The Context

History of the College

It is, Sir, as I have said, a small college. And yet there are those who love it!
- Daniel Webster, class of 1801, addressing the Supreme Court in 1818

The Reverend Eleazar Wheelock, a Congregational minister from Connecticut, founded Dartmouth College in 1769. He had earlier established Moor's Charity School in Lebanon, Connecticut, principally for the education of Native Americans. In seeking to expand his school into a college, Wheelock relocated his educational enterprise to Hanover, in the Royal Province of New Hampshire. The move from Connecticut followed a lengthy and sometimes frustrating effort to find resources and secure a charter. Samson Occom, a Mohegan Indian and one of Wheelock's first students, was instrumental in raising substantial funds for the College. The Royal Governor of New Hampshire, John Wentworth, provided the land upon which Dartmouth would be built and on December 13, 1769, conveyed the charter from King George III establishing the College. That charter created a college "for the education and instruction of Youth of the Indian Tribes in this Land ... and also of English Youth and any others." Named for William Legge, the Second Earl of Dartmouth — an important supporter of Eleazar Wheelock's efforts — Dartmouth is the nation's ninth oldest college and the last institution of higher learning established under Colonial rule. In its time, it was a daring and unconventional enterprise, founded by brave, learned and unusual men. Some portion of its modern culture echoes its founding.

In 1815, Dartmouth became the stage for a constitutional drama that had far-reaching effects. Claiming its 1769 charter invalid, the New Hampshire legislature established a separate governing body for the College and changed its name to Dartmouth University. The existing Trustees, under the leadership of President Francis Brown, challenged the action and insisted on the validity of the charter and Dartmouth's continuance as a private institution free of interference from the state. The case was argued in the United States Supreme Court by Daniel Webster, a graduate in the Class of 1801, who would go on to become a member of Congress and Secretary of State under Presidents William Henry Harrison and Millard Fillmore. The landmark decision handed down by Chief Justice John Marshall in February of 1819, affirmed the validity of the original charter. The Dartmouth College Case, as it has come to be known, is considered to be one of the most important and formative rulings in United States constitutional history, strengthening the contract clause of the Constitution and thereby paving the way for all American private institutions to conduct their affairs in accordance with their charters and without interference from the state. The College retains, to this day, in its core culture, assertions about its size, its integrity, its independence and the uniqueness of its character.

Since its founding, Dartmouth has also been a pioneer in graduate and professional education. The first Dartmouth PhD was awarded in the Classics in 1885. It is home to the nation's fourth oldest medical school: the Dartmouth Medical School, founded in 1797; the nation's first professional school of engineering: the Thayer School of Engineering, founded in 1867; and the first graduate school of management in the world: the Tuck School of Business, established in 1900. All three professional schools remain essential to the institution and grow easily out of its ethos.

At the turn of the 20th century President William Jewett Tucker (1893-1909) led a revitalization of Dartmouth which brought it from a small New England college to one of the great educational institutions in the country by raising funds, tripling the size of the faculty and student body, broadening the curriculum and building twenty new buildings that are still central to the campus.

Dartmouth’s upward trajectory continued for much of the first part of the 20th century with Ernest Martin Hopkins (1916-1945) who championed academic freedom and completed an ambitious construction program that resulted in a new library, new residence halls and new academic buildings. Another important change during his presidency included a new curriculum.

From 1945 to 1970, John Sloan Dickey held the presidency. He came to Dartmouth from a successful career in the State Department and brought an explicitly international perspective to his role. He remains a revered figure at Dartmouth. He was one of the founding presidents of the Ivy Group in 1945 and then the Ivy League in 1956, a critical period in Dartmouth’s development. During his tenure he turned the College towards a more definitively competitive and meritocratic future in both student and faculty recruitment. Dickey’s 1946 convocation admonition to undergraduates that the “world’s troubles are your troubles” and that though the worst of the world’s troubles come from within people, “there is nothing wrong with the world that better human beings cannot fix,” helped to set Dartmouth’s sights on providing leadership on the world stage. He was explicit late in his tenure that Dartmouth was a “small university complex” and that its future demanded more not less engagement with the world. His successor John Kemeny (1970-1981) instituted the Dartmouth Plan, a year round program that grew enrollment by 25 percent. He simultaneously led one of the most significant changes in Dartmouth’s history when the Board of Trustees made the College coeducational in 1972.

