Posted on Friday, February 10 2006 - 12:59 AM - On Campus

Legend has it that the “Stretch,” the Earth sciences department's off-campus program, got its name from a 1960s television ad for a girdle.

“The commercial touted a three-way stretch for better control,” says Leslie Sonder, associate professor of Earth sciences. “Since the program initially involved three courses or segments, the 'three-way stretch' nickname was adopted and then just shortened.”

Now celebrating its 40th anniversary as an off-campus program, the Stretch is distinctive, according to Sonder. While other colleges and universities offer a four- to six-week summer field camp for their geology or Earth science students, Dartmouth's annual program is more comprehensive and intense. Students embark on a nine-week adventure each fall that takes them to numerous Western locales for field study. The 2005 “Stretchies,” for example, worked in Wyoming, Utah, California, Nevada, and Arizona. The mission is to introduce students to various techniques of and approaches to fieldwork, including mapping, hydrology, geochemistry, and geophysics.

Iona Woolmington '07, a 2005 Stretchie, is a studio art major now considering a double major with Earth sciences.

“The Stretch changed the way I view a landscape, which has implications for my work in art,” she says. “I do a lot of plein-air painting [in the open air], and I carried a sketchbook and paints with me throughout the program.”

Since 1966, more than 800 students have participated in the Stretch. Alumni support for the program comes through the Richard E. Stoiber 1932 Fund for Geological Field Exploration and the Frances Ann and Charles C. Dickinson Jr. 1928 Memorial Fund. Alumni themselves can sometimes be found out in the field with the students, as guest lecturers or as dinner hosts.

“The Stretch has such a legacy that we are now encountering second generation Stretchies,” says Sonder. “It's a great tradition.”

Courtesy: SUSAN KNAPP


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