Story Archives of 'Dartmouth College'

Two Dartmouth doctors argue that drug labels don’t tell you how well your medications work or how safe they really are.

Worse yet, they don’t tell your doctors everything they need to know.

A little-known piece of legislation based on their work is included in a Senate health care overhaul bill.

And as health reporter Elaine Grant has learned, that could eventually change the way the pharmaceutical industry labels drugs.

The Dartmouth Atlas Project has been quoted by the left and the right during our national health care debate. The Project explores how medical costs and health outcomes vary widely across the country. Researchers say more access to care and more spending often do not mean healthier populations; in fact, sometimes the more health care you get, the worse off you are. We’ll look at health care spending, health care results and how this report could affect the health care debate.

Guests

• Dr. James N. Weinstein, director of The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, Chairman of Orthopedics at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, and practicing spine surgeon at DHMC
• Dr. David C. Goodman, Director of the Center for Health Policy Research at The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice and practicing pediatrician at DHMC

In 1996, six young musicians at Oberlin College came together to play chamber music. Rather than calling themselves The Oberlin Sextet, they wanted to come up with a more creative name. Red Wheelbarrow and Tastes Like Chicken were contenders. Fortunately, they kept looking. Violinist Matt Albert suggested eighth blackbird, inspired by a Wallace Stevens’ poem, and it fit. The group has since won a Grammy Award and comissioned a piece from composer Steve Reich that went on to win a Pulitzer Prize this year.

Unlike many chamber groups who sit politely behind their music stands, eighth blackbird memorizes its music and moves around the stage. They've even worked with choreographers like Susan Marshall.

eighth blackbird will bring their vibrant and evocative chamber music to the Hopkins Center this Friday as part of a week-long residency at Dartmouth College. Today we’re joined by pianist Lisa Kaplan and flutist Tim Munro.

(Photo by Luke Ratray)

Theater-goers know the routine: You make sure you have your tickets before you leave the house, or you pick them up at the box office. You hand them to the usher, who pilots you to your seats. You speak in hushed tones under the soft glow of the house lights as you wait for the performance to start. Then eventually the lights dim, the curtains part, and the actors take over.

Nothing wrong with the traditional theater experience, of course. But don’t expect that scene if you’re headed to Dartmouth this weekend to see “Etiquette”. This is not your typical performance. Your first tip might be that the venue is a bookshop, not a theater. And that’s just the beginning. In “Etiquette”, there is no audience, aside from yourself. And there are no actors, aside from you and a partner.

“Etiquette” is the brainchild of Ant Hampton and Silvia Mercuriali. They’re the two core members of the art collective Rotozaza, and they’re bringing “Etiquette” to the Dartmouth Bookstore from November 8-16 (more info). Co-creator Ant Hampstom joins Word of Mouth to describe the experience. We also hear from someone who’s participated in “Etiquette”, New York Times reporter Melena Ryzik. She tried it out at the Under the Radar Theater Festival in New York in January, and she produced a segment about it for Urban Eye, the paper’s online video series. Click here to watch Melena’s video about her experience with "Etiquette."

(Photo courtesy of Ant Hampton)

It’s not all that uncommon for modern architectural design to clash with the local expectations of a community - especially what that community houses a college. A new building proposal at Dartmouth is straining town-gown relations between the school and some residents of Hanover. Dartmouth released plans for a new, $52 million visual arts center last week.

The design by a Boston architectural firm Machado and Silvetti Associates calls for more than 99 thousand square feet located downtown. The school says it would provide a “new gateway” for the college on the southern end of town.

But one member of the committee that acts as liason between the school and the town told the student newspaper The Dartmouth, "it’s creating an urban landscape in what used to be a traditional New England town. It’s gaudy and southwestern, and we’re not. It’s going to look funny with snow on it."

Word of Mouth’s architectural conitributor Don Kreis joins us to give us the details. His day job is with New Hampshire’s Public Utility Commission, where he’s general council.

The modern building proposal in Hanover seems downright tame, though, compared to what’s on top of a contemporary art museum in Paris right now. A pair of Swiss artists has created a single-room hotel and set it atop the Palais de Tokyo. The piece of interactive art allows one exclusive couple to spend the night in what may be the world’s first portable hotel. John Laurenson of Deutsche Welle Radio checked in to Hotel Everland to find out more.