James W. Hoffman

James Wilson Hoffman, age 22, a resident of Farrell Farms, died August 20, 1982 in an automobile collision on the Ledyard Bridge just outside of Hanover.

James was a comparative literature major, graduating with highest honors in his major in June 1982, after completing his thesis during the spring.

From his freshman year, James deeply involved himself in the Upper Valley Committee for a Free South Africa and the Foley House; during his senior year he led that house through a significant crisis in its existence. He is remembered with boundless love and respect as the “father” of Foley House by Foley members.

James also served as an alcohol peer counselor to Dartmouth students. While he lived in the Upper Valley, James tried to make his care felt in the community. Even in his last, most academically-intensive term, James was studying for an emergency medical technician’s certificate as well as working at the Headrest Center, helping those with emotional, drug, and alcohol problems. Also in keeping with this philosophy, James obtained a job at the Norwich, Vermont Day Care Center upon graduation in preparation for his chosen career of preschool education. James often expressed a conviction in the inherent goodness of human beings, a belief that every child is born absolutely innocent. In his life, James worked to create a world where that innocence could flourish unmarred.

At Dartmouth, James was president during 1980-81 of Foley House Fraternity and a member of the Interfraternity Council. He was graduated cum laude and with high distinction in his comparative literature major, modified by a minor in German language and literature.  He was a teaching assistant in the German department. The recipient of four sparsely awarded faculty citations as an undergraduate, Mr.Hoffman was characterized in one citation by Richard Luplow, senior lecturer in humanities, as "one of the most unaffectedly intelligent, insightful and conscientious students I have encountered."  In another citation, Neal Oxenhandler, professor of French and Italian languages and literatures, wrote of a work of fiction done by Mr. Hoffman as a class assignment that it "was an act both of discovery and Invention by turns comic, lyrical, philosophically complex, yet also tender. There was an unusual maturity to this text that would have been rare in the pages of a literary journal and was extraordinary in an undergraduate class."

Mr. Hoffman was born in Ranson, West Virginia, and was graduated from the Stuttgart, Arkansas High School in 1978.  He had a long interest in the German language and people and spent his senior year in high school in Bederkesa, Lower Saxony, West Germany,as a Youth for Understanding exchange student. He was a National Merit Scholarship winner and finalist in the presidential scholar competition.  He served as president of the math and science club at high school, played in a recorder ensemble and directed the junior class play.

He is survived by his parents, Dr. Glenn L.  and Carolyn Wilson Hoffman of Stuttgart.; a brother, C. Lyle Hoffman, Jr., Dartmouth 1974, of Ithaca, New York; and two sisters, Pamela Hoffman of Glen Oakes, New York, and Rebecca Craig of Raleigh, North Carolina.

Memorial gifts may be made to Headrest, the Children's Center of the Upper Valley, anti-nuclear groups, or to Mothers Against Drunken Driving (MADD).