Monday March 15, 2021 at 9 PM EST

Bill Zarchy

Finding George Washington - A Time Travel Tale

Monday March 22, 2021 at 9 PM EST

Gerry Bell

The Pale Blue Dot ... Is That All There Is?

The Pale Blue Dot ... Is That All There Is?"   This is a follow up to Gerry's cosmology presentation at Reunion on the origin and history of the universe.  We'll look at several approaches to estimating the number of intelligent species that might exist elsewhere, including the possibility that we might be alone.  Some of the conclusions may surprise you! Read more ...

Monday May 24, 2021 at 4 PM EDT

Peter Wonson

Poetical Musicology

In this webinar we will listen to, analyze and discuss three (or four depending on time) songs by Elton John and Bruce Hornsby, both classically trained pianists. The focus will be on the intersection of the lyrics and the music, in particular how the arrangement, instrumentation, dynamics, etc. tell the same story as the lyrics.  This will be an interactive hour, with no Q and A at the end since we will have discussion and Q/A after each song.

I’ll be sharing music directly from my laptop to your device, so this suggestion. Unless you have truly high-quality speakers though which you can run the sound, I strongly suggest you use the earbud/headphone option on your desktop or laptop. If you listen to the songs using a smartphone or tiny, tinny laptop/desktop speakers, you will miss a great deal of the music to be discussed – i.e., the bottom end and the full arrangements.

Review webinar worksheets.

Monday June 14, 2021 at 9 PM EDT

Tom Couser

Stories from the New London, Connecticut Landmarks Program

Learn about the New London Landmarks, a progressive preservation organization. Founded in 1646 by John Winthrop, Jr. (whose father founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony), New London has a rich history—e.g., as the site of a raid by British troops led by Benedict Arnold during the War for Independence and as a major whaling port in the 19th century. To protect, preserve, and promote its legacy, New London Landmarks has gone to court to prevent the demolition of a (200-year old) historic downtown building, given programs on the loss of neighborhoods to urban renewal, on the implications of rising sea levels, on local whalers of color and a local Italian anarchist community (early 20th century inhabitants of the neighborhood that was the subject of a controversial eminent domain case that went to the Supreme Court), and helped research a black history trail.  In addition, the organization researches and “plaques” old buildings, gives tours highlighting historic neighborhoods, and so on.

Monday Sept 27, 2021 at 9 PM EDT

Jenn Sargent

Parole: Big Lessons from a Small State

Some people know that parole exists, some know what parole actually is, but few know exactly how it works and the real reasons for why it exists.  Virtually no one understands that evidence-based practices in offender reentry have little research behind them, that parole is a political issue even though it should not be, and that state parole systems across the United States regularly fail the community and inmates alike.  Parole done right does so much more for offenders and the community at large than incarceration ever will.  Before states can do it right, their leaders and citizens need to know how and why to do it right.  Using the New Hampshire parole system as an example and springboard, Jennifer Sargent, ’68a and Chairman of the NH Adult Parole Board, will tell you how parole needs to work – and why it probably never will.

Monday Oct 18, 2021 at 9 PM EDT

Tom Couser

Samson Occum

Samson Occom, Dartmouth, You, and Me

After I moved to New London, Connecticut, in 1976, I was startled to see a road sign in Uncasville, about ten miles north of my home, that read “Birthplace of Samson Occom.” I was familiar with the name, of course, which was liberally used as an eponym in Hanover, and I knew Occom had been a prized pupil of Eleazar Wheelock, but I knew little else about him.

It was only in the 1990s, as I was developing a course in Native American Literature to fill a gap in Hofstra’s English curriculum, that I encountered his short life narrative; unpublished during his lifetime, it had languished in Baker Library until it was discovered and anthologized in 1982 by a German scholar, Bernd Peyer. It became a standard text in my course; teaching it every year made me into an admirer of this brilliant evangelist and Native advocate.

In the webinar I will place his story in the context of Mohegan history with special attention to his relationship with Wheelock and the founding of the College.

