CW: What's the biggest challenge facing the College?
JW: Global competition. Dartmouth needs to think more globally. We face worldwide competition for students, faculty, and resources. When half of our students are from New England and the Mid-Atlantic states, the school misses the perspectives and understanding a geographically diverse student body brings.
CW: What would you bring to the Board to help address that?
JW: International experience. I have lived, worked, or competed on five continents and in an array of tasks related to promoting public policy, business, and the nonprofit world. My experience at senior levels of government and business in the U.S. and abroad bring a new skill set to the Board which can help it shape a global strategic vision.
CW: What is Dartmouth's greatest competitive advantage?
JW: Its educational character. Dartmouth offers undergraduates the educational richness of a university while retaining its primary focus on the individual student. But it needs to do more to leverage its size, location, and the capabilities of some of the world's best professional schools, even as it expands its focus globally.
CW: How does the Board leverage Dartmouth's unique qualities?
JW: Not as well as it needs to. The College's goal is "to educate the most promising students of this generation to be leaders of the next generation." The Board should ensure that Dartmouth:
[CW: While you were traveling the world and literally trying to fix the world's problems, what was your involvement with the College?
JW: Contributed annually every year since graduation and periodically engaged with individuals and groups. I come from a family where both my brother and father went to Dartmouth, so Dartmouth has always been part of my identity. I've lived that identity, been proud of it, and talked it up during the course of my career.
Right after I graduated I went off to Australia and Vietnam and Greece and I had chance for little direct association with the College. I did stay in touch with Dartmouth friends and others whom I met through my career in the Foreign Service.
When approached by the Alumni Council in the fall of 2006 one of the first questions I asked was how important it would be to have a record of active, alumni engagement. They told me that, while alumni activity might be a factor, more important for their Board Trustee nomination process were candidates' life achievements and their potential to add a different or important perspective to those of the existing board.
So, before accepting the Council's invitation to run, I asked myself some questions:
I answered yes to all three. The fun for me would involve several things. I've always liked to focus my time on being an opportunity creator, not on being a problem solver. Service as a Trustee certainly would be an opportunity to have an impact on the next generation of the world's leaders. It tracks closely too with what we do at Eisenhower Fellowships, where we seek people who have a sense of mission and a demonstrated ability to impact the societies around them.
The University of Chicago has a concept called "useful citizenship," which is something I think is an important concept—one we could well adopt at Dartmouth.
While election as a Trustee would of course be an enormous honor, more importantly it would be an enormous opportunity to make a difference.]
[CW: What would you bring to the Board to help address Dartmouth's challenges?
JW: A world of contacts and experience at the highest level of the public and private sector. In nearly 20 years of policy level positions. I've faced competition all around the world. I led and drew together people often from disparate view points. I know how to focus on the big picture, and to craft creative strategies to move forward.
My combination of policy level experience at very senior levels in the U. S. and abroad and relationship with CEOs and other business people over the last 15 years would bring a skill set different from those on the Board, and different from the skill sets of any of the other candidates.]
[CW: What would you say is Dartmouth's greatest comparative advantage?
JW: Size and traditions (in and out of the classroom). I think Dartmouth's size and the way in which it's currently arrayed give the school educational opportunities that can't/won't be matched in larger universities and are not available to smaller, purely undergraduate colleges. Dartmouth's professional schools and a focused graduate program are an important part of the mix. I heard from a variety of faculty and students when I was in Hanover a couple of weeks ago about things that the medical school, the engineering school, the business school, and the college of arts and sciences are doing together that provide this kind of unique operational and educational opportunities to undergraduates in Hanover and all around the world. These combinations are hugely important, and a unique branding tool for Dartmouth.
The first challenge is to compete globally.
The second challenge for Dartmouth is to create a sense of Dartmouth identity and a sense of mission in Dartmouth students—call it "useful citizens" to take the University of Chicago phrase—but people who believe they have a set of responsibilities and that others see that, whether they're operating at the international, national, or even local level. We want them to be people who are making a difference. When people ask: What is it in their genetics that makes them that way? The answer should be it's their Dartmouth education.]
[CW: What's the role of the Board and how does it leverage Dartmouth's unique qualities going forward?
JW: Strategic vision and oversight. There needs to be clarity on the role of Trustees and the role of the administration. There's a difference. It's not the Board's job to run the College day-to-day. No well-run company would accept such a situation, including the companies whose CEOs and senior executives are on Dartmouth's Board. Boards set the strategic vision and use their oversight responsibility to evaluate the administration's plans to move the College forward. There needs to be trust between Board and senior administrators, including the president. And Boards need to speak collectively. It's not a tolerable situation where individual Trustees use their status as a Trustee to speak out publicly against the College, or to try to force actions not approved by the Board as a whole.
[CW: How would you describe yourself as an undergraduate at Dartmouth?
JW: Engaged, a good student but by no means the best. I was on the freshman crew and varsity squash—got hurt in one and was not a starter in the other. I was a very active participant in intramural athletics (loved bowling and softball) all through my four years. I was a member of a Bones Gate fraternity. I graduated with honors in English.]
[CW: Do you think your friends would have said that you were going to be a Trustee someday?
JW: Undergraduates didn't think about the Board in the Sixties. I know from conversations over the years that my entering Foreign Service class didn't peg me to be the first to reach Ambassador (only one other did) nor the only one to be an Assistant Secretary of State.
Frankly, I'm not sure academic performance in college is necessarily an indicator of where one will end up. I know that, among the experiences I've had as a young person, Dartmouth was one of the two or three most important in terms of helping me solidify who I was as a person. Robert Frost said take the road less traveled (I passed on law school), and for me that's made all the difference. Wherever I traveled, and I've traveled a lot, I've not forgotten, nor have I lost my appreciation of, nor gratitude to, Dartmouth.]
[CW: What's the question I ought to be asking all of the Trustee candidates, and how would you answer it?
JW: Do you have a view of Dartmouth and where it fits in the educational spectrum? And do you have a vision of how it should move there?
Dartmouth—widely regarded as providing the best education, to the world's best students.
When you're known for that, then it's a lot easier to recruit the very best students and faculty from around the world. Make no mistake; in the years ahead, Dartmouth's challenges will be global, for students, faculty and resources. Competing successfully means having scholar/teachers who can take students to the edges of their disciplines, people able to transform their scholarship into mentorship, and students with the skills to reach those frontiers. It means building on Dartmouth's unique location and its remarkable traditions.
Dartmouth is very, very good—I suspect much better than when my father went there 73 years ago or when I first went there 40 years ago—but it's not as good as it needs to be to hold its niche and to continue to grow.
We can build on the shoulders of all those who came before us. But, it's not enough just to look at where we are or worse yet, to pine for where we were.
I also think it's important that a Dartmouth education include leadership training, training that inspires graduates to give back with gratitude for the education and the effort that went into providing it. Our graduates should feel they have responsibilities to go out into the community and make a difference.
Finally I believe that a college should be a place where people feel free to state views, and where that's encouraged. At the same time, it's important to remember Dartmouth is a community, and that brings with it responsibilities. Even with the Constitution's protection of free speech there's still not the right to scream "fire" in a crowded theater.
Dartmouth is about real life, real education. It's about providing young people with the skills (not just academic) they need to be the leaders of tomorrow and a sense of responsibility to use those skills well. That's a huge challenge, a huge responsibility for the Board, for the administration, and for the faculty.]
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