The Starting Point
"The quality of Dartmouth is shaped by an excellent and caring faculty applauded for its commitment and attention to teaching, its scholarly accomplishment, and its service to the community. Dartmouth provides very good conditions, notably reasonable teaching loads and excellent facilities for research. It has a fine library. The volume of research support has steadily increased.
The quality of college students is similarly impressive. They are, from our observation, diverse, intellectually interested and interesting, articulate, [and] willing to take risks and to do interesting things. They emphatically do not conform to anyone stereotype; our meetings with students introduced us to a wide range of people and of views. The students communicated strong satisfaction with the education they are receiving, with the opportunities for growth and flexibility Dartmouth's program provides, and with the faculty's concern and accessibility.
Dartmouth is in a very strong financial position. It enjoys exceptional support from generous and loyal alumni. Its physical plant is in very good shape and is well maintained, the range of facilities unusual, the resources for computing justly renowned. The location of the College, despite some special issues that arise from it (the same, of course, could be said of urban locations), is primarily a source of strength and affords some distinctive characteristics of community and available activity.
Dartmouth also benefits from a devoted and able Board of Trustees that is powerfully supportive of the leadership of its President. There is a clear sense of shared purpose, as well as the conviction that the primary mandate for the time ahead should be to enhance the academic excellence of the institution and the quality of its life as a community and that the criterion of quality should guide all choices and programs."
Very few academic institutions in this country earn such praise. Dartmouth's unique mission, combined with its high aspirations, has made it a leader in higher education. In order to strengthen this leadership position, Dartmouth must identify the major challenges and opportunities and address them. We have observed that there is much agreement among members of the community about the goals of the institution, and there is an ongoing, productive dialogue concerning how these goals might best be realized. The members of the reaccreditation visiting team view this report as a modest contribution to that dialogue.