Monday April 4, 2022

at 7:30 pm Eastern

John Isaacson   Linc Eldredge

Search for New Dartmouth President

Monday April 25, 2022

at 7:30 pm Eastern

Eric Hatch

Photography - Beyond the Capture

Monday May 9, 2022

at 7:30 pm Eastern

Woody Lee

John Pfeiffer

A History Lesson for Dartmouth Alumni

Saturday June 25, 2022

at 4:00 pm Eastern

Clark Wadlow

Introduction to Woodworking

Monday July 11, 2022 at 7:00 PM Eastern

Roger Arvid Anderson

Supporting the Arts at Dartmouth

The goal of this Arts Legacy webinar is to discuss the goals and operating procedures for the the Class of 1968 Arts Legacy Committee as it researches and proposes options for the Class to consider sponsoring.  Roger will lead the discussion, and review both his personal and the Class history of working with the Arts at Dartmouth.  How to help:  personal networking with leaders in the Hood, Hop and Libraries, consensus building within the committee, and then the class.   Roger will also explore the possibility of finding angels who could supplement class support for specific gifts.

The Arts Legacy project is a way for the Class of 1968 to show we are responding in a positive way to the Call to Lead mantra the College has been using for the last round of marketing. His hope is we can show other classes how they can help too.   The Arts Legacy project is a way to be pro-active and specific in our donations, as opposed to just writing checks to the general College Fund.  These are tangible gifts that enrich the Dartmouth experience, such as our recent donations of the Frederick Douglass bust and Zuni bowl.

Questions and suggestions will be most welcome.

Arts Legacy photo album.

Monday September 12, 2022 at 7:30 PM Eastern

Paul Schweizer

Gliders, Airplanes and More

The story of Schweizer Aircraft is the story of the American dream. An immigrant family from Switzerland comes to the United States. The three boys get swept away by heroes like Charles Lindbergh and the golden years of aviation. They read a National Geographic article about flying gliders in Germany and, in 1930 while still in high school, they designed their first glider and then scrimp to buy materials required to build it. Never having been in an aircraft, they then teach themselves how to fly. Because they didn’t kill themselves, they go on to build a second,  a third, and then form a small business. They complete college before World War II begins. Because they were “aircraft builders” with a factory, they were awarded a contract to build gliders for the war effort. From this humble beginning, their company, Schweizer Aircraft Corp, went on to build over 6000 gliders, airplanes, helicopters, and unmanned vehicles.

My webinar will introduce my book, Flying with the Schweizers, the Story of Schweizer Aircraft. I will discuss the influence Dartmouth College had on my aviation career and on Schweizer Aircraft. I will particularly focus on the 30-year period in which the company was owned and run by my brother Stuart (Dartmouth ’66), my cousin Les, and myself. During these years we reinvented the company into a sophisticated aerospace business and developed industry-leading products including helicopters, covert surveillance aircraft, and unmanned helicopters.

Monday September 26, 2022 at 7:30 PM Eastern

Steve Schwager

Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics in the Age of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence

The well-known phrase “Lies, damned lies, & statistics” was popularized by Mark Twain.  From Twain’s day to the present, this has warned that statistical methods can be used to produce statements that are factually true yet seriously misleading.  This can be done intentionally, to support a cause or agenda that someone believes in, consciously disregarding that an unwanted truth is being distorted.  Or it can be done unintentionally, through carelessness or ignorance of how to find and present the truth.  Either way, the audience is misinformed, and decisions based on the misrepresentation often have damaging, and sometimes catastrophic, consequences at both the personal and the societal level.

So it’s crucial to prevent others from inflicting these outcomes on us, whether wittingly or unwittingly.  How can we protect ourselves?  It’s valuable to know (1) How to lie with statistics, so we recognize when people are doing this to us, by accident or design; and (2) How to avoid lying with statistics, so we don’t mislead others by mistake and embarrass ourselves.

We can thwart the misuse of statistics, or any other tool, through basic understanding of the tool’s nature, goals, capabilities, and limitations.  While statistics and data science are more abstract than a hammer and a screwdriver, I believe the general principles distinguishing their appropriate use from inappropriate use are similar.  We will illustrate these principles with clear, intuitive examples to help us understand what statistics and data science can and cannot accomplish for us.  This webinar will contain no formulas, only concepts and ideas suitable for a general audience.

