Using the priorities identified in his 1998 inaugural address as a starting point and a list of future priorities as a set of aspirations, President James Wright recently continued a tradition established by previous Dartmouth presidents by issuing a progress report on his first five years in office.
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The report centers on Dartmouth's qualitative growth since 1998 and describes the development of the College's academic programs, student life, faculty resources, facilities, and other areas. The full report with a timeline of the five years is available at www.dartmouth.edu/~fiveyearreport.
The report describes Dartmouth's progress through nine topical sections, focusing on areas through which the College achieves its mission as an undergraduate-centered institution with distinct strengths in graduate and professional education. The text is accompanied by a timeline highlighting individual benchmarks of the last five years.
Reiterating his original goals for his presidency, Wright says in the introduction that he began with three priorities: "to protect and advance the strength of the faculty and the education provided, to nurture Dartmouth's historic commitment to the out-of-classroom experience for our students, and to uphold and expand the special sense of community and accessibility that defines Dartmouth College.
"We have made progress in each of these areas," he says. "At times, progress meant providing additional support for what we already had; at others, it meant building new facilities or adding new programs. Always we have aimed at ensuring that Dartmouth provides the best education in the country to its students."
Certainly Dartmouth attracts some of the top students in the country, according to the report, which notes a 16 percent increase in undergraduate applications in 2003.
"Once here, our students excel at a range of programs, from the humanities to the sciences," the president says. "Interdisciplinary study has become an ever more important part of our students' education, while the emphasis on international affairs-long a strength of the Dartmouth curriculum-has also increased." Dartmouth sends many more students abroad than does its peer institutions, the report says, and foreign study programs "help our students learn about different cultures and people and contribute to a still deeper understanding of their own culture."
Those students are served by an exceptional faculty that has continued to grow and gain strength over the past five years. "Dartmouth faculty are passionate about their teaching and their responsibility for their students' education," Wright says. "[T]he opportunities for students to work alongside some of the best faculty in the world, the chance to experiment with new ideas, to push the boundaries, to make mistakes-these have always been part of a Dartmouth education."
"Dartmouth did not become Dartmouth over the last two and one-third centuries by timidity, by complacency, by an absence of ambition. The College is a place vitalized and continually revitalized by a sense of energy and of ambition."- President James Wright |
Wright notes in the report that Dartmouth faculty have a long history of excellent scholarship. "Research and teaching are not mutually exclusive; being good at one does not mean being bad at the other," he emphasizes. "Indeed, the best teachers are those faculty who are closely engaged in the creation of new knowledge and who are grappling with the issues that define their fields." The perceived tension between research and teaching, he says, "reminds us of the need to balance these two aspects of our mission-the education of our students and the creation of new knowledge. And it keeps at the forefront our desire to hire and retain faculty who share a commitment to this balance."
Also evident has been the cross-disciplinary emphasis in the arts and sciences graduate programs and the Dartmouth Medical School, the Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business.
"The amount of collaboration, cooperation, and discussion that takes places across the schools is really remarkable and is one of Dartmouth's distinguishing characteristics," Wright says. "Here our size and scale become absolute intellectual advantages. Faculty from arts and sciences and each of the schools work closely with colleagues across the campus, while undergraduate and graduate students move back and forth freely. I am not aware of any university community in the country that does this so easily and so well."
Shifting his focus to life outside the classroom, the president reports on the progress of the Student Life Initiative, a series of actions launched in early 1999 to strengthen the student residential and social experience. McCulloch Hall opened in 2000, and "we are proceeding aggressively ... with plans to build residence halls to house 500 students," Wright says. The first phase will begin north of Maynard Street with two buildings to house up to 330 students, and plans are progressing for a building on Tuck Mall to house approximately 150 students and for a dining/social center adjacent to the Maynard Street residence halls.
Wright also reports that he and the trustees "also wanted coed, fraternity, and sorority (CFS) organizations to undertake a self-assessment in order to affirm their own mission and its relationship to the community. We challenged our students to meet higher expectations and, not surprisingly, they are doing so."
An important element of the Dartmouth experience, the president says, is "the sense of community that pervades the culture here." The five-year report chronicles progress the College has made in enhancing the campus climate for students of color and with respect to racial, ethnic, sexual orientation, and gender diversity in the faculty and staff. Dartmouth now has the highest percentage of tenured and tenure-track women faculty in the Ivy League.
"It is ... essential that the Dartmouth community mirror the complexity and diversity of the wider society if we are to provide an educational experience that fully meets the needs of our students," he says. Among the actions taken to advance this goal has been the establishment of the Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity.
Meeting his goals has required that attention be paid to the physical campus. The report lists some 20 facilities that have been constructed or significantly renovated since 1998, led by the Baker-Berry Library project, McCulloch Hall, and faculty housing. "In the same way that our faculty need to remain current in their fields, so our facilities need to adapt to reflect the changing requirements of students and faculty," he says. "Science buildings constructed at the beginning of the last century no longer meet the needs of scientists working in the 21st century."
The progress of the past five years has been made possible by the financial strength of the College, Wright says in the report. The growth of the endowment, currently at $2.1 billion, has enabled the funding of several strategic initiatives, including enhancements to the financial aid program, a growth of 20 faculty positions in the arts and sciences, competitive compensation increments for faculty and staff, and academic initiatives to enhance the intellectual environment.
Noting that Dartmouth's overall finances are strong, the president reports that the economic downturn in the financial markets left Dartmouth with budget deficits requiring modest reductions across the College and the elimination of 50 positions over the last two years. Looking ahead, the administration "will review budgets with an eye to bringing down expenses while protecting the core academic and student life activities," Wright says.
Recent years have seen a continuation of Dartmouth's strong relationship with its neighbors in the Upper Valley. Among the president's actions to enhance the quality of life in the area have been a land transfer and contribution to help meet the needs of the Hanover schools, a financial contribution toward preserving land near Mink Brook, and a property purchase in downtown Hanover to revitalize the town's southern section. Noting that the College has increased its investment in community relations, he adds, "We have an interest in a healthy and vibrant Upper Valley, just as the Upper Valley has an interest in Dartmouth's strength. We are eager to work with neighbors and with local officials to accomplish our joint goals."
"Much ... remains to be done as we embrace what Dartmouth is and what Dartmouth can be," Wright says. Immediate priorities include the continued expansion and strengthening of the arts and sciences faculty and continued enhancement of student life, and progress on facilities in several areas, including residence halls, dining and social space, academic programs, the life sciences, and the arts. Other high priorities include expanding and enhancing communication with alumni and launching a campaign to ensure funding for new initiatives outlined in the strategic plan.
"Dartmouth did not become Dartmouth over the last two and one-third centuries by timidity, by complacency, by an absence of ambition," Wright concludes. "The College is a place vitalized and continually revitalized by a sense of energy and of ambition. I have been honored to serve as Dartmouth's president, and I am eager, with the Dartmouth community, to continue to advance the good work of this great place."
By William Walker
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