Misplaced innovation

I recently received an email from the Dartmouth alumni relations office which contained a link to a news item with the headline "Engineering students challenged by Professor John Collier and President Jim Yong Kim to develop solutions to high-risk drinking." Gamely I followed the link (the article can be read here: http://now.dartmouth.edu/2011/11/dartmouth-engineering-students-help-tackle-binge-drinking/), and I must confess I was disappointed with what I read.

Students in ENGS 21, Dartmouth's undergraduate "Introduction to Engineering" class, were tasked with tackling the underage binge-drinking epidemic on campus. I have written before in this space about the lack of personal accountability when it comes to underage drinking. I reject the assertion that illegal consumption of alcohol is an inevitability for, much less the prerogative of, college students. The current Dartmouth administration (with which I largely have no problem) inexplicably ignores this reality, though it is quick to boast--hypocritically, if not necessarily inaccurately--that Dartmouth is the training ground of future world leaders and problem solvers.

Anyway, there have been a lot of useful, even brilliant products and systems to come out of Engines 21 over the years. But that is all the more reason that this current initiative is a poor allocation of resources. Let the engineering students work on solutions to problems that need to have solutions engineered for them. As for underage binge drinking, the solution is simple enough: DON'T DRINK UNDERAGE.

Happy birthday Dartmouth!

The Dartmouth College charter was signed 242 years ago today. The first class of students actually didn't arrive until 1771, but the official beginning of the College was on December 13, 1769. What a remarkable journey the College has undertaken! Dartmouth lore is well-known to its undergraduates and alumni, but every now and then you come across a surprising tidbit all the same. Imagine my surprise, for instance, when I learned of the Dartmouth Peace Conference, a 1960s-era series of summits between intellectuals from the United States and the Soviet Union. Although later iterations of the event were held away from New Hampshire, the conference retained its name based on the original host site. The founder of the Dartmouth Peace Conference was none other than my own uncle, Norman. What a small Dartmouth world.

Dartmouth athletics is getting back into the swing of things after taking a break for fall term final exams. The men's hockey team beat up on Sacred Heart on Sunday, winning by a score of 4-1, while the men's basketball team turned in a respectable, albeit losing, effort against Notre Dame. The women were in action as well, but since I didn't watch any of their games, I don't have the scores right at my fingertips.

Speaking of athletics, I have recently rediscovered the joy of playing squash. My friend Evan and I were playing tennis weekly during the summer and early fall, but as the weather turned cold and the snow began to fall, we were forced to move indoors. I never really got the hang of racquetball, but squash I like. I have no formal training whatsoever--which means my backhands occasionally look like a cross between a tennis swing and a ping-pong stroke--but Evan has been teaching me strategy and technique. Our games are getting closer, too. No longer am I counting the number of points I win; now I'm counting the number of games I win. And soon I hope to start counting my record of games won and lost (though at the moment it would be Miami Dolphins-esque).

In other news, scientists working with the Large Hadron Collider have announced that they still don't know if there is such a thing as a Higgs boson. But they might know by next year. Thanks for the update, CERN.

West Coast

Ellen and I flew to California this past weekend to see my father- and stepmother-in-law. Unlike our last trip to the West Coast, no tropical storms interfered with our travel, and the whole thing went remarkably smoothly. (Ellen is actually still out there, attending a conference in San Francisco.) We hadn't seen them since last December, and it was great to spend a couple days catching up. We don't make it out that way very often, and all four of us are glad we did!

Ellen will be the first to admit that her hometown, Quincy, is a bit on the small side. It might actually be a true one-stoplight town. Regardless, we found no shortage of things to do to amuse ourselves. In addition to just sitting and talking, we went wild Christmas tree hunting (more on this later), walked around Ellen's tiny hometown, attended her longtime church, and Ellen and her father taught me how to skip rocks. By the end of our brief sojourn to the creek, I was really getting it down. Either they're excellent teachers or I'm a quick study. Indubitably the former.

Quincy is closely entwined with the Plumas National Forest. Evidently, you are allowed to cut down Christmas trees in national forests (provided you buy a permit, of course). So that's exactly what we did. The four of us piled into my father-in-law's 1972 Ford pickup and away we went, first to obtain a permit and then off into the forest. When we found one that had just the right height, width, color, and shape, Ellen's father went to work. Armed with an axe and a bow-saw, the poor tree never stood a chance (although it took its best shot at revenge against my shins as we dragged it back to the truck). It was, I have to say, a lot more fun than simply going to a lot and pointing to one.

I'm back on the East Coast now, bracing for the 2-6 inches of snow predicted for tonight. I don't mind the coming snow at all (although I have been delighted by how late the temperatures have remained in the upper 40s and 50s); I just wish Ellen were here too. Only three more days!