Will Big Data and Artificial Intelligence relegate lying with statistics to the dustbin of history?  On the contrary, these technological advances increase dramatically the opportunities to be devious, dumb, or both with statistics.  We’ll discuss how to meet this challenge effectively.

Monday October 10, 2022 at 7:30 PM Eastern

Debbie Pabst

A Year In a life of Raising Thoroughbred Horses in the Pacific Northwest

Debbie will discuss the annual tasks of operating a market breeding thoroughbred farm described in annual sequences from January to December. That will include the February-May breeding /foaling season, the sales prep leading to the August sale, the August Sale, the fall schooling of the now weanlings.

Monday November 14, 2022 at 7:30 PM Eastern

Dartmouth and Civil Rights in the Sixties

Our 1968 Class spent four of the most tumultuous years of the 20th century in Hanover.  The world changed—dramatically--and many of us did as well.   Half a century later, I’m curious to understand how and why we changed--not as an aggregation or representative sample but individually.

I’d especially like to talk in terms of civil rights and race.  We were an overwhelmingly white, all-male class—very different from Dartmouth today (and from Harvard, where I teach).  My own experience of race in America was shaped by working as a math tutor in Watts after freshman year—and was directly caught up in the Watts Riots.  The next summer I spent in the Dartmouth-Talladega Project.  Junior year I was involved in both the Kodak FIGHT sit-ins and the noisy protest (“riot”) against Gov. Wallace.  My senior fall I went, with Guy Mhone, our class’s one African student, to teach at Miles College in Birmingham, Alabama.

I came to Hanover from a very white, very middle-class suburb of Los Angeles—and so it was Dartmouth, so white, so male, so privileged in those years which nonetheless introduced me first-hand to the politics and passions of equality and civil rights.

I’ve been trying to better understand in order to better explain to my students—a far more varied group in a myriad of ways, whose ideas about civil rights are quite different from ours—what shaped our experience and perspective, and what does and doesn’t connect our experience to theirs.

In this age of George Floyd, defund the police, and reparations demands, I think we could help one another in these last chapters of our lives, and thereby help our children and grandchildren navigate the challenges of race ahead.  By 2050, no race or ethnic group will be the American majority---reason alone to face as bravely and wisely as possible what lies ahead.

Tuesday March 21, 2023 at 7:30 PM Eastern

Peter Wonson

Where Were You in 1969?

In 1969 the Class of 1968 literally was spread out around the entire globe; beginning careers, in grad school, serving in the Peace Corps, trying to stay alive in Nam, and rambling down the highways and byways of various continents trying to “find ourselves.” In 1969 I was the lead singer of a band called Tracks that formed in September of 1968 in Hanover and played out until fall of 1974. I left Tracks in the summer of 1971 to follow my dad into teaching and coaching, but those three years in the band continue to enlighten, enliven and inform my life more than 50 years later. This webinar will examine the hinge years of 1968-1972, when the door to one decade was slamming shut and the door to another decade was flung open. We are going to examine those years through the prism of a book I published in 2011 about the music scene in Upper New England from the mid-60s to the mid-70s.

The format of the webinar will be different from most previous webinars in that I am going to read a brief anecdote from my book that pertains to one of seven topics from our salad days, and then ask a couple of people to tell their own story in that context, stories of NO MORE THAN two minutes. The seven topics, introduced through my anecdotes, will be: 1) the cops and “The Man”; 2) race, protests and demonstrations; 3) all-nighters; 4) fraternity parties; 5) drugs or alcohol; 6) one degree of separation from famous people; and 7) “those were dangerous times.”

Those who register for this webinar have two brief pieces of homework. At the beginning of the webinar, each participant will be asked to say what he or she was doing in 1969 in NO MORE THAN one sentence. If you can’t tell us what you were doing in 1969 in one sentence (no Cormac McCarthy 90-word sentences), then you should say “Pass.” No dissertations. Also, think about two-minute stories you might tell which you are willing to share (a key caveat), thus destroying your cover as a staid Ivy Leaguer. Your stories do not have to be from 1968-1972 or related to rock and roll, just related to one of the 7 topics listed above.