More recent presidents have worked consistently on the same broad path. David McLaughlin (1981-1987) strengthened the College’s finances and cleared the way for the Dartmouth-Hitchcock partnership to grow and lead nationally as an academic medical center. James Freedman (1987-1998) accentuated scholarship and enhanced Dartmouth’s academic reputation, including a strengthening of Dartmouth’s graduate programs and professional schools. His Provost and successor, James Wright, has presided over a dramatic growth in every part of the College’s finances, faculty and infrastructure.

Dartmouth Presidents have, in each iteration since the late 19th century, put the challenge of the future squarely before the College, building a small, focused, student-centered and research-intensive academy – a rarity among American colleges and universities. Without their consistent, uninterrupted leadership, Dartmouth would not be one of the great academic institutions in the nation.

Mission and Core Values

Dartmouth College educates the most promising students and prepares them for a lifetime of learning and of responsible leadership, through a faculty dedicated to teaching and the creation of knowledge. -Dartmouth College Mission Statement

Core Values

Dartmouth expects academic excellence and encourages independence of thought within a culture of collaboration.
Dartmouth faculty are passionate about teaching our students and are at the forefront of their scholarly or creative work.
Dartmouth embraces diversity with the knowledge that it significantly enhances the quality of a Dartmouth education.
Dartmouth recruits and admits outstanding students from all backgrounds, regardless of their financial means.
Dartmouth fosters lasting bonds among faculty, staff, and students, which encourage a culture of integrity, self-reliance, and collegiality and instill a sense of responsibility for each other and for the broader world.
Dartmouth supports the vigorous and open debate of ideas within a community marked by mutual respect.

Location and Campus

Hanover is more an international city than a pastoral hideaway… A teaching hospital, environmental engineering and mid-size technology firms and Dartmouth College all attract the cosmopolitan crowd. Add a downtown dotted with shops and restaurants, throw in a myriad of year-round activities, and it's easy to see why people love it here.
Money Magazine, Best Places to Live: Top 100 (2007)

Now this is what a college ought to look like.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States and former President of Columbia University before his Commencement address at Dartmouth College (1953)

Dartmouth College is located in Hanover, a town of 11,000 in western New Hampshire bordering Vermont on the Connecticut River. The campus is immediately adjacent to Hanover's downtown business district. In 2007, Hanover was ranked the second best small city in the country by Money magazine. Dartmouth's local region is known as the "Upper Valley," consisting of 46 towns straddling the Connecticut River roughly from Bradford, Vermont, to the north and Claremont, New Hampshire, to the south. Hanover is two hours from Boston, three hours from Montreal and five hours from New York City.

Dartmouth's 269-acre main campus features a central Green with academic buildings clustered on three sides. Residence halls and administrative buildings, including the Office of Admissions, are located within walking distance of the Green. The College has eight libraries, including the main Baker-Berry Library, which is located at the north edge of the Green. The Hood Museum of Art, the Hopkins Center for the Arts, and the athletic facilities anchor the south edge of campus. The Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center includes the Mary Hitchcock Hospital and the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Clinic located in Lebanon, New Hampshire about 10 minutes from the College campus.

Dartmouth is known as “Big Green” on the athletic fields and the “green” theme carries through in its commitment to the environment and sustainability. New campus buildings have received a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green building certification, including a silver award for Kemeny and Haldeman and gold for Fahey and McLane residence halls. There are several initiatives on campus aimed at making Dartmouth a leader in higher education sustainability and environmental responsibility.

