From former Dartmouth Trustee Peter Robinson ‘79

Read the introductory festschrift article here.

When I was elected to the board of trustees back in 2005, Joe called. His advice proved pertinent, informed, and compelling. For the next eight years, my tenure on the board, I sought Joe out every time I found myself in Hanover. Financial matters, staffing, the hiring and retention of faculty — Joe always seemed to know more about the College than anyone else. He could discuss legal issues like a brilliant lawyer because he was a brilliant lawyer. He could analyse budgets like an astute businessman because he was an astute businessman. His judgment wasn’t always perfect. He sometimes failed to grasp the considerations — sometimes, the raw politics — that made it difficult for me and his other admirers on the board to do as he wished. But Joe got a lot right. I mean a lot.

On Dartblog, Joe gave us one of the most remarkable sustained acts of journalism anywhere, let along devoted to a single educational institution: Statistics, opinion, humor, and sheer, engrossing readability in an unending stream lasting a full decade. His range proved astonishing. Joe could hold your interest through a detailed discussion of the College’s budget, then delight you with a profile of a student athlete. Come to think of it, just look at Joe’s post on the Yale game a few weeks ago. It’s as good as sports writing gets.

From time to time Joe would publish a piece that was celebratory — he might praise a member of the faculty whose course he had audited, for example — but he remained critical of the administration, turning on every president, provost, and dean his demanding, cool, skeptical gaze. Joe analyzed them, assessed them, and often — too often, in my judgment, but still — found them wanting. They all read him even so. One chairman of the board confessed to me, a) that he found Joe impossible, but that, b) he read Dartblog every single morning. He had to. Dartblog published information he could get nowhere else.

Why did Joe devote so many of his best energies to a small college? Because he had fallen for the place as an undergraduate and never recovered. He had a lover’s quarrel with Dartmouth.

The quarrel was real enough. But so was the love.

Peter Robinson
Stanford, CA

Addendum: If you’d like to contribute a memory or nominate your favourite article written by Joe, e-mail us at dartblog.news@gmail.com. We’d love to hear from you!