thedrifter
05-23-07, 08:06 AM
May 23, 2007
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The Few, the Proud, the Dartmouth-Bound
By TAMAR LEWIN
When he first met James Wright, the president of Dartmouth College, two years ago, Samuel Crist was in a hospital bed at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., recuperating from gunshot wounds from a firefight in Falluja, Iraq.
“I was pretty heavily medicated, so my memory is a little bit foggy, but he was visiting people and asking about their experiences in the war, and pushing people to get an education,” said Mr. Crist, 22, who grew up in Lafayette, La. “He said he’d been a marine, too, and he’d gone to college after he got out as a lance corporal, the same rank I separated at.”
That hospital visit changed things for both Mr. Crist and Mr. Wright: On Mr. Wright’s advice, Mr. Crist enrolled in college courses in Texas, and next fall, will transfer to Dartmouth.
Mr. Wright, 67, meanwhile, has made eight more visits to wounded veterans at Bethesda and at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, and, with the American Council on Education, started a program to provide individualized college counseling to seriously injured veterans.
Because of advances in medical care, and the speed with which those injured on the battlefield are treated, the survival rate for service members with serious injuries is far higher in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts than in previous wars. These circumstances have created a pool of young men and women who must remake their lives with brain injuries, amputations and other significant limitations.
Injured or not, veterans get extensive educational benefits. But while service members on active duty have access to many educational counseling programs, such access is harder for those who have left active duty and face long recuperation, especially if they are from families where college is not a given.
Mr. Wright said news coverage of the 2004 battle for Falluja spurred him to think about what he could do for wounded veterans.
“I worried about the injured servicemen and how much suffering there was,” said Mr. Wright, who spent three years in the Marines in California, Hawaii and Japan, but never saw combat. “So I decided that I’d like to go down to Bethesda and visit them, and see what I could do to encourage them to go back to school.”
Mr. Wright said he talked with the veterans about his own experiences.
“I’d tell them that I was a slow starter, that I didn’t start college until after I served,” he said. “I’d tell them that they’d already learned discipline and teamwork, and now they should be thinking about what they can accomplish if they go to school. Some said they wanted to go to college, some didn’t. Some said things like, ‘Because I’ve lost my legs, I need a place with elevators, and I don’t know if the school close to my home has them.’ ”
Mr. Wright added: “It was very moving to talk to those seriously injured veterans. Sometimes, when I would come out of their rooms, I would want to cry.”
Mr. Wright realized that to get an education, these veterans would need individualized counseling that might be hard to find once they left active duty.
So he started looking for a way to meet that need. He first went to the military, but when that proved cumbersome, he got in touch with David Ward, the president of the American Council on Education, who agreed to develop such a program. Mr. Wright helped raise $300,000, and this spring, educational counselors are working at Bethesda, Walter Reed and Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. More than 50 veterans asked for appointments with the counselors the first week the program was open, in March, and now about 100 wounded veterans are being served.
In a way, Mr. Wright’s quest has been a return to his roots. Growing up in Galena, Ill., he joined the Marines to put off, at least for a few years, going to work in the zinc mines that employed many in his community, including his grandfather. In that time and place, college was not for everyone. None of Mr. Wright’s grandparents finished high school, and Mr. Wright’s father, a bartender who served in the military, attended only one semester of college.
When he left the Marines, Mr. Wright enrolled at Wisconsin State University, thinking he wanted to be a high school history teacher. Instead, he earned a doctorate in history, and immediately started teaching at Dartmouth, where, since 1969, he has worked his way from professor to dean of faculty to provost and, in 1998, to president.
Mr. Wright is finding his tenure somewhat more contentious. In this spring’s trustee elections, Stephen Smith, a petition candidate, was elected by alumni to the 18-person board over the candidates nominated by the alumni council — the fourth consecutive petition candidate to become trustee. The lengthy, expensive campaign included critiques of the college’s general direction, and a warning that the new trustee would probably be helping to choose a new president. In February, Mr. Wright wrote a letter to the Dartmouth community in and around Hanover, N.H., rebutting some of the criticisms and adding that “to paraphrase Mark Twain,” reports of his retirement are premature.
“While I may look my age, I am not yet ready to act it,” said Mr. Wright, who has three children and seven grandchildren. “In my 38th year at Dartmouth, I have things yet to do and I enjoy immensely doing them. So let us hold off on the transition planning.”
He remains a rarity: a former marine with a blue-collar background heading an Ivy League university. Although Dartmouth students are far more diverse than they were when Mr. Wright arrived, with almost half receiving financial aid, the student body, he said, includes no veterans of the Iraq war. To the few Dartmouth alumni serving overseas, Mr. Wright sends care packages, including maple-sugar candy and a book of Robert Frost poems.
Although the new program was not intended to recruit for Dartmouth, Mr. Wright is delighted at the prospect of having a few former marines on campus next fall. One applied early decision, and was accepted, entirely apart from the program. One came through a counselor in the new program. And Mr. Crist wrote to Mr. Wright after their meeting, developing the relationship that led to his transfer plans.
This month, Mr. Wright invited Mr. Crist and one of the others to visit the campus, starting with dinner with him and his wife.
“They both want to study Arabic,” he said. “They’re not likely to be the regular run-around-the-bonfire freshmen. It’s going to be a different culture for them, but this is a very open, egalitarian campus, and I think it will be a good for them and for Dartmouth.”