Last year, for the second year in a row, Dartmouth received a grade of A- in the College Sustainability Report Card for its efforts in endowment transparency and environmentally sound practices. The grade was given by the Sustainable Endowments Institute, a Cambridge, Massachusetts organization. It was the highest grade awarded in the overall college sustainability leader category which examined 200 colleges and universities in the United States and Canada with the largest endowments. The report card specifically highlighted Dartmouth's Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility. The Farm to Dartmouth Project, an initiative where food comes from local producers, was also mentioned, as was the College's strong support of the regional and downtown shuttle system and its Transportation Demand Management Program, which pays employees not to park on campus.

With 4407 employees, Dartmouth is the second largest employer in the Upper Valley and plays a significant role in the region’s economy. Cultural and academic activities are centered at the Hopkins Center for the Performing Arts (the “Hop”) and the Hood Museum of Art. The Hop, designed by Wallace Harrison, the architect of Lincoln Center and the United Nations Building in New York City, was named by the National Endowment for the Arts as one of the nation's exemplary performing arts centers. Each year it sells over 125,000 tickets to 100 or more live performances in virtually all genres of music, theater and dance, plus well over 200 film screenings and other events. The Hood Museum hosts 40,000 visitors annually in its 40,000-square-foot post-modern building which includes 10 main galleries as well as the 204 seat Arthur M. Loew Auditorium, which is equipped for lectures and film. Year round, there are also conferences and lecture series including special events at the graduate schools and the interdisciplinary centers: Ethics Institute, Leslie Center for Humanities, Dickey Center for International Understanding, and Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and Social Sciences.

Students

Do not expect that you will make any lasting or very strong impression on the world through intellectual power without the use of an equal amount of conscience and heart.
- William Jewett Tucker, Dartmouth President 1893-1909

Dartmouth attracts a diverse group of talented, independent, well-rounded students who are bound together by a shared intellectual curiosity and a fierce loyalty to their College and classmates. Dartmouth educates 4,200 undergraduates and 1,700 graduate students. The College’s strength in undergraduate teaching attracts a steady increase in applications. The undergraduate class of 2012 marked the largest applicant pool in Dartmouth’s history with 16,538 students applying for admission (a 41 percent increase from the class of 2008). It was also the lowest admit rate (13 percent) in the last decade. The students are academically strong; 28 percent of the class of 2012 were valedictorians, 11 percent were salutatorians and the average SAT scores were 712, 720, and 714 for reading, math and writing respectively.

Dartmouth has long been committed to recruiting and enrolling a diverse student body and has seen a substantial increase in enrollment of students of color and international students over the last decade. The population is divided evenly between men and women. Students of color make up more than 30 percent of the student body and the number of international students has increased to seven percent. Prior to Dartmouth, roughly two-thirds of the students attended public secondary schools and one-third attended private or parochial schools.

Almost half of students receive some form of need-based financial assistance to cover the cost of their education. Dartmouth currently spends $61 million per year providing financial aid, compared to $24.5 million in 1998 - an increase of 250 percent. In January, Dartmouth’s Board of Trustees approved an enhanced financial aid program which will enable it to continue to enroll one of the most economically diverse groups of students in the Ivy League. Currently, 13 percent of Dartmouth students are the first in their families to attend college and 14 percent are recipients of Pell Grants. The new initiative will cost an additional $10 million per year when fully implemented. The additional expense will be paid for through the reallocation of resources and the use of funds generated by an increase in the distribution from the endowment approved by the Trustees last year.

More than 90 percent of Dartmouth undergraduates live in College housing, whether it is a residence hall, College-approved coed, fraternity, or sorority house, or undergraduate society. There are currently nine residential communities on campus each with one to three specialized "clusters," such as the East Wheelock cluster, where students interact with faculty, visiting artists and academics within their cluster and plan informal events to bring cluster residents together socially. The opening of the new McLaughlin Cluster and Tuck Mall Residence Halls in the fall of 2006 added 500 beds to existing residential space; however, further renovations are needed in other residence halls. In addition, the College is planning to rebuild its main dining hall and construct a second dining hall. The College would like to increase social space for student functions.

Nearly four of five undergraduate students participate in some form of athletics. Whether a varsity sport or intramural or recreational program, athletics has an important place at Dartmouth and is at the heart of the student experience and an important part of the learning environment.

