At the age of 23, bushy-haired Leon Botstein became president of New Hampshire's Franconia College in 1970. He immediately imposed one unusual new rule: no dogs on campus. "Fifty unkempt dogs running around was just too much," said Botstein, "so I got rid of them all."
The dogs were symptomatic of the chaotic conditions at the college itself. After seven years of operation in a rattletrap former resort hotel in the White Mountains, Franconia was near collapse. In 1968 the archconservative Manchester Union Leader had published an exaggerated exposé that portrayed the college's scruffy students as rich freaks who spent more time...
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