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The past year has been a very exciting year for the Tucker Foundation. We have wrapped up our Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration and have hired a new Chaplain to guide and direct the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life. We have led cross cultural education and service trips to Siuna, Nicaragua and to Sopotskin, Belarus. We have involved more than 70 percent of the Class of 2004 in the building of a Dartmouth Habitat for Humanity House in the Upper Valley and in other Sophomore Summer of Service Projects. In short, the past twelve months at the Tucker Foundation have featured unprecedented growth in program size, impact, and student involvement. On a daily basis, students come through our doors, eager to become involved. We, in turn, send them out into our surrounding communities, equipped and excited to help and to learn from the local community.

As I have just noted, this year’s growth of the Foundation is unprecedented, which says to me that the Tucker Foundation is succeeding in its mission of educating the hearts and souls, as well as minds, of Dartmouth students. At the same time, however, this new demand for our programs has outstripped our available resources and, as a result of our limited resources, we have been in the unfortunate position recently of having to turn away students who want to serve.

Turning away students is always hard, and is made even more difficult because it is not for lack of possibilities or potential opportunities, but for lack of something much more tangible — funding. One of the Foundation’s greatest successes of late has been integrating members from all parts of our Dartmouth community in projects of collaboration – projects that would not be possible without outside funds. For example, a recent trip to Siuna, Nicaragua, taken as part of our recently-implemented and donor-supported Cross-Cultural Education Service Project Initiative, featured not only cross-cultural interaction and service, but also interaction between Dartmouth faculty, staff, graduate and undergraduate students. A student from the Thayer School of Engineering assisted with the design of a health clinic that Dartmouth undergraduate students helped to build. Dartmouth medical school students worked alongside undergraduates in an existing shelter, providing medical care as well as clinical and public health education.

Additionally, as I noted earlier, more than 70 percent of the sophomore class participated in our Sophomore Summer of Service program. Again, this program would not be possible without outside support: In what became the centerpiece of this program, more than 400 students raised more than $85,000 for a Dartmouth Habitat for Humanity house and then volunteered their time, efforts, and expertise to its construction. The very tangible result is that an Upper Valley family is currently preparing to move into this Habitat House — their first home.
We are also excited about the arrival of Rev. Dr. Richard Crocker, our newly appointed College Chaplain. After increasing the visibility of religious life through the creation of the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life this past year, we are excited to see the Office expand its influence as an umbrella for more than 20 different campus religious groups. We believe that Crocker will be instrumental in facilitating the network of cooperation and support for the cultivation and enhancement of religious and spiritual life on campus.
And on that note, all of us at the Foundation, charged by the successes of the past year, are excited to begin a new year, a year that we hope will be filled with even more opportunities and successes. At the same time, however, mindful of the challenges before us, we are ask each and every one of you to help us meet these challenges and make the Foundation a place that is truly able to realize dreams – the dreams of those who work here and the dreams of those whom we touch. At the Tucker Foundation, we are making a difference in the world – I hope you will join us.


In the Spirit of Service,

Stuart C. Lord, D. Min.
Virginia Rice Kelsey ’61S Dean of the Tucker Foundation
Associate Provost