Dartmouth has 200 clubs as well as 28 social organizations which have been part of the residential and social life at Dartmouth for over 150 years. There are three coed organizations, 16 fraternities, and nine sororities to which about 60 percent of Dartmouth sophomores, juniors and seniors belong. These are an active and important part of the social life of Dartmouth students.

Community service is also a major component of student life at Dartmouth, with more than 60 percent of the undergraduate population involved in some form of volunteer work. In 1951, President John Sloan Dickey and the Dartmouth Board of Trustees founded the Tucker Foundation in honor of William Jewett Tucker, the ninth President of Dartmouth College. Charged with supporting and furthering the moral and spiritual work of the College, Tucker provides community service programs, off-campus fellowships and internships, leadership development programs, and houses the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life in an attempt to further develop and enhance the local and worldwide community. In the Upper Valley region around Dartmouth, students provide 40,000 hours annually of volunteer service in 50 local service outreach projects and 65 national and international leave-term service programs. Graduate students also participate in these outreach projects as well as those specific to their schools and professional interests. Dartmouth also participates in a Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) program.

Faculty

My Dartmouth … is an environment that fosters collaborations between students and faculty, and in so doing, truly embodies the spirit of a liberal arts institution.
- Nikolas Abraham Primack ’07, Valedictorian of his Dartmouth class, in his Commencement address

Dartmouth has always been an excellent teaching institution. The College historically took pride in scholarship, but had the research profile of a strong liberal arts college. Over a very long period, stemming from the foundation of the Ivy League, Dartmouth has recruited and sustained first rate scholars and teachers. Unlike many great academic institutions, Dartmouth did not forget its roots. Its faculty, including its most senior faculty, are personally committed to teaching, a value that is reflected in all tenure and promotion decisions. As of fall 2007, Dartmouth is home to 976 faculty, 606 of whom are tenured or tenure-track. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences has 371 tenure-track faculty of whom 39 percent are women – the highest proportion in the Ivy League. More than 90 percent of the faculty hold a doctorate or equivalent terminal degrees.

Dartmouth has 132 endowed faculty chairs and a long history of faculty who are at the top of their fields. The first medical X-ray in the nation was taken at Dartmouth. George Stibitz ran the first digital computer, John Kemeny and Tom Kurtz developed both the BASIC computing language and timesharing at the College. Dartmouth is home to distinctive programs in Native American Studies, language study and health policy.

Faculty complement their classroom teaching with discovery outside the classroom by engaging graduate and undergraduate students in their research. The James O. Freedman Presidential Scholars Program supports student-faculty research partnerships. The program was initiated in 1988 and provides opportunities for juniors to work as research assistants with Dartmouth faculty. These opportunities are intended to prepare students for undertaking senior honors theses.

Dartmouth has made significant investments in its faculty over the last decade. The 13 percent growth in faculty FTE from 380 to 430 has resulted in an improved student-faculty ratio from 10-to-1 to 8-to-1 today. The faculties of the professional schools have also grown significantly. Tuck increased from 37 to 55 faculty lines, and Thayer grew from 36 to 46.

While increasing the number of faculty, the College has also paid close attention to faculty support and invested heavily in compensation as competitors look to Dartmouth in their search for quality teachers and productive researchers. Annual funding for faculty professional development has doubled, from a modest base, and the College added the Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning (DCAL), a center dedicated to assisting faculty with teaching. In a recent survey conducted by the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE), Dartmouth was recognized as one of the best places to work for junior faculty, rating “exemplary” in six out of twelve categories. In addition, compensation goals at all ranks have been met to keep Dartmouth at or above the median salary of the top research universities with whom Dartmouth has traditionally compared itself.

Faculty Governance

Dartmouth faculty participate in the governance of the College through a series of fifteen committees and seven councils on which faculty are elected or appointed for terms of three years. Councils provide a forum for deliberation for College-wide matters such as benefits and libraries while the committees serve an advisory function for faculty policy and organization, educational policy, student life and other campus issues. In addition, there is a steering committee which consists of the President, Provost, the Deans of Arts and Sciences, Business, Engineering, Medicine and nine faculty members.

