400 Dartmouth Seniors to Receive Degrees After February Exams

For the first time since the founding of the college in 1766, Dartmouth seniors will take part in a February graduation. Four hundred members will sit at a class banquet in Thayer Hall as part of simplified commencement exercises under an accelerated program.

Class exercises and a baccalaureate service have been omitted by a vote of the class, as have class reunions and the traditional conferring of honorary degrees.

Empty-Handed

New Dartmouth graduates will leave Hanover empty-handed since diplomas will be mailed to them. The majority of the class which entered as Freshman in the Fall of 1939 will enter the armed services.

A total over-all drop of 15 percent in the enrollment of the college has decimated the ranks of the Senior class. Already 59 members of the class have left for the service without waiting for their graduation. During the year since America's entry into the war seven new courses have been introduced to the war curriculum at Dartmouth as well as the stiff physical training program now standard at all colleges throughout the country.

Harvard Graduation Uncertain

Indications are that there will be some sort of ceremony this January to celebrate the graduation of the advanced guard of Harvard's Class of 1943 which has just been polled by the CRIMSON on their preference for dates of the event for the type of exercises.

As has been the case with many Harvard undergraduates, students at Dartmouth have found their summer vacations cut, but the Hanoverians may find some solace in a longer Christmas vacation which begins this week and lasts until January 18.

Speakers at the abbreviated Dartmouth commencement will be Arthur H. Sawizburger, publisher of the New York Times and Ernest M. Hopkins, president of the college. Aside from the class dinner there are no other events planned for the graduation.