhibition of indigenous art from the 1970s to recent times donated by private colectors Will Owen and Harvey Wagner.

As the snow fall became heavier we made the move home and entered just in time to witness the final touches being made to our Chinese dinner. Little did we know but Hua had lovingly prepared an eight course banquet for us to enjoy – prawn dumplings (steamed and fried), celery salad, vegetable with roasted pine nuts, shredded pork and spinach, pork spare ribs, steamed fish and jasmine rice. This was followed by fruit salad – what a wonderful meal and all made from scratch including the pastry.

As the night progressed and more bottles of wine were opened conversations deepened and we really enjoyed getting to know this generous couple. Went to bed very full!