Ellie
Face Book
The Few, the Proud, the Dartmouth-Bound
By TAMAR LEWIN
When he first met James Wright, the president of Dartmouth College, two years ago, Samuel Crist was in a hospital bed at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., recuperating from gunshot wounds from a firefight in Falluja, Iraq.
“I was pretty heavily medicated, so my memory is a little bit foggy, but he was visiting people and asking about their experiences in the war, and pushing people to get an education,” said Mr. Crist, 22, who grew up in Lafayette, La. “He said he’d been a marine, too, and he’d gone to college after he got out as a lance corporal, the same rank I separated at.”
That hospital visit changed things for both Mr. Crist and Mr. Wright: On Mr. Wright’s advice, Mr. Crist enrolled in college courses in Texas, and next fall, will transfer to Dartmouth.
Mr. Wright, 67, meanwhile, has made eight more visits to wounded veterans at Bethesda and at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, and, with the American Council on Education, started a program to provide individualized college counseling to seriously injured veterans.
Because of advances in medical care, and the speed with which those injured on the battlefield are treated, the survival rate for service members with serious injuries is far higher in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts than in previous wars. These circumstances have created a pool of young men and women who must remake their lives with brain injuries, amputations and other significant limitations.
Injured or not, veterans get extensive educational benefits. But while service members on active duty have access to many educational counseling programs, such access is harder for those who have left active duty and face long recuperation, especially if they are from families where college is not a given.
Mr. Wright said news coverage of the 2004 battle for Falluja spurred him to think about what he could do for wounded veterans.
“I worried about the injured servicemen and how much suffering there was,” said Mr. Wright, who spent three years in the Marines in California, Hawaii and Japan, but never saw combat. “So I decided that I’d like to go down to Bethesda and visit them, and see what I could do to encourage them to go back to school.”
Mr. Wright said he talked with the veterans about his own experiences.
“I’d tell them that I was a slow starter, that I didn’t start college until after I served,” he said. “I’d tell them that they’d already learned discipline and teamwork, and now they should be thinking about what they can accomplish if they go to school. Some said they wanted to go to college, some didn’t. Some said things like, ‘Because I’ve lost my legs, I need a place with elevators, and I don’t know if the school close to my home has them.’ ”
Mr. Wright added: “It was very moving to talk to those seriously injured veterans. Sometimes, when I would come out of their rooms, I would want to cry.”
Mr. Wright realized that to get an education, these veterans would need individualized counseling that might be hard to find once they left active duty.
So he started looking for a way to meet that need. He first went to the military, but when that proved cumbersome, he got in touch with David Ward, the president of the American Council on Education, who agreed to develop such a program. Mr. Wright helped raise $300,000, and this spring, educational counselors are working at Bethesda, Walter Reed and Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. More than 50 veterans asked for appointments with the counselors the first week the program was open, in March, and now about 100 wounded veterans are being served.
In a way, Mr. Wright’s quest has been a return to his roots. Growing up in Galena, Ill., he joined the Marines to put off, at least for a few years, going to work in the zinc mines that employed many in his community, including his grandfather. In that time and place, college was not for everyone. None of Mr. Wright’s grandparents finished high school, and Mr. Wright’s father, a bartender who served in the military, attended only one semester of college.
When he left the Marines, Mr. Wright enrolled at Wisconsin State University, thinking he wanted to be a high school history teacher. Instead, he earned a doctorate in history, and immediately started teaching at Dartmouth, where, since 1969, he has worked his way from professor to dean of faculty to provost and, in 1998, to president.
Mr. Wright is finding his tenure somewhat more contentious. In this spring’s trustee elections, Stephen Smith, a petition candidate, was elected by alumni to the 18-person board over the candidates nominated by the alumni council — the fourth consecutive petition candidate to become trustee. The lengthy, expensive campaign included critiques of the college’s general direction, and a warning that the new trustee would probably be helping to choose a new president. In February, Mr. Wright wrote a letter to the Dartmouth community in and around Hanover, N.H., rebutting some of the criticisms and adding that “to paraphrase Mark Twain,” reports of his retirement are premature.
“While I may look my age, I am not yet ready to act it,” said Mr. Wright, who has three children and seven grandchildren. “In my 38th year at Dartmouth, I have things yet to do and I enjoy immensely doing them. So let us hold off on the transition planning.”
He remains a rarity: a former marine with a blue-collar background heading an Ivy League university. Although Dartmouth students are far more diverse than they were when Mr. Wright arrived, with almost half receiving financial aid, the student body, he said, includes no veterans of the Iraq war. To the few Dartmouth alumni serving overseas, Mr. Wright sends care packages, including maple-sugar candy and a book of Robert Frost poems.
Although the new program was not intended to recruit for Dartmouth, Mr. Wright is delighted at the prospect of having a few former marines on campus next fall. One applied early decision, and was accepted, entirely apart from the program. One came through a counselor in the new program. And Mr. Crist wrote to Mr. Wright after their meeting, developing the relationship that led to his transfer plans.
This month, Mr. Wright invited Mr. Crist and one of the others to visit the campus, starting with dinner with him and his wife.
“They both want to study Arabic,” he said. “They’re not likely to be the regular run-around-the-bonfire freshmen. It’s going to be a different culture for them, but this is a very open, egalitarian campus, and I think it will be a good for them and for Dartmouth.”
Ellie