Tuesday April 25, 2023 at 7:30 PM Eastern

Dan Bort

Physics Encounters Consciousness

When we were roommates sophomore and junior years, Jim Lawrie would occasionally say to me (not unkindly): “Bort, you lack scope.” And while I suspect that’s still largely true, I nonetheless have found myself experiencing an almost giddy pleasure whenever someone shows me a glimpse of what may lie beyond the scope of what I think I know about physical reality. And it’s a pleasure uncontaminated by any need to have everything completely figured out right now. It’s that pleasure I hope to share with you in April. When a couple of physics professors write: “Today, quantum experiments deny a commonsense physical reality.” It gets your attention—at least it gets mine. I didn’t set out to do any research (although I suppose I have done just a little); I just kept bumping into fascinating stuff over the last 15-20 years and started collecting it. I am not an authority; I am an observer of rudimentary scope. But I think I have my sources reasonably well organized for you. They include many who have been awarded Nobel Prizes in physics, as well as our classmate Gerry Bell despite the fact that, at least last I checked, he has not. Together they will take us into some really fascinating realms of uncertainty. (And I suspect you’ll be relieved to know that—outside this sentence—I will not even mention Schrödinger’s Cat.) I hope to see you on Zoom, April 25, 2023 at 7:30 p.m. Eastern. It should be fun.

Tuesday May 16, 2023 at 7:30 PM Eastern

Woody Lee

Discovering Edward Mitchell, Dartmouth's First Black Graduate

About 1920, the McCord-Stewart Museum of Montreal received papers from a member of the Mitchell family of Canada and New England containing hand-written manuscripts dating to the early 19th century. Among the items were the personal papers of Edward Mitchell (Class of 1828), the first man of African descent to graduate from Dartmouth College or any school today known as the Ivy League. Not until the 2000s were these preserved documents re-discovered and their significance recognized. The collection included Mitchell’s college compositions, letters, religious sermons, and a detailed personal biographical sketch. Previously, the few second-hand accounts of Mitchell’s life contained few details of his transnational journey across the slave-bound 19th-century Atlantic world from Martinique to America and Canada, where he was regarded “the most profound Baptist theologian ever settled in Lower Canada.”

 Jim Pringle (’58) and I followed the leads gleaned from the McCord-Stewart archive that led us to additional repositories in Martinique, Philadelphia, New England, Canada, and Britain. Based in part on our research and book,† Dartmouth and the McCord-Stewart Museum will celebrate in 2024 the 200th year of Mitchell’s admission to Dartmouth. For Jim Pringle and me, a botanist and a physician, the opportunity to research the life of Dartmouth’s first Black graduate was among our most fulfilling life ventures. Follow our journey through dusty archives and remote locations to learn about Edward Mitchell, who opened the door for the 225 Black men who followed him to Dartmouth before our Class first crossed the Dartmouth Green.

†A Noble and Independent Course, the life of Reverend Edward Mitchell. Forrester “Woody” Lee and James Pringle, 2018, Dartmouth Press, Hanover, NH.

June 14, 2023 at 1:00 PM Eastern

Noel Augustyn

The Supreme Court of the United States: Nine Justices, So Why 500 Staff?

The Supreme Court is comprised of nine judges, called Justices— the Chief Justice and eight Associate Justices— who have secretaries and law clerks.  In addition, the court has 11 other offices and officers, five of them specifically authorized by Congress, the offices of the Marshal; Clerk; Reporter of Decisions; Librarian; and Counsel to the Chief Justice. There are also the non-statutory officers and their staffs: the Press Officer, the Curator, Personnel, Budget, Information Technology officers, and the Court Counsel. The office of what is now called Counselor to the Chief Justice is the position I held as chief of staff, but is responsible only to the Chief, not to the Court as a whole. I will talk about each of these offices and their responsibilities as well as the extra-judicial responsibilities of the Chief Justice.  Finally, I’ll provide brief commentaries on Chief Justice Rehnquist and the Associate Justices who were on the Court when I was there: Justices Brennan, White, Marshall, Blackmun,  Powell, Stevens, Scalia, O’Connor and Kennedy.  Warning:  this presentation will not deal with cases, past or present, so those expecting a chair-throwing discussion about Dobbs or affirmative action, etc. will be disappointed.