Academic Programs and Schools

Education is not with what men shall do, but with what men should be.
- Ernest Martin Hopkins, Dartmouth President 1916-1945

The College awards two bachelor’s degrees, six master’s degrees, the doctorate and the medical degree. The average class size is 22 and 78 percent of classes have fewer than 30 students. As a result of growth in faculty, classes under 20 students have increased from 57 percent to 64 percent in the last 10 years.

Dartmouth operates on “The D Plan,” a year-round calendar divided into four ten-week terms. Most students are on campus for three of the four terms. Undergraduates usually take three courses per term. The D Plan offers students the ability to design an educational program and schedule internships, research, service projects and terms abroad that fit the opportunity, not the summer calendar. The Plan enables some students to study off campus as many as three times during their undergraduate career. Fall, winter and spring terms of the freshman and senior years are required residence terms. The D Plan also requires students to stay on campus and take courses the summer after their sophomore year. The "sophomore summer" immerses students in coursework just after they declare their majors and presents an opportunity to build class camaraderie and closer student-faculty relationships.

Arts and Sciences

The Arts and Sciences consists of 39 academic departments and programs; top majors among 2007 undergraduates were Economics, Government, History, Psychological and Brain Sciences, and English. All undergraduates and many of the graduate students are enrolled in Arts and Sciences. It is the traditional heart of the College.

The relatively small class sizes foster strong interactions between students and professors, and also lead to significant participation among undergraduates in the scholarly research of faculty. In recent years teaching and research across the College has benefited from the development both of formal programs and less formal interdisciplinary collaborative efforts.

Graduate programs in Arts and Sciences are, for the most part, concentrated among the science departments. The participation of graduate students in the sciences is essential in attracting top faculty, and contributes mightily to faculty success in raising research funds and achieving both national and international visibility. In addition, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows are valuable role models for undergraduates in the laboratory as well as the classroom.

Dartmouth is particularly conscious of the role of women on the faculty and in the student body. In 1990, the College established the Women in Science Project (WISP) to address the under-representation of women in science, mathematics and engineering with an emphasis on women in their first year and a focus on retention. WISP has grown to include faculty development programs and has promoted widespread, systemic improvements to the education of women in science. It has been widely recognized and has served as a model for other institutions.

Dartmouth Medical School

Founded in 1797, Dartmouth Medical School (DMS) is the nation’s fourth-oldest medical school. DMS encompasses 16 clinical and basic science departments. DMS has 760 faculty including 436 clinical faculty based at DHMC. It receives over 5,000 applications yearly to fill 75 places in the entering medical class and enrolls more than 315 medical students and about 80 graduate students.

DMS competes effectively for research funding for innovative interdisciplinary research programs in cancer, infectious diseases, cell and molecular biology, genetics, immunology, ethics, neurosciences and cardiovascular disease. It has built research energetically, has good research space and plans more. Its location, compact size and connection to biological science on the main campus aid interdisciplinary efforts.

DMS has been a world leader in understanding the tension between the health care of populations and the medical care of individuals through the work of the Center for the Evaluative Clinical Sciences, now the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice. The Institute is exceptionally prominent in the health policy world and helps link public policy studies across the campus.

Thayer School of Engineering

Founded in 1867, Thayer School comprises both the undergraduate Department of Engineering Sciences and a professional school with degrees through the doctorate (BE, MEM, MS, PhD). Forty-six full-time faculty members serve approximately 850 undergraduate students and 200 graduate students.

Thayer is academically strong with an entrepreneurial spirit. In the past six years, a quarter of the faculty has been involved in start-ups and there have been 10 patents filed on undergraduate projects from student teams in the introductory first course in engineering in the same time period. They have also created an innovation track in the doctoral program – the first of its kind at an engineering school.

Tuck School of Business

Founded in 1900, Tuck was the first graduate school of management. Today, it consistently ranks among the top 10 business schools in the nation including #1 rankings in the Wall Street Journal and Forbes. Tuck offers the full-time MBA as well as executive education and non-degree programs including the Tuck Business Bridge Program, a popular summer undergraduate program, a LEAD summer business institute, and a series of programs for minority business executives. The school has 55 full-time faculty members and approximately 480 MBA students, representing more than 30 nationalities. It is by far the smallest of the top 10 business schools in the country. It has made its size a virtue and has done brilliantly in establishing its national and international profile. The School has expanded modestly in recent years and has made the strategic choice to grow modestly again.

Interdisciplinary Programs

Dartmouth has long valued interdisciplinary teaching and scholarship. It created African and African-American Studies, Environmental Studies and Native American Studies in the late 1960s and early 1970s and became the first Ivy League institution to start a Women’s and Gender Studies program in 1978.

Since then, interdisciplinary initiatives have increased significantly at Dartmouth and the College now has nine formal interdisciplinary programs. In the last decade, the College has created an Associate Dean position dedicated to international and interdisciplinary studies, the number of cross listed courses has increased from 81 to 156, the number of undergraduates with a second major and/or one or two minors has grown from 32 percent to 47 percent, and the number of joint faculty appointments has grown by approximately 45 percent while the number of faculty lines in interdisciplinary programs has grown 53 percent.

The Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center

For most of the 20th century, because of its rural location and the small population from which to draw patients, Dartmouth Medical School (DMS) operated as a two-year medical school conferring a master’s degree before sending graduates off to other excellent schools for clinical education. In 1973, DMS returned to awarding the MD degree and joined with the Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital, founded in 1893, and the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Clinic, organized in 1927, to form Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. In a coordinated effort in 1991, the clinical components of the medical center moved from sites on or near the College to entirely new and impressive facilities, 10 minutes from campus.

The Dartmouth-Hitchcock Clinic provides the clinical faculty at the Medical School. The Hitchcock Hospital and the affiliated Veteran Affairs Medical Center in White River Junction, Vermont provide the principal instruction sites. Nearly all clinical physicians practicing at the Hospital are members of the Clinic’s group practice; all are members of the DMS clinical faculty. The combined Medical Center (DHMC) coordinates the activities of its members, but, each member is a separately organized, governed and operated institution with the College having no ownership in any other member.

DHMC is one of two rural academic medical centers in the country. A Level 1 Trauma Center, it serves a patient population of 1.6 million, drawn from across Northern New England. It is the dominant provider in its area and recognized for excellent care. The Medical Center contains a National Cancer Institute designated Cancer Center, a Children’s Hospital and the Center for Shared Decision Making. Supporting these centers are two additional major research sites, the Borwell and Rubin Research Buildings. Dartmouth made timely investments in research and rode the growth of the NIH budget. Growth has flattened out in recent years. The near future will see the opening of three additional centers, a Comprehensive Cardiovascular Center, the Translational Research Building and a new home for the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice.

Staff

Dartmouth benefits from a large cadre of experienced long-term non-faculty employees who are committed to the College. It has 3,431 employees, with about 500 in bargaining units. The College aims to be the employer of choice in the region by supporting work-life balance and offering dual career networks to support spouses and partners. It offers competitive benefits and policies as well as learning opportunities for employees that are appreciated in the region. The College is proud of the commitment of an excellent staff.

Finances

Budget

In FY 2007, Dartmouth's operating revenues were $756.7 million and operating expenditures were $749.2 million. Additional financial data can be found in Appendix A.

Endowment

The Dartmouth endowment is made up of 5,370 funds, some dating back to the 1700s. As of June 30, 2008, the market value of the endowment stood at $3.66 billion. During the year ending June 30, 2008, the College distributed $163.1 million of endowment return representing approximately 27 percent of the College's operating expenses before auxiliaries and direct research expenses.

While Dartmouth's endowment has been affected by the current economic downturn and the recessions of the past two decades, prudent management and strict adherence to an overarching investment philosophy have provided long-term stability. Over the 10-year period ending June 30, 2008, the Total Return Pool generated a 12.1 percent annualized total investment return net of investment management expenses. In the five-year period ending June 30, 2008, the annualized Total Return Pool was 14.3 percent. This return compares favorably to the same period for the S&P 500 U.S. equities asset class, which had an annual increase of 7.6 percent. Dartmouth ranks fourth among the Ivies in per student endowment, with an endowment of over $600,000 per student.

The College's annual distribution from the endowment is approved by the Board of Trustees each year and is based on a formula that typically fluctuates between four and one-half and six percent of beginning market value. In 2008, to finance a series of current and proposed new buildings, the Board approved a payout rate of six percent and added a temporary supplement of one percent to fund strategic initiatives.

Debt

As of June 30, 2008, Dartmouth College has $461 million of long-term tax-exempt debt and $30 million of long-term taxable debt. The College has a AAA rating from Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch.

Alumni

Alumni are the living endowment of the College.
- Ernest Martin Hopkins, Dartmouth President 1916-1945

Dartmouth has one of the strongest and oldest alumni programs in the country. There are alumni clubs and alumni activities all over the world. Reunions are frequent, both in Hanover and other locations. Alumni have an abiding interest in the College, remember vividly their time at the College, participate in elections and care deeply about the College’s future. Alumni volunteer thousands of hours to promote the College’s mission, with many offering strong leadership in fundraising, admissions and other areas.

The Alumni body is represented by two principal groups:

The Association of Alumni of Dartmouth College (AOA)

The AOA was organized in 1854 to represent all Dartmouth alumni. According to the association constitution, membership includes “every person who has ever matriculated as a full-time student in pursuit of a Dartmouth degree.” The Association conducts alumni elections, including those that nominate alumni for Alumni Trustee of the College. The Association officers and executive committee are elected by the alumni.

The Dartmouth Alumni Council

The Alumni Council was founded in 1913 deriving its constitutional powers from the Association of Alumni. The formation of the Council was in response to a growing need among alumni for improved communications with the College. Today, the Council serves as the alumni liaison with the College administration and the Board of Trustees, and fills the role of nominating candidates for the Alumni Trustee nomination elections conducted by the Association. The Council is made up of nearly 120 representatives of Dartmouth's alumni classes, clubs, and affiliated groups, as well as faculty and undergraduate student members.

Development

Tho' 'round the girdled earth they roam, Her spell on them remains…
- Richard Hovey, Class of 1885, poet and composer of the Dartmouth College Alma Mater

Dartmouth has been famous for alumni loyalty for generations. They express their loyalty in service and in donations. The rate of alumni giving is among the very highest in the country, with an average of 50 percent of Dartmouth alumni giving back to their alma mater.

In 2007 (the most recent comparative data available), Dartmouth had the second highest undergraduate alumni participation rate and average gift among the Ivies and Dartmouth’s other peers . They also had the third largest annual fund and rank fourth in gifts per alumnus.

The culture of philanthropy starts when alumni are still students. Contributions to the Senior Class Gift have increased substantially in the last four years, reaching 92.5 percent in 2008. Fifteen coed, fraternity, and sorority organizations reached 100 percent participation.

The Dartmouth College Fund (DCF)

The Dartmouth College Fund (DCF) raised a record $42 million in unrestricted gifts in FY 2008. Contributions to the DCF account for approximately one out of every ten dollars in the College's annual budget.

The Campaign for the Dartmouth Experience

Dartmouth announced in November, 2004, the largest fundraising effort in its history. With a $1.3 billion goal, the Campaign for the Dartmouth Experience is seeking investment in four initiatives: to advance leading-edge teaching and scholarship; to enhance residential and campus life; to honor its commitment to making education accessible in the undergraduate college; and to raise unrestricted dollars. The campaign is institution-wide, embracing undergraduate and graduate programs in the Arts and Sciences and the three professional schools. The amount raised has remained at or above its projected trend line throughout the campaign. As of June, 2008, the campaign had raised $1.1 billion towards its goal with a scheduled completion date of December, 2009.

