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November 30, 2007
Welcome back to this the 195th Alumni Council Meeting.
Let me salute the alumni award winners Leo McKenna and Peter Fahey who have
both contributed so many years of support to their alma mater. Susan and I are
honored to share this evening with them. John Dickey would be so proud of
these graduates; as he had urged and challenged them to do, they have made
a difference in their college and in the world. Leo has inspired me for
many years—a wise and loyal and discreet friend of many people, a man dedicated
to Dartmouth and her students, he quietly makes a difference. And Peter Fahey
has indeed made a difference as Trustee, as fundraiser, as generous supporter,
as wise counselor. He and Helen are friends whom we cherish. I am delighted to
help celebrate their recognition.
I would also like to thank Rick Silverman and the other officers of the
Council for their leadership during this complicated time and indeed all of the
members of the Council. Your alma mater very much appreciates all that you and
the Council does for Dartmouth. I applaud your efforts to revise the Council's
organization and activities.
I would also thank you for the amicus brief that the Council filed in
support of the College and the Board of Trustees—as I regret very much the
circumstances that necessitated this.
This current litigation is distracting, troubling, and consumes time and
energy that could be better invested in Dartmouth. It is hard for me to follow
the logic of those who insist they are instituting legal action against the
College as a means of serving the College. Or are asking the state to assert
control over Dartmouth affairs as a means of making Dartmouth stronger. There
surely are some whose proclaimed "love" for the college is for an abstract
Dartmouth.
Let me say that my frustration is not with those who are dissatisfied with
the Board's recent action. I fully understand that there are good loyal
Dartmouth supporters, many long-time friends of mine including some former
students, who disagreed, some angrily with the Board decision in September to
expand the number of charter seats and to mandate changes in the election
process. Despite this disagreement, I have absolutely no doubt that the Board
made the right decision for Dartmouth. My goal tonight is not to explain or
defend that. The Governance Committee report does that very well.
In fact, several months ago I determined to step back from this debate—quite
frankly this was hard for me to do. I enjoy debate and there are some
matters out there about which I have ached to comment! I learned by serving
under and observing some good role models—Presidents Dickey, Kemeny,
McLaughlin, and Freedman, a good man, as were they all. My role is to be
President of Dartmouth and not a feisty old Marine. I have pledged to make
certain that Dartmouth remains committed to its historic purpose while evolving
in a world of change to maintain a position of excellence and
strength.
So even as the rhetoric heated up this fall, when people ask me how
things are going, I happily and readily say it has been a great fall term—one
that gives me great satisfaction and gives Dartmouth great pride. Dartmouth is
in excellent condition. Let me give you a brush stroke overview of my fall
term. My Dartmouth is not an abstract place.
- Ravine lodge with 11's
- Matriculation-convocation-picnic
- Athletic practices and games
- Student lunches—including today
- Dedication of Houser statue and unveiling of Batoni portrait
- Democratic Primary debates
- A wonderful campaign celebration in Boston including Pilobolus
- The Celebration of 35 years of coeducation
- Dedication of Floren Varsity House
- Merce Cunningham performances
- Production of "Hair"
- Welcoming three Marine veterans as Dartmouth undergraduates and talking
with them about their experiences here.
- Handel Society concert
- Homecoming parade in the rain and celebration of championship football
teams at half time of the home games this year
- Congratulating seniors for winning Rhodes and Mitchell fellowships
- Class officers meeting
- Dinner with Casque and Gauntlet
- Dartmouth parents gathering in New York
- Remarkable gifts to Dartmouth
- The Williamsons
- The Class of 1978
- Three Professorships
- Dartmouth recognition for "Green" accomplishments, one of the top six
colleges and universities in the country
- Number 4 in the country and first among our peers for off-campus study
- Dinner with students at Wheelock Cluster and a piano recital by Sally
Pinkas
- Tuck ranked number 1 again
- Conversations with faculty about their pleasure in teaching exceptional
students and their excitement with their research—and numerous recognitions of
faculty through awards and election to societies
- And coming up in the next week—welcoming participants to a world AIDS
conference organized by a Dartmouth student, the Aquinas House annual Christmas
mass, attending a New York dinner at which Reggie Williams will join others as
new members of the College Football Hall of Fame, dinner at a fraternity, the
tree lighting in the center of the Green, and Susan and I will host our annual
Holiday party for the community
And through all of this—over 4,000 undergraduates are taking classes from
approximately 400 faculty. Students are working on senior theses and other
projects. Around 1,400 students applied for early decision for the Class of
2012. And faculty are teaching, working individually with students, and working
on their own research.
Now it is noteworthy that none of these wonderful events or experiences are
mentioned in the lawsuit or are part of the seemingly endless comments on the
blogs.
There really are two different worlds—the world of the real Dartmouth
experience where real students and real faculty create the incredible learning
experience that the College is known for and the world of the bloggesphere of
hand wringing, crisis, of constant frown, and of ideology. I sometimes wonder
if some of the people who have provided the money to support the current
litigation truly know Dartmouth, indeed have ever seen Dartmouth, or whether
this is really even about Dartmouth. But enough of that.
My Dartmouth—and the Dartmouth of students, faculty and staff—is the
Dartmouth that alumni look upon with pride. It is the Dartmouth that energizes
all of us. My Dartmouth energizes me every day. And the Dartmouth that can
be inspires my every moment. This has never been a place for standing
still.