June 14, 2023 at about 2:30 PM Eastern  (to follow Noel)

Warren Cooke

Photographing Birds of the Americas, Part 2

Warren will present all new photos from his photographic adventures (no repeats from his 50th reunion presentation). The photos will be organized by bird family (tucans, hummingbirds, tanagers, owls, etc.) to convey a sense of the incredible diversity between and within families, showing us an astounding variety of bird color. Warren will provide  curious and/or surprising details about many of the bird species. In addition, to help give a sense of place where appropriate, he'll include a few shots of the extraordinary places he's visited to photograph the birds .

Please note: if you plan to attend in-person any of the presentations at our 55th Reunion on Wednesday, June 14, you do not need to register. Registration will provide the link that will allow those who cannot attend Reunion to view all three reunion presentations virtually.

June 14, 2023 at about 4:00 PM Eastern (to follow Warren)

Best Practices in Social Impact

The Class of 1968's Community Service Project (CSP) is sponsoring the seminar. Peter Temple's (classmate and CSP contributor) interest in the idea of effective altruism (see article in the New Yorker, 12/1/2022 and YouTube videos by Peter Singer and Will MacAskill) lead him to a search of Dartmouth faculty and departments for a person with an interest in and experience with community service. Peter found Tracy Dustin-Eichler, Director of the Dartmouth Center for Social Impact, to lead our discussion and present information about how Dartmouth is educating students to be leaders in community service.

Tracy will speak to us about best practices in social impact and lead a subsequent discussion. Learn about the work of the DCSI to educate Dartmouth students to be transformative leaders for the common good through community-based experiential learning and examine the principals and complexities of making an ethical and effective impact in the community. Participants will gain a deeper understating of the DCSI, and explore new ways to think about our own social impacts and service work. The Class's Community Service Project team is interested in exploring potential connections with the DCSI and we hope this conversation will be a good first step.

August 15, 2023 at  7:30 PM Eastern

Steve Nelson

John G. Kemeny and Dartmouth College

John Kemeny is to this day a compelling figure in the academy and the public square. His story is timeless and captivating. John G. Kemeny: The Man, the Times, and the College Presidency is a portrait of this intellectual genius and giant, his presidential leadership at Dartmouth College over a decade in the tumultuous times of the late 1960s and 70s. Our webinar will focus on key moments of his service and presidency and on pivotal decisions and footprints--some less known than others--of his leadership and on Dartmouth’s saga and legacy.

Stephen J. Nelson is Professor of Education and Educational Leadership at Bridgewater State University, and a Senior Scholar in the Leadership Alliance at Brown University. He is the author of eight books about the history of the college and university and the college presidency, including his most recent: Searching the Soul of the College and University in America: Religious and Democratic Covenants and Controversies (release fall 2023) and immediately before that, John G. Kemeny and Dartmouth College: The Man, The Times and the College Presidency, (2019).

Prior to his tenure as teacher and researcher, Professor Nelson worked for nearly twenty years as a student affairs administrator at Wellesley, Dartmouth, and Bard Colleges. At Dartmouth from 1978-1987, he was the founding Director of the Collis College Center and subsequently had the added responsibility as Director of Student Activities.

September 26, 2023 at  7:30 PM Eastern

Richard Parker

John Kenneth Galbraith

October 24, 2023

at 7:30 PM Eastern

Henry Masur

Modern Pandemics: HIV, Opioids - What We Have learned

November 7, 2023 at  7:30 PM Eastern

Cedric Kam

Sports Cars: Insights from a Car Guy

 March 26, 2024

at 7:30 PM Eastern

Panel - moderated by Mark Waterhouse

Author's Workshop