Committee named to lead search for Dartmouth's 17th President

Dartmouth College Office of Public Affairs • Press Release
Posted 06/18/08 • Media Contact: Sue Knapp • (603) 646-3661

Fourteen members of the Dartmouth community have been named to begin the process of identifying candidates for the College's 17th president, Ed Haldeman, chair of the Dartmouth Board of Trustees, announced today.

"Dartmouth is the strongest it's ever been, thanks to the extraordinary leadership provided by Jim Wright," said Haldeman in announcing his appointments. "We are grateful to this exceptional team of talented individuals who are willing and able to devote countless hours to the search for Dartmouth's next leader."

The formation of the Presidential Search Committee follows an announcement in February 2008 by James Wright that he would step down in June 2009 after 11 years as Dartmouth's 16th President. Haldeman announced in March that Trustee Al Mulley '70 would lead this committee as chairperson. Mulley and Haldeman engaged the Dartmouth community in a series of conversations in April and May about the College's challenges and opportunities. The Presidential Search Committee's first task this summer, Mulley said, will be to "articulate a compelling vision of the collective aspirations for Dartmouth: its future, its place in higher education, and its place in the world we serve."

Haldeman, chairman of Putnam Investments, will serve as an ex-officio member of the committee. The trustees on the committee are:

• Bradford Evans '64, managing director of Morgan Stanley and a vice chairman of the firm's Investment Banking Department;
• Jose W. Fernandez '77, a partner in the New York office of Latham & Watkins and global co-chair of the firm's Latin America practice;
• Pamela Joyner '79, the managing partner and founder of Avid Partners;
• Stephen Mandel Jr. '78, managing director and portfolio manager at Lone Pine Capital;
• Albert Mulley Jr. '70, chief of the General Medicine Division and director of the Medical Practices Evaluation Center at Massachusetts General Hospital and associate professor of medicine and associate professor of health policy at Harvard Medical School; and
• Peter Robinson '79, fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University

The members of the Dartmouth faculty on the committee are:

• Joyce DeLeo, professor of anesthesiology and of pharmacology and toxicology at Dartmouth Medical School;
• Sydney Finkelstein, the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business;
• Gretchen Gerzina, the Kathe Tappe Vernon Professor in Biography and the chair of the Department of English;
• Joseph Helble, dean of the Thayer School of Engineering;
• Jane Lipson, the Albert W. Smith Professor of Chemistry; and
• Jonathan Skinner, the John Sloan Dickey Third Century Professor in the Social Sciences.

Also serving on the committee are:

• Molly Bode '09, president of the Student Assembly; and
• Martha Beattie '76, chair of the Alumni Council's Alumni Liaison Committee and past president of the Alumni Council

In May, Mulley and Haldeman announced the selection of John Isaacson '68 and his firm Isaacson, Miller as the search consultant. The firm has conducted hundreds of searches for leading institutions including secretary for the Smithsonian Institution, and presidencies for Brown, Tufts, the University of Pennsylvania, and Vanderbilt.

For biographies of committee members and a podcast of an interview with Mulley, visit: www.dartmouth.edu/presidentsearch. A form for community input is available on the site, which also contains transcripts and recordings of the open forums conducted by Haldeman and Mulley this spring with staff, undergraduate and graduate students, alumni, and faculty. Committee members plan to conduct additional forums this fall.