Barry MacLean '60, '61Th: "I Thought It Would Expand My Thinking, and I Said Yes"

Barry MacLean '60, '61Th"I thought it would expand my thinking, and I said yes"

--Barry MacLean'60, '61Th, Recipient of 2006-2007 Dartmouth Alumni Award

In my roles at Dartmouth, I've always been an advocate of measurable outcomes. That's what you hope for when you go into public service, just as when you go into business.

As a trustee from 1991 to 2001, I hoped to help Dartmouth improve where its students were going. The help the Board of Trustees can provide comes from the fact that members bring different points of view--your business or life experience can add to the academic experience. And members have respect for one another's views.

In the 1970s, Dean Long from the Thayer School called and invited me to be on the Board of Overseers. I thought it would expand my thinking, and I said yes. Isn't that what we like in life, to be engaged in challenges in which we seek new ideas, new strategies? I'm still on the board. I think I'm the longest-serving person.

Around Dartmouth are a number of boards--Rockefeller, Arts and Science, Hanover Inn, the Tuck School, others--and we all work together on projects in different disciplines.

For example, what educational trends are those the College should invest its resources in? One emerging trend is a dual major in engineering and studio arts. Isn't that amazing? The school is working with Motorola to learn how engineering/art students would approach problem solving. If you're in consumer products at all, you HAVE to be engaged in how people engage with products, and that's a function of design.

Anything I'm involved in, I want it to be the best. So I search for how to help Dartmouth always be even better than it is today.