Gaudet, Ferrell Win Opener

The Dartmouth men's lacrosse team opened the season on snow-encircled Memorial Field Saturday with a 10-6 win over the University of Hartford with 223 brave souls in the stands. Scoring a goal and winning four of six faceoffs was senior tri-captain Chad Gaudet, the former football tailback wearing the familiar No. 45. Putting two shots on the Hawks' net was sophomore Ian Ferrell, a sophomore wide receiver for the Big Green.

Check out The American magazine for yet another story on the changing landscape of college financial aid. The landscape architect, the story says, comes from Cambridge, Mass. The headline of the story: "As Goes Harvard …" The story at least partly pulls the curtain back on what's happening. It notes:

Education policy experts have been eyeing Harvard’s move cautiously, particularly since Yale and a handful of other schools have emulated it. Most agree this isn’t merely a wave of academic altruism; rather, it’s the latest development in a long-running battle between congressional watchdogs and the nonprofit sector. Harvard happens to be a tempting target for federal scrutiny since, as (Charlie Slack, an author in Connecticut who graduated from Harvard in 1983) notes, its overall endowment (nearly $35 billion) “is more than the GNP of a lot of countries.

On the subject of money, endowments and how they get where they are, I stumbled across a top-20 list of contributions to colleges and universities in 2007. Heading the list: Stanford with $832.35 million, followed by Harvard with $613.99 million and USC, $469.65 million. Ivies in the top 20: 5. Columbia, 6. Cornell, 7. Penn, 8 Yale. Find a PDF of the list as well as more background on giving trends in 2007 here.

A while back I got a phone call from an amused friend who spotted my name in a book entitled, Sports: A Generation's Common Bond: Personal Stories: How Sports Influenced the Lives of Dartmouth 64's. I finally got a chance to see the book at the Dartmouth Bookstore not long ago and enjoyed reading through it.

Sports: A Generation's Common Bond includes essays written by several members of the undefeated 1962 Dartmouth football team.

A description of the book taken from the web:

"Through personal stories the book demonstrates that sports are a common bond among the generation of the early 1960s. The stories are written by members of the Dartmouth Class of 1964 including the senior statesman of the Class, the President of the Class and 64 other classmates and describes how sports have influenced their lives. The classmate stories are complemented by special stories by the current President of Dartmouth and by the only head coach of three varsity sports at Dartmouth. The lessons, memories, friendships, and joys of sports are captured in these diverse, humbling, humorous and poignant stories."

Author Ronald Schram sent along this note for Green Alert blog readers: "All net proceeds from sale of the book support student internships at the Rockefeller Center at Dartmouth." If you buy the book from this site the commission is lower and more net proceeds go to the students.

As I finish up the blog at 8:30 a.m., the first snowflakes are falling, right on schedule. We could get upwards of a foot before the white stuff stops falling.