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By Ed Gray, '67, TU '71
As the last millennium ticked soundlessly into the new and
Dartmouth's thousands of well-prepared computers slipped bug-free past the
predictions of worldwide software failure, a lack of technical innovation
nonetheless remained a nagging problem on the Hanover plain.
Few were willing to say it, but Dartmouth College, long known as a leader in
academic computing, had fallen behind. In the previous decade, Windows had
overtaken Dartmouth's beloved Macintosh. The World Wide Web had appeared, then
blossomed elsewhere. Both the Clinton White House and Pizza Hut had Web sites
up and running before Dartmouth did.
The College had launched its own Web site by 1996, to be sure, but was that
good enough? Had its early reputation as a digital innovator become part of its
history? Had the "Kemeny legacy" been just a one time bequest, or was
it still the active fund of inspiration that John Kemeny, president of the
College from 1970 to 1981 and world renowned computer pioneer, had always
intended it to be? And if it were the latter, when and how would it
reappear?
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