Report finds administration strong, identifies opportunities for
improvement
An assessment of Dartmouth's delivery of administrative services, conducted
during the winter by McKinsey & Co.,
the management consulting firm, shows that the College has a strong
administrative team, but that opportunities exist to enhance procedures and
responsibilities to better support institutional priorities.
McKinsey's key recommendations focused on processes involved in planning and
budgeting and on other functions that affect all administrative units,
including hiring, facilities planning and construction, payroll, human
resources, computing services, procurement, institutional diversity and equity,
institutional research, and communications.
It recommended a redesign of the hiring process, clarifying the functions of
the Office of Human Resources and
the Office of Institutional Diversity
and Equity in the hiring of new employees, development of candidate pools,
and the handling of grievances.
In the facilities area, the team recommended that the College work to
improve coordination and priority setting among the distributed units
responsible for various facilities functions and ultimately consider how they
could be consolidated.
"This process has been extremely valuable, and the McKinsey team has
helped us to identify opportunities for different and better ways of meeting
our goals," President James
Wright says. "I am excited to begin the implementation phase of this
project."
The president has established the following working groups to address the
McKinsey recommendations:
- A committee on administrative communications and culture, chaired by Senior
Assistant to the President Sheila Culbert, will seek more effective ways to
encourage administrators to take initiative in providing support to the faculty
and students and in the general oversight of infrastructure and resources.
Those serving on the committee are Rick Adams, Nelson Armstrong, Ellen Arnold,
Josie Harper, Jeff Horrell, Kim Keating, Maria Laskaris, Stuart Lord, Marty
Redman, Rosemary Rudnicki, Frank Roberts, Chris Strenta, Amy Stockman, and
Michael Wagner.
- A committee considering ways to improve recruitment and retention issues,
chaired by Provost Barry
Scherr, will examine the hiring process, the roles of managers and hiring
committees, and the systems that enable the College "to hire the very best
administrative staff that we can and then retain them here within a culture
that demands excellence, that is open to everyone, and that provides
opportunities for growth and advancement." Members of this group are: John
Crane, Robert Donin, Lenore Grenoble, Joseph Helble, Marcia Kelly, Jerry
Nunnally, Marga Rahman, and James Washington. Michelle Meyers, interim director
of the Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity, and Traci Nordberg, chief
human resources officer, will serve as resources to the committee.
- Working with the vice presidents, deans and executive officers, Executive
Vice President Adam Keller and Provost Scherr will develop a new annual budget
process that more effectively ties departmental budgets to institutional and
administrative priorities.
Other initiatives resulting from the study will seek improvements in
procurement procedures, increased attention to performance evaluations, and
discussion of changes in organizational structure.
The key findings of the study were grouped into six categories:
- Growth in positions - Administrative and support functions have shown an
annual growth rate in the College of 1.1 percent over the past five years, a
figure comparable to those of peer institutions. Professional school
administration grew by 5.2 percent.
- Growth in administrative compensation - Compensation per administrative
full-time-equivalent position grew more quickly than position numbers and more
quickly than faculty compensation despite higher faculty compensation
increases, primarily because of differences in administrative and faculty
replacement patterns.
- Increased organizational complexity - Dartmouth has become more complex in
recent years because of new demands of the student body, increases in the
academic program and research, and compliance issues, all of which have put
increased pressure on the administration.
- Accountability - Dartmouth has a collegial culture that encourages
consensus decision-making, but employees do not always understand who sets
priorities and makes decisions. Accountability for departmental and individual
performance needs improvement.
- Budgeting process - The annual budgeting process for administrative
services is not explicitly tied to institutional priorities, and there is no
formal planning process that creates the necessary linkage.
- Shadow organizations - Several departments have developed
"shadow" organizations for some functions, including fund-raising,
communications, institutional research, and information technology. Such
decentralization can be effective, but it requires ongoing assessment and
effective coordination.
In setting the stage for the project, Wright had instructed the McKinsey
team to base its assessment on measuring the administration's response to the
mission of providing a transformative student experience within a world-class
research environment and exercising a leadership role in undergraduate
education and graduate programs in business, engineering, medicine, and the
arts and sciences
As the McKinsey group was beginning the assessment process, Wright had
identified five priorities for the administration:
- To support the work of the faculty and students.
- To recruit and retain talented and diverse officers and staff and to
encourage and support their advancement through competitive compensation and
professional development programs.
- To steward the resources of the institution in a prudent and fiscally
responsible manner to advance academic goals and community.
- To communicate effectively across the institution to encourage a sense of a
shared Dartmouth.
- To encourage innovation on the part of officers and staff within a culture
of interdependence, transparency, responsibility, and accountability.
The College followed up this assessment project with a comprehensive survey
of the administrative staff, with almost 60 percent of employees from all areas
of the College participating. Results of this study are being compiled and will
be released in the near future.
The complete executive summary, including the details supporting the
findings and recommendations, is available at www.dartmouth.edu/~presoff/report.
President Wright observes that, "The administrative team at Dartmouth
is strong and dedicated and they work incredibly hard to advance the College's
purposes and to steward our resources. We will seek in the near term to
determine ways to take fuller advantage of these strengths by improving
internal communications and by encouraging initiative and new approaches to
meeting our mission. As we seek to further enhance the delivery of Dartmouth's
administrative services, my colleagues in the senior administration and I look
forward to implementing the recommendations that will pick up on the findings
of the McKinsey report."
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