This fall when I gave my annual report to the faculty I talked about those
things I still seek to do, my continuing priorities. Several of these are
evident—part of our ongoing agenda coming out of the strategic planning process
and the setting of goals for the capital campaign—further enhancement of the
faculty, more support for academic and non-academic programs, and completion of
our facilities replacement and renovation goals.
But others have to do with enriching those things that define
Dartmouth...
1. Academic Experience
Dartmouth's strength comes from an academic environment where students and
faculty collaborate in the excitement of learning. My goals here include
expanding the faculty to deal with enrollment issues as well as to continue to
build upon areas of special strength and new knowledge.
In addition, we need to fully implement the writing and rhetoric program
that the faculty have developed. We have already added 55 new authorized lines
in the Arts and Sciences through a combination of new resources and
reallocation. We need to do still more.
I want graduate school faculty engaged even more in teaching and mentoring
undergraduates—involving Tuck faculty is a special priority. This is a
community of learning in which all parts of this place called Dartmouth, from
the graduate schools to the coaches and administrative staff, join the arts and
sciences faculty in enriching the student experience—out of classroom and in
the classroom. At Dartmouth we educate the best of this generation to be
the leaders of the next.
2. Sophomore Summer
For thirty-five years Dartmouth has been distinguished by the Dartmouth plan
and the summer requirement. For at least thirty years the summer term has been
an interest of mine. I chaired a committee under President Kemeny to assess the
year round calendar and summer offering. I thought then that we could do more.
And I still think so. The summer term is a unique feature of the Dartmouth plan
yet I do not feel that we have taken full advantage of it.
I have encouraged Dean Folt to work with the faculty to think of ways to
provide a more integrated coherent program for the summer that leverages the
fact that we have just about the whole sophomore class on campus during that
term. I have encouraged her and the faculty to think about some different ways
of organizing their teaching loads and class schedules. For example, what if
courses were three weeks long so that students were only taking one course at a
time? What if we brought in faculty from the professional schools to
teach? Could we consider developing a particular theme or great issue during
this term? What if all of our programs and centers (Hop, Hood, etc) coordinated
their themes? (Hunger, Peace, Global Warming, democracy—or God and
Country in a free society?) There is an opportunity here that I would like to
more fully leverage and I am eager to identify ways to move this forward.
3. Financial Aid
Dartmouth has a long history of providing access regardless of family means.
I want to improve upon that and make Dartmouth's special opportunities—for
example internships and off campus study—more accessible. Financial aid and
need blind admissions remain a central priority.
We need to remain competitive in this area—Williams and Wesleyan both
recently enhanced their financial aid packages—but we also need to remain true
to our own history of accessibility. Dartmouth was founded to educate Native
students as well as the hill country farm boys of New England.
I would like to identify resources that will enable us to do several
related things:
- Move to need blind admissions for international students; (building upon a
vision of John Sloan Dickey and William Jewett Tucker),
- Provide for one leave term where there are no earning expectations so that
financial aid students will have the same options as non financial aid students
to take on internships or other opportunities that so not provide consequential
compensation;
- Provide that for financial aid students going on Dartmouth off campus
programs the incremental expenses will be covered by scholarship rather than by
loan
These three initiatives all aim at advancing our goals in internationalism
and globalism and in making certain that all of our students can take advantage
of activities that are at the center of the Dartmouth experience.
- Finally I would like us to find ways to reduce significantly the loan
expectations for financial aid students. This makes us even more
accessible—and it makes post-graduation options more possible for all of our
students.
4. Diversity and Community
Dartmouth has historically been marked by a sense of true community. Our
future needs to be as rich. We need to continue to enhance and protect a sense
of community that is diverse and is inclusive. This is often hard work—it
involves recruiting a diverse student body, faculty, and staff and then it
requires that we work to make the community not only welcoming but comfortable
for this diverse range of people. This is our legacy.
Diversity is about more than simply recruiting and admissions. It is about
inclusion. It is about the learning environment and a culture that encourages
us all to learn from each other. We will be the better for this work. Dartmouth
is an extraordinary place with a remarkably rich legacy. Nearly ten years ago
when I was introduced in this room as the 16th president, I said, "Our
commitment to diversity is rooted in the fact that we are an educational
institution. It is hard for me to imagine education going on without a richly
diverse student body and faculty. The world is diverse, and so must we be. I
will see that we do not let up in our recruitment efforts. But recruitment is
only the first step. This community needs to do still more to welcome and
salute difference." My commitment is unwavering.
My work is enhanced by recognizing that goals such as these can protect
Dartmouth's competitive place and underline its singular qualities. John Sloan
Dickey said in 1964, "The quality of a first-rate faculty and student body is
always unfinished business. We will continue aggressively to seek and to
develop the best in both. This will require major new financial resources, for
the compensation of the kind of faculty we intend to have and keep and for the
kind of scholarship program necessary to have a student body selected solely on
its merit." I could say exactly the same thing today. Dartmouth remains a work
in progress—but it is good work that I am fully engaged in.
The good work of this good College is enhanced by your support and the
recognition that despite debates over Board size and governance, we are not
divided in the work that this generation has—to extend to this century and to
make relevant for this century the experiment that commenced 239 years ago over
on that soft slope of a hill that is near to where Reed Hall now stands. What
we do to add chapters to that story will be the legacy that will mark our
period of stewardship-I am pleased to join you in that good task.
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