In FY 2008, Dartmouth raised $168 million in cash gifts – the most in the College’s history. Given the relatively small size of the alumni body, the contributions rank near the very top of all colleges and universities.

Athletics

Dartmouth athletics are a source of pride and school spirit for Dartmouth students, alumni, faculty and staff. The College has demonstrated a commitment to athletics and recreation with more than $100 million in facility improvements since 2000. The College offers 34 intercollegiate varsity sports (16 women's, 16 men's, and two coed) - well above the average number of varsity sports sponsored by other Division I schools; 30 club sports, including championship teams in rugby and figure skating; and 24 intramural sports. More than three-quarters of Dartmouth undergraduates participate in some form of athletics or recreation.

Nicknamed "The Big Green," Dartmouth's varsity athletic teams compete in NCAA Division 1 as well as in the eight-member Ivy League conference and the ECAC (Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference). Throughout the years, Dartmouth athletes have competed at the highest level, excelling in NCAA championships ranging from track and field to basketball, cross country to soccer, as well as skiing, golf, lacrosse and diving. In AY 2006-07, Dartmouth produced an NCAA Championship in skiing, Ivy titles in men's hockey, women's hockey, and men's rowing, as well as six top three finishes in the Ivy League.

Dartmouth in the World

The world’s troubles are your troubles… and there is nothing wrong with the world that better human beings cannot fix.
- John Sloan Dickey, Dartmouth President 1945-1970

In 2004, Booz Allen Hamilton selected Dartmouth College as one of two educational institutions to highlight in "The World's Ten Most Enduring Institutions" (the other was Oxford). Dartmouth was recognized for its ability to adapt, stay relevant and remain a leader in its market over time. In its recent history, much of this leadership has been rooted in its ability to look beyond the borders of its campus and the United States to examine the potential impact that the College and its graduates can have on the world. It is a value held and supported by the research and actions of faculty and students alike.

In 1957, Dartmouth was the first Ivy League institution to offer its own international study program. Today the college offers 48 off-campus programs in 20 countries and 51 percent of undergraduate students go abroad at least once during their time at Dartmouth. Upon graduation, the number of Dartmouth graduates serving in the Peace Corps is among the highest in the nation for schools its size. Twelve Dartmouth graduates from the class of 2008 joined the Peace Corps this year, bringing the total number of Dartmouth alumni actively serving in the Peace Corps to 19. In addition, there were 16 Dartmouth alumni from the class of 2008 accepted to Teach for America.

Dartmouth’s interdisciplinary programs offer an array of internationally-focused courses, conferences and lectures, such as those from the professional schools, the Ethics Institute, the Leslie Center for the Humanities, the libraries, and the Kenneth and Harle Montgomery Endowment fellowships. The Hopkins Center for the Arts and the Hood Museum of Art also provide programs with distinguished artists and performers from across the globe that add to the strength of Dartmouth’s historic leadership in understanding the world in which we live.

John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding

Included in this effort to encourage global thought and action is the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding which was established in 1982 to honor President Dickey and perpetuate the international dimension of his legacy. The Center supports faculty research in everything from international relations to the dynamics of cultural change, including its own Institute for Arctic Studies. It also works across campus with the Medical School on a Global Health Initiative that addresses serious health concerns of resource-limited settings around the world. In response to strong student interest, the Dickey Center is developing a modified major that will lead to an International Studies Certificate.

Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and Social Sciences

In 1983, Dartmouth’s Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and Social Sciences was founded. Its mission is to serve as a catalyst for public policy research and education and prepare students for lives of leadership and service in a diverse and globally interdependent world. Scholarly work of the Dartmouth faculty is supported through interdisciplinary workshops on health, law, foreign policy, gender and immigration, organizations and strategy, and the environment. Some students enroll in the Public Policy Minor or the Dartmouth-Oxford Exchange. More than 50 students receive funds each year to defray expenses for unpaid, leave-term public affairs and public policy internships or research-related opportunities. The Center also hosts a variety of visitors and prominent speakers throughout the academic year and plays a key role in hosting Democratic and Republican hopefuls on campus during the New Hampshire primaries